Allods Online Forum

Quoted from "Mhuldoon"

Time is not a factor any developer will neglect. Time often leads to money, and everyone knows the shopkeeper mentality: trying to keep potential customers within their store for as long as possible, even if they're just having a casual browse with no intent to pay. The longer you keep them in store, the more likely you are to buy something in the end, even just for the hell of it. The same can (and usually does) apply to FTP gaming.

Well, if this is how it works, mail.ru/my.com are not very good at it. If not the tactic is to keep feeding on the old veterans and heavy cash-shoppers that simply won't stop spending money on the game. I think that's a really bad approach though, as they would most likely profit more from balancing out the game by lowering the cash shop prices and in turn gain a larger player base.

No, the biggest problem right now is my.com doesn't freakin' realize that the rest of the world is not Russia.
WE ARE NOT THE SAME AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED THE SAME.
This server is dying and if you don't change something (INCLUDING CS PRICES) this dying server will see it's final day.
I hate to say it.....since I love this game, but I can't even get myself to log in for more than 5 minutes at a time (which is about 1-2 times a week) because it's beyond boring.
Horrible, HORRIBLE 7.0 patch, and the CS prices are just too goddang high.

Quoted from "Quinz"

Well, if this is how it works, mail.ru/my.com are not very good at it.

No, it's not how it works, given my post was a generic, non-my.com specific comment about gaming @ shopkeep mentality, highlighting that (free or otherwise), players time is more valuable than people give credit for, and one of many factors that warrant dev consideration when it comes to their business. It was in response to:

Quoted

the value of your time is questionable. If I were a shareholder or a developer or anything related to Allods, I'd rather take home money than your time.

As for Groot:

Quoted

my.com doesn't freakin' realize that the rest of the world is not Russia.

If you are referring to this side of the coin, we are very aware how the rest of the world isn't Russia, yet it's no less a RU based game, managed by RU, from within RU. It is no secret we here on this side of the EU pond are not in full control, though we do 'tweak' where we can. What is and isn't wrong with 7.X is a topic for elsewhere.

Let's get back to the topic of Smuggler's Paradise, not My.Com.

Regards,
Mhul

Quoted from "Mhuldoon"

-snip-

About the shopkeeper's mentality stuff I actually totally agree in general. However that part of my post was entirely an answer to AoP, who has stated several times he's an entirely free player and is not really willing to invest money into it. I could still consider him to be a potential paying customer, but seeing how he prefers to play alone most of the times and farms through entire seasons - I don't really foresee him paying anything rather than just getting the gold for it.

That being said, free players are just as important in general on the long run. Aside from being potential customers they are basically "content" for the game, so one can play with and/or against them. Their significance is very apparent on the forums as well - most of the complaints about P2P are based on lack of population and thus lack of content.

Exactly Hiren, was just solidifying those points. Good example are those who will avail of the Smuggler's Paradise trial whenever it happens. Some will already be trying F2P, others may wait -- all will meet their own individual threshold before making decisions of investment (if any). Even if no payment is made, just having the player around is a positive in itself.

I love MMORPGs and am no stranger to most of the latest ones. My journey through them is mostly always the same. Try it, see if I like it. No? Leave. Yes? Stay. Stay X time and reach a point where I know I'll play it more, so decide on an investment (usually minor but valuable conveniences eg. bagspace and such). In games where you can get such things for free, this won't stop some from snagging them in advance. This doesn't mean those who decide not to do this shouldn't be viewed as a negative in the grand scheme of things.

Regards,
Mhul

Mhuldoon, I understand this game is run by russians and your powers are limited over the EU version. But we've been crying for high CS prices for so long, isn't there anything you can do ?

For example, make pat5 achievable through a daily quest, like it is for the frozen tear. At least people won't need to spend gold/money for it, get daily benefit from it and get it perma over time, so they can spend their earnings in other CS items. It's been available for so long on the server now, and would give a major boost for the new players, better than anything.

The high exchange ratio is killing new players. Ofc there are means to make lots of gold, but these are mainly for endgame established players who can farm eclipse & ferris, and have no troubles earning gold. Please help out the newcomers and help them filling the gap - the 80% reduction coupon for a starter pack with lvl 5 runes is a good move, add some more

All you can do to help fill the CS gap will be translated in more population staying on the server once they reach 70. Devs made a lot of the leveling quests easier for them, now it's time to do the same in the boutique.

One thing I dream of is, if you could get 30k crystals for 30€, instead of the 3k now. Ofc it will devaluate the assets of existing players, but it's the price to pay to get new ones reaching the top without buying accounts.

I would top up my account weekly if it would be 30 euros = 30k crystals. And so would do soo many people. Until then, i'll keep my money in my pocket. Maybe I should start learning Russian

such an extreme devaluation would most likely lead to many existing players leaving the game as the message would be "your stuff has been oficially made worthless"...

lol. 20-30 whale players would leave because they wouldn't be so OP as before, and a tone of other people, old or new, would join and would start to pay because it wouldn't be such a P2W mess and everyone would be more equal. On whose side are you? you must be paid by my.com to post stuff like this or you must be stupid for not wanting lower CS prices...sorry for saying this

OMG when i read some shit here i ask me really whats going on with some here !!!!


The problem is simple, if 1 makes WauWau then makes everyone else too! You just have no endurance! Then you'd rather go on private servers (as you now again looks) give your money there for a few weeks out! And I saw many names there then advertise even embarrassingly under other names on the Official servers, which I find really embarrassing how low some are dropped and you want to love Allods and tell me that the F2p is too expensive? or fnde other excuse for not playing on p2p ??

Now you are allowed to you again about my upset english, but your hypocritical fuss is unbearable sometimes !!!you say im a bitch , but i say whats going on p2p and some close the Eyes . and i play now 2 1/2 years every day i online and when i see some people with the big mouth brrrrrrrrr you have realy nothing to do ...... sorry for my bad words but this is the truth

Quoted from "ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER"

such an extreme devaluation would most likely lead to many existing players leaving the game as the message would be "your stuff has been oficially made worthless"...

Countless of battlemounts have been devalued exactly the same way that runes would be. Personally I'd see more appeal to having players to actually play with, than standing around in my high-end stuff on a deserted server.

Quoted from "Yersi"

OMG when i read some shit here i ask me really whats going on with some here !!!!


The problem is simple, if 1 makes WauWau then makes everyone else too! You just have no endurance! Then you'd rather go on private servers (as you now again looks) give your money there for a few weeks out! And I saw many names there then advertise even embarrassingly under other names on the Official servers, which I find really embarrassing how low some are dropped and you want to love Allods and tell me that the F2p is too expensive? or fnde other excuse for not playing on p2p ??

Now you are allowed to you again about my upset english, but your hypocritical fuss is unbearable sometimes !!!you say im a bitch , but i say whats going on p2p and some close the Eyes . and i play now 2 1/2 years every day i online and when i see some people with the big mouth brrrrrrrrr you have realy nothing to do ...... sorry for my bad words but this is the truth

Your incomprehensible rambling is mildly amusing as always, but you still wouldn't make a living in the entertainment business.

A lot of people with those big-ass runes bought them when there were regular Crystal Chip sales.

To have a Crystal Chip Price reduction now would actually be making things fairer, not devaluing what exists after the unannounced removal of CC sales.

Ofc you could just make CC sales again - whatever it takes to make this old game appeal to a mass market.

battlemounts still have their value due to unique abilities and also they are not devaluated but there has come something better
in analogy, for runes this would mean bringing level 14 and level 15 runes, not throwing out lower level runes far too cheap
the starterpack with full level 5 runes is already a generous gift due to its low price

on the other hand - crystal-chip sales like we had them before would be a welcome thing! this would not bring devaluation but the option to have a discount for those who are patient, like we had it earlier

totaly agree with AOP...

Hren you can say that it's useless to be "standing around in my high-end stuff on a deserted server.", but to me it's as useless as being in a crowded server in which everyone is pretty much at the same lvl, because there is p2p for that, and because if the best strategy in an mmo is to wait and wait and wait untill everything is super easy to get, i don't see the point of playing it...
Most of you will agree (i suppose) that the main goal of the majority of mmo's players is to get more and more items that increase the power of our char. But if everyone can get these it wont workneither because yes you'll be strong, but not strongER than the other players.

That's why even if i also think prices of the cs are way too hight, it's too late to ask to my.com/allods team to lower them, because it would make the veteran rage ("why can anew player get this for such a cheap price when i've paid it for a lot more expensive one = unfair) and it would screw up completely this main purpose of an mmo (being stronger than others)

Let's imagine 2 players with exactly the same "knowledge of mmo's", amount of free time/money to invest into th game. Player n1 has started to play one year before player n2; to me player n2 mUST need one year to reach the same lvl of char-improvement than player n1, that's all.
And so yes, according to this way of thinking, the player that plays/pay the most has the most ressources, so to be the best in an mmo the best thing to do is to start at the very begining (and that's why AOP and i rage not to have known about allods earlier)

Quoted from "ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER"

battlemounts still have their value due to unique abilities and also they are not devaluated but there has come something better
in analogy, for runes this would mean bringing level 14 and level 15 runes, not throwing out lower level runes far too cheap
the starterpack with full level 5 runes is already a generous gift due to its low price

on the other hand - crystal-chip sales like we had them before would be a welcome thing! this would not bring devaluation but the option to have a discount for those who are patient, like we had it earlier

I'm pretty sure older battlemounts like Aegis, Titan, Throne and Mana bike are considered useless nowadays. The analogy holds regardless of newer mounts though, as they were intentionally made to scale worse with the newer patches. The devs said it themselves at some point that they slowly want to get rid of older battle mounts. So even if there weren't any new battle mounts, the ones I mentioned wouldn't exactly be beneficial compared to what they once were.

I highlighted the part I don't exactly understand. If sales like that would not devalue the runes, then why would the lower crystal costs devalue it? After all the results are the same, one of them is just a permanent solution rather than a randomly occurring event.

Quoted from "freestile"

Hren you can say that it's useless to be "standing around in my high-end stuff on a deserted server.", but to me it's as useless as being in a crowded server in which everyone is pretty much at the same lvl, because there is p2p for that, and because if the best strategy in an mmo is to wait and wait and wait untill everything is super easy to get, i don't see the point of playing it...
Most of you will agree (i suppose) that the main goal of the majority of mmo's players is to get more and more items that increase the power of our char. But if everyone can get these it wont workneither because yes you'll be strong, but not strongER than the other players.

That's why even if i also think prices of the cs are way too hight, it's too late to ask to my.com/allods team to lower them, because it would make the veteran rage ("why can anew player get this for such a cheap price when i've paid it for a lot more expensive one = unfair) and it would screw up completely this main purpose of an mmo (being stronger than others)

Let's imagine 2 players with exactly the same "knowledge of mmo's", amount of free time/money to invest into th game. Player n1 has started to play one year before player n2; to me player n2 mUST need one year to reach the same lvl of char-improvement than player n1, that's all.
And so yes, according to this way of thinking, the player that plays/pay the most has the most ressources, so to be the best in an mmo the best thing to do is to start at the very begining (and that's why AOP and i rage not to have known about allods earlier)

I'm pretty sure we've been over this point once or twice. Yes, there're people who enjoy unbalanced mmorpgs, pay2win and all those things, hell there are even countries where this kind of thing is fairly popular (Russia and South Korea for example).
However the general trend of videogames nowadays points into the direction of equality where skill is a deciding factor. These games monetize mostly skins and somewhat quicker unlocks. For every successful game (in NA/EU) that's unbalanced in a way that Allods F2P is, I can probably probably mention one or two dozens of significantly more successful games which are balanced.
Probably neither of us is well-versed in the wonders of economy, but I guess it's easy to see there's not much appeal for an average customer nowadays to join a 5+ years old game in which you need to either pay hundreds of euros right away (keep in mind, the average price of an AAA game ranges around €50-70, which after a couple months tend to drop to €30-40) or farm for a year or more as an underdog. If that move pisses off the customers with level 13 runes, let it be - most of them has everything the game has to offer, so they're not very likely to spend much anymore, as opposed to potentially reviving the game.

One thing most of the people fail to consider is that many players are in favor of more competition and more interesting BGs or Domi fights.
Being better than others just because you have gear and cash shop and slay them without skill is quite boring after the first 30s.

AOP & Freestile are pretty mucht the only ones asking for that, holding on to the "advantage" they get from CS while they admit they don't gear up, when other players like Dracias moved to private servers to find the kind of competion they want.

The objective of many of the endgame players is to become as powerful as possible, in gear and CS, to complete all content while having good pvp fights. The amount of domi pvp videos opposing 2 strong groups and the pride each guild takes on a victory of their team over the other rival guild/team is imho proof enough of this mentality.

PVE content being ridiculously easy in raid and astral, make PVP boring by having only a handful of really strong teams due to skill but also CS crushing the others will make players flee from the server in pursuit of a better place - the same way players left P2P because no competition there.
Or they will just stay there toying with teams of newcomers like AOP & Freestile want it to be.

I have to agree with some of the people here in a sense.
For one thing most MMOs nowadays let you pay a standard recurring sub while this game seems to charge something similar to the "Buy a certain
amount of time and then it expires" game time card mentality. That and all the prices are in Euros, I'm American...we use Dollars, not Euros.
I'm not gonna do the math to figure out what the heck the exchange rate is for just a game.

If they fix the way you can subscribe as well as having the currency match your region/country, then things would go a lot smoother.

But as it is right now it seems the whole euro-only currency that only lets you pay up to 90 days it's a tad outdated and narrow minded.

Quoted from "Pochtron"

AOP & Freestile are pretty mucht the only ones ON THE FORUM asking for that, holding on to the "advantage" they get from CS while they admit they don't gear up

fixed i see a lot of players doing it this way or similar and know some of them, but usually ppl with this mentality do not bother posting on the forum as they rather farm or play than read & write here

Quoted from "Hiren"

I highlighted the part I don't exactly understand. If sales like that would not devalue the runes, then why would the lower crystal costs devalue it? After all the results are the same, one of them is just a permanent solution rather than a randomly occurring event.

there is a huge difference between making a flashsale or putting a permanent discount
why? because a lot of ppl are impatient!
the impatient ones are usually not willing to wait 1/2 year for a sale and rather pay more, however they cant blame the seller in this case as they would just have to wait, so its totally their decision
for the company on the other side its interesting as it will make many ppl spend $ because they feel like "do it now or you miss it" (these also dont want to wait 1/2 year)
i think its a very diplomatic and clever way to offer things cheap but seldom, so ppl HAVE the chance of profiting - while keeping in mind: even though you offer it, many wont accept your generous discount offer and in the end pay the full price

--> its the same with "free to play" in general... how many players resist and do not get ingame goods with $? how many players REALLY accept the offered deal of "you can play completely free but still get EVERYTHING just for playing, time is all that matters"?
this way you completely put the decision to the players -
in the end, they pay only for having things faster; payment gives those without much time to play a chance to be not steamrolled by hardcorefarmers
imagine this game would have no $ option and goldfarming would be the ONLY way of obtaining things.... farmers would be the strongest players (and due to the nature of things, those who pay farmers for their services, lol)
if you dont want to be a farmer or donator dont wonder when there are stronger players - one more time: this is a progressive game

...when i was younger and 1st learned of the "free to play" businessmodel i honestly thought this model would disappear very soon again as i really could not believe ppl would ever pay for something they can get for free so according to my logic this theoretically should have been a financial desaster... but i was so wrong... we see free to play as a VERY successful businessmodel... just look at the publicated data from companies if you care.... its still incredible for me...


lower crystal costs would not be something new as allods (at least the server i came from) had crystalchip-flashsales from time to time (CC + 10 Respec-Strongboxes)
i totally dont undestand why this kind of sale was removed, same with the bank-deposit item

Quoted from "Hiren"

(keep in mind, the average price of an AAA game ranges around €50-70, which after a couple months tend to drop to €30-40)

average "lifespan" of these games is a few weeks, then most ppl lose interest and play the next...minecraft is the only exception that comes to my mind here (not to mention these games usually also can be played completely free as on the internet things tend to be available for free)
allods however is constantly getting support & updates, so many improvements and new things, it seems to be run with love, at least to me it seems this game is not driven by pure economical interests
players thank it with sticking with this game for many years, many even every day
my verdict after playing for over 4 years: this game is really worth making a donation if you can afford it and have no ultra-strict principles regarding online-payment

Quoted from "ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER"

Quoted from "Pochtron"

AOP & Freestile are pretty mucht the only ones ON THE FORUM asking for that, holding on to the "advantage" they get from CS while they admit they don't gear up

fixed i see a lot of players doing it this way or similar and know some of them, but usually ppl with this mentality do not bother posting on the forum as they rather farm or play than read & write here

Quoted from "Hiren"

I highlighted the part I don't exactly understand. If sales like that would not devalue the runes, then why would the lower crystal costs devalue it? After all the results are the same, one of them is just a permanent solution rather than a randomly occurring event.

there is a huge difference between making a flashsale or putting a permanent discount
why? because a lot of ppl are impatient!
the impatient ones are usually not willing to wait 1/2 year for a sale and rather pay more, however they cant blame the seller in this case as they would just have to wait, so its totally their decision
for the company on the other side its interesting as it will make many ppl spend $ because they feel like "do it now or you miss it" (these also dont want to wait 1/2 year)
i think its a very diplomatic and clever way to offer things cheap but seldom, so ppl HAVE the chance of profiting - while keeping in mind: even though you offer it, many wont accept your generous discount offer and in the end pay the full price

--> its the same with "free to play" in general... how many players resist and do not get ingame goods with $? how many players REALLY accept the offered deal of "you can play completely free but still get EVERYTHING just for playing, time is all that matters"?
this way you completely put the decision to the players -
in the end, they pay only for having things faster; payment gives those without much time to play a chance to be not steamrolled by hardcorefarmers
imagine this game would have no $ option and goldfarming would be the ONLY way of obtaining things.... farmers would be the strongest players (and due to the nature of things, those who pay farmers for their services, lol)
if you dont want to be a farmer or donator dont wonder when there are stronger players - one more time: this is a progressive game

...when i was younger and 1st learned of the "free to play" businessmodel i honestly thought this model would disappear very soon again as i really could not believe ppl would ever pay for something they can get for free so according to my logic this theoretically should have been a financial desaster... but i was so wrong... we see free to play as a VERY successful businessmodel... just look at the publicated data from companies if you care.... its still incredible for me...


lower crystal costs would not be something new as allods (at least the server i came from) had crystalchip-flashsales from time to time (CC + 10 Respec-Strongboxes)
i totally dont undestand why this kind of sale was removed, same with the bank-deposit item

Quoted from "Hiren"

(keep in mind, the average price of an AAA game ranges around €50-70, which after a couple months tend to drop to €30-40)

average "lifespan" of these games is a few weeks, then most ppl lose interest and play the next...minecraft is the only exception that comes to my mind here (not to mention these games usually also can be played completely free as on the internet things tend to be available for free)
allods however is constantly getting support & updates, so many improvements and new things, it seems to be run with love, at least to me it seems this game is not driven by pure economical interests
players thank it with sticking with this game for many years, many even every day
my verdict after playing for over 4 years: this game is really worth making a donation if you can afford it and have no ultra-strict principles regarding online-payment

You say you see f2p model as very succesful ? Yes I agree that this is completely true for the past 5+ years (with exceptions of games like WoW, Runescape and FXIV). Hell even games like ESO, Wildstar and GW2(partly) went f2p. Why are they so much more popular compared to Allods though ? If you dont believe me then you can easily google up and find out whats the average population in those games. The reason is because the prices of cashshop items available in those games are atleast 100x lower than in Allods and they are usually ONLY cosmetic items or exp scrolls.


Also I dont exactly know under which rock do you live or if you dedicated your life to Allods only if you say that the average lifespan of those AAA games with €50-70 price range is few weeks...Theres many games which are massively popular if done right. You said Minecraft well if we not talking MMOs only then look at games like CSGO, GTA5 (Online), BDO, H1Z1 all CoD and lately Overwatch. This list could go on yet all of those games are buy to play AAA titles with enormous success so please do me a favor and stop saying that they have "lifespan" of few weeks and instead makef some research if you are gonna comment like this thanks


Somebody also mentioned to get 30k crystals instead of 3k. I would support this completely even after I spent coupe hundred of € on this game and I wouldnt even blink an eye for it just so the game would be much much more populated again and I can tell you that most top players would share this idea even if they spent way more than me. There would be some exceptions of people like you who want to feel "powerful" and oneshot everyone but who cares about that if game would get massive increase in population - more paying players.

Quoted from "ALLODS-ONLINE-PLAYER"

-snip-

You're entirely right about flash sales being different from the general price reduction. The difference is that the current prices scare players away. You keep claiming how much you like this game and want it to succeed yet you're still preaching about the business model which caused the downfall of it in the whole NA/EU region.
Flash sales are maybe an appealing thing to people already playing. You do not tell your potential customers, that there might be some sale half a year ahead where you can spend a couple hundreds of euros that'd make you less of an underdog. This kind of shit doesn't fly nowadays. Nobody is going to give a 5+ years old MMORPG a chance for half a year straight, just so they get to pay more than in any other MMORPG and still be underdogs.

Free2Play model being successful is a generalization. There're many games that are F2P and successful. Would you seriously consider Allods of my.com one of those in 2016?


As for the AAA games pricing, it was just an example which people generally say when it comes to cash shops in MMORPGs. AAA titles are not only single player games like Witcher 3, but could have just as much online/co-op content like Allods. Aside from what DracLas mentioned, I'm sure there's a couple more successful such as Diablo3, Rainbow6Siege. There were more budget games with just as much value and content like PoE or Torchlight 2. Then there're pretty much every free2play or B2P MMORPGs which require you to spend a fraction of what Allods does in order to be competitive.

I'm curious though, if anyone knows an example of an entirely F2P player who started after 6.0, what kind of cash shop items do they have?