by David Piner on Aug 20, 2013
In an odd turn of events, Allods Online is moving from free-to-play toward subscription based gameplay.
Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to this news, they will be keeping the current free-to-play servers online, but instead adding a subscription based server with a slightly different set of rules. The difference is actually quite simple, the subscription based servers will not have any form of item shop or item shop bonuses. Things like bag extensions and the such will be available for gold within the game.
You can purchase access to the subscription based server with gPotatoes but not with the in-game gem shard currency (as that can be earned on the F2P servers). The price hasn't been announced yet. You can find out more on the Q&A Roadmap.
I think it's sort of interesting that the game has decided to take a 180 degree turn on free-to-play and actually offer a pay-to-play subscription based server. It's neat that they're not going all hog or none with this, but there are a lot of risks. For instance, a lot of players may not want a subscription based server and the lack of some of the core features (which are pay-to-play) may muddle the game for some. For others, it may come as a welcome relief, considering that Allods has been criticized long ago in its launch period for excessive price gouging (i.e. 20 dollar bags).