This game is extremely polished for being free-to-play. It truly reminds me of World of Warcraft. Many MMO's try to be like WoW, of course, but Allods actually succeeds quite well, with most of the negative aspects of WoW (aggressive and rude player base, endless raid-gear-raid loop) yet to be seen. I can also vouch that gPotato, the playing service this game comes with, is a much better alternative to beanfun!, which is what games like Divina use. No annoying shortcuts or popups or anything, and the site is far easier to navigate.

Allods comes with a quick built-in tutorial at the beginning to let you get the hang of things, but it's a fairly standard MMO when it comes to controls. Combat is fluid and isn't simply point-to-click. Quest descriptions are long, so if you want to get absorbed in the world, there's the option to. I usually just scroll to the bottom and see what I have to do, though, with the occasional full reading of my quest log. So far the quests seem pretty standard; nothing you haven't seen here in terms of talking to people, killing creatures, collecting items, and going to places.

Onto aesthetics: this game is pretty beautiful. The colors are wonderful without being overpowering and the environment is very immersive. Like I said, for being F2P, I'm impressed at the stunning visuals, and quite enjoy the lighthearted fantasy setting of the League, though the Empire's areas are cooler. The animations are very well-done, as are the various faces and bodies of NPCs. For some reason, my elf is a fairy, but hey, I've never played a fairy character before, so it could be fun (also the NPC names are Russian-sounding and there are Russian signs in towns, likely because the makers are Russian). The map system is very similar to WoW's (the maps look almost identical in style) and even includes a feature called Automove (similar to that of Divina) so you can make a straight-shot for your next quest location without having to waste time paying attention to where your character is walking; enemy aggro is even reduced when you use Automove. Customization isn't too involved, but there are enough options to keep my character from looking like everyone else's. Even the log-out screen is nice. I really like some of the effects; for example, when I shoot an arrow, the arrow gets lodged into whatever I shot, including enemies. The voice acting is a bit robotic and the combat a tiny bit awkward by default what with both the basic attacks and special attacks crammed together on the hotbar (you can change this, of course), but it's not too shabby. I especially like how you can "plan an attack" e.g. hold an attack for the next enemy you target if the first targeted enemy was killed while you were casting.

One of the most irritating things about most MMO's is the endless running around to turn in quests. There don't seem to be many straightaway paths to anywhere you need to go, mindlessly increasing the amount of time it takes you to do anything without being any fun. Luckily, Allods implements a teleportation feature that gets you from place to place relatively quickly, though the quest placement is still odd. The quests are also very hard to do in order since they don't seem to follow a logical progression; some quests will require you to stay in the same area, and then one of them will make you go to the other side of town. Are you supposed to continue questing where you end up, or go back to the start area? Both? Seems like a waste of time to go so far to begin with, then. The music also fades in and out at seemingly random times (and also gets old quickly), so I prefer listening to my own music while playing. It's not cool that you have to get what's called a megaphone in order to talk to other people in the world chat, though, and the mandatory group/instance quests for the Empire are an annoyance since you can't progress if you can't find anyone to do the instance with you. The League has no such thing required, though.

I enjoyed this game a lot, but it is very, very pay-to-win, unfortunately. The Elf Oracle is pretty boring, but I liked playing the Kanian Ranger, Xadaganian Specialist, and Kanian Druid.

This game is extremely polished for being free-to-play. It truly reminds me of World of Warcraft. Many MMO's try to be like WoW, of course, but Allods actually succeeds quite well, with most of the negative aspects of WoW (aggressive and rude player base, endless raid-gear-raid loop) yet to be seen. I can also vouch that gPotato, the playing service this game comes with, is a much better alternative to beanfun!, which is what games like Divina use. No annoying shortcuts or popups or anything, and the site is far easier to navigate. Allods comes with a quick built-in tutorial at the beginning to let you get the hang of things, but it's a fairly standard MMO when it comes to controls. Combat is fluid and isn't simply point-to-click. Quest descriptions are long, so if you want to get absorbed in the world, there's the option to. I usually just scroll to the bottom and see what I have to do, though, with the occasional full reading of my quest log. So far the quests seem pretty standard; nothing you haven't seen here in terms of talking to people, killing creatures, collecting items, and going to places. Onto aesthetics: this game is pretty beautiful. The colors are wonderful without being overpowering and the environment is very immersive. Like I said, for being F2P, I'm impressed at the stunning visuals, and quite enjoy the lighthearted fantasy setting of the League, though the Empire's areas are cooler. The animations are very well-done, as are the various faces and bodies of NPCs. For some reason, my elf is a fairy, but hey, I've never played a fairy character before, so it could be fun (also the NPC names are Russian-sounding and there are Russian signs in towns, likely because the makers are Russian). The map system is very similar to WoW's (the maps look almost identical in style) and even includes a feature called Automove (similar to that of Divina) so you can make a straight-shot for your next quest location without having to waste time paying attention to where your character is walking; enemy aggro is even reduced when you use Automove. Customization isn't too involved, but there are enough options to keep my character from looking like everyone else's. Even the log-out screen is nice. I really like some of the effects; for example, when I shoot an arrow, the arrow gets lodged into whatever I shot, including enemies. The voice acting is a bit robotic and the combat a tiny bit awkward by default what with both the basic attacks and special attacks crammed together on the hotbar (you can change this, of course), but it's not too shabby. I especially like how you can "plan an attack" e.g. hold an attack for the next enemy you target if the first targeted enemy was killed while you were casting. One of the most irritating things about most MMO's is the endless running around to turn in quests. There don't seem to be many straightaway paths to anywhere you need to go, mindlessly increasing the amount of time it takes you to do anything without being any fun. Luckily, Allods implements a teleportation feature that gets you from place to place relatively quickly, though the quest placement is still odd. The quests are also very hard to do in order since they don't seem to follow a logical progression; some quests will require you to stay in the same area, and then one of them will make you go to the other side of town. Are you supposed to continue questing where you end up, or go back to the start area? Both? Seems like a waste of time to go so far to begin with, then. The music also fades in and out at seemingly random times (and also gets old quickly), so I prefer listening to my own music while playing. It's not cool that you have to get what's called a megaphone in order to talk to other people in the world chat, though, and the mandatory group/instance quests for the Empire are an annoyance since you can't progress if you can't find anyone to do the instance with you. The League has no such thing required, though. I enjoyed this game a lot, but it is very, very pay-to-win, unfortunately. The Elf Oracle is pretty boring, but I liked playing the Kanian Ranger, Xadaganian Specialist, and Kanian Druid.