Astral Ship Pictures

I thought these looked pretty neat (dozens of screenshots here).  Astral combat is what Allods Online has that other games do not.  If you haven’t heard anything about the Astral Ship combat, and you like PvP, I definitely recommend you check out.  The Astral Plane is a place that you get to go to in the later levels in these ships called Astral Ships.  There are individual and guild ships that require multiple people (6 and 30 something respectively) to man.  In the Astral plane you’ll come across allods (or islands) that contain raid bosses and treasure.  Instead of just looting the mobs though you must bring this treasure safely back to port in order for you to open it and find the epic loot inside.  The catch is that you can be attacked by other players in their astral ships and be engaged in a really unique type of PvP.

Fighting in the ships is supposedly no small undertaking.  You fly your ship and take shots at each other with your cannons.  Weakening a ship enough allows you to board them, in real time, and engage them on their ship.   I’m anxious to see big armadas come into conflict with each other and all out battles take place with both sides boarding some ships to kill the crews.  All of this makes room for PvE’ers to explore and get their dungeons, people to play as Pirates or even protectors.

astralship2 astralship3 astralship4 astratship1 astrlaship5

Making one with my guild, sailing around the Astral Plane to explore for raid bosses and PvE content with all of us on it, and attacking other ships sounds really awesome.  In the Russian version this place was FFA and you could even attack your own faction.  However, I read that this was patched and they changed it to be faction vs. faction now.  Either way I think I would enjoy it.  It seems like something that would work well in not only a game like this but in other MMO’s.  If it works in practice like it sounds on paper (which the Russians claim is true) then this could work for naval ships.  If this isn’t your thing, there is also normal PvP that takes place in the actual game world.

Hope it doesn’t suck!  It sure looks neat.

  • Exciting stuff, these Astral ships. I made a couple of videos based on the Astral ships for some friends. I’ve been in full hype mode with those guys:

    (warning: videos probably contain errors while I pull information out of my ass)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qoP8v9D-lk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozXAUqG73IE

    This isn’t a REAL Astral ship, just part of the scenery while questing, but it seems like it’s quite similar to at least one player-owned ship design.

  • It’s an interesting idea. It seems sort of like Pirates of the Burning Sea capability which I like well enough, but not enough to do all the time. If it’s half-way decent then it adds another layer of activity along side PVE and “regular” PVP. It definitely has my interest piqued.

  • This already works in Puzzle Pirates, albeit with a wider variety of ship sizes, the ability to solo a ship, and NPC ships to attack. Oh, and the puzzles.

    It’s perhaps the best grouping and PvP that I’ve played in any MMO. I’m happy to see the ship combat in AO.

  • hmm.. faction pvp? NO THANKS.

    So boring, so pointless, no drama, don’t care.. just mindless pvp. borrrrrrrrrrring faction pvp sucks.