Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[sam, an eggplant]

Aion is an incredibly bland, mediocre diku with some nice graphical touches here and there. It does absolutely nothing new and does not alleviate the korean-ness of the design. Next.

Sounds about right.

Wonder how long until it goes freeplay in NA/EU?

[Redgiant]

So, better than Warhammer Online then?

I wouldn't fuck Warhammer Online with Bea Arthur's dick.

P.S. - RIP Bea, one of the funniest comediennes ever.

[Draegan]

F13 hates on Diku MMOG, news at 11.

You guys are under estimating this game.

[schild]

F13 hates on Diku MMOG, news at 11.

That's not quite how it works.

You guys are under estimating this game.

NDA has dropped man, if you have some way to prove me wrong, by all means, have at it. But please, don't be a knobtard.

[Venkman]

There some easy way to download and install this? I'm just interested enough to check it out but not interested enough to jump through hoops with downloading one language and bolting on the English language part. And I certainly ain't re-upping with Fileplanet.

[Azaroth]

This is why browser MMOs will soon rule the planet.

Half-ass interest.

"Wanna play this game?"

"I dunno. Not really. Maybe if it... Does it take fourteen seconds to log in?"

"Yes!"

"Sold."

[Venkman]

I dunno man. We're still a ways away from the West replicating the huge success of F2P games in the East. FR and Fusion Fall only somewhat apply, because they're neither strictly F2P nor in-browser. In-browser lightweight low-risk Flash crap feels like the current bubble. If it pops, the same lessons as always will be once again re-taught: have a good idea and competently deliver it.

You'd think it'd be easy. The problem is all the rest of the people that show up looking for their paycheck 

[squirrel]

I dunno man. We're still a ways away from the West replicating the huge success of F2P games in the East. FR and Fusion Fall only somewhat apply, because they're neither strictly F2P nor in-browser. In-browser lightweight low-risk Flash crap feels like the current bubble. If it pops, the same lessons as always will be once again re-taught: have a good idea and competently deliver it.

You'd think it'd be easy. The problem is all the rest of the people that show up looking for their paycheck  

FYI - Fusion Fall is not lightweight Flash crap. EDIT - Erm. I think I misread you. Carry on.

[Falconeer]

Wonder how long until it goes freeplay in NA/EU?

Don't wait too hard. Lineage 2 (same company) still has a monthly fee, and launched flopped in 2003.

[Azaroth]

FusionFall also gets to market existing characters directly to kids on a fucking cartoon channel. Their marketing edge = unfair to some.

[Koyasha]

Wonder how long until it goes freeplay in NA/EU?

Don't wait too hard. Lineage 2 (same company) still has a monthly fee, and launched flopped in 2003.

All things considered I don't think L2 is doing badly.  It's probably making money, especially considering it's a port of a blockbuster hit over in Korea that requires minimal effort to translate and has had even less effort than it needs actually put into it.

It also has a few particularly good points that I haven't seen in most other games (among a veritable ocean of problems, but yeah).

Aion will likely be successful.  I won't be surprised if it becomes the second biggest MMOG in NA markets (as far as I know it already IS the second biggest MMOG worldwide, with it's Korean and Chinese subscriber base).  It's a well-done polished game that looks like it may have decent pvp that, from what I've heard (since I haven't actually played high enough to take part in it) is pretty much L2 castle sieges lite, accessible starting at low levels instead of requiring grinding billions of exp before being able to participate - and almost everyone who I know that's been in an L2 castle siege tells me that they're extremely fun.

[01101010]

While this game looks enticing, the series of clusterfucked MMOs that have come out recently have made me, at the very least, gun shy of anything coming out. I am not looking for anything life altering in gameplay and seem to enjoy the relative safety of an ordinary DIKU MMO. Aion should serve as a mild distraction...

Thus, I'll probably plop down the debit card to add to my gaming box collection on my shelf. Someday soon, I see my games outnumbering books on my shelf, and at that time I will have to seriously contemplate what went so horribly wrong and when.

[AcidCat]

I am not looking for anything life altering in gameplay and seem to enjoy the relative safety of an ordinary DIKU MMO. Aion should serve as a mild distraction...

Kind of my same mindset. At this point I'm just looking for a new competently-done diku that isn't WoW.

[Mrbloodworth]

Obama plays Aion

[Ghambit]

So how many of us are basically going to choose between Aion, ChampO, and JGE? (might as well throw in f2p DDO also)
I'd say a lot of the potential release-time success of those 3 are going to be who releases first and/or how successful their OB is.

Personallly, I've already got too much on the plate traditional fantasy diku-wise and with DDO going F2P, I dont need Aion.  Perhaps if it was more "different" I'd stab at it, but word is it aint. 

Too many damned games coming out this Fall, during the busiest time of the year for most peoples.  dumb dumb dumb there's nothing this summer 'cept frakkin webgames 

[Draegan]

NDA has dropped man, if you have some way to prove me wrong, by all means, have at it. But please, don't be a knobtard.

What do you want to know?  Details of the game have been released for a while any many people have played the game which made the us nda confusing.

The game is stable.  It works.  The rvr design is much better than war by which I mean is its fun.  
The classes are fun.  And its all typical diku fantasy.  

The only issue is the grind in certain spots in v1.0 whereas the are allievating them in the soon to be released 1.3 update in korea.

The grind is not lineage bad but its like wow + 10 or 20% .. which may change but I doubt it.

Its a shinier asian wow.  Its full diku where you get wings and from what I've experienced its well done for what its trying to do.

@darniaq
Goto gamestop or something and they'll just give you a beta key if they have any left.  Or you can preorder from amazon.

If you want to play 6 hours free in china its a hassle.

[DLRiley]

My money is ChampO and Aion taking the gold. JGE online ain't going to pull the subs if its honestly releasing at the same time as those 2. It must literally be perfect with balls dripping with jesus sweat in order to turn the average "hey its tie fighters vs x fighters " gamer into a bug eyed fanboy in mass numbers. All Aion has to do is have stable servers...

[Lantyssa]

How much overlap is there really, if they manage to break more than niche numbers?

[Soln]

this is the post-AoC post-WAR great white hope for many

[sam, an eggplant]

this is the post-AoC post-WAR great white hope for many

Many at ncsoft, maybe. The rest of us fully expected it to be yet another crappy asian MMO and are looking forward to bioware's starwars game.

[Draegan]

You're wrong if you expect this to be another crappy asian mmog.  Though if you think wow is crap then you're going to think aion is crap.

A close analogy might be eq is to lineage as wow is to aion.  Or eq is to ffxi as wow is to aion.

[DLRiley]

LOL! I'm still not convinced their (swotr) not making hellgate london  . No Soln is right, go to the AoC or WAR forums, its Aion is rapter riding jesus wearing Arnold's Terminator shades  . This is a group of players that have been broken down like a race horse, you know the type who would go on and on about how the wow clones are dead and only something totally new can ever hope to be successful. There was given their new (well in WAR case something old sold like its new), they tried to fanboy it, but as the ship sank deeper and the respective playerbases realized (but still won't admit) that what they were asking for were really bad ideas after all, Aion the bland korean grinder that could, looks shiner and shiner. The irony is delicious. Aion will probably ran over the limping WAR with a truck and will haul the remaining playerbase as it drives away, AoC might live if it decides to speed up the "remove suck maximize what little fun that exist" process by a factor of 1000.

[sam, an eggplant]

A close analogy might be eq is to lineage as wow is to aion.  Or eq is to ffxi as wow is to aion.

I'd rather go down on my grandma than play either lineage or ffxi.

Speaking of analogies, allow me to phrase it in SAT terms.

Question
WoW : Aion ::

a) EQ : Lineage
b) EQ : FFXI
c) EQ : Colonoscopy, hot sauce, no anesthetic
d) EQ : Just kick me in the nuts and take my $50 already, I give up. I'll be off weeping and pissing blood if you need me.
e) All of the above are equivalent.

Answer
E

[Draegan]

I'm just saying that EQ was a terrible game.  Shit grind and buggy.  WOW improved upon that and made a fun game.  I share the same opinion that Lineage and FFXI were shit games as well but Aion improved upon them and made (at least the first twenty levels I played through) a better game.  Using FFXI and Lineage since they are both eastern games.

[gryeyes]

Based on the handful of hours I got to play the game I was fairly impressed. Far more captivating than WHO,TR and LOTR at the very least. Definitely worth giving it a shot.

[NiX]

I'm sure once the honeymoon is over, it'll be the same griping as always.

[Hayduke]

I think your list of pros for the game talked me out of trying it.  I don't really see anything you wrote that is mutually exclusive to what Schild wrote.

[Draegan]

I think your list of pros for the game talked me out of trying it.  I don't really see anything you wrote that is mutually exclusive to what Schild wrote.

That's fair.  If you want different gameplay than WOW this is going to be a boring game for you.

[Soln]

the PvP kids are angrily waiting for this is all I'm saying.  It won't move the PvE crowd that much I expect.  But it will eat WAR alive.

[kondratti]

Isn't making a game primarily for WoW customers a short ride to Fail?  WoW players already have a game to play.

[DLRiley]

Not when it has lots of flashing colors 

[Hayduke]

But it will eat WAR alive.

Nah I think Mythic dodged a bullet by doing that before NCSoft got a chance.

[tmp]

Isn't making a game primarily for WoW customers a short ride to Fail?  WoW players already have a game to play.

Well, if it's WoW + much higher fidelity visuals + extra appearance customization... all MMOs have churn, WoW too. Plenty people are out there willing to give new thing a try, vide inital sales for AoC/WAR and the Aion doing well in areas where it already launched, even though WoW has been available there for long time.

[schild]

LOL! I'm still not convinced their (swotr) not making hellgate london  . No Soln is right, go to the AoC or WAR forums, its Aion is rapter riding jesus wearing Arnold's Terminator shades  . This is a group of players that have been broken down like a race horse, you know the type who would go on and on about how the wow clones are dead and only something totally new can ever hope to be successful. There was given their new (well in WAR case something old sold like its new), they tried to fanboy it, but as the ship sank deeper and the respective playerbases realized (but still won't admit) that what they were asking for were really bad ideas after all, Aion the bland korean grinder that could, looks shiner and shiner. The irony is delicious. Aion will probably ran over the limping WAR with a truck and will haul the remaining playerbase as it drives away, AoC might live if it decides to speed up the "remove suck maximize what little fun that exist" process by a factor of 1000.

If you ever type a paragraph this stupid again, we will ban you.

Period.

[Falconeer]

NDA dropped. Doesn't matter what I saw in the beta and how much I liked it or not. Some of my screenshots are the coolness and the awesomeness, but that's not nearly enough.

The tiebreaker will be PvP.

We all know what Aion is when it comes to gameplay, repetition, and dull automatic combat. It's still EQ++ after 10 years. The same is true for LotRO, WoW, EQ2, all of them...

Beside the fact I don't think the auto-attack combat turd can be polished anymore, should PvP prove to be even just slightly satisfying (the way it really plays out, not the metagame shit) then I'll be playing it.
If on the other hand they expect me to still hold any interest in questing, XPing, capping and blandly looting, I'll get what I can out of the first month and then gladly move anywhere else as long as it is out of the box, or requires more than a monkey to play it.