In the autumn of 2011 Allods Online received update 3.0.0 — “Episode II: Game of Gods”. The public test server was shut down on 24 October specifically to clear the way for it, and the install itself ate several hours in the middle of a working day. Here is what the version changed, going by the official developer diaries. This is history, not an announcement.
Why “Game of Gods”
The name comes from the story. The Great Mages are uneasy: the gods are about to meet in a decisive clash, and heroes need a new source of power if they are to live through it. The road to Ascension is pointed out by Yasker and Aidenus, the mages standing behind the Empire and the League. Hence the title — mortals turn out to be pieces on the board rather than spectators, and they need power of their own in a hurry.
What arrived in the world
The update brought three new story zones — Frontier, the Wandering Isle and the Cradle — the raid Adventure Dead City, and the first battleground for the Battles system, Witch’s Hollow. A new, fourth layer opened in the Astral: some fifteen islands, and no separate quest is required to fly there. The ninth archetype turned out to be the Bard; before 3.0 there were eight.
Levelling and Ascension
The cap went up to 51, and the road there was smoothed out at the same time: the experience gap between levels shrank, and the huge holes and hard locks along the way are gone. The update also opened one full World Mystery with a reward at the end of it.
The headline addition is Ascension. Its first stage, the rank of Great, means collecting Emblems of Greatness, handed out for achievements: for clearing the Dead City and for beating other players in Witch’s Hollow. Anyone who had already opened the third layer of the Astral by then was given the emblems outright. The rank pays a title, an extra talent point, a Ruby, a special frame around the portrait and, most important of all, access to a second specialisation — two sets of stats, Rubies and talents with a switch between them.
Gear, upgrading and the Astral
The rules for upgrading items were rewritten. What now decides the result is the quality of the upgrader: feed a blue item another blue and purple comes easily, but dragging a purple item up with greens takes a punishing amount of time. The strongest effect comes when the upgrader matches the quality of the item itself. Nothing below level 47 was touched.
In the fourth layer of the Astral, rewards are handed out by sector rather than by island. Intermediate bosses drop a single item, but every member of the group gets it — there is nothing to divide, and it makes no difference which class you brought along. Island final bosses additionally drop blue items, again one for everyone. Green gear counts as relic material now too. Ship equipment stopped requiring crafting components and large sums of gold; you take it off the astral boss and the final bosses instead.
Dragon Form stopped being a mode you have to switch on. The stats from your Relics and from your normal gear simply add together, the form is always working, and the numbers themselves were cut to compensate. Relics are now displayed visually, replacing a weapon of the same type and role when the level difference is small, and the grading of Relics by type is gone. Dragon Form can no longer be obtained in the City of Demons, but the dragon-blood quest can be completed there and outside it alike.
Rebirth was widened. A progenitor who has been through the ritual once can gain a second Incarnation — the Incarnation itself still does not get reborn. The choice of abilities to carry over grew to four, but a twice-reborn progenitor uses only one, from either the first or the second Incarnation.
How all of this works in practice is broken down in the guides, and the layers and flying are covered in more detail on the Astral page.
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