Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Falconeer]

Official, latest word on bots and RMT.

It’s no secret that we’ve had our share of RMT spammers and been plagued by the associated problem of bots. We’re working to eliminate these persistent pests through a multipronged approach. We have instituted a dedicated Game Surveillance Unit (GSU). The GSU is a team whose primary mission is to identify and ban users violating our terms of service: bot users, RMT chat spammers, and the like. We just did an in-depth and focused sweep through the game to ban users in violation using some new methods with exciting capabilities that I’m personally very happy about. These new methods are going to catch a lot of bot users who thought they were safe. This week we’ve banned over 27,000 of these accounts, and we’ll keep searching for other offenders to continue improving the quality of your game environment.

And on XP curve and grind.

 

Finally, outside of the complaints about bots and the RMT vermin, perhaps the biggest criticism from our players comes in relation to the pacing, experience curve, item drops, and overall difficulty and risk vs. reward in Aion current gameplay. I’m glad to share some preliminary responses from the Development Team and affirm to you their willingness to address these issues. Obviously, data tuning on a live MMO isn’t something you do carelessly, and it will take some time to fully implement. In the near future, we hope to deploy a short-term enhancement to address some of concerns that you have told us about across the board. We’re currently testing some game variables to increase experience gain and other factors. We look forward to sharing some good news on this soon.

[amiable]

And on XP curve and grind.

 

Finally, outside of the complaints about bots and the RMT vermin, perhaps the biggest criticism from our players comes in relation to the pacing, experience curve, item drops, and overall difficulty and risk vs. reward in Aion current gameplay. I’m glad to share some preliminary responses from the Development Team and affirm to you their willingness to address these issues. Obviously, data tuning on a live MMO isn’t something you do carelessly, and it will take some time to fully implement. In the near future, we hope to deploy a short-term enhancement to address some of concerns that you have told us about across the board. We’re currently testing some game variables to increase experience gain and other factors. We look forward to sharing some good news on this soon.

They would literally need to double/triple the xp gain for it to make a difference.  If they are willing to do that, kudos, but I suspect we will see a 10-20% enhancement at most which will be like a drop in the ocean.

[gryeyes]

They would literally need to double/triple the xp gain for it to make a difference.  If they are willing to do that, kudos, but I suspect we will see a 10-20% enhancement at most which will be like a drop in the ocean.

They would also have to travel back in time and do it last month.

[01101010]

Finally, outside of the complaints about bots and the RMT vermin, perhaps the biggest criticism from our players comes in relation to the pacing, experience curve, item drops, and overall difficulty and risk vs. reward in Aion current gameplay. I’m glad to share some preliminary responses from the Development Team and affirm to you their willingness to address these issues. Obviously, data tuning on a live MMO isn’t something you do carelessly, and it will take some time to fully implement. In the near future, we hope to deploy a short-term enhancement to address some of concerns that you have told us about across the board. We’re currently testing some game variables to increase experience gain and other factors. We look forward to sharing some good news on this soon.

This just sounds like a smoke screen to quell the masses bitching about the xp curve. Telling people we are looking into it gives them a sense of hope that things will change, but without a timeframe to go by or even something resembling a detail about any of those mentioned things... doesn't sound promising. Kinda like my mom used to tell me what I wanted to hear just to shut me up and hopefully I get distracted by something else. I liked the game till about lvl 30ish then quit because it soured. I wanted to like it a lot longer.

[grunk]

is the grinding group based?  Like going to camp X with group members tyu and than moving to next camp?  or is it more like AoC, where you just solo stuff?

[Falconeer]

You just solo. It's nothing like EQ or FFXI.

[sam, an eggplant]

It's not a smokescreen at all. They're making a very important stand here. The korean "vision" is not inviolate. The western devs have the ability and the incentive to make changes to core design mandates, and they're willing to have a conversation about it with their players. This is a promising sign for the game's ultimate sustainability and viability in the west. As for the amount of growth, doubling XP gain isn't absurd, it's happened before.

Sadly the previous poster is correct. This needed to happen in beta. It's too late to aim for the sky now, the best they can hope for is to stop hemorrhaging accounts and, in time, slowly grow the service.

[Venkman]

They would literally need to double/triple the xp gain for it to make a difference.  If they are willing to do that, kudos, but I suspect we will see a 10-20% enhancement at most which will be like a drop in the ocean.

They would also have to travel back in time and do it last month.

This. You have one shot to prove your game fulfills the demands of the about-1mil people looking for a good WoW alternative. And like all post-WoW games before it, that time has passed.

Unlike those games though, this could have staying power in a country with a different playstyle demands.

[Threash]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

[01101010]

It's not a smokescreen at all. They're making a very important stand here. The korean "vision" is not inviolate. The western devs have the ability and the incentive to make changes to core design mandates, and they're willing to have a conversation about it with their players. This is a promising sign for the game's ultimate sustainability and viability in the west.

If that's true, then I will stand corrected. All I have seen and read about Aion is that NCSoft Korea is calling the shots. I am not behind the scenes to say right or wrong. However, the "westernization" of Aion, for what I encountered, was english voiceovers and translated text - I don't see any distinguishing core elements between "west" and "east."

[sam, an eggplant]

That's because beyond localization there aren't any right now. That's the whole point of that post, ncwest are going to make changes to make the title more palatable to the west. They have more autonomy than we expected, which is a promising turn of events.

[Ceryse]

Sadly, the leveling curve could have been dealt with had they given the western playerbase more than just 1-30 pre-launch events. For most of the people I know who played Aion, or are still playing it, the sheer jump in required experience that you see in the mid-30s and early 40s just took them by complete surprise, even while quest experience went from providing as much as 50-60% of some levels to lower than 10%.

I remember when the top group in our Legion hit 42ish. We just had the wind knocked out of our sails; so few quests to use and we had a horrible composition for a place like Steel Rake (fuck those archer mobs) beyond the middle levels without it taking forever and too high of a risk factor (three Glads, a Cleric, an Assassin and a Chanter). Stacked melee groups made me want to torch something. Outside of group content, however, there was just nothing but a grind and only one of our group of six was okay with that (which kinda figured; he was Korean) which led to him out-pacing the rest of us, and leading to even worse group mechanics has he would suck up more and more of the experience. We would pray for more Sorcs and SMs to level up in the game..

We spent most of our time wishing for the days of Verteron when you could hit a level and get enough quests to get you through most of that level with -maybe- 20% grind if you skipped around mobs when doing your quest.

And the PvP end-game just pissed off most of our Legion; capping a Fortress in 3 minutes on the Lower Abyss? Not fun. Capping a Fortess in 20 minutes on the upper Abyss? Not fun. Too quick and easy unless all of the other factio dediced to try and stop you or a group of Clerics decided to revolving door-suicide bomb you.

[KallDrexx]

So despite all the angst and disappointment here about the game, I decided to give it a try with my coworker.

Quests seem annoyingly vague so far and yet uninteresting enough for me not to read all the verbal vomit npc's spew out.  Right not it seems like I shouldn't even bother with quests and just grind, as between the long ass travel time and vague quest descriptions I feel like i"m wasting more time than anything.

It makes me sad, not sure how long I can see myself playing this.

[Threash]

You can mark quest goals on your map, they are anything but vague.

[waylander]

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

Of course I canceled, but they had already billed me for another month so when I canceled I still had 3 weeks left on the sub.  However I didn't log in at all those three weeks, and just decided to give my sub money to another more casual friendly MMO.

I had a level 35 main and a level 20 ALT at that time, but after looking at the grind planner I just decided there was no way I was going to sit there and kill thousands of mobs by myself for optimal xp and try to get the 165+ million xp needed to reach level 50.

AION might do well in the end because they are adjusting their end game faster than Warhammer did, but I do think they will lose a lot of subs before they can fix the horrible PVE and grinding issues.

[KallDrexx]

You can mark quest goals on your map, they are anything but vague.

Uh then apparently I"m an idiot.  How can you get the location of quest goals?  I see that you can sometimes get the location of npcs or areas mentioned by clicking on the keyword, but some quests don't have any keyword and it just says to kill a certain type of mob, and I have no clue where I even got the quest let alone where the mob camps are.

[Lum]

You can click any underlined word in the quest journal, and if a locate button is highlighted it'll mark it on your minimap.

[Chimpy]

Derail: Just saw the new title Lum, one question: Are you Turbo or O-Zone?

[Threash]

You can mark quest goals on your map, they are anything but vague.

Uh then apparently I"m an idiot.  How can you get the location of quest goals?  I see that you can sometimes get the location of npcs or areas mentioned by clicking on the keyword, but some quests don't have any keyword and it just says to kill a certain type of mob, and I have no clue where I even got the quest let alone where the mob camps are.

You can click on the mob name and it will mark the closest one on your map, and when that one dies it will automatically mark the next one.  If none of the mobs you need are spawned at the time it will mark their spawn point.

[KallDrexx]

You can click on the mob name and it will mark the closest one on your map, and when that one dies it will automatically mark the next one.  If none of the mobs you need are spawned at the time it will mark their spawn point.

I get that, but one of the quests I am referring to referenced the mob's class (therion revolutionaries or whatever, those guys behind the newbie farm).  Meanwhile, I killed hundreds of them and not one of them dropped the quest item so I have no idea wtf to do.

Furthermore, quests seem to be extremely picky about what mobs it gives credit for.  For example, some guy on a road tells me to kill violent worgs, which exist to the left and right of the camp.  Only the ones on the right of him actually give quest credit though.

[Hoax]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

[Threash]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

Yeah you sure showed me there, who can argue against facts like those.  I'm sure you'd love for the game to be failing like you predicted but its simply not no matter how much you nerd rage about the awful grind.

[Venkman]

Vision of the Future community post, and an accompanying 9 minute video. First part focuses on graphics upgrades. Nice ones, too, particularly on god rays and weather effects like accumulating and melting snow (I've never seen that before in an MMO). Shows swimming. Shows player housing and towns (may be feature-rich ala SWG from the looks of how certain types of things are being shown), fully customizable exteriors and interiors. Quick clip of mounted combat and then some cool Collosus' (Collusi?) at the end.

tl;dr: better graphics, already-discussed RMT smackdown, character transfers in "first half" of 2010.

[Nightblade]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

Yeah you sure showed me there, who can argue against facts like those.  I'm sure you'd love for the game to be failing like you predicted but its simply not no matter how much you nerd rage about the awful grind.

He supplied just as many facts as you have.

[Threash]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

Yeah you sure showed me there, who can argue against facts like those.  I'm sure you'd love for the game to be failing like you predicted but its simply not no matter how much you nerd rage about the awful grind.

He supplied just as many facts as you have.

I'm actually playing the game.  I also played AoC and WaR.  The difference in population and the decline of the previous games was blatantly obvious, as much as everyone here would love for this game to be doing badly there's absolutely no signs of it in game.  I'm sure they've lost plenty of people but they are not "hemorrhaging" anything like the previous games did, you can't judge the popularity of a game by how long the people of F13 stick with it.

[Nightblade]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

Yeah you sure showed me there, who can argue against facts like those.  I'm sure you'd love for the game to be failing like you predicted but its simply not no matter how much you nerd rage about the awful grind.

He supplied just as many facts as you have.

I'm actually playing the game.  I also played AoC and WaR.  The difference in population and the decline of the previous games was blatantly obvious, as much as everyone here would love for this game to be doing badly there's absolutely no signs of it in game.  I'm sure they've lost plenty of people but they are not "hemorrhaging" anything like the previous games did, you can't judge the popularity of a game by how long the people of F13 stick with it.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't hold the anecdotal claims of an MMORPG subscriber as facts.

[Threash]

It should count for more than "random asshole on a message board who has no fucking clue what he's talking about" i would think.

[UnSub]

PC box sales for October 2009 (it says September, but it really should be October):

TOP-SELLING PC GAMES - SEPTEMBER 2009
Last Month / Rank / Title / Publisher
2 / 1 / The Sims 3 / Electronic Arts
1 / 2 / Aion / NCsoft
** / 3 / Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy / Her Interactive
4 / 4 / World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard
6 / 5 / Mumbo Jumbo Assortment / Mumbo Jumbo
7 / 6 / The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / Electronic Arts
** / 7 / Borderlands / 2K Games (Take-Two)
** / 8 / Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising / Codemasters
** / 9 / IGT Slots: Texas Tea / Masque
8 / 10 / World of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard
9 / 11 / Reel Deal Slots Treasures of the Far East / Phantom Efx
10 / 12 / World of Warcraft / Blizzard
11 / 13 / Spore / Electronic Arts
** / 14 / Fallout 3: GOTY Ed. / Bethesda Softworks
13 / 15 / Starcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard
14 / 16 / Zuma's Revenge / PopCap Games
12 / 17 / Grand Theft Auto IV / Rockstar Games (Take-Two)
** / 18 / Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Ed. / 2K Games (Take-Two)
19 / 19 / Civilization IV: Complete Ed. / 2K Games (Take-Two)
** / 20 / The SimCity Box / Electronic Arts

Aion sold about 1m copies in its launch week according to NCsoft, which took out first place last month. It's dropped to #2 for October, but that's still an indication that the title is selling pretty well in stores. ChampO was #3 in September and doesn't appear in the top 20 in October 2009. Yes, this is just box sales and doesn't include digital sales. Yes, sales and retention are two different things. Yes, Aion launched in the last week of September so would have had a healthy level of interest in early October at least.

Anyone have access to the real figures behind this chart? I'm 90% sure that NPD doesn't put them out to save the PC gaming market the embarrassment, but I'm interested to know (particularly for ChampO's drop in sales).

[Chimpy]

You can click on the mob name and it will mark the closest one on your map, and when that one dies it will automatically mark the next one.  If none of the mobs you need are spawned at the time it will mark their spawn point.

I get that, but one of the quests I am referring to referenced the mob's class (therion revolutionaries or whatever, those guys behind the newbie farm).  Meanwhile, I killed hundreds of them and not one of them dropped the quest item so I have no idea wtf to do.

Furthermore, quests seem to be extremely picky about what mobs it gives credit for.  For example, some guy on a road tells me to kill violent worgs, which exist to the left and right of the camp.  Only the ones on the right of him actually give quest credit though.

Oh, the quest from Sanctum to get the elusive lepharist item? That drop rate is fuck-terrible. Took me forever to get it, like finishing every other quest and clearing the area 2-3 times. On my alt I made for giggles one day, I got it on the third kill. The only quest worse for me was one at 42 requiring me to get a "mirror" off a certain mob. 1 item, took more than 200 kills of those specific mobs.

Horribly inconsistent drop rates on quest items is one of the game's failings, but even super-cazual-friendzly WoW has that problem.

[Xurtan]

Thankfully, it, along with the Dukaki amulets of similar drop rate, can be bought from the broker.

[Falconeer]

My very quick worthless observation about population: it certainly dropped (our guild went from 210 members to about 100), but there were SO MANY people before the drop that two months after launch it still looks absolutely packed in all zones and level brackets. So Threash is right, but he's probably wrong too. Aion is still very healthy and populated, but 50% drop in two months is technically an hemorragy.

[amiable]

My very quick worthless observation about population: it certainly dropped (our guild went from 210 members to about 100), but there were SO MANY people before the drop that two months after launch it still looks absolutely packed in all zones and level brackets. So Threash is right, but he's probably wrong too. Aion is still very healthy and populated, but 50% drop in two months is technically an hemorragy.

If I remember correctly WAR did Ok its first few months too.  The problem WAR had was they didn't have multiple channels on the same server, so when the de-population started it hit like a sack of hammers.  NCSoft was smart in this regard.

[Jerrith]

My very quick worthless observation about population:

I did the equivalent of a /who all templar elyos about a week and a half ago, during prime time on my server.  The results were no longer capped, there were only 90 playing.  If you look at that as 1/16th of the population (8 classes, two sides), that's about 1500 on the server total.

That vision video was really nice.  Lots of neat effects / mechanics / systems / content I'd like to see. :)

[Chimpy]

My very quick worthless observation about population:

I did the equivalent of a /who all templar elyos about a week and a half ago, during prime time on my server.  The results were no longer capped, there were only 90 playing.  If you look at that as 1/16th of the population (8 classes, two sides), that's about 1500 on the server total.

That vision video was really nice.  Lots of neat effects / mechanics / systems / content I'd like to see. :)

/who does not show people who are invisible. With the removal of the click to block feature, I know several people who had stopped using the invisible feature a month or so ago who have started using it again.

I also know a good number of people (myself included) who have almost religiously entered /anon upon log in to avoid the RMT tells/mail since the RMT insanity began a couple days after we started playing.

Yes, population has gone down. But using the /who feature as a definitive number gathering tool is just as bad as taking Blizzard's "11 million subscribers" as an accurate number of how many people are playing a game.

[gryeyes]

It should count for more than "random asshole on a message board who has no fucking clue what he's talking about" i would think.

But you keep getting shown time and time again that you know absolutely fucking nothing about what you speak. The /played has been broken down for you (you still dont seem to understand it), the spam being a huge fucking problem has been substantiated (after a dozen or so posts of you claiming its "not that bad"). 99% of the players in this thread have quit for the same reasons, citing friend list attrition as substantiation that its a wide spread phenomena. I mean shit even the other "fanbois" are distancing themselves from you at this point.

You can like something and not be a complete fucking idiot about it you know.