Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[DLRiley]

I was going to post that the mmo industry was waiting for a game to hit a million subs besides WoW. You know to renew the fading interest in putting any real ideas into the mmo world and here comes Aion doing exactly what I thought it would while being generic as hell. Take that "IT NEEDS TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE INDUSTRY TO BE REMOTELY SUCCESSFUL" arm chair game designers.

[Zzulo]

I'm pretty sure the lineage games already broke the million barrier

[DLRiley]

I'm pretty sure the lineage games already broke the million barrier

Thats combined.

[gryeyes]

Thats combined.

Wrong answer

[Koyasha]

It sounds like that announcement is saying that Aion hit a million paying users in China.  I think.  Considering it released this week in China, that seems significant.

Either way, got to look a few months down the line for retention, considering other MMOG's have done really well out of the gate and then sunk like rocks lately.

And yes, Lineage, Lineage II, and Final Fantasy XI have all broken 1 million at some point in their existence (independently).  Along with probably other KMMO's that I don't know about.  There just haven't been any western MMO's other than WoW that've done that, as far as I'm aware.

[Shatter]

This game will do well on both sides of the pond.  I know alot of people who plan to play the NA version when it launches here, myself included.  After playing the China OB and seeing how cleaned up it already is + how well it plays even on lower end systems will make it successful.  Will be interesting to see how much they promote / advertise the NA version or will it be one of those under the radar launches im wondering. 

[sidereal]

Sorry if I missed this skimming the previous 8 multilingual pages, but what's the endgame?

[Yoru]

Sorry if I missed this skimming the previous 8 multilingual pages, but what's the endgame?

[waylander]

So far our guild feedback is decent on this game. Asian MMO's have a rep for being grindy, but our testers suggested that this isn't the case........at least in the pre level 25 range.  The PVP zone of course gets our interest, but none of us have gotten high enough to participate.

SWTOR and GW2 are at least a year out, Warhammer is getting boring, so we're sort of shopping around for a filler MMO.  I don't know if AION would be it, but if its not a grind and has a decent PVP end game it certainly could be.

[Draegan]

I love that picture.

[tmp]

Sorry if I missed this skimming the previous 8 multilingual pages, but what's the endgame?

From descriptions it's sort of like EVE played in single constellation of 0.0 space, crossed with LotRO monsterplay. There's limited number of keeps/hotspots players can control, owning the hotspot provides some in-game income and other advantages. Keeps can be controlled either by players or NPC faction. In the middle of the zone there's Delve one keep to own them all.

[Falconeer]

So far our guild feedback is decent on this game. Asian MMO's have a rep for being grindy, but our testers suggested that this isn't the case........at least in the pre level 25 range.  The PVP zone of course gets our interest, but none of us have gotten high enough to par

I hope you'll keep us posted about your friends' progresses and especially about PvP! I am counting on that.

[tazelbain]

> crossed with LotRO monsterplay.
What's this?

[Falconeer]

In Lotro there's only a zone devoted to PvP. It has keeps to hold, resources to gather. You can go there with your high level character OR create a mob-like character among a few like wolves, orcs, skeletons and the likes, and go battle for the keeps against the humans. Basically you can PvP with your char, after leveling it up to max level, or jump right in with a mob, which is already max level but can level up plenty of skills by battling against humans.

It's a great system. It works. Would be a good idea to work on that concept and make it better and stronger.

I don't like it cause once again feels like a not-so-worldly although large arena, but it's definitely cool.

[tazelbain]

Ya, how's that related to what Aion is doing?

[Falconeer]

Oh, sorry. The lack of a proper /quote confused me and I replied out of context.

No idea about Aion's endgame. I guess it'll be something like mobs trying to recapture your keeps. Aion was promoted as PvPvE since the early days, with three factions, one of which being computer controlled, battling for territorial control.

[Draegan]

The Balaur are an NPC race that live in the Abyss and they hate the Daeva (Elyos and Asmodians).  Supposedly these Balaur will sometimes aid the losing side in the abyss but are "unpredictable".  Basically they are supposed to act as a balancing force for the lesser side but sometimes they will do what isn't expect.  Not sure how it actually works in the game.

Balaur wiki.

[tmp]

Ya, how's that related to what Aion is doing?

I was thinking mainly of the part that's having semi-independent NPC faction in control of some of the capturable hot spots and/or areas of the PvP zone; this NPC faction is hostile to both sides turning conflict between 2 player factions into 3-sided fight. Aion devs are referring to their model as "PvPvE" or something to this effect, which is similar.

[Zzulo]

Are the instructions on the first page up to date? Can I still get into the beta somehow?

[Trippy]

Dunno and no.

[Draegan]

Beta is over, but if you download the game and set up an account somehow you do get 5 hours of free playtime supposedly.  Google a little bit and you can find a 3rd party website that'll give you chinese time if you really want to play.  Many people are doing it so apparently it's working.

I can wait until it's released in NA.

[Koyasha]

I would think that if you're gonna pay for and play one of the Asian versions, it would be better to go for the Korean version, since they get the patches the soonest, and maybe you don't have to fake an ID to get it running.

[Draegan]

I believe you need to be from a valid Korean IP or something like that.  It's far easier to play the Chinese version.

[Ashamanchill]

I believe you need to be from a valid Korean IP or something like that.  It's far easier to play the Chinese version.

Is that with the grind settings turned up to eleven?

[Draegan]

You're not a very clever troll.

[Hoth]

For those of you still wanting to try the chinese version of Aion:

Shanda (Nasdaq:SNDA) will let gamers of its licensed pay-for-time western fantasy MMORPG AION play for free from April 30 to May 15 in ten server groups in its seventh and eighth server farms, to be opened on April 30. The game's commercial operation version 1.0, "Yao Sai Pan Long," was released on April 16 and charges RMB 0.48 per hour. AION began open beta testing on April 8.

source

[Tale]

A sign of things to come ... spam seen on a cycling forum:

Mage
Masters of magic and capable of dealing astonishing damage over great distances. With AOE spells, best class to farm Aion gold.

[Draegan]

News at eleven, MMOG has gold farmers.

[UnSub]

News at eleven, MMOG has gold farmers.

Further breaking news: ranged AOE is overpowered.

[Sunnywootxp]

does window 7 works with this because i did all this stuff and when i click lower right start button after the nprotect something i got a blue screen

[schild]

bye

[NiX]

You didn't even say Hi :(

[Mrbloodworth]

So, Aion has 3.5 million subscribers. And is slated to release in more regions.

[Draegan]

Yeah this game will barely get the subs of 300k in NA/EU.

[Trippy]

Not if WAR can help it