Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Morfiend]

I think Aion would be a fantastic game if it was created by a US company. But as I played in the beta and preview, more and more I'd notice stuff I thought should be fixed or adjusted, but almost everything that wasn't working for me was a Korean aspect and I knew it wasn't going to be on the table. They can adjust quests and stuff, but unless they're going to completely branch the code, Korean tastes are in charge. I think that's why I never picked it up after being so enthusiastic about it.

This is how I feel. Except I was taken in by all the PR spin of "We are making lots of changes to make it appealing to a Western market". I dont think its a bad game, and a lot of people seem to enjoy grinding (boggle), but I dont, so I continue to look for a game with open world PVP that doesnt require me to grind foozles for hours and hours before getting to the good stuff.

Its not really enjoyment of grinding so much as seeing no difference between sitting in on place killing mobs and sitting in one place killing mobs while periodically running back to a quest giver.  Leveling is leveling and as long as it keeps happening at a decent pace i'm happy.

Not for me its not. WoW's questing has spoiled me to spawn camp grinding and I find it no fun now.

[Numtini]

Yeah this one's like the chick you run into at a party who's awesome and totally clicks with you, but she's not into dudes.

Perfect 

This is how I feel. Except I was taken in by all the PR spin of "We are making lots of changes to make it appealing to a Western market". I dont think its a bad game, and a lot of people seem to enjoy grinding (boggle), but I dont, so I continue to look for a game with open world PVP that doesnt require me to grind foozles for hours and hours before getting to the good stuff.

I think they did as good a job as they possibly could have. The thing is, we all knew they weren't going to be handed the code for a full branch. You can change the text. You can even patch some graphics. But you aren't going to totally change the direction of a game. And that's what I think needs to happen to make it more palatable.

And on the forking code, Grenado Espada's US publisher really did try to change things, but it involved very long delays in patching and never quite worked. After I think one patch, they gave up and reverted it back to the base code with English patched in.

[Koyasha]

So they announced Veteran Rewards recently, which I think is great - announcing them very early on.  One of the thing that always irked me just a bit about EQ's vet rewards is the whole springing them on us after several years of playing.  I mean, sure, at the time it was a new idea that they just came up with, probably, but it always annoyed me because of the 'well if I had known, I would have never let my account lapse, and I would have created my main character on my oldest account'.

6 month bonus is 60 second wings that also add HP and MP.  Unfortunately, from what I can tell from reading the FAQ, you can't buy a 6-month subscription and get them immediately.  You actually have to wait for the 6 months to pass.  If you could get them right away by buying a 6-month subscription, I'll wager that a significant amount of people that are 40+ and planning to stick with the game would do it right away.

[Threash]

Where did you read that stuff?

[Koyasha]

http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=145&page=

http://na.aiononline.com/veteranrewards/

[Threash]

Well i guess i can start blowing through my Lodas Amulets already, that should speed up leveling a bit.

[Morfiend]

Spoiler'ed for long quote. This was posted by a guy who plays on the Korean server.


Makes me glad I quit at level 20.

[Threash]

End game gear = abyss gear, fire temple is just a mid 30s leveling instance.  I know exactly how much the end game gear costs and what my higher level guildmates are getting as far as abyss points, and they are not even 50.

[01101010]

End game gear = abyss gear, fire temple is just a mid 30s leveling instance.  I know exactly how much the end game gear costs and what my higher level guildmates are getting as far as abyss points, and they are not even 50.

Don't drown... I am all out of life-savers.

[Threash]

Hey if you wanna take some obvious nerd raging with zero facts or numbers as gospel knock yourself out, you can easily check how much top abyss gear costs and its not hard to ask high level players how much they are bringing in if you want anything resembling real info though.

[Falconeer]

Spoiler'ed for long quote. This was posted by a guy who plays on the Korean server.

There are only 4 things to do in Aion in endgame at level 50.

1. Endless PvP in the Abyss and rifts: to obtain medals and AP fun

2. Uninterested.

3. Uh? Probably interested.

4. Uninterested.

That's good enough. I bought the game for that. I don't fucking care about PvE drop rates in a PvP game.

[Koyasha]

It's kind of that the person is complaining that all there is to do in a pvp game is...uhh...pvp.  Or do the couple pve things for pve gear if you really feel like it.

Although I will admit there is one thing where pve drops are significant.  As far as I know, the only extendable weapons so far are drops from either a raid boss or an instance.  I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like from my limited research.

[Kageru]

Surely even PvP gains from variety, and it still doesn't sound like they have that. Nor do the fort sieges sound like really fun PvP.

[Koyasha]

Variety in pvp kind of a quandary though.  If you give a pvp game too much terrain and too many different activities, you just thinned down the population so much that each individual activity doesn't have enough people at it to make it fun anymore, because at any given time people are in 20 different places trying to do 20 different things.  If you say 'this is where the pvp is' and keep that area relatively small, then that's where everyone goes for the pvp.  Aion wisely channels as much pvp as possible into as small an area as is reasonable.  The Abyss, despite being reasonably large, is also quite small when you really look at it.  This keeps pvp high, instead of having vast stretches of terrain where you and your enemy are unlikely to ever encounter each other, or a dozen or more different objectives, each of which only has a handful of people trying to do something with it.

Fort sieges are pretty fun so far from the ones I've been involved in, too.  Even when losing.  At their core they're just zerg vs. zerg, but if your zergs are roughly balanced in size, then you can have various smaller teams doing very important tasks within the siege.  Like having your main force attacking the gates while a stealth group slips in through the rear entrance to try to assassinate the field projector while another two or three groups attack or defend at the artifacts, keeping them under your control so the enemy can't use them against you.  Course, when one zerg outnumbers the other by 3 to 1 or more, it takes an incredibly skilled general and pretty skilled troops to stand much of a chance.

[Checkers]

Spoiler'ed for long quote. This was posted by a guy who plays on the Korean server.

There are only 4 things to do in Aion in endgame at level 50.

1. Endless PvP in the Abyss and rifts: to obtain medals and AP fun

2. Uninterested.

3. Uh? Probably interested.

4. Uninterested.

That's good enough. I bought the game for that. I don't fucking care about PvE drop rates in a PvP game.

Falconeer, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but given that you related to my experience in Lineage 2, does it not bother you that in Aion, no matter how hard you work, ultimately your enemy will be determined by which of two factions they've chosen?  

As painful as grind-centric games can be, in a proper sandbox that effort is rewarded by giving you power over not just one particular faction, but potentially any other player you encounter.  In fact, under a completely open PvP environment, anything you do to improve your character gives you an advantage over any other player who has not expended equal effort.  Most of the time that effort is expressed in levels and gear, but I've known players that were such good leaders or so influential that their level or gear was not particularly important.  For me, that's PvP done right, particularly in the context of an MMORPG.   But in Aion, they've retained the grind while strictly limiting the number of people your efforts might influence by at least half.  

When I started playing Aion I hoped that somehow NCSoft might be able to merge the faction-based, RvR model with the truly open social/political PvP model, but after my first fortress siege I new that they'd failed.  At the end of the day, I was fighting against players whose alignment had almost nothing to do with how they were actually playing the game.  It was an entirely superficial experience.

[Threash]

Spoiler'ed for long quote. This was posted by a guy who plays on the Korean server.

There are only 4 things to do in Aion in endgame at level 50.

1. Endless PvP in the Abyss and rifts: to obtain medals and AP fun

2. Uninterested.

3. Uh? Probably interested.

4. Uninterested.

That's good enough. I bought the game for that. I don't fucking care about PvE drop rates in a PvP game.

Falconeer, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but given that you related to my experience in Lineage 2, does it not bother you that in Aion, no matter how hard you work, ultimately your enemy will be determined by which of two factions they've chosen?  

As painful as grind-centric games can be, in a proper sandbox that effort is rewarded by giving you power over not just one particular faction, but potentially any other player you encounter.  In fact, under a completely open PvP environment, anything you do to improve your character gives you an advantage over any other player who has not expended equal effort.  Most of the time that effort is expressed in levels and gear, but I've known players that were such good leaders or so influential that their level or gear was not particularly important.  For me, that's PvP done right, particularly in the context of an MMORPG.   But in Aion, they've retained the grind while strictly limiting the number of people your efforts might influence by at least half.  

When I started playing Aion I hoped that somehow NCSoft might be able to merge the faction-based, RvR model with the truly open social/political PvP model, but after my first fortress siege I new that they'd failed.  At the end of the day, I was fighting against players whose alignment had almost nothing to do with how they were actually playing the game.  It was an entirely superficial experience.

I completely agree with you, open pvp games like you describe would be preferable to faction based.  I just don't know any good ones.

[Koyasha]

Well I know you directed the question at Falconeer and not me, but...I agree with pretty much all your points, however I don't see many options for an open pvp mmo these days.  Lineage II I've never managed to get all the way to the 60s and beyond.  Not because of the grind, but because of the grind combined with all the other horribad mechanics like the lack of a proper shop search, and in particular the way dark elves run.  So, with L2 out, Age of Conan having a combat mechanic that doesn't feel right for me, and WAR not worth trying, there's not really anything out there other than Aion.

My idea of good PvP is old UO, Shadowbane, Lineage II or even Rallos Zek, despite EQ's mechanics being horrible for PvP, and probably EVE and Age of Conan, from what I hear about them - although I've never played past the intro levels in either, so I'm not sure about those.  The latter two keep me away with gameplay mechanics not suited to my taste.  PvP in a completely open world has some issues, though, primarily when the world hasn't got enough population to keep people constantly fighting, or has no mechanic to logistically weaken the strong, so others have a chance to dethrone them.  One of my problems with things in Lineage II in particular is that one alliance tended to control everything on each server.  And it never changed.  Even when I quit and came back over a year later, nothing had changed.  The same people, the same clans, and no one strong enough to compete with them.  Hard coded factions are much less meaningful and somewhat less fun, in a lot of ways.  But they're also easier to balance and have more room for the developers to prevent one side from totally dominating (although even in this situation they often fail), so they're more common and I doubt we'll see a hell of a lot of completely open pvp games, given the track record.

So for me, yes it bothers me, but it's also better than the currently available alternative which is pvp with even less meaning, in the form of battlegrounds and arenas.

[Checkers]

Lineage II I've never managed to get all the way to the 60s and beyond.  Not because of the grind, but because of the grind combined with all the other horribad mechanics like the lack of a proper shop search, and in particular the way dark elves run.  

It's funny that you mention the way dark elves run, because I had a friend come by one day while I was on my Abyss Walker and he could not stop laughing at how "ridiculous" her run animation was.  To this day he teases me about it.

PvP in a completely open world has some issues, though, primarily when the world hasn't got enough population to keep people constantly fighting, or has no mechanic to logistically weaken the strong, so others have a chance to dethrone them.  One of my problems with things in Lineage II in particular is that one alliance tended to control everything on each server.  And it never changed.  Even when I quit and came back over a year later, nothing had changed.  The same people, the same clans, and no one strong enough to compete with them.

I was thinking along these lines when I signed up for Aion.  You're right, one major guild or alliance tends to dominate in open PvP environments.  So, if that's the case, and a player-driven community is effectively the same as a developer-driven one, what's there to complain about?  Well, it's hard to know where to begin with that sort of question because ultimately it's a matter of taste.  I guess it comes down to whether you're an "ends" vs "means" personality.  If you're an ends personality, the path to victory is not particularly important.  If you're a means personality, it is.  Any limitation on the ability of a means personality to define their path to victory is a hindrance on their gameplay.

The fundamental problem with the MMO industry is its failure to recognize that you need to cater to one community or the other, because it's impossible to cater to both.  It also needs to recognize that even though the ends community is far larger than the means community, the respective margins of profitability remain equal.  But because the MMO industry is largely run by basement-dwellers or amateur golf enthusiasts, it will continue to flounder.

[Kageru]

I was thinking along these lines when I signed up for Aion.  You're right, one major guild or alliance tends to dominate in open PvP environments.  So, if that's the case, and a player-driven community is effectively the same as a developer-driven one, what's there to complain about?

A developer driven community, by which I assume you mean PvE opponents, doesn't mind losing. Indeed it is balanced so that it will definitely lose, give rewards and be replaced with something harder.

It seems to me the only way open RvR can work is if you allow the strong side to "win" the game and then re-balance and restart. Otherwise you will probably evolve towards the dominant side entrenching their position, the weaker side finding something more fun to do and the game becoming stagnant. Possibly Aion tries to balance this out by having nothing to really "win" in the abyss, it's more like an endless arena, but that comes at a cost in gameplay variety.

[Falconeer]

Falconeer, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but given that you related to my experience in Lineage 2, does it not bother you that in Aion, no matter how hard you work, ultimately your enemy will be determined by which of two factions they've chosen?  

It does. That's why I prefer the Ultima Online, EVE, Shadowbane and Age of Conan PvP models over the Aion one. Never said Aion is PvP done right. It's RvR, which is not exactly my cup of tea. And it's not even RvR done perfectly, but it's ok to me.

[DLRiley]

The fundamental problem with the MMO industry is its failure to recognize that you need to cater to one community or the other,.

Eww the fundamental problem with player feedback is players telling developers to do the above. You instantly divorced yourself from every successful mmo in the fucking industry once you think "pander to your base" (not to bring politics) is how your going to comepete with real mmo's. I don't have to bring up WoW. Look at EvE both a pve and pvp game that satisfies both communities, even though CCP originally never wanted a playerbase composed of empire carebears its success is ironically due to the fact that the game can support empire carebears. Any real money thrown at an mmo has to account for the fact that no one just belongs to one niche or another. If you do you are the exception to the golden rule and it is a golden rule because greener pastures are always the games that offer your current play style + more. Mmo's are judged by 3 things, how many play styles it supports, how quickly someone play their desired play style, and how fun is the game once players game the system. If the game falters on any of the three, you might as well make f2p.

[Checkers]

I was thinking along these lines when I signed up for Aion.  You're right, one major guild or alliance tends to dominate in open PvP environments.  So, if that's the case, and a player-driven community is effectively the same as a developer-driven one, what's there to complain about?

A developer driven community, by which I assume you mean PvE opponents, doesn't mind losing. Indeed it is balanced so that it will definitely lose, give rewards and be replaced with something harder.

By developer-driven communities I meant to refer to factions (Horde vs Alliance, Elyos vs Asmodians, etc).

[Checkers]

The fundamental problem with the MMO industry is its failure to recognize that you need to cater to one community or the other,.

You instantly divorced yourself from every successful mmo in the fucking industry once you think "pander to your base" (not to bring politics) is how your going to comepete with real mmo's.

This isn't some two party system where success demands that you have fully half the public on your side.  You can pander in business and be quite successful doing it, depending on how big your target market is.  

I'm not sure what you mean by "real mmo's" but in terms of my ends vs means ramblings, many MMOs seem to start off trying to cater to both types of players, and then progressively refocus their efforts towards one or the other (usually the ends type).  WoW is a pretty good example of this, and in fact there is a lot of complaining currently about whether the game has become too easy, and that players don't feel like they're really working for anything anymore.

I don't know much about Eve's evolution, and whether it was ever more or, possibly, even less friendly to the kind of player WoW attracts.

[Xurtan]

As far as I know, the only extendable weapons so far are drops from either a raid boss or an instance.  I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like from my limited research.

Some of them come from quests, some can be crafted. Although admittedly, at this point the only extendable weapons I have seen from either of those are maces.

[Xurtan]

Crap, wrong button. Pretend I said something witty here. 

[SnakeCharmer]

that players don't feel like they're really working for anything anymore.

Games (mmos or otherwise) aren't work.  They're supposed to be fun.

Too often people forget about that.

[Nebu]

Games (mmos or otherwise) aren't work.  They're supposed to be fun.

Too often people forget about that.

Sadly, developers seem to forget as well. 

[Checkers]

Games (mmos or otherwise) aren't work.  They're supposed to be fun.

Too often people forget about that.

Sadly, developers seem to forget as well.  

Persistent worlds shouldn't function like lobbies.  I'm not interested glorified chat.  I want to invest in my character and be rewarded for it.  I want the investment to be fun.  I want to be able to differentiate myself from other players via that investment.  That means that all rewards can't be gifts, and that some rewards should be harder than others to obtain.  That means I have to work.

[DLRiley]

The fundamental problem with the MMO industry is its failure to recognize that you need to cater to one community or the other,.

You instantly divorced yourself from every successful mmo in the fucking industry once you think "pander to your base" (not to bring politics) is how your going to comepete with real mmo's.

This isn't some two party system where success demands that you have fully half the public on your side.  You can pander in business and be quite successful doing it, depending on how big your target market is.  

I'm not sure what you mean by "real mmo's" but in terms of my ends vs means ramblings, many MMOs seem to start off trying to cater to both types of players, and then progressively refocus their efforts towards one or the other (usually the ends type).  WoW is a pretty good example of this, and in fact there is a lot of complaining currently about whether the game has become too easy, and that players don't feel like they're really working for anything anymore.

I don't know much about Eve's evolution, and whether it was ever more or, possibly, even less friendly to the kind of player WoW attracts.

When I say real mmo's i'm talking about mmo's with a budget. I proper analogy is mmo's are a lot like target and walmart.

[Mavor]

 Does a canadian living in South Korea count?

 Anyways, that's the culture here. People here feel more reward from hours invested then from exactly what the hours invested are. It's quite strange honestly, but you have to keep in mind that the lower the chance for someone to attain something, the higher the value of it is. A game without rules, boundaries and limits is not a game. Having gods power is not fun.

 Think it's taken a bit too extreme from Korean game makers though.

[gryeyes]

Rarity of achievement doesn't mesh with a game whose highest echelons of advancement can easily be accomplished by a simple bot that only knows how to grind. Nobody will play Aion and never "attain" 50 with full abyss gear unless to choose to quit. Progression is reduced to /played, with no modifier for personal ability. A majority of the more "advanced" characters on my server are not played by humans at all, with a large chunk of the remainder being 50/50 setups. The game makes cheating almost a requirement if you want to play. Sense of accomplishment rendered irrelevant by bots being able to surpass a normal player regardless how inclined to poop socking they are.

Take a gander at characters by level,title and AP. Tell me if you notice anything strange. And this is with a system in place that forces many bots to "de-exp" so they can farm a given level range, and is only the ones making no attempt to mask their activities.

[Threash]

There are zero bots in the abyss, that simply cannot happen.  I almost posted to this thread that i had never seen a bot and i didn't know what the hell people were going on about, that was because i spent 25-35 entirely in the abyss, it wasn't until i stepped out to do campaign quests that i saw the problem.

[gryeyes]

Thats not true, while the RMTing variety of bots don't do it in any appreciable numbers, MANY of the players who run a bot while they are semi-afk or sleeping do. Pointless for a bot whose purpose is creating kinah to do so, so they dont. And even with my limited knowledge of safe grinding spots in the abyss I know its entirely possible, it wouldn't even be difficult. If I can grind in the abyss for hours without player interference so can a bot. Any of the "areas" protected by a lighthouse, or inside a controlled fortress would do. Setup a kisk and have the bot flee back towards the safe area on detection of a player and you are set.

Soloing the "spy" quests I encountered several duo's and even 4-5 man parties of bots who could easily grind just about anywhere. Some would even detect a player and respond appropriately ignoring mobs until they died or killed the offender. This would be even more trivial if the bot in question is of a higher level and so can farm beyond the reach of a large % of the player base. Im sure there are places im unaware of (abyss instances maybe?) that are even more suited. Thinking back this is probably why NTC has such a long timer and narrow level range. But even if they absolutely could not farm the abyss, they can still purchase medals with the dearth of kinah they farm and attain gear that way. Every aspect of the game compliments the usage of bots. The entire long term economy seems hinged upon a crop of bots farming all level ranges. Since players cannot farm materials beyond a given level disparity.

[Threash]

Well like i said, i've spent nearly all of my time in the abyss and i've never ran into one.  While it might be theoretically possible it just seems highly unlikely that it would be worth it because of the very high chance that you will be found and killed.

[tmp]

The entire long term economy seems hinged upon a crop of bots farming all level ranges. Since players cannot farm materials beyond a given level disparity.

I think the long-term economy is pretty much level 50's making things for level 50's. With the item price scaling it's not like the higher level crafters and/or gatherers are going to be interested in things which sell for (relative) nickel-and-dime when they can earn hundreds of thousands and millions a pop. So the interest in lower level materials is going to be very low after a while.