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As much as I would love to interrogate them on why they insist on driving this promising platform into the ground, I really don't want to listen to PR or scripted answers.

The crap they released last Wednesday, while it did have tons of new content, it also essentially killed the game for probably half their base. And that's no exaggeration. This title went from a Free 2 Play to a Forced 2 Play, and while I don't think the prices are out of this world, it's the way they went around doing it that has irked everyone.

They added Patronage levels 1-5, adding 50/100/150/200/250% more damage per each level, requiring the use of Incense (a CS item) to use. Ok fine, a bit OP for PVP, but whatever. But what they failed to mention, was that the Patronage was practically mandatory to have up 24/7, because mobs got tougher. So if you refuse to purchase the CS item, you are stuck with mobs that are scaled up, and yourself doing the old version damage. Hey guess what, you're forced to pay for CS items, just for a normal leveling experience. If you think you can still play without paying? Good luck doing 100% less damage in your teens. Mobs 1-2 levels under your level aren't even killable. A level 40 can't even kill a level 35 mob without the Incense.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They killed Rep grinding groups, supposedly killed general party grouping, by not sharing quest goals, added more CS items to counter inverting gear stats when you died (and you're all PVP in your 20s), and just your usual hidden class changes. Oh lets not forget, you go out of your way to buy CS items to play normally, but then they make you use Myrrh to use said items, and even Patronage skills. An item that costs a fair amount of cash, but you can also buy in the CS!

It's really sickening because my bud and myself brought over 4 others from LOTRO and we've all been playing it the last 2 weeks, having a blast. Several alts in our teens now. I would really have no problem plunking money down for the Incense, seeing as how it's only $3.50 for a 21 day supply, but why would I feel comfortable investing any money in this title when this is a reoccuring theme? This same type of patch hit back in late February, with the same class changes, the same mounts, just different death mechanics. Everyone left the ship at that time, and it looks like they rolled back the patch and polished it back up. The starter zone on Empire, which normally had 30+ newbies at one time, had 4 last night, over several hours. The first city zone, called Old Square, again, normally bustling with adventurers, had 6. I have been logged in maybe 7 hours since the patch, just sitting afk, and have heard 1 gold spammer. It's THAT bad. Even the gold spammers are missing. Zone chat is almost dead, Bort portal has 1/4 of the normal population in it, the Arena is dead, I mean this game is like a ghost town now.

Like I said, I love this game, I'm really just wanting to play it. Hell, make it a P2P title! But this development is just driving it into the ground. And I'm not risking putting money into this 'Beta' just to watch it plummet.

Maybe they're writing a book?

"How to take a great MMO and make it FAIL!"

'Cause... that's what they're doing. And doing it with style, baby!

Mail.ru lost their marbles gPotato got too greedy and didn't have enough kahooneys to stand up to Mail.ru and say THIS is what our player base wants.

you know I would like to find who the brainiacs are behind this nonsense and everytime they spout nonsense take $1000 from them for spouting BS.

They've BOTH RUINED Allods Online it USED to be a really great game, my friends and I are STILL searching for something else to play together but so far nothing is coming up as we've all jumped ship from Allods going Offline

Wow...gPotato seriously dropped the ball on this one. Greed is a hell of a thing. Making money is understood, but ganking players with this new patch is ridiculous. The russian servers are near empty because of this patch and they didn't take the hint and change it for the NA servers...sad indeed. They have lost the trust of many players. Coming back from this mistake will be difficult indeed but not impossible. I hope they read through all the messages from fans here and on their forums and make changes asap, or the next thing they'll be doing is laying off people for lack of money.

i like Joe 's answer to allods
This title went from a Free 2 Play to a Forced 2 Play
describes best what is allods

Allods is the one F2P game that turned me off all F2P models. Id rather pay a monthly instalment and know that I can do all there is to do and not wory about shit like incence and repairs and crap like that microtransactioning me into poverty.

bad thing after all this is all kind of mmo's begin to install cash shops , even blizzard considering that option and lotro already go that way from septembar

this game is still 100% playable and 100% free.

...now watch my comment get voted into the grey, haha.

I've been playing the new patch for 2 days now without incense burning and have been doing just fine in pve. I even gained two levels thanks to the extra quests in the patch. people need to bite the bullet and just learn to live with the idea that your items are not permanent. At least in Allods, you can pay to get the back. I've played games that have item decay features where items decay over time with use, even the uber l33t l3wtz fall apart...and there is NO free/paid way to repair them! ( I thought it was a clever way to keep the game constantly fresh, since you're always on the hunt for new items, but must people just complained like the current Allods whiners).

Bottom line: I'm still going to play Allods and in a few weeks all the complainers will have gotten used to the changes or will have been replaced by new players who know nothing about the old system and will be perfectly content with the new system, as it's all they've known.


...maybe I should make it to this irc thing and be the lone voice of "thanks for the great game, keep it coming."

The fact that money is a barrier to playing this ' free to play' game is an indication why this has been such an unpopular design choice. The underlying problem is still there, its just been replaced with a different mechanic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You don't have to punish people to make them spend money. All that does is create negative feelings towards the game. Give people cool, fun AND useful items. Don't punish people and ask them to buy their way out of it.

Negative design = negative players.