Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[01101010]

mmm new bling and a set of chromed out 22" spinners... too bad its still running on a 4 banger with a blown cylinder (i.e., takes forever to get to the scenic drive spots).

[Falconeer]

What the game is missing is content. The XP needed to max out could stay untouched if they put in more content, quests and zones to get to 50 without having to just grind. Now, the video shows lots of content. Being skeptical is one thing, naysaying is another.

Wait and see, for a change?

[gryeyes]

Id have to disagree, what difference does "more content" matter when the PVE is universally bad (thats not going to change) and grinding is the path of least resistance? I dont care if you have 50 quests or 50,000. It will still take 12-16 hours per fucking level. People are focused on the insane grind because all other issues are irrelevant if you quit at 30. There is nothing to "naysay" its unquantified photage of a future "expansion" thats showing a bunch of random shit with no indication what that shit is or how it would be implemented.

We have some kind of raid stuff going on,mounts,mounted combat,player housing. And a bunch of siege looking stuff that is completely unrealistic with how the game currently runs in sieges. Of the games problems a lack of shiny neat looking shit is not one of them. More so you see some neat looking shit and forget why the games broken in the first place.

You dont get to say "wait and see" when the game is already launched based on a video of a future expansion. But I find the timing with your posts hilarious. NCSOFT I CALL U OUT UR STUPID! and then OMG SEE THAT GREAT SHIT IM BACK ON BOARD!.

[Falconeer]

I am still playing, which means, personally, I am ok with the game and having fun. I am angry cause NCsoft is making the game shrink in the West, which is something that will hurt me too in the long run.
Then again, a few improvements would make the game grow again and stop bleeding. And the videos shows way more than "a few improvements".

What's wrong in going straight from "Damn NCsoft, If it's staying like this it is probably going to to get old soon" and "Whoa, thank you NCsoft, this looks exactly like what I was asking for! (as it is clearly not staying like this)" based on a video like that?

[Draegan]

Time to level in Aion isn't actually that bad (I got up to level 31) when you think of the time invest per level.  It's just that it's fucking dull in between levels.  If they fleshed out the quest content it would be much improved.  Dungeons weren't too bad but they lacked loot and the experience wasn't great.  You felt like you were wasting your time and you didn't even get a good shot at a loot drop.

So more content.

I'd resub if I could level my way through a cheesy story like WOTLK.  I couldn't put up with doing quests and getting a quest exp reward equivalent to 2 mob kills.  And I hate mob grinding.

The pace of play of 1-20 was very well done.  It's was horrible once you left Altgard.

[gryeyes]

What's wrong in going straight from "Damn NCsoft, If it's staying like this it is probably going to to get old soon" and "Whoa, thank you NCsoft, this looks exactly like what I was asking for! (as it is clearly not staying like this)" based on a video like that?

Because not a single thing in that video has any bearing on the shit you were calling NCsoft out about hahaha. Geez, "NCSOFT YOU RETARDS I HATE YOU WHY ARENT YOU RESPONDING!?!" in two different posts no less but all that changes when you see a video of random shit, with no release date, with no explanation of what that shit is.

Draegan please don't even attempt to tell me 12-48hrs per level MINIMUM from low 30's up is not that much time. Its not a magical coincidence 90% of the people in this thread (and every other thread on any forum I read) quit at that very same point. For some perspective it will take a comparable amount of time to level 1-30 than 30-36. You didn't even brush against the grind.

[Falconeer]

Gryeyes had a hard day. Someone give him a glass of water.

[Threash]

Time to level in Aion isn't actually that bad (I got up to level 31) when you think of the time invest per level.  It's just that it's fucking dull in between levels.  If they fleshed out the quest content it would be much improved.  Dungeons weren't too bad but they lacked loot and the experience wasn't great.  You felt like you were wasting your time and you didn't even get a good shot at a loot drop.

So more content.

I'd resub if I could level my way through a cheesy story like WOTLK.  I couldn't put up with doing quests and getting a quest exp reward equivalent to 2 mob kills.  And I hate mob grinding.

The pace of play of 1-20 was very well done.  It's was horrible once you left Altgard.

Exactly, things like going three miserable levels without new abilities and doing the math and figuring out how many thousands of lephartists you need to slaughter for your next level is whats killing the drive to play, not the time to level.

[Lantyssa]

Then again, a few improvements would make the game grow again and stop bleeding. And the videos shows way more than "a few improvements".

They seem to be adding a lot of what I really want in an MMO.  Things which would make me truly happy.

If they don't significantly reduce the grind, it won't matter.

[Draegan]

Draegan please don't even attempt to tell me 12-48hrs per level MINIMUM from low 30's up is not that much time. Its not a magical coincidence 90% of the people in this thread (and every other thread on any forum I read) quit at that very same point. For some perspective it will take a comparable amount of time to level 1-30 than 30-36. You didn't even brush against the grind.

Easy buddy, I said I had gotten up to only level 31.  That was my observation.

[sam, an eggplant]

The snow effects and various graphical upgrades look really sweet. They have a real sense of drama in their setpieces too. Nobody ever accused aion of being ugly or generic.

I still won't play due to grind, etc.

[01101010]

They seem to be adding a lot of what I really want in an MMO.  Things which would make me truly happy.

If they don't significantly reduce the grind, it won't matter.

Exactly my prior post. Doesn't matter how much or how good the frosting is, when you bake a cake with salt and not sugar, people will hate it.

[Ceryse]

The grind becomes a killer. I know in the Legion I was in we saw about a quarter of our original members drop out from the grind, at varying levels. Most started to feel the pain around 25+ (although, they tended to behind the leveling curve, which made one of the accompanying areas that opens up then.. almost impossible without a lot of frustration -- the Abyss). I got several alts going towards the end of my time in Aion, and what bothered me, perhaps most of all, was the sheer amount of difference in leveling speeds between classes like Clerics and Templars.. and just about anything else. I know my Sorc leveled almost twice as fast as my Cleric did from 25-40; and in a game with this much grind.. that adds up real quick.

But it was the grind and lack of in depth content that sealed the deal. Fire Temple? Only reason people even bother going there is the weapons from the last boss, which don't drop that often (one of my Aion highlights was seeing eleven of the Kromede version that has a better drop rate on the weapons.. and every single one dropped absolutely nothing, and the 'normal' version liked to drop a craft item for the other faction; thus utterly un-usable). Steel Rake can be almost as bad; especially the Middle Level.

The pacing in the game is just screwed up once you get closer to the end game. The game has a lot of promise to be an exceedingly good DIKU; but they simply seem to refuse to let go of some really shitty core design choices.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yep. Real pretty, though.

[Stormwaltz]

Watched the video.

Wished the features were in a game I found more enjoyable.

(Dynamic weather! I never thought anyone would try that after Dark & Light.)

[Ashamanchill]

The pacing in the game is just screwed up once you get closer to the end game. The game has a lot of promise to be an exceedingly good DIKU; but they simply seem to refuse to let go of some really shitty core design choices.

Seriously. Funcom Mythic NCSoft need to wake up.

[Draegan]

The pacing in the game is just screwed up once you get closer to the end game. The game has a lot of promise to be an exceedingly good DIKU; but they simply seem to refuse to let go of some really shitty core design choices.

Seriously. Funcom Mythic NCSoft  Everyone needs to wake up.

[sam, an eggplant]

Seriously. Funcom Mythic NCSoft need to wake up.

Whats funny is people always lump this kind of thing into armchair designing, implying that endusers don't know shit, but history has always proved the aggregate to be right. When the vast majority of players complain that feedback shouldn't be disregarded.

"Quality of life" is incredibly important, casual play matters, frequent rewards are critical, and risk vs. reward is an archaic concept. If you disagree with any of this, you are wrong. For the western world, anyway, asians are whacko.

[Nebu]

"Quality of life" is incredibly important, casual play matters, frequent rewards are critical, and risk vs. reward is an archaic concept. If you disagree with any of this, you are wrong. For the western world, anyway, asians are whacko.

I'd say that "wrong" is a poor word choice.  I'd say that you're not mainstream. 

I want risk vs reward in my games.  There's nothing at all wrong about wanting that.  It just means that I'm not with the masses and that's fine with me. 

[sam, an eggplant]

Fair enough. But nc definitely aimed at the mainstream with aion. They just missed.

[Threash]

Weren't they severely bumping high level quest exp in some patch? what happened to that?

[Count Nerfedalot]

I didn't end up buying it, but from my time in the beta which was only up to I dunno 11 or 12, it played like a modern western game in terms of level speed. I'm quite surprised to hear that just comes to an abrupt end.

That seems to be the hook though. Make leveling fast enough to be appealing to the masses early on, then put in an almost vertical escalator after.

That worked SO well for CoH!   

[Fordel]

What kind of computer would it take to run all that awesome looking lighting and stuff?

[caladein]

What kind of computer would it take to run all that awesome looking lighting and stuff?

Aion is using CryEngine 1 so Far Cry performance with HDR on might be a good guide.  That said, HDR in FC1 destroyed performance so I imagine you'd need a lot of overheard to not take a big hit in frame rate.

[Sheepherder]

If only publishers would print this kind of information on the back and/or side of their boxes.

[amiable]

The time to level is already about the same as most other games.

I need to quote this so I can point and laugh.

There is no way in god's green earth that the time to level in vanilla WoW even approaches the time to level in this god-awful game.  I gained a level an evening (usually 4, maybe 5 hours of play) in vanilla WoW up to around level 55, then it was a level every two evenings.  In this game it takes a week of casual play to level once in the 30's. 

You are insane.

[waylander]

Once my quests starting providing less and less of my levels (35+), I went over to the AION Grind Planner. After checking out the next few levels, I noticed that I would need to kill hundreds and thousands of mobs to advance each level.  I consider having to kill 50 mobs a grind especially when playing a class that has to rest a few seconds after every kill, and even more so when a game punishes me for grouping.

It seems they have made improvements to the end game sieging as far as performance and rewards go, but the horrible PVE is just too bad for me to deal with so my sub ran out earlier this week. I took 100 people into AION, and we had about a 50% turnover rate.  Those who remain have the time and patience to deal with AION's grind.

At the end of the day there is a market for Faction, RVR, etc type of PVP.  But the end game PVP has to be fun, rewarding, and worth dealing with the PVE needed to get there.  In my case AION, AOC, and Warhammer pretty much failed that test.

[jakonovski]

Took me 12 days of /played to reach 60 with my Warrior back in 06.

[sam, an eggplant]

AION Grind Planner.

Jesus, that's depressing.

[Shatter]

They banned 11,000 more accounts today

[01101010]

They banned 11,000 more accounts today

Thing I find the most ridiculous about these reports - they are posted on Twitter first and filtered to the community through fansites and word of mouth which then ultimately leads to someone (a player most of the time) posting on AION's *ahem* official forums. I mean really? Its fine and dandy to have a feed on twitter and facebook and the like, but when that is your main avenue of communication with your game's community... makes me wonder.

[Stormwaltz]

Thing I find the most ridiculous about these reports - they are posted on Twitter first and filtered to the community through fansites and word of mouth which then ultimately leads to someone (a player most of the time) posting on AION's *ahem* official forums. I mean really? Its fine and dandy to have a feed on twitter and facebook and the like, but when that is your main avenue of communication with your game's community... makes me wonder.

Move along, citizen.

[caladein]

I am broken.

Exhibit A:
The more and more the complaints about this game resemble Lineage II's... the more and more I want to play it.

I've always had this desire to go back to getting my mindless grind in L2 but now... I can do it with even more shiny!

[Venkman]

Once my quests starting providing less and less of my levels (35+), I went over to the AION Grind Planner.

And hit the Cancel Subscription button a moment later. Right? Right?

Anything else means you're not allowed to ever again complain about grinds

[DLRiley]

.

At the end of the day there is a market for Faction, RVR, etc type of PVP.  But the end game PVP has to be fun, rewarding, and worth dealing with the PVE needed to get there.  In my case AION, AOC, and Warhammer pretty much failed that test.

The bolded statement alone is why the italicized statement will never be proven. So lets remember the game has to be fun from day 1 to whatever time you assume your playerbase is ready for your super-awesome end game at. Anything less than that is clown shoes.

"Quality of life" is incredibly important, casual play matters, frequent rewards are critical, and risk vs. reward is an archaic concept. If you disagree with any of this, you are wrong. For the western world, anyway, asians are whacko.

I'd say that "wrong" is a poor word choice.  I'd say that you're not mainstream. 

I want risk vs reward in my games.  There's nothing at all wrong about wanting that.  It just means that I'm not with the masses and that's fine with me. 

I'm with sam. Its archaic, it makes sense in a real world sense that has no bearing on what it means to play a game. Its extremely as old and as tired as "you have to work into my game". Well fuck that, I work in real life, I give two shits about "proving" myself in order to merely crawl past your cockblocks. There is a place for risk vs reward but it ain't in the cock block form it is now.