Allods Online Quick Review

So the gf wanted an mmo to play together and recently tried Allod's Online.. at first I was pleasantly surprised:
- the graphics of monster, avatars and spells were much better than most other mmos out there

Don't mess with him..

- the crafting system is amazing;

You have 3 categories with two modifiers, a positive box and a negative box. The numbers start random, and when you pick that number, it locks that number and gives a chance to change all the other numbers.

There are a few ways to approach the game, either
1) if you see a big +number get it, or
2) minimize your -numbers by trying to get as many 0's as possible.

Depending on how successful in the game you are, you'l get either
a) unusable trash item,
b) weak version of the item,
c) the item or
d) a much better version of the item.

Crafting is very user friendly in that, I can give the leather items I make to my gf, who disassembles it and then in turn provides me more leather materials I need to make more items. As long as we (mostly me tho) have the necessary money to buy supporting goods, we could essential lvl our skill very high and not be reliant on grinding mats.

- unique classes to different races; its unfortunate that the other side get mirror images of those classes, but it still provides some variety
- unique pvp; apparently you and a crew control a flying ship and do pvp that way..
- interesting storyline

But I quickly grew tired of the game:
- the restricted race of my favorite class as you see is the Gibberling; and i've never played a cute/small race in any mmo

- very grindey; one of my current quests has me collecting resources (from loot off monsters) to make a bigger bag.. the rate in which any of these mats drop is less than 5% (very conservative number).. long story short, it'll take 5 hours easily to do this quest

- world graphics.. doesn't look impressive.. boxey... wow-ish

- very much a wow clone feel

- expensive cash shop; everything feels too expensive.. buying bank space is only for that one character and not for all future characters

I started playing DDO again.. its fun, but like the tabletop game, requires having a party which I don't currently have yet...