Allods Cash Shop Prices Come Down

Some big changes have just hit the cash shop in Allods Online.  Prices have dropped significantly yet still remain slightly higher than the Russians pay.  The expected result that players would welcome any cash shop change was immediately apparent within the first minute of the change.  People are shouting their excitement and are now expressing renewed interest in continuing to play.  I too am very happy that right now I can at least afford to continue playing where before I would have had to quit the game altogether.

Some analysis of the cash shop:

Vial of Perfume reduced from 75gP to 25gP
Large Perfume Kit reduced from 1350gP to 300gP
60% Savings by purchasing in bulk, yet still 3x the prices paid in Russia. Let’s put this into a workable number.  Let’s say you want to play for 1.5 hours per night and do a dungeon or PvP or whatever and always be under to effects of perfume.  1.5 h/day, 7 days a week,  4 weeks a month = $12.60 / month.  That’s affordable.  Up that to 2 hours a night and you’re paying $16.80 / month.  That’s a big jump but still affordable.

A level 10 rune costs $1,998.78 now which is incredibly cheaper than it was…. but still, who is going to buy one?  Interesting enough the Russians have patched their runes to now be more powerful than they were which may offer further incentive to buy runes.  Perhaps there is an affordable rank of runes that players will find as a sort of ‘sweet spot’ for cost vs. effectiveness.

The respecs and bigger bags, along with many other wanted items, are still not in the cash shop.  This has some players still bothered but overall the consensus is that people are willing to spend money and now they can.   Lots of people from our guild had put the game down until good news came to pull them back.  Perhaps this will be that good news.

This announcement was going to be my Stay or Go point.  Right now this has me staying and willing to continue investing time and effort.

  • – Up that to 2 hours a night and you’re paying $16.80 / month

    Thats the same you pay monthly for a AAA game, and you get not only inmunity from FoD the full month but bag space and more.
    Still not worth…

  • Too bad I just recently tried out DDO and am enjoying it…I’ll have to check back for more changes that lean on the side of good before I reinstall, the wound they cut is still a tad too deep.

  • Good news, not great but good. The prices are much more inline with where they should be, but in my opinion the perfume prcies should be even lower. I won’t complain though because as we’ve seen things could be much worse.
    Hopefully they consider the prices carefully of the remaining big ticket CS items and don’t repeat the same mistakes.

    I am a little bummed though I was hoping to be able to respec my Summoner this week 🙁

  • Well I am glad they dropped some prices but they have already lost my business because I don’t care for their general attitude about things. I would rather fork over money to a company that at least seems like they care about their players.

  • The stuff could be free and some people wouldn’t be happy. It’s a lose lose situation

  • My concern is that there is still mount food, etc. to factor in. The nickel and diming is far from where I want it to be. I play far more than 2 hrs a day. When it all gets added up, I’m not convinced it’s affordable.

  • That’s a good point Jenah. If you want a mount you’re going to add in more to that. Then there is the initial costs of buying the mount + bags (biggest not yet available) + other things.

    For me I know that I don’t need perfume until 40. I also know that I don’t even need perfume all the time at 40 — only for the places that I can’t remove FoD with gold. I also know that when I do need it on a mandatory basis, I can manage my time better (raid 3 nights a week for a bit longer and pay less type of thing).

    Remaining totally optimistic, we’re able to say that we can make it work now whereas it was totally unworkable before.

  • gPotato has lowered the prices to a reasonable level.

    My hope is they can work with Astrum Nival to address the upcoming changes in the 1.0.07 patch.

  • A bit too late for me, I already dropped AO and tried out the free 10 days resubscribing back to warhammer online, and I have to say, I am loving it. The scenarios are poping almost instantly. It seems there is action all the time whereas before I had to wait for things to happen. I suggest everyone to give it a shot again.

  • Well, this certainly are great news! Now i just want to see how the cash shop looks like in Europe to probably go back to the game.

    However, i am still uncertain of returning because of mount costs and some other stuff.

  • I agree with Keen on this. The prices are a lot more affordable, and I don’t have to be using perfume ALL the time. I only plan on using it when it’s absolutely needed, or in large pvp fights that can result it multiple deaths back to back. But for the most part, I still plan on using myrth to remove FoD as it’s more affordable (free!)

  • It happened just as many of us predicted. The price drop is significant, yet not quite enough to compete with a subscription model game if you are going to be playing more than maybe an hour of end game PvE or PvP daily. That is counting in other items besides perfumes, such as mount food.

    I knew it wouldn’t happen but I was still hoping for a miracle here. Maybe a $10 perfume that lasted a month, or something.

  • Maybe I’m just pessimistic, but I believe we got a peek behind the curtain between the russian patch and the pricing – I am afraid yall have more $$ hurdles in the months ahead as more game breakers are introduced. I hope not.

  • The real good news is that its been only a couple of weeks since launch and they are addressing the issues. Overall the issues haven’t really impacted the gameplay (compared to other P2P MMO launches).

    Given that there is probably still staff shuffling and localization happening for each patch to ready it for us, it is a good sign that they are taking our feedback to heart and implementing changes.

    I’m sure this wont be the last of the positive changes either.

  • Point still remains that the game is moving to completely mandatory CS buys. Still comes down to the fact that there are far better P2P games out there that will be much cheaper to play monthly. Any guild that is going to do any serious PvP or PvE is going to play more than 60 hours a month (2 hours a night). In which case you’re still coming out more pricey, just for perfume, than any current P2P.

  • It seems in Europe a stack of twenty Perfumes costs 2 euros. How much is it in dollars in the american version?

  • @Pedro
    A stack of 20 perfumes would cost an NA player $3USD which according to google and my calculator is equivalent to 2.20215811 Euros.

  • I am very happy with the lowered prices. My concern(s) is we don’t yet know how many hours on average per day that a guild will have to raid/PvP per day. But at least this is 1 hurdle cleared. Now for us to work on the next patch 🙂

  • This is good. Very good. These are prices that I find acceptable. The argument that the price you would pay has you paying nearly as much as a “real” MMO per month are missing the point. Of COURSE they want you to pay that much … if not more. The company needs to make money. The game is solid and fun and deserves our support in the form of buying their virtual goods. The cool thing is that you don’t HAVE to if you don’t want to.

  • It’s worth noting that the number of crystal chips required isn’t fixed. In the EU Beta, a bunch of crystal chips and gold dust bags were given out as prizes for events to help testing, and I remember totting up the amount of crystal chips I needed (when I maxed the gold dust and skimped on the chips) was somewhere around 5k. Since gold dust can be bought for ingame gold That makes a level 10 rune €250 for EU and $350 for America.

    Still pricey, but not nearly as bad as you’re saying.

  • @Tad
    Unfortunately they never let us play around with the rune system during the NA CB (to my knowledge) so the majority of us have little practice with how things function. We are left with only speculation and math.

    It seems to me that the EU team is doing a much better job than the NA team with their beta phases.

  • well that calculation is a bit off for me.

    I play 3hr on weeknights, but about 5hrs on Weekends. so that add up to about 25hrs/week x 4 that’s 100hrs/month. That’s 200 perfumes a month.

    at the discounted $3.00 per (20 perfumes) KIT.. that’s about $30/month. Individual purchase would be $50/month..

    not to mention any other requirement i may need..like Mount foods.

    What do you think of their Price for bags. it’s $1 per new Slot bags. (6 extra slots for $6)

    Base on contents and systems and bugs. I wouldn’t pay more than $25 a month. If there were more contents i’d pay $35/month.

    I’m waiting to see how the patches get handle by Gpotato before I won’t even bother checking their web site or look at news site about the Allods.

  • @Tad

    The numbers I based my math on were ones that were posted on Russian Allods sites as well as Novograd Times.

    According to that information a level 10 rune requires:

    94,631 gold dust = 898g 99s 45c ingame money
    28,554 crystals = 199,879 potatoes buying the most “economical” bag of them.

    Unless the values have changed that is.

  • If you’re referring to this article: http://novogradtimes.com/guides/runes-reference-guide/merging-materials/ the author even says that those numbers are calculated using the default slider position. Slide it around and it could cost significantly more or significantly less or either merging material. You can test it yourself with two level 1 runes, open up the window and it’ll show 30 crystal chips like the guide says, but slide it down and a level 2 rune costs 5 crystal chips.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the prices aren’t steep, but I don’t think we’re going to help the cause if we give out exagerated figures.

  • And even looking at your calculations, they aren’t quite right. For each level 10 rune you need 2 level 9 runes, which need 4 level 8 runes, which need 8 level 7 runes which need 16 level 6 runes, and so on and so forth. Using the default slider position, it looks like it’d be a lot more expensive than the ~2ish grand quoted, unless I’m completely missing some vital information in the guide.

  • I agree it’s a step in the right direction. Still want to know.

    1) If I buy a bag, do I have to pay the full price if better and bigger bags come out later? If so, this will piss me off big time thus it’s holding me back from buying a bag now.

    2) No word on Water of Deaths which is what most people are screaming about after cheaper Perfume. I hope they make it fairly afford (no more than $5 tops). Another thing I’d like to see is people getting at least one, maybe even up to five, Water of Life and Deaths (bound to the character if necessary) as a quest reward (kind of like how you get the kit of 20 perfumes). The reason for this is that most people probably need at least a few to fool around with their specs initially just to find the right setup. Maybe a 20th lvl quest reward prior to getting into the Holy Lands?

  • @Tad

    The article I got the original values from led me to believe they were “total” but since I don’t know you could be completely right and that could only be for the top teir which should add a whole new perspective for players.

    And yes you can move the sliders around a bit and drop the value down of crystals and increase the amount of gold dust but that increases the ingame cost which chances are would probably require you to buy gold for the gold sellers. If I remember correctly though that also affects the chance of success as well.

    @Nollind

    I’m sorry my friend but I’m going to say I’m pretty sure there will be no upgrade costs just flat out buying. Not fact though.

    I can see the Waters selling for more than that.. I would be happy with around $5 though. I seem to remember someone saying that gPotato is known for selling respecs in other games for $20-30 each.

  • I think it’s fair enough we pay more than the Russians because that’s just how nationalisation works. We should only judge prices by what’s relative to us in the West.

    I’m glad that the prices have come down but it still seems very pricey. Why would I want to pay what works out at $17 a month?

    It seems to me like F2P models are just an excuse to try and squeeze more money out the player, not to make it more fair.

  • F2P generally does make more per player than P2P. It’s because it’s set up in such a way that people can impulse buy and such and not really notice how much they’re truly spending in the end. It’s not a bad thing when it’s things that have no real effect on the game. When it becomes a problem is when it’s basically a “soft-subscription”. Which is what it is as it stands in Allods. Sure, you don’t need Perfume to level. You don’t need them to sit around and talk. However, to do anything competitively at 40 you do need them. Or you end up paying a price far more heavy and time consuming than not having them.

    Which, is just something I’m not comfortable doing. I play F2P games so that I’m not being coerced into a sub. Not because I can’t afford the sub. Frankly, I can put my money to far better uses than spending 25-30 bucks a month on a game that I feel is sub-par compared to most mainstream titles. While it is good, it’s definitely not good enough to merit me paying more than what I could pay to play something with far better quality and support.

  • They didnt include all the options for bags and deposit boxes. It still appears like they want to nickel and dime us to death.

    I still dont see Water of Life or Death. I dont see any social items.

    It is a pathetic revamp of pricing that still falls short in my estimation.

  • Whether perfume costs $0.01 or $1000 it’s as people above have said, a soft subscription. Perfume and FoD have to go for this game to have any credibility.

  • Well, given that it seems the average player will be spending marginally more at endgame than you would pay for any of todays subsciption MMO’s, once the shiny, new game effect wears off, is this really a better game than the current batch of MMO’s we have?

    As fun as it is, I personally dont think so. Since they seem to be going down the “Its F2P but we want a subscription fee anyway” route, I think they would have been better advised to have been aiming for people to spend about $10 a month.

    As it is, I will enjoy the ride to max level, see if things have changed by then. If not, I’ll stick with my monthly subscription games thanks.

  • Am I misunderstanding something? Whatever a “Rune” is and however powerful it is, how is ANYTHING in a video game worth $2000?!?! That’s enough to pay for 12ish years of WoW, WAR, or any other per month title.

    So…what is it and why is it? @_@

  • Runes are items that, depending on the piece of gear you socket it into, will either increase your damage by a percentage or decrease the damage you take by a percentage. Basically, depending on what piece of gear it’s in, think of it being like a red gem (typically DPS), or resillience in WoW terms.

    No, they’re no where near worth that kind of money. The reason they’re so expensive is because they’re generally going to be a one time thing. You would only actually upgrade to level 10 (2000$) for the best piece of gear. Still, though, no one is going to be paying those prices. They would have been better off just doing away with Crystal Chips altogether at that price range.

    I can’t really see anyone spending more than about 30 bucks on Crystal Chips period. It’s just not worth it. It’s not even worth that much for one virtual purchase in a game. Especially for one aspect of a game. That’s box price on a lot of games now for something that should be staple to the game on launch. Which is why I also have a problem with the perfumes. I just can’t see myself spending that kind of money on any item for a game when it only effects on portion of the game.

    If a perfume did everything for me. You know, increasing bag space, mount speed, the FoD thing and all of that then sure. But when it’s one purchase to only directly effect one game mechanic it’s just not worth it. Especially when it’s a game mechanic that was only implemented for the purpose of drawing you into the CS.

  • I have a suspicion that this whole thing is a marketing ploy. They KNEW that people would freak out about the prices. They were planning to lower them all along, to show that they’re “listening to player feedback.” Nobody in their right mind could have thought that $20 for a six-slot bag increase was a reasonable price.

    Now we’re paying three times as much as the Russians pay, but we’re HAPPY about it. How happy would we be if these were the prices they came out with originally?

    I saw this one coming a mile away. Sad that they were so predictable.

  • That’s the way most companies do business. Most things that release are overly priced to test the waters, so to speak. Console games are generally a good way to look at this. They release at ridiculously high prices but it generally doesn’t take long before the prices get slashed quite a bit and then sales skyrocket. Now, I know that people will buy those consoles at a 400-500 dollar price tag. That’s not my point. It’s the fact that you can almost guarantee their sales double when the price drops 50% but is still over 200 bucks. It’s the same with Allods. Prices were outrageous. Sure, some people will pay those prices. But look at the sheer amount of people now willing to pay prices that have been cut, but are still well overpriced for their actual worth.

  • So, for $16.80, I’ll have the buff for 2 hours a day during 1 month

    How much can I do in those 2 hours? how many dungeons could I run during the day and still have some time left for PvP?
    How about Astral Ships? will I need to have those buffs on me for this aswell?

    2 hours seems a bit low.. especially for someone who likes to play his MMOs for more then 4 hours a day

  • It would easily be safe to say 2 hours in the Astral isn’t enough time to really enjoy yourself. Also, yes, you will have to use Perfumes there. There is no other way to keep FoD off there. As for dungeons, I would say you could prolly get 2 heroics done. I doubt you could get any serious raiding done, though. If you did raid, it would eat your two hours so you can forget about PvP for that day. It’s still very pricey. To really put any time into the game you’ll be spending substantially more than 16 bucks. Double that price and you would prolly be at a place most people who will play this game with any seriousness will be. With just perfumes. That not including any other items like mount food and stat potions.

  • People forget, that it will be very likely that folks will sell CS Perfume sets in the AH for ingame gold. So those who balk at the idea of spending ‘real money’ on Perfume regularly most likely won’t be ‘forced’ to do so.

  • Hey K & G,
    I just wanted to touch on one statement you made, “60% Savings by purchasing in bulk, yet still 3x the prices paid in Russia.”

    I just want to let you know, russia by american standards has a much lower GDP and a slower economy. Even though the US has been in an economic slump :::cough::depression::cough we are still in a lot better shape than russia economically.

    Unfair as it might be, they might be taking that into consideration when pricing their shop. Logistically speaking, russians might not be able to afford these prices. I might be wrong, I am not in russia and I don’t see the economic impact that this game could have on the community.

    Has anyone contacted the russian community so we can “trade notes” with their thoughts on the allods cash shop?
    Frank

  • Hi everybody!

    I am one of russian beta-testers of AO. So please forgive my bad English, I had no pactice in it for about 10 years. 🙂

    I surfed the WWW and ran into this blog. Looks like no one here have REAL knowledge about things happening in russian AO.

    And those things are really awful.
    You know that Perfume price lowered from 5 roubles to 2 in patch 1.0.07.07. But it’s just a visible part of an iceberg.
    With this cheaping, Mail.ru (real owner of the game, Astrum Nival was bought by them in December 2009) did something to increase it’s expenditure havily.
    Patronage has now points. 30 points for one unit of Perfume. 1 point = 1 minute. You can not just activate it by perfume, you can now stack it over up to level number times: some people told they’ve seen one 40-level warrior under 40 “smokes”. Demigod. Unkillable. There is a full raid (24 players) needed to kill him without any garantee. Just one more donate-born disbalance.
    Patronage gives you extra char points (about 60 on level 40). Those are given to you when you activate the patronage with a Perfume and you can add it to any characteristic you wish. Points are taken off when a patronage ends.
    Also they added a new skills given to player according to the patronage level.
    1st level gives the skill which fully regenerates your health and mana/stamina for 10 seconds in rest or full mana for 20 seconds in battle. It consumes 1 patronage point! Yeah, minus 1 minute of patronage for one skill use.
    2nd level gives instant regen of mana/energy and consumes 10 patronage points.
    3rd level gives instant health regen – 10 patronage points.
    4th level (a mistery… there’s rumors that there is an Astral island called Argus where you can start the quest chain for getting this 4th level. There’s legends about players who saw that island) – gives skill that instantly removes any Control effect from you. Also 10 points. Psionics are now just a meat for 4-patr person.

    Just calculate. No more 30 minutes for Perfume bit. Cast, cast, cast – and it is gone.
    When we looked at patch-note 07.7 we asked ourselves – why do we need a 1st-level patronage skill? We all have skills to regen mana. That’s simple – after this patch all the mana users HAVE NO mana-regen skills! If you cast spells – you have to “smoke”. Only psionics still have their “battle trance”, but the cool-down time of this trance is now 3.5 minutes. And the Empathic Gift (we call it “pouring”) is decreased in 7-10 times. Psionic can’t now pour all the party with full mana each cast, then sit in battle trance, and pour again, as it was before. Pour-pour-pour-trance-pour-pour-pour and finish. No mana for healers, tanks die, casters die.
    We, mana users, are FORCED to “smoke” because we cannot play without mana-regen.

    After the patch that brought a FoD (on russian “strakh smerti”, we abbreviate it to SS – quite a simbol, eh?) the gamers community initiated a petition to eliminate this debuff. That petition had a result – after 07.7 the length of SS became 1h46m on level 40. 2 times increase.

    Nearly 80% of “old guardians” – fans of Allods series since ’98 – have already left the game. After patch 07.7 gamers initiated a 7-days boycott of the game. It did not help.

    Astral that amased you so much is dead now. No one sails there because there is no reason to sail. Astral monsters are divided on 2 classes: one is so weak that it is just a source of astral emanations, and the others is so strong that you have no chance to kill them, and in fact there is no hope to flee if it saw your ship.
    Monsters on astral islands became too strong. A full-violet crew (that obtained their armor in “days before SS”) wipes out on most “thrash” mobs, not even a bosses.

    Official forum of the game now is like a forum of KGB of soviet times. Those who complain are banned. Those who say anything bad about Astrum Nival or Mail.ru – are banned. Those who tell something “in allods this works bad because …, and in works good because …” – are banned. You can be banned even if you say a word “WoW” or “Aion” – I’m not joking, things happened!

    The number of players online is decreased since December for about 4-5 times. My guild has about 70 40-level players, and 50 of them whom I did not see for about a month. Nearly half of those who are still in the game really do not play – they just sit in chat with friends, do daily quests for gold (in a hope of “better times”). “Full-violets” and “semi-violets” walks into heroic adventures out of habit (“green-blue’s” have no chances in these “heroics”, monsters are too strong for them). It’s real pain in my heart: the game based on my favorite game universe, a potential masterpiece of game industry, is dying. As it happens with any game having misfortune to fall into the dirty hands of Mail.ru.

  • Wow, he paints a pretty bleak picture.
    Its just schocking how game developers game destroy a perfectly good game like this, what the hell are they thinking ?

  • Hello, it’s the first time I post here, after reading Scott Jennings’ article of last week on the issue at MMORPG.com. Interestingly, that site also published an earlier article on “Five MMOs that may surprise you”, the sort of half-baked compendium of what makes MMO gamers drool, if you consider that Mortal Online and The Agency are on it (two games about which I can’t say I heard anything good of late). Allods Online was #5 on that list, and based on your reaction, it did surprise you, though probably not as the author intended. In my case, I didn’t care much about Allods at the time, and, as you can imagine, I care even less now. I never even played it.

    Keen, I’m afraid you are very much the eternal optimist if you find solace in this price slash, as though this were a victory, just to find an excuse to keep playing. Worse, I see you’ve gone to the extent of calculating how much you would have to pay for this or that, and for how long, instead of asking yourself the essential question: “Would any entirely legitimate game attempt to sell me a virtual item for $2,000?” And the corollary: “Does such a game deserve but a penny from me?”

    I have no doubt that there will be suckers to pay a couple of grand, even if you won’t, and the end result will be the same: they’ll be having a good laugh about it in Russia. So I’ll just say this: By sticking around, you’re giving a bad example, because you’re demonstrating that they’ll be able to get away with anything. Cutting prices by two thirds demonstrates nothing, least of all their goodwill. They’re still trying to milk you for thousands of dollars, while offering you no assurance that they won’t change the rules on you in a few months. That Russian post above mine is quite fascinating in this regard.

    Can’t you just *walk away*, Keen?

  • I’ve lost all interest in Allods…

    The prices might be “affordable” now but the problem is I mostly play a lot more than 1.5 hours a day… and even if it’s just 1.5 hours a day…. 16.50??? that’s a good 3 bucks more than any subscription based MMO out there…

    And the biggest problem with this is that the cost in Allods isn’t fixed… I mean when I play WAR or EQ2 or whatever I know for a fact that I can play as much as I want and it’s always gonna be the same price every month… What if I got vacation and I decide to play 6-8 hours a day for one week in Allods? suddenly I’m paying 30 bucks a month… and that’s not even counting mount food or the bags, etc…

    No thanks…

    I’m just gonna continue playing EQ2 and SC2 then 😉

  • This is all shady. I don’t like the way this company does business and I wont bother with Allods. Gamers already have alot of trouble trusting the developers of MMOs when they don’t try and manipulate us, how are we expected to have any faith in them after this?

    Look at Mythic, Blizzard, Funcom, any MMO developer who has been truthful in their dealings with the public, people still accuse them of misleading their consumers.

  • “I seem to remember someone saying that gPotato is known for selling respecs in other games for $20-30 each.”

    Then I’d rather create a whole new character. I’m already working on a warrior (and enjoying it very much actually).

    With regards to item upgrade costs, I’ve decided I’m going to wait as well and just do the bag quest. I only need 1 more bee wing and I’ve got the items from Lightwood. Pretty easy to get them at that too. I got 2 mite shells in 5 min. 🙂

  • Like most other people I’m very disappointed in the way Allods is being handled. So much potential being squandered by terrible decisions. They’re either very out of touch with their community or they just don’t care.

    The fact they even consider some of the proposed design changes outlined in the upcoming patches and still have items with absolutely absurd prices is enough to drive me away at this point. I hope to see some positive changes down the road but I’m not interested in chasing a carrot right now. There are too many other games out there I can find enjoyment in playing.

    This has been a good lesson in cash shop games though. I will stick to the subscription model for the foreseeable future.

  • I’m glad they dropped the prices but it’s still too high.

    This is probably what they wanted by initally making the CS so high….now that they dropped the prices people are back on board ready to spend money.

    The prices are still too high..just not as ridiculous as before….I guess if your going to spend money in the CS atleast you know they are not handing it too you as much as they did before.

    Also, who wants to be limited by playtime because of the prices of perfumes? If i have spare time I’m not paying $40 a month to spend in the stupid CS when I can just go back to a P2P game with unlimited times and no FOD!

    Last thing I’m waiting for is to see how this patch hits us, and if it does as planned I will be gone in a flash.

    ps. I’m still not spending money in your CS gpotato

  • Don’t mistake my optimism over a terrible situation for ignorance. I was among the first to state publicly that the game is being mismanaged in the worst way.

    The bottom line here is that we have a game that reached the point of being 100% unplayable for anyone who doesn’t have tons and tons of cash to throw away. Now the game is affordable in a workable way. If one really does enjoy the game it’s possible to play all aspects of the game.

    Ideal? Nah, far from it. Doomed? Nah, not yet.

  • @Keen

    Not too far from it. The patches coming down the pipeline are the biggest concern for most people. GP can continue to have their forum dogs spin “that might not happen here” all they want. The really sad thing is, the producer told us they had no real control over what went into the game. That it was ultimately up to the developers. So, we all know those patches are coming.

    As for the prices, they’re still really not all that manageable. The only way you can keep it close to the P2P price-tag is by only playing for a measly 2 hours a day. As I said before. Any guild with any serious ambitions about their stature in the game will put well more time into it than that. It’s still going to come down to anyone who really wants to be competitive is going to have to fork out a large sum of money per month. Which is completely ridiculous. The game, in it’s current state, is just not good enough to be worth that kind of money. I’m really not too sure it ever will be with what’s coming.

    I strongly suggest not spending your money until you know for sure that things will get better. Otherwise, it’s going to be money you’ve just thrown away. I highly doubt someone with any common sense will be hanging around once they gut classes to make the CS look better. Pretty soon every class is just going to be an empty shell, and you’ll have to pay in the CS to unlock each tier of their skills.

  • First of all, sorry for my bad english, secondly: Well, my thoughts on this matter won’t probably fit entirely on a blog comment but I’ll give it a shot. I think there are 3 huge factors to take into account: the market, the management and the people, the last being probably the most important factor.
    1. The market: MMOs market last a lot longer than the regular videogame one; while a normal videogame has an expected lifespan of several months, after which period it will still be supported but many other games will go out and/or its price will fall to the “budget” level, the average MMO will last for years, with constant support/updates etc. Developing a new one now means getting in competition with games such WoW, Everquest and the like while developing a new hack-and-slash RPG won’t be competing with Diablo anymore; even if you played that game you will probably buy and play the new one as well even if comparisons will always be made.
    So, developing a new MMO now will require a lot of extra effort, which leads to the second point:
    2. The Management: to develop a new MMO now you MUST do whatever is in your power to attract people starting from aspects like the graphics, down to the content/price ratio. I admit in this Allods failed HARD and is now feeling the consequences. I think (personally of course) that making people pay for something that is mandatory for the gameplay (death for instance) is an incredibly AWFUL idea, still I can’t just outright blame them because there is no guarantee that a player will buy a fancy item just because it’s shiny, hence you can find yourself with tons of players that won’t spend a single coin. The company will die and so the MMO.
    3. The aforementioned players: unfortunately the average player of a F2P MMO is not the seasoned player who understands the mechanics of a game like this, but it comprehends many other kinds of player who either know nothing of a MMO and just want to play something for free over the “interwebs” or the whiny little b****es who likes to complain about everything from the color of the rendered grass to the very principles of MMOs. For example: most of the comments I read or heard mention that for the same price you can play a better P2P; while it being technically true, the comparison doesn’t hold, first of all you are not FORCED to pay in the F2P, it will just make your virtual life better and/or easier (I already admitted that Allods way is bad as for this aspect), second: what you get playing famous P2P games is something that has been expanded and upgraded and ultimately CHANGED for YEARS, are you (you as in the whiny players, not Keen nor Graev of course) seriously comparing WoW with a game still in open BETA phase? Don’t be ridiculous, please.
    Bottom line: I THINK this game has potential, and I will try and continue playing it but I am pessimistic about the future, mostly due to the average players.

  • @Keen
    Does your calculation include the free perfumes daily? Would lower your projections 25%.

    @People who think these prices are too high
    Gold spammers started trying to sell gold for like $1/gold, people are now buying perfume and selling it for 3 gold in the AH. Not only is this 5cents/1gold, essentially killing any possible revenue of the gold spammers, but its also less for a perfume than it is to remove FOD end game. If you’re in an instance or situation where you might die, it will be cheaper to buy a perfume from someone who wanted to change 15 cents into gold.
    Conclusion-Buy ’em on the auction house if you’re going to die, it’ll save you tons of money in game and outside of it.

  • I keep going back and forth on this game, but these prices have led me to a final decision: Screw It.

    The “soft subscription” is $15a month for ~13 hours/week perfumed play. This is with increased health, mana, and no FoD which is looking more and more like required for any kind of high level play.

    This doesn’t take into account any other consumables that may become de facto required to play like:
    -mount food (in upcoming patch)
    -respec’s for talents and attributes
    -$1 per bag slot if you’re unwilling to do a 50 hour kill quest
    -nickel-and-dime’d for keys
    -whatever is next

    I wish the developers, gPotato, and the Allods community the best, but these costs (combined with the prospect of having to micromanaging these costs) are just too high for Allods. I have plenty of money, but I’m not interested in a variable-rate-higher-than-average subscription fee.

  • Thankfully I have come to the realization that if this game is going to be ruined in the near future, I might as well enjoy what it is right now: a very enjoyable experience. We all know eventually we will lose interest in an MMO and move on, and Allods is no different. I will buy my perfumes if the time comes to do so, and when the game screws me over into be that small 10% spending percentile, then I will quit and bring my fun memories I had with my friends with me.

    Astrum Nival and Gpotato can only win by the people that they are catering to, and soon they will realize they utterly failed. But ‘Im not stupid enough to not enough a good game while it still exists.

  • Jesus…I was tired when I wrote the above post >.<

    Thankfully I have come to the realization that if this game is going to be ruined in the near future, I might as well enjoy what it is right now: a very enjoyable experience. We all know eventually we will lose interest in an MMO and move on, and Allods is no different. I will buy my perfumes if the time comes to do so, and when the game screws me over into being that small 10% spending percentile, then I will quit and bring my fun memories I had with my friends with me.

    Astrum Nival and Gpotato will only make there small amount of money back, and soon they will realize they utterly failed. However, I'm not stupid enough to not enjoy a good game while it still exists.

    Sorry for previous 🙂 Edited ftw.

  • I think the prices should be cut an additional 30%. When I start looking at them at that price range, I’m much more willing to start spending now (even knowing the game could potentially be screwed with future patches). In the meantime, I’m just going to continue leveling alts until about 25th lvl, then run the dailies to acquire gear, gold, and perfume.

  • I wanted to say that the real thanks for these prices getting lowered goes out to the staunch community for not backing down and taking their fight to other venues and getting a lot of airplay over it! If a community can come together like this and achieve this much then we as a whole can do anything!

    But, the fight isnt over by any stretch yet. While the CS prices are affordable atm, the patches (v1.6 and 1.7) will ensure we spend even more now than current. We all have to agree and come together and let GP know that we will not tolerate nerfs or ninja nerfs that force our hand even more than ever in these patches that are heading our way.

    While I do realize a company has to make money, these patches will uses dirty ninja nerfs and twisted mechanics to force our hand even more than ever. Its one thing to make money but these patches will ensure that we spend even twice as much as we would now. So if you want even more change and keep Allods alive and done right, voice your opinions about patches v1.6 and 1.7 and opt not to buy anything again till these patches have been reworked to be somewhat fair to the customers who will not only be paying the salaries of GP but Mail.RU!

    So far we as a community have gotten a small victory in this battle, but the war has yet to be won! Stick to your guns and demand patches 1.6 and 1.7 be reworked to be fair for the community!

  • Which is basically what happened. Prices got jacked and tested the waters. Then in the midst of the uproar, the prices get drastically lowered and everyone is happy? Pretty good move on their part, I would say. Even though the prices are still way too high for anyone who plays the game with any real competitiveness.

  • I still don’t like it, we’re sort of still being forced into the cash shop. I’m still holding the “its beta” line as I expect more changes to the cash shop.

    IMHO, still, its the game changes to FoD and regen that are the worst part of this. They are just bad changes no matter if perfume costs real $$$ microtransaction or I was grinding gold to pay for it in a subscription game.

  • Is anyone else noticing the following?

    Basically after the cash shop was released, people were extremely vocal and wanted to see a change. For many of them, this was a make or break sort of thing. They wanted to see if the company was actually listening to them and cared about them as customers.

    What I’m noticing now, particularly this past week, is that people are being far less vocal. A lot of the rage has dissipated and more and more there is silence falling over the community. To some people, they might assume that everyone is happy with the cash shop. I don’t think so. I’m getting this feeling that a lot of people are still frustrated with this situation but they just feel like they no longer have a voice because they obviously aren’t being heard (as the cash shop prices weren’t lowered enough). Thus this silence is people slowly…drifting off and away from the game.

    This is something that companies need to realize. When things get quiet, it’s not a good thing. People who are upset and raging about something at least still care and are engaged in the relationship. People who are quiet and distant obviously are beginning to separate themselves from the relationship and soon will disappear altogether. I’ve got a funny feeling that if something isn’t done in the next week or so, we might be seeing a lot more people disappearing from the game without a word.

  • It’s sad when such a nourishing MMORPG release and it comes to the point for me that I must say that I quit. Allods was a great experience for me in the Closed Beta4 hitting L40 and playing in the Astral with my buddies. My Ranger class was unique in the sense I felt like a true Crowd Control character as well as finely tuned combat artisan.

    I will mourn for this loss and its just sad that such a shitty developer and producer was able to take the reigns of this one and ruin it so finitely.

    /salute

  • As someone who was following Allods with anticipation, I would be worried about future instances of the publisher or developer holding players hostage. If I got invested into the game, spent hundreds of hours on my characters and built a ship, I’d be petrified that at some point in the future, they might simply jack up the prices again.

  • […] with something like Allods Online’s knuckleheaded perfume mechanic, time again costs money.  We’re just changing the numbers around a little, and charging in bits and pieces rather than in a lump sum.  When you see up front how much it […]

  • well i love this game…but im a harcore gamer…and i wont pay 40$ month for any game, so im really forced sad to say bye bye allods…if any day this game gets to 10$ month even if it becomes p2p ill be back…until then good luck all and cya

  • Make the game pay to play, remove the cash shop, and it will be a serious game that will attract alot of people.

    I quit wow, and was looking for something fresh out there, played the game with some friends up to about level 10, and then i read up on the cash shop.

    I honestly wouldn’t mind paying a set amount every month, but being required to micro manage what i pay , and pay for essential items, quest items,and other character benefits is just wrong.

    Make the game p2p, and put cosmetic and convenience items into the cash shop.

    Best of both worlds, and it wont fend off any newcomers who seem interested in the game, but are put off by the unknown contents of the cash shop, that seem essential to playing the game.