I know I've said that I like Allods, despite that it's a RvR MMO. And that still is true. But right now, I'm a but burned out of Allods and MMO's in general. I could blame a lot of things about MMO's . For instance that they're no innovative enough, that they lack content and other stuff like that (which is mostly true), but in general it's just me at the moment. My ADD is playing tricks on me constantly. Where before my burn-out I could play MMO's for hours, these days, playing them for 2 hours is already enough for me. Somehow MMO's seem dull to me now. Yes, little innovative, lack of content, but even playing Allods, where there's a lot of humor involved in the game, I still can't keep my concentration up. I hope my concentration will be back again some day. Not only so that I can play MMO's again as I used to, but also because I can get back to work as well. It's like a two-edged knife now... No concentration, being on long-term sick-leave and no MMO's, or have my concentration back to the fullest again, work and play MMO's once again... I'll give single-player games a try for now, but I doubt they can keep my interest for long as well... I still have Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect (1 and 2) and BioShock 2 on the shelf here and I really do want to play them...

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I've complained about Realm vs Realm (RvR) combat a lot, and I'm gonna complain about it once more All the MMO's that use Realm vs Realm Player vs Player (PvP) combat have that one same flaw... Up to a certain level, the game feels much like a Player vs Environment (PvE) game. This is because until you hit that level, all you have to do is complete quests, kill monsters, gather materials and craft (I'm sure I've forgotten about a few other things you can do, but you get the drift). Actually, the game is much like Lord of the Rings online or Final Fantasy XI(V). Those two game are the biggest example of a PvE only game... The, after you have hit that certain level, the easy going PvE game you thought you were playing changes completely. From that moment on you can go to certain places where you can encounter players from the other Realm. Because these players are not from your own Realm, they show up red, much like the average aggressive monster. This means mostly kill of be killed, and there's the flaw of the Realm vs Realm mechanics... In most RvR games you can see from the gear your opponent is wearing, and the skills he uses, what level he is. You can pretty easy determine if that player is lower than you (and thus a match for you to kill), or higher (and you need to run). That set aside, because you see a player from the opposing Realm (and following the previous logic, which a lot of kids playing RvR games use), you're almost certain to get into combat... Since most players know this, they'll team up in those RvR combat zones. And there we have an other problem: GANKING. Because players team up in RvR zones, they're scoping for groups smaller than their own (or even loners) of the other Realm to kill them. Wheee! Way to go! An other honest PvP point earned because you 4 maxed out no-lifers have killed a player who is just able to enter the RvR combat zone and was only being curious how the RvR combat zone looks... Why this rant about those flaws of RvR combat? Simple... I just hit level 20 in Allods, and I'm able to enter the Holy Lands. Hell, I've even been given a quest to gain 20 status points in PvP. Yes, I'm forced to practice this ganking behavior by the game, which I dispice...  I've seen it at work in several other games I played in the past, including World of Warcraft, Aion and EverQuest II. And in all those games, RvR always ended up in a ganking fest. Skill and experience in PvP doesn't count in these games. It's just sheer numbers or level difference that determines the PvP outcome. Ohhh... How I long for the days of Lineage II, where PvP was about skill, and not ganking. Where there was no Black & White RvR logics. Where you could PK anyone you liked, but did have to pay a price for it... Oh yeah, I'll keep on playing Allods for now, but I won't just enter the Holy Lands. If possible, I'll avoid the ganking area till I'm somewhat forced to go there because I won't be able to enjoy the game anymore. Till then, there's no PvP for me...

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I've played both Allods and Runes of Magic now for about two and a half weeks, and it's time to compare the games... Graphically, both games are pretty strong. They're not like most Free2Play games, where an almost prehistoric engine is used Looking at how your character and the environment is drawn, Allods has a more cartoonish style than Runes of Magic, though Runes of Magic overused the bloom effect a bit too much to my likings... Personally, I think they both can match them self with AAA titles like World of Warcraft and Aion: the Tower of Eternity, just to name a couple. Audio is a different thing... Where Allods takes care that you always here some music, in Runes of Magic there's a lot of silence at times, where only the effects of your battle can be heard. The ambient music is pretty good for both, though I think that Allods uses a more fitting ambient mucis than Runes of Magic. The combat effects of Runes of Magic need to be redone I think. It's kinda odd when you wield your wooden staff, that you hear a sword unsheethe Then there is the important thing about gameplay... First off the questing, or PvE part... Allods has a couple of long story lines in the game, called World quests, where you learn about the history of the world and their races. In Runes of Magic, I haven't found any such thing (yet). Regular quests are done pretty well in Allods, and it's one of the few games where I actually read the whole quest description, while in Runes of Magic, quests are just there and represented as huge walls of text with coloured highlights for objectives, locations and persons. Yes, you guessed it, I don't even take the time to read them, also because the quests don't really connect in my opinion... Then looking at the map, both games give locations of where to go. In Allods you'll get a rough location of where your objective is or the exact location of your contact. A good thing is that quest givers are not shown on the map, unless you're real close to them. In Runes of Magic, only quests givers and turn-in points for quests are shown on the map. Most locations of objectives are not there and you should read the quest description (so follow the highlighted texts in the quest). Then there's the raid thing... Where in Runes of Magic you can solo a raidboss when you're about 3 levels higher (speaking of LAME ), in Allods the raidbosses are exactly the other way around. Those raidbosses are wat too overpowered, and even when you're about 5 levls higher, you still need a good party to make sure you won't die from a critical hit of the boss. Then the PvP part... I can't say I did any PvP yet in Allods, but since it's Realm vs Realm I assume that there'll be a ganking fest when I get to it, much like I've seen it in all other RvR games... Runes of Magic has an open world PvP system, and I've already spoke about that last week... Last but not least... Item shop... Both games give a bit a of Play2Win feeling when looking at the item shop, which I think could spoil the gaming experience of a lot of players. But comparing the two, I must say that Allods has the better item shop of the two. Where in Runes of Magic you can really pay to boost the power of your armour and weapons up to +6 without a problem, in Allods, there's only one power item and that's the Incense, that'll boost your damage output and health received... Pricing of both cash shops is an issue as well. Allods (as most gPotato games) has a decent pricing, where a 21-day incense can be bought for US$ 3.75. When you compare that to Runes of Magic, the power items will cost you a lot more, but those will stay with you on higher levels... I think you have guessed already which game I love more... Allods. Though it's a RvR game, which is really not my thing, the game just feels a lot better to me...

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I thought the best 2nd class for a warden was scout, so I could let my pet do damage and I'll help from a distance. In theory this works good, but after playing one for a while, I found out that this doesn't really work out that good Reason is that as warden/scout on level 18 I only have 2 ranged skills (regular shot and vamperic shot) that have an immense cooldown. The vamperic shot does a nice damage over time, but still it's not enough. Taking a closer look at other options for a new sub, I came up with the combination warden/rogue. I know that rogue is not really my thing normally, but in this case the combinations warden and scout works out just fine. The warden has a passive skill that boosts physical attack accuracy, while the scout has a passive skill that allows off-hand usage and a passive skill that boost dodging. Looking at the primary skills, the warden has the pet, which does some kicking damage. Using that along with the extra dagger skills, dogde and off-hand usage, I can give excellent support to my pet. The scout's primary skills give an extra boost on dagger usage (damage boost that is), along with kicking skills for enhanced damage, hiding skills and (pretty nice to have), extra chance for loot... Only problem was to "forget" my scout class. Using in-game means, I'd be busy for 60 days since the item needed costs almost 6000 coins. Through the item shop the thing costs 195 diamonds (€ 5) Though I'm no real fan of Runes of Magic's item shop, this time I made an exception and bought the item...

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My first look at the item shop from Runes of Magic, I thought the game was not a Pay2Win game. But after chatting with some other players, I found out that Runes of Magic is an even more Pay2Win that Allods I hear you ask WHY? The reason is simple. Though in the item shop there are no weapons and armour available to purchase (other than the cosmetic ones that'll change the skin of your current armour and make it undroppable after PK), I saw enchantment stones in the item shop as well last week when I stated that Runes of Magic was not Pay2Win. Since you get those from the game itself, I thought they'd be much the same... How wrong I was about that Trying the enchant stones you can get in-game, you'll have only a chance of about 20% (even less I think) that the enchantment works. But from a PK I spoke with, I learned that the chance to fail an enchantment with the stones from the item shop is close to zero. Normally, I wouldn't care too much about it, but in Runes of Magic I have somewhat a problem with this. When I enchanted my dagger to +1 with the regular stones, the physical attack value raised by about 5% and there was an additional physical attack added as well. The total physical attack of my dagger went up by about 25%.  Now imagine you buy the enchantment stones from the item shop and enchant your gear to the max (+6). This would imply that your weapon would have an approximate +150% physical attack value which would also give a real unfair advantage to PvP (which still has no cause IMO). Though some of the item shop items can be bought from the daily quest rewards as well, as far as I know, enchantment stones can't be purchased, so yet again an other Pay2Win aspect there Then there's one last thing that bothers me. In the past (right after release), I purchased some diamonds. Unlike normal Free2Play games with item shop, with Runes of Magic you have to bind your purchased diamonds to a server (heck, most Free2Play publishers attach the item shop currencies to your account, so you can spend them in whatever game you're playing with them) So far I still don't know why this is, but I still have 83 diamonds left, and 167 rubies. If I change server, I'll loose them completely. Yet an other odd mechanic there... I'll stick with Runes of Magic for a while, because of the lack of a good MMORPG to play. But as soon as I find a better MMORPG, I'll give that new one a try...

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