Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Threash]

So everyone who said it was just another Korean MMO with a centimeter thick coat of Western paint on it only to be subsequently taunted about how this is the best game since WoW were right? Imagine...

How exactly is it NOT the best game since WoW? unless you are really into crafting and just love that crafting game everyone else is playing there really is no question about it.

[ghost]

This game is certainly the best MMO since WOW.  The problem is that WOW had style.  This game is generic and formulaic.  I like it, but I don't think I can do it long term.

[Checkers]

So everyone who said it was just another Korean MMO with a centimeter thick coat of Western paint on it only to be subsequently taunted about how this is the best game since WoW were right? Imagine...

The game is doing quite well, and it will continue to do well because it is not "just another Korean MMO".  Also, nobody was defending Aion to the degree that the OMFGDIKULAWLS!!111 faction has ever claimed.  The clamouring to shit all over the game has had less to do with the game itself, or any person's defence of it, and more to do with the sheer number of mouthbreathing spazzes that populate this forum lately.  

[Kageru]

It might be the best game since WoW... but that's more a sad commentary on how many half-baked MMO releases there have been over that time. I mean when your competition is things like warhammer, conan and champions online it's not much of a claim.

WoW isn't really competing with Aion though. World PvP is not something WoW is ever likely to include. Nor do I expect Aion's PvE content to come anywhere close to what WoW has to offer.

[Venkman]

That's been a fact since UO. Aion is the best MMO since WoW and is a Korean grind painted with a Westernized coat. It scratches the diku itch for people not into Raiding nor Arenas and have already rolled six alts to max in WoW.

If you want something different, we've known for years this was not going to be it.

[Kageh]

It wasn't the best MMO EDIT: since WOW for me. If I were to judge objectively, I'd say LOTRO was better. Subjectively, I felt that Age of Conan had a lot more immersion and I felt a lot more compelled to play than I ever did with AION. AION is pretty and straightforward and technically polished, but I somehow never felt the enthusiasm I had for other MMOs. Maybe I'm getting too old for the same old crap, I don't know.

[gryeyes]

Anyone know when the server maintenance begins and ends? The page that gives the information doesn' seem to be working.

[Modern Angel]

and more to do with the sheer number of mouthbreathing spazzes that populate this forum lately.  

Irony, thy name is post count of 44.

I think that LOTRO is objectively better than Aion. I also feel the same way about Guild Wars, also released after Aion. All I'm hearing from the majority of people I know, in real life and online (it's a whole fuckton of people) is that they're leaving either due to the grind or the customer service/botting/spam issues. Well holy fuck, Batman, everyone knew it was Lineage 2 with quests and a shorter grind. It's one more game in the West driven almost solely by WoW ennui. It'll do fine just because of the sheer number of boxes sold but it's another release and peak game in the States.

[Morfiend]

Irony... post count...

[Lantyssa]

I'd lump Free Realms as better, but I also think that crafting game everyone's raving about is, too.  There are technical and graphical aspects of Aion I really like, and I think it will continue to do well, it's just too grindy.

On the design side, I still believe having levels in a PvP game is stupid.

[Modern Angel]

Oh, yeah. Free Realms. That game is intensely fun for all ages in small doses.

[Draegan]

I saw my guild's population just plummet after 3 weeks.  I find myself logging in less and less.  Meh.  The level flow was perfect up to 20, which happens to be the level I got up to in beta.  Oh well.  The game is fun though so I'll keep playing but I'll be playing a lot less hours.

[Venkman]

Yea, this one is likely to have as much a post-launch fall off in the West as WAR did. And it pretty much is going to be that grind. Even if it's not true (as would be espoused profusely by which F13er becomes the diehard fan of Aion ) the general perception in a lot of non-hardcore communities is that you hit 25-30 and it radically slows down while you're dodging gank squads or losing your shirt on Soul Healing.

It's a solid game, but it's not the train ride to 60 that WoW was at launch. They needed this one to be different enough to not be directly comparable, but too much of the game is. And when 90% of your audience is coming from one other game, the comparisons are inevitable.

It might be the best game since WoW... but that's more a sad commentary on how many half-baked MMO releases there have been over that time. I mean when your competition is things like warhammer, conan and champions online it's not much of a claim.

That's sort of the point though. People like to think WoW changed the rules. But the reality is that five years on, all they did was invent new ones. Take WoW out of the equation and this genre hasn't really evolved at all, except to at least have a guaranteed playable game on day one. Without the elephant in the room, all of these games would have launched in worse condition and kept ardent fanbois for longer while they screamed louder in collectively-dumbed-down places around the web. This would have continued the tradiiton of giving false permission for crappy launches.

Nowadays, at least with WoW, we're afforded slightly less crappy launches. Hurray for progress! 

[Lantyssa]

To their credit, it still launched in much better shape than WAR or AoC, so I think it will see higher retention than them.  The main issue is that it is not very casual friendly.

[Nebu]

To their credit, it still launched in much better shape than WAR or AoC, so I think it will see higher retention than them. 

Hadn't it already been up and running in Korea for a year?  If so, that's not really comparing apples to apples. 

[Ashamanchill]

The thing that gets me, is it seems like it's only one or two things that need to be tweaked to turn it back around, rather than systemic problems (Hello WAR). There is a core of fun in the pvp, it's just coated in nonsense (the grind, gold spammers, et al).

Although I may be pilloried for this, I feel that the game could use some low level battlegrounds. With xp for pvp. Just until you hit the abyss. The game made us jump through too many pve hoops for its pvp fun.

At Danaiq: Where's Bill Murry???

[Draegan]

They need to fix the level curve.  If you can get into a dungeon group for the Training Ground it's like 50-75% of a level per run from 25-28.  Then you stop.  It's great.  But it's on a timer.

[Threash]

They need to fix the level curve.  If you can get into a dungeon group for the Training Ground it's like 50-75% of a level per run from 25-28.  Then you stop.  It's great.  But it's on a timer.

Having to stop doing it at 29 sucks bad.  I wish i was still doing it at 31.

[gryeyes]

I held off from leveling to 29 by dying repeatedly so i could get one more run in. First kill I dinged to 29 then got a good 3/4ths a level (small group), combined with a healthy chunk of restored exp. Completely worth it.

[Morfiend]

It seems to be like game "flow" is one of their main problems. A lot of people came to Aion for the PVP, and you cant even start until 25, and even them you are pretty much just fodder. Also the level speeds seem very inconsistent. Quest exp is another problem in that some give 5k while others give 50k for basically the same thing.

Low level battleground, or level restricted areas in the Abyss would do wonders I think.

What it really feels like to me is gating content with grinding, and I dont like that. At ALL.

[Venkman]

I feel that the game could use some low level battlegrounds. With xp for pvp. Just until you hit the abyss. The game made us jump through too many pve hoops for its pvp fun.

Nah, I think most here would agree with you. For a game heavily marketed as having flying PvP, there's way too little of either until 15+ hours in the game for people not on their fourth alt.

At Danaiq: Where's Bill Murry???

With your R and A  

I need something new. Just undecided.

They need to fix the level curve.  If you can get into a dungeon group for the Training Ground it's like 50-75% of a level per run from 25-28.  Then you stop.  It's great.  But it's on a timer.

Yea, but you're still talking about solo-questing until PUG Raiding, which is what we could be doing in the much more polished WoW. They need PvP to start earlier, as people mentioned in Beta, and one of the few things WAR got right (as Morfiend just mentioned). Otherwise, the complaints will call for more content and NC might respond wrongly by adding more PvE quest grinds, which they can't possibly do to the degree that WoW-at-5-years has.

They need to play to what they promised.

[Threash]

I held off from leveling to 29 by dying repeatedly so i could get one more run in. First kill I dinged to 29 then got a good 3/4ths a level (small group), combined with a healthy chunk of restored exp. Completely worth it.

I wish i had thought of that.

[Draegan]

I don't mind the pvping earlier, but I'm completely against instanced PVP.  If they can somehow keep open pvp and not limit it via level, but maybe a penalty.  

[Tmon]

I'd lump Free Realms as better, but I also think that crafting game everyone's raving about is, too.  There are technical and graphical aspects of Aion I really like, and I think it will continue to do well, it's just too grindy.

On the design side, I still believe having levels in a PvP game is stupid.

Yup, I haven't bought it because I don't want to face doing 25 levels just to get to the fun part of the game. Which I know wouldn't be fun for long since I'd never make it to max level anyway and my tolerance for getting smashed like a bug in PVP isn't all that high.

[Lantyssa]

Hadn't it already been up and running in Korea for a year?  If so, that's not really comparing apples to apples. 

For the majority of NA players it doesn't matter where or when a game launches elsewhere.  It's our launch that matters to our perceptions of it.

If we wanted to have an exact comparison though, we could ask how WAR is doing in Russia and Taiwan.

[Modern Angel]

Like Darniaq said, launches are mostly fine now. I guess that's good. It's the wall of suck/grind/spam/idiocy three weeks in that's the undoing.

When was the last time a AAA title launched in horrendous, old school state? It looked like Champions was flirting with it based on open beta but it was mostly okay.

[Nebu]

If we wanted to have an exact comparison though, we could ask how WAR is doing in Russia and Taiwan.

Excellent point. 

I think that they're both train wrecks with no long-term future.  Aion will last longer mostly because it attempted less innovation and as such, risked less in its implementation.  Aion is just a Lineage-flavored WoW clone. 

[Ingmar]

Like Darniaq said, launches are mostly fine now. I guess that's good. It's the wall of suck/grind/spam/idiocy three weeks in that's the undoing.

When was the last time a AAA title launched in horrendous, old school state? It looked like Champions was flirting with it based on open beta but it was mostly okay.

Does post-Tortage AoC count?

[Modern Angel]

I'm talking mostly server stability hilarity.

[Tarami]

The problem is that it doesn't really matter what western players expect or want from Aion, it'll never sever its ties to the Korean version in more than superficial ways. I can't imagine that NCsoft wants to fund two branches of development for Aion, even if it turns out to be doing really well in the west. What I see is that NCsoft hoped to get away with doing a decent localization up front, then have the Korean studio do all the heavy lifting henceforth and just have a skeleton crew in the west for patch localization. I think even boosting quest XP is beyond what they're prepared to do, and changing when the PvP is introduced it just out there.

I think a major problem NCsoft will face over the coming months is to deliver the news that Aion isn't going to become more casual friendly than it is. Casual players (i.e. the big bulk of MMO players) aren't relevant just during levelling, they're relevant at all levels and with every content patch. Even if NCsoft "fixes" the levelling curve, all content going forward will also have to be casual friendly not to make people leave at that point. Under the assumption that all content will be coming from the Korean Aion studio, I can't see that becoming reality. It is a Korean DIKU and it'll remain a Korean DIKU and personally I find the notion that it can't ever be truly fixed disheartening in a way far worse than just a shitty launch is. MMO players are pretty religous in their beliefs that it'll get better given enough time. Aion may not become better, ever.

[Modern Angel]

That's what struck me about the disenchantment reports. They're trying to make precisely the same game for a pay by the hour, internet cafe, don't mind a grind culture at the same time as a quest oriented, monthly fee, solo interested culture. And I just thought, Christ, this isn't going to end up working in the long run because they're going to have to choose.

[Morfiend]

If you cancel your account, they dont even ask you why.

[Checkers]

More than just the traditional mob grinding, it was the complete lack of any sense of adventure that killed the game for me.  I've never played another MMO that felt as linear as Aion.  I never once felt like an explorer.  Zones felt incredibly closed-in.   I was experiencing claustrophobia in a game whose major selling point is freedom of flight.  That's astonishing.

[gryeyes]

I feel pretty much the same way, the "world" feels like a bunch of loosely connected levels. Everything is really neat looking and strange so nothing really has an impact of going to see neat looking shit and exploring you do in other games. I don't really know why a zone looks the way it does beyond extremely vague texts in quests. Theres like 3-4 books in the "library" that has given me a majority of the knowledge about the world. Just a little bit more effort in additional to exp re-balancing would make the quests palatable. They came so close why would they half ass some easily added "flavor".

The premise is kinda cool being demi-god beings to explain ressing. I always liked when a games lore accounted for why we never died. EvE and Aion being two good examples.

[Slyfeind]

AC did that too, with the Lifestones and Thorsten Cragstone being the last person to ever truly die in Dereth. It used to irritate me when my friends roleplayed death in that game.