And I shall whisper, no. Being the publisher of an MMO is hard work; your tasks are relegated to bug reporting, polishing upcoming versions, localization, and running events. You don’t fix bugs and you can’t add in any features, and you serve essentially as a franchise for the MMO in question. A lot of people don’t know this little gem, and the end result is that the publisher usually ends up taking flak for what the developer is doing (or not doing).
Gala-Net has seen your criticisms and feedback and wants you to know…It’s really not their fault. Gala-Net, or as you know them better, gPotato, is the publisher of both upcoming titles featured on MMO Fallout, Allods Online and Aika Online. In a development diary, Gala’s own Darren Allarde wants to let you know exactly what Gala-Net does in regards to Allods, mainly so you can be sure to direct your rage against Astrum Nival next time.
“We don’t fix bugs, we report them. We don’t program and work on new in-game features, we hear what you have to say, tally it up, and communicate to Astrum Nival the feedback that makes sense for the game in our region.”
-Darren Allarde, Gala-Net, on Allods Online
But you aren’t here to hear Gala-Net direct your complaints to the correct source, we’re here to talk about Astrum Nival who undoubtedly wants some of that old time loving back. You know, back when Allods Online wasn’t just that punching bag for punkish sarcastic twits who run MMO bl-diverting attention! and was still an MMO to give paid MMOs a run for their money in the form of seven thousand dollar runes.
Astrum’s been running a poll on what the players would like to see removed, and topping out the list on both English and Russian localizations was easily the removal of Fear of Death, the debuff upon death that can only be fixed by waiting, paying out the wazoo with gold, or buying expensive cash shop perfumes.
Well seeing as how Russia has at least 8 hours on the rest of us, the patch notes for the Russian Allods have already been released, with the following line poorly translated in Google:
According to the summarization of voting canceled “The fear of death.”
You heard it poorly translated here first, MMO Fallouters! It’s good to see that the word has finally reached Astrum Nival, even with all the Western Allod’ers whose “Russian friends” claim that the Russian version is now “a barren wasteland” and are not trolling at all I swear. There are a number of people angry over the replacement for fear of death: armor curses that can only be removed by cash shop items, but that is another story for another day.
More on Allods Online and its return to grace after these messages from our sponsors (grab a sandwich, this might take a while…actually grab me one too).
My Lord of the Rings account can’t be used in Germany, nor will my World of Warcraft account work in China. My Archlord account may now work in Europe, but my Chronicles of Spellborn account will certainly not work in the Philippines. My Allods Online account might work in Australia, but my Tabula Rasa account will not work at all.
A lot of people are not aware of this, but there are a lot of developers that outsource their MMOs in foreign countries to where it was produced originally. gPotato, for example, is not actually a developer for most of their games, but actually a portal through which North American players can enjoy something directly out of Korea. gPotato hosts the servers and rakes in some cash from the cash shop, but ultimately must pay the developing body for the rights to host the title. Occasionally you will hear about MMOs switching hands, such as Codemasters losing Archlord and Cabal not shutting down in the west but actually moving over to ESTsoft.
As is the case with most publishers, gPotato only has the rights to publish Aika Online in one region: This region being North America. Due to legal restrictions, namely gPotato only having the rights to publish in North America it was only a matter of time before they acted upon that restriction, and started blocking IP addresses from outside of North America. Technically that happened three days ago, but who’s counting?
The important matter of all of this is that the cash shop was open for a full week before the announced shut down, leaving non-North American players with plenty of time to fill up on gPotato Chips (that’s what they call it, right?), the currency for Aika’s cash shop.
Players are, understandably angered at this “bull doodoo” (Not my words, from the Aika forums, also not censored.), reports are already coming in of players who had spent several hundreds of dollars worth of gpots to buff themselves in Aika, only to be barred from their accounts.
“Currently, a decision has not been reached regarding the status of existing Aika accounts which were registered outside of North America. The issue is under intensive review by management. In the event that existing accounts are blocked from playing Aika as a result of this decision, those players whose accounts would be unable to access the game will be issued a full refund on a case-by-case basis of any gPotato purchases they have made specifically for or in Aika.“
Hopefully gPotato will be able to come to a resolution. Gpots can be used in any gPotato game, so international players may be stuck using them in Allods Online or other titles. The developer for Aika is Hanbitsoft, the same company bringing Hellgate London back to the West.
Here is a question to all of my…Runescape peeps out there. How many times have you had someone report you, maliciously, for something that was not against the rules, just to harass you? In all likelihood, at least a few. Now, Jagex claims that rule 10: abusing customer service does result in a punishment, however I have never heard of anyone getting much more than a warning for clogging up the customer support.
Earlier this week, Aika released the full list of rules, not only the rules but the punishment associated with breaking said rules. To put it lightly, gPotato is looking to provide “an experience at a very high standard.” (Their words, not mine) To put it more plainly, gPotato will not allow Aika to turn into other free games that we’ve seen, let’s single out Combat Arms for this comparison, the kind populated by children who can barely spell the insults they are flinging.
Sending in a false abuse report on a player will result in a permanent ban on the first offense. If the character is new (unsure what this constitutes) than any accounts from that IP address will be banned as well, permanently.
Impersonating other players may result in a permanent ban.
Falsifying information about Gala-Net, Aika, and other players may also result in a permanent ban.
Inappropriate guild demeanor will result in a ban for all guild members.
Disrupting in-game events by harassing event coordinators may result in a permanent ban.
NPC blocking may result in a permanent ban.
Not taking offenses seriously (deliberately breaking the rules as a joke) may result in a permanent ban.
This is a comprehensive list of what can result in a permanent ban, and although some of these are pretty straightforward, I can see some eyebrows being raised at the grey areas. For instance, will the rule on “false abuse reports” allow free reign for griefing, because the players with their fingers on the report button are too afraid of gPotato not seeing the situation as they did, and receiving a permanent ban?
Or disrupting in-game events, or even NPC blocking. If any of you can give me a clear, concise explanation as to the process behind “npc blocking,” then by all means leave a comment below. My favorite of the list is without a doubt the last: Not taking offenses seriously, which can result in a permanent ban. How exactly does this work?
Harassing player = Temporary mute
Harassing player with a smiley face or an LOL in the message = Permanent ban?
Is there a form of numerical quantification where someone’s seriousness of a situation can be determined? At what angle must a person’s smirk be before it is considered not taking an offense seriously, where a temporary ban becomes permanent? It sounds like anything that is determined to be trolling is punishable by a permanent ban, but how do you determine who is cheating for an edge, and who is simply doing it for the lulz?
I’m going to keep this issue up and will be contacting gPotato as soon as Aika becomes a valid game to query Customer Support over, and will be following this up hopefully with a direct explanation for the rules. Until then, more news on Aika as it appears.
Allods Online is a great example of how a title can grow under the guise of a World of Warcraft clone, gain the attention of both gamers and publications as a beacon of individuality in the WoW Clone genre, pull forward and grow a community that could rival the Darkfall community in terms of loyalty and vicious attacks on naysayers. That being said, Allods Online is also an excellent example to how a company can turn its customers against it in the flash of a hand.
gPotato’s response spoke to many players as “deal with it, and pay up or leave,” however the latest announcement should shed some light on the situation. This week, Allods Online will receive an update, and gPotato has
restructured the pricing based upon your feedback in conjunction with the data we’ve reviewed and communication with our developer. Consequently, we’ve revised pricing so that more people can participate in this feature of the game.
gPotato, on Allods Online
Sure, gPotato can play a mean fiddle, but can they put a crack in the wall with a sweet but ferocious melody? As I’ve mentioned before, the community is still in a position where they are more than willing to return if the prices of the cash shop are lowered and gPotato does something about the requirement of investment in order to stay competitive at end-game.
So Allods Online isn’t going anywhere, at least not for now. The benefit of not having launched yet is that you get to make stupid mistakes like this and still make up for it in time for the big day.
When Cryptic Studios announced that the upcoming expansion to Champions Online, Vibora Bay, would be a paid expansion, the reaction from the community was nothing short of explosive. Players saw an expansion adding in what should have been added in (a fill-in for the late game leveling gap), and overall were quite offended at having to pay for something they saw as vital to the game. Something worthy of note is that, even after Cryptic announced that the expansion would be free, the players were still angry about it, but now for other reasons.
The point with Cryptic is that the community felt that they were trying to get away with as much as they could, believing that the paid expansion announcement was a test to see if the community would buy into it. Thus, Cryptic had essentially sealed their fate from the first announcement. The same is going on with Allods Online and Gala-Net’s current predicament: The cash shop is ten times the price of the Russian version, and core game elements were removed or gutted in order to force people to fork out real money.
gPotato put out a release late last night in response to several criticisms of the game that surfaced over the past week. Among the two responses, the cash shop price:
“We are not sitting and waiting just to see how many dollars we’re going to make over the next four weeks.”
This raises several questions. If you weren’t looking to see how much money you could get, then why did Gala-net raise the prices ten times over the Russian version? Why was end-game raiding severely gimped in order to make perfume use mandatory? There are more questions to be asked, and even more to be answered.
What is done is done, at this point all Gala-Net can hope to do is move forward, make some adjustments before the game goes live, and hope all goes well. As I’ve pointed out before, and I still stand strong by this, the quality of Allods Online as a game allows it a rare benefit in that if this mistake is fixed quickly enough, the game can move ahead and leave this incident in the past. One aspect I have been paying heavy focus on is that the community wants this to work, and the thread that has been set up for feedback is already populated by great ideas, and progressive thoughts.
At this point, Allods Online isn’t nearly as close to a trainwreck as people may think, but closer to a failed sump pump. If Gala-Net can quickly get the motor started, and perhaps move the upholstery to the first floor, then the most damage you’ll see is a waterlogged carpet that needs to be replaced.
Allods Online is a very interesting title, not only because of the game itself but the community and the developers that surround it. Allods has what very few developers can boast about, a community where even though players complain about certain aspects, they are very ready to admit that they will continue playing, because the game is just that good. Just that good is exactly what Allods Online is, a shimmering glow of light in a sea of your run of the mill Asian grinders (Yes, I’m aware Allods is a Russian game), a title looking to be the World of Warcraft of the Eastern Seaboard:
Until, of course, those Ruskies ruined it for us. For anyone who plays Allods Online in North America, your jaw likely dropped when you logged in just a few days ago to find that the long awaited cash shop had finally opened, to the tune of ten times the price of the Russian version of the game (Every website I’ve visited parrots twenty times, but $2 to $20 is what we in the mathematical world call “ten times”). Mark this is the first major blunder of gPotato. Granted, at this point teasing the frothing-mouthed community would be about as smart as dangling your tasty fingers in front of a T-Virus infected Doberman on steroids, so gPotato waited about a day and came out with the next bombshell: The prices were intended. Missing the point entirely, gPotato attempted to calm down the crowd by assuring them that more items would hit the cash shop soon.
So you’re walking out of the crumbly mess that is the Allods Forums and thinking to yourself: “Well, at least that was the worst of it,” in which case you would be promptly crushed by two tons of irony. The latest patch to hit the Russian server (as patches normally do hit Russia before swarming over to the West) is less of a bombshell and more of a nuclear “whoops.” Actually, that’s a good idea. You heard the term coined here first folks, the “nuclear whoops.” Back on topic, the latest patch brings in sweeping changes to Allods Online.
Perfumes are the game’s method of removing Fear of Death, a debuff that lowers stats 25%, stacking up to four times, on a timer that increases as you level up. Previously, at end game the timer maxed out at 45 minutes, and perfumes could be purchased through a daily quest, or through the game’s gold shop. Fear of Death could also be removed by paying a lump sum of gold, and negated in many instances by being resurrected by a player. gPotato must have known its community wanted more, because carousing through the latest Russian patch notes, I found the following:
Increased amount of experience required to achieve levels of 20 to 40.
Spells resurrection is now subjected to objective effect of Fear of Death in the absence of the effect of Patron.
Number of health and damage caused by high-level monsters slightly increased (up to 25% at 40 m level).
So not only do monsters hit more (up to 25% more at higher levels), but it takes longer to level up, and being resurrected now subjects you to Fear of Death. Numbers one and three are pretty irrelevant to the overall point, but I’d like to take a closer look at number 2, because this is something a lot of Allods Online’ers have pointed out to me: What this means is that Heroic Instances, which cannot be exited, now have a requirement for perfume. As perfume lasts for 30 minutes, and costs approximately 75 cents per bottle, the Allods Online forums were kind enough to do my math for me and figure out that raiding at end-game will cost an easy minimum of $50 per month. Mounts were added into the game as well, but if you want them to be at peak efficiency you’ll have to buy feed from, where else, the gold shop.
Here’s an interesting note: Players are boycotting the cash shop, not by not playing the game, but by continuing to play for free. Presumably, the idea is to load on the cost to Gala-Net to host the servers, while throttling their income by not paying for anything in the cash shop. Pretty sneaky, sis.
Granted, this isn’t all coming from the community. The original team that developed Allods has been long gone since the days of the closed beta, making it not at all unbelievable that the game has taken a 180 in terms of direction and planning, from a title that was once about never having to pay a single cent, to a title about paying to keep yourself out of virtual hell. Rather than making a game where your income comes from many players paying small sums, Gala-Net decided to turn the title into a game where no one pays anything, because everything is too overpriced, and a subscription to another MMO is a much better deal than paying that same $15 on a couple days worth of perfume.
There are plenty of theories as to why these events are taking place, with the target audience closing in on itself as each day passes, with questions being asked: Is gPotato really that out of touch with how much players are willing to pay?
Allods Online is a great game at its core, and the support shown to it by its players is astounding on all levels, and really why I considered making this weekend Allods Online exclusive. The players are voicing their support for the title and making real suggestions: Bring the prices down and we’ll pay. Make the game a monthly subscription and we’ll pay.
Allods hasn’t “launched” yet, so it isn’t too late for Gala-Net to throw in some quick changes to the cash shop to get themselves back on the player’s good side. No developer should sit and watch their reputation thrown into the trash before release, and that is quite a big feat considering the warm receiving Allods was getting just a few weeks ago.
I can see the tunnel leading directly into my bank.
Allods Online is a quirky little WoW clone. On one hand, the developers have a clear passion for making the title the best it can be. On the other hand, they’ve been making some ridiculous updates to the game that make us ask the question: Which now-fired staff member thought this was a good idea?
See…Russia! A handy ally in the development of Allods Online, mainly because the Russian version of the title seems to get everything before we do over in North America and Europe. The Russian version allowed us a glimpse into the perfume scandal, an item in-game that boosts health 50%, among other bonuses it also gets rid of “fear of death,” a debuff of 25% on all stats that stacks (up to 100%) when you die, on a timer that increases as you level up. According to my sources, at end-game this timer can reach 45 minutes, and the timer activates when you die in player vs player combat. gPotato launched the open beta not even a week ago, and with it came the first incarnation of the cash shop, the item mall, the extortion clinic, whatever you call it. What is riling up players, however, is the price:
For one character, it costs $20 USD to increase your bag size by six slots. Yes, for the cost of one month’s subscription to a paid MMO, plus a meal at Mcdonald’s, you could increase your bag slot size by six. According to the Russian Allod Online’ers, there was approximately an astounding 1,000% increase in price, across the board, for every item. A $2 item (converted from rubles) in the Russian version came out to $20 USD.
I was hesitant to write this article up because my own concerns that this was a bug were echoed by a few (a numerical error resulting in the decimal point placed too far to the right), but according to today’s announcement, the price appears to be not only intentional, but quite out of touch on gPotato’s part. They will be evaluating the item mall, not to change price, but (as they put it) to add more items to increase the user experience.
The community, thankfully, appears to be all ears to a compromise by gPotato. Although 95% (as of this writing) believe the prices are not reasonable, less than a third (as of this writing) were willing, in another poll, to quit over the fiasco. If gPotato acts quickly, we may see this event being left in the dust on the road to Allods Online’s future.
Allods Online is currently in open beta. More news as it appears.
MMO Fallout 
