Allods Online: gPotato Responds to Price Flap

Earlier today, Massively reported that the Allods Online item shop had opened to a boatload of controversy over high prices including upgrading inventory slots for a whopping $20. As soon as the controversy had been revealed, WarCry fired off a few questions to Allods Online Community Manager, Katelyn Olmstead. Here's what she had to say:

WarCry: What is the price range of in-store items?

Katelyn: The items in the Allods Online Item Shop range from 75 gPotatoes ($.75) to 2000 gPotatoes ($20).

WarCry: How were the prices for items determined?

Katelyn: The prices were determined after multiple discussions internally, as a team, and with the developer, Astrum Nival. The price of each item available was carefully considered and discussed at great lengths before decided upon.

WarCry: Are developers gauging the community's reaction to the store prices?

Katelyn: Absolutely! We, as well as Astrum Nival, read every post that is made in the Allods Online forums and consider every player's opinion to be important. We will use all the feedback that we receive to help improve the game experience for all.

If prices are found to be 'out of line' by comparison to other Gala-Net games, will they be reconsidered?

Katelyn: As with any aspect of Allods Online, if we find that the players are not enjoying the game, or something seems unbalanced, we will take the proper steps to fix it and improve the experience for all!

Thanks to the gPotato team and to Katelyn Olmstead for the quick response. Hopefully this will set some minds at ease.

UPDATE FROM THE OFFICIAL ALLODS SITE:

Hello Allods Players!

What an amazing week! On Tuesday, Allods Online entered open beta for the entire world to enjoy and earlier this morning we went live with its item shop.

We wanted to take an opportunity to apologize to the community for our lack of communication. We made a mistake by not letting you, our most passionate players know when the item shop was going to go live and we didn't make the effort to learn more about how all of you feel regarding the contents of the item shop. Because of our lack of communication to you, many of you were wildly taken back by what you saw in the item shop today.

We've heard you loud and clear and it's no secret that some of our players feel the prices we have in our item shop are not fair.

Over the next several weeks we will continue to evaluate the details of our item shop and we will begin to introduce new items to help assist you throughout your Allods experience. We wanted to make clear that beyond the introduction of the item shop nothing has changed in Allods that wouldn't allow you to enjoy the game just as much as you did during closed beta. You can still enjoy the entire game without ever having to spend a single cent. Additionally, many of the items available in the item shop are tradable in-game, appear through a number of quests, and can be auctioned off by other players.

One thing that the Allods team really strives to do is to listen to every piece of feedback from the community. We encourage everyone to continue submitting constructive feedback to us through e-mail (allods_suggestion@gala-net.com), our forums, or even through a brief tweet ( http://twitter.com/allodsgame ), or comment on our Facebook page (Allods Online Facebook). If you have anything to say about the game, now will be a great time to do so because we will be spending each day collecting and understanding feedback from you.

This has been an exciting and challenging week for all of us! We will continue to work towards making Allods Online one of the best MMO experiences possible! As we've said before, the Allods Online players are some of the best fans in the world, so thank you for your continuous support and feedback.