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Aion... another Grind-fest?
Hello, I'm new to this forum and so far I only read a few posts. In those few I noticed the "Grind-fest" accusation towards Aion was pretty common. So I went through the liberty of making a post on behalf of the poor exausted Downloading, Niirnaeth, and many others.
Aion is NOT another typical Korean made Grind-a-thon. NCSoft Dev team clearly stated they're trying to eliminate the endless-grinding-scenerio starting with Aion. Even if it WAS a grind-a-thon. SO WHAT!!? What the hell is the point of playing a game? Have fun? Kill time? Lonely? Sorry to burst your bubble but you can't expect every game to be 100% fun and joy that would last for many years. Yanno, I think we're DAMN lucky we even have games to play. There's a billion people out there starving to death while you're cozy at home, posting like a bunch spoild brats "Oh, another grind-fest. Must suck just like every other K-MMORPG." Regardless of what it is or isn't, at the very least think or do some research before you starting typing crap you have no info on. If you don't know or not sure and you're too lazy to dig it up, ask nicely on the forum.
Aion is a game. Games are made to enjoy. If not, go read a damn book, end of story.
Ignorant kid- "Now we know!"
Duke- "And knowing is half the battle, Yo Joe!!"
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
Comments
Flabbergasted.
Where did that come from?
Makes one conjure up a picture of a whole society stuck in front of their computers playing games and *just cannot get up*. Thus their only way of showing how much they care for the world "out there" is through their reaction to those games!
You realize how horrible that is?
While a little out there it is mostly true. The things we get upset about are trivial compared to what some people in other parts of the world have to deal with. Then again can we really be blamed for the ignorance we have been raised to adhere to?
Do you think if I m developing a game to be released worldwide I would state in my webpage "Welcome to AION , the ultimate grinder" ?
Fact is this game is being developed by NCSOFT , creators of games like lineage1 & 2 , known to be as "second jobs" rather than games due to the huge grind being involved.
Of course if you believe in fairy tales you can believe AION wotn be a grindfest lol
Are you so naive to believe what devs say ? lolDo you think if I m developing a game to be released worldwide I would state in my webpage "Welcome to AION , the ultimate grinder" ?
Fact is this game is being developed by NCSOFT , creators of games like lineage1 & 2 , known to be as "second jobs" rather than games due to the huge grind being involved.
Of course if you believe in fairy tales you can believe AION wotn be a grindfest lol
Post critical failure..
Why would a developer make a game nobody wants to play in the first place?
People don't want to play grinders. They know this, so they're not making one. Besides, there's no need to just blindly "trust" them as plenty of information has leaked from beta to support that they have been saying is true. Your argument is already nullified. It has been proven wrong. Come with something new, please.
Do you think if I m developing a game to be released worldwide I would state in my webpage "Welcome to AION , the ultimate grinder" ?
Fact is this game is being developed by NCSOFT , creators of games like lineage1 & 2 , known to be as "second jobs" rather than games due to the huge grind being involved.
Of course if you believe in fairy tales you can believe AION wotn be a grindfest lol
You're right... Damn, how could I be so stupid? The Dev team made this whole lie up so they can lose all their millions of customers, entire market share and go bankrupt. Why didn't I see it coming? The NC producers must be so happy spending 100 Million+ dollars on this game just so it can flop and ruin the company they're so sick of making infamous games for.
You saved all of us. Three cheers.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
No, it is not true. Because, see, how do you even say stuff like "we" and "some parts of the world" on an online forum? Who are you speaking about when you say "we"?
Critical thought is one of the true virtues of mankind. If people are not OK with something and so voicing their opinion, then that's ultimately a good thing. What you suggest, suppressing that "because there are far worse things in the world" is a defeatist attitude.
Do you think if I m developing a game to be released worldwide I would state in my webpage "Welcome to AION , the ultimate grinder" ?
Fact is this game is being developed by NCSOFT , creators of games like lineage1 & 2 , known to be as "second jobs" rather than games due to the huge grind being involved.
Of course if you believe in fairy tales you can believe AION wotn be a grindfest lol
Because it makes complete sense that NCsoft develops a game to compete with it's own games, right?
Ever wondered, if this game is going to be so much like Lineage, then why didn't they name it Lineage 3? Because Lineage is a completely different franchise. Are D&DO and Lotro the same because they are made by the same developer? Ofcourse not.
Just like Tabula Rasa and most other "new" mmo's Aion is just another "Grind-Fest", anytime any of these so called "new" mmo's are released and you have to acheive X level before you can do anything else OR even consider having fun OR having to spend countless hours "leveling" while killing the same type of mobs or repeating the same process over and over again just to keep up with friends in order to stay grouped YOU have successfully defined "Grind-Fest"
nuf-said!
Therefore, the rest of your statement must be a pile of bollox too,
nuf-said.
You know, criticism is good, but given that the subject of yours does not even exist in the first place and you're just speculating, this is plain clueless generalizing.
And how do you know that people will not actually have a lot of fun throughout the process you're speculating about?
Many of the previous posters have good points. One of the things playing in here, for some people, is the definition of "grind". For some, fighting a single monster is a grind while others could be at it for days in a row without considering it grinding. Having that said - Aion will need you to kill a couple of bad guys. Of course, that goes for practically the entire* MMO genre.
As has been mentioned, Aion is a whole other franchise than Lineage. With Aion, we want to appeal more to the casual player than the Lineage games did. There's a number of things being done to accomplish this and I'll mention a few.
* ) I don't really enjoy making comparisons like these, but to help paint the picture - Leveling progression will be comparable to that of World of Warcraft albeit perhaps slightly longer. In other words - We're definitely not looking at adopting the progression curve of Lineage II. Aion is an entirely seperate game that isn't necessarily meant for the same audience.
* ) You don't need to reach maximum level in order to participate in PvP(vE), which is the focus of Aion. There is an area called "The Abyss" where you, together in smaller parties or larger raid-groups, will fight to capture or defend fortresses, important military bases/locations - but this isn't limited to players who have reached the maximum level. Something that might be interesting to know is that players actually gain experience from participating in PvP.
*) We want to have short-term goals in the game, such as quests fitting within shorter timeframes. There will also be appropriate rewards for completing those. Very powerful game items (weapons and armours) will be attainable in different ways, making it easier for casual players to gradually work towards them. Examples would include: Crafting, questing, PvP'ing, raiding or simply PvE'ing.
*) Of course, if there's nothing to do besides fighting, things could grow old rather fast anyway. That's why there will be many other things in Aion to do, too. Just a few examples would be the cooking system, the gathering of resources or the crafting of items that players actually have use of. There are some gameplay videos out there right now, could be informative to check them out.
I hope these few points helped at least a little bit in clarifying a little bit about what we want to achieve with Aion. I hope you stick around and decide to do some more, deeper research on the game. We are still working on a larger, official website, so I'm afraid that for now some detective work might be required.
* Due exceptions would include games with a more social focus.
---
Sebastian Streiffert
Community Representative - Aion
Follow my twitter! aion_ayase
* In order to cover my back, things I write are of course subject to change.
Grind can be put into any context really. it all boils down to what every individual perceives as a grind though a thing i like which isnt mentioned above. The "grind" will feel alot more tolerable with the fact that there will be cutscenes. Wouldnt you kill 20 mobs to later in the game get to see yourself in a cutscene slaying stuff in quality renders? i definatly would!
Thanks for the heads up Ayase
Thank you for posting Ayase, hopefully, it will clearify misunderstandings to some extent.
It's understandable of not wanting to have any intrest towards a game that's "All work and no play". Many may not enjoy spending countless hours just to have decent progress. But, you can't automatically assume what a game "is" or "isn't", just because it was made by such and such companies.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
No, it is not true. Because, see, how do you even say stuff like "we" and "some parts of the world" on an online forum? Who are you speaking about when you say "we"?
Critical thought is one of the true virtues of mankind. If people are not OK with something and so voicing their opinion, then that's ultimately a good thing. What you suggest, suppressing that "because there are far worse things in the world" is a defeatist attitude.
The odds are if your online on these forums you are not living in parts africa with no schooling, little to no food, and no medicine so its safe to say there are places in the world that are not represented here. The point originally made by Suu was that the arguments that we(the members of mmorpg.com) make are trivial compared to the starvation that one third of the world deals with everyday. How is that not true?
My going on to say that we are raised to be passive about such things does not change the validity of the original argument. Also, I never suggested to suppress critical thinking at all just because there are more important issues. In fact my statement was the opposite. I was saying that we are molded to be a certain way through the experiences we go through, the way we are raised and taught, and the innate characteristics we are born with(assuming we are not all born with the same potential). My point was that voicing our opinion on things that may be trivial to others in different situations is not wrong because whomever is giving the opinion finds it important to them.
Just because I don't believe in free will because the decisions we make are contingent on who we are, both innately and through experience does not mean I have a defeatist attitude. I'd buy you a drink so we could discuss it thoroughly but alas the internet only brings us so far.
No, it is not true. Because, see, how do you even say stuff like "we" and "some parts of the world" on an online forum? Who are you speaking about when you say "we"?
Critical thought is one of the true virtues of mankind. If people are not OK with something and so voicing their opinion, then that's ultimately a good thing. What you suggest, suppressing that "because there are far worse things in the world" is a defeatist attitude.
Indeed, The entire purpose of forums is about freewill and voicing our opinions, whether it's for or against. The problem with freewill is just that, the over abuse of freedom that results in uncontrolable chaos, which in this case, falsely accusing something without fact or justice. Everyone is ingnorant of something, no one person can be entirely omniscient. But to smother that ignorance into our faces, makes you wonder:"Aren't we at the point where we could be knowledgeable enough to avoid these kind of situations?"
"What's the point of filling the internet with virtually all of human knowledge if no one bothers attempting to look at it?"
"Can a 18 year old be considered an adult even though the person is unwilling to learn past grade school?"
"Are we back to the dark ages when no-one teaches their kids about proper etiquette?"
Because of this uncontrolable freedom. The "fortunate" ones(Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty also) are free to do whatever they want while "unfortunate" ones end up suffering, hence, reason why I stated the unfortunate masses in the real world. Even though, obviously unlikely none of us posting here are "dying of starvation" but, we too are human and can still suffer.
But, who am I to control what's acceptable and what isn't? The point of all this is an attempt to spare us most of this pulled-out-of-their-ass-crap and enjoy a forum.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
Thank you for the clarification Ayase. Hearing things like that make me interested in seeing if Aion is worth playing.
Having said that statements like this need to be addressed:
It aways amazes me what incredibly short memories the MMORPG community has.
Or have we all forgotten another NCSoft game called Auto Assault?
MMORPG Devs are notorious for making games the vast majority of gamers don't want to play. They've been doing it for a decade while other genres like RTS and FPS and RPGs outsell MMORPGs, including WoW.
Sometimes they even make games SO bad that the niche market of hardcore MMORPG players can't support them.
Not believing developers should be the FIRST THING anyone in the MMORPG community does. We can listen to their spin, politely nod our heads and say we will try their game, but by now people should figure out to never, EVER accept what they say unless you have more than just words, PR spin and pretty videos.
Aion sounds like it might be interesting but until people start playing working copies Aion, I take everything out of NCSoft with a truckload of salt.
Well, then, Ayase... Is Aion also going to include story and roleplay elements and content? Is there even going to BE a story line? Or is this just going to turn into another game where my being there or not means nothing, and all of my accomplishments are inevitably pointless and done by done by a billion others before and after me?
In other words, is Aion actually going to try to be different such that player involvement means something for the future of the game world and at least story is an important aspect? Or am I just another name in the game and another $15 a month in NCSoft's pockets?
CoH/V seemed pretty cool, but I couldn't get past the grind. WoW was everything I hoped it wasn't because upon reaching level 60 I realized all Blizzard did was make EverQuest 2.0 with PVP, a Warcraft 4 Online if you will, where EVERYTHING was a grind, even PVP. Anarchy Online sounded so cool and had a very interesting way of presenting the story, but then I tried Shadowlands... And after buying Alien Invasion the only aliens I ever killed were in the damn newbie area.
The only MMORPG I've ever played that actually appealed to me is Nexus The Kingdom of the Winds and it's riddled with too many issues for me to bother with it right now, but playing on and off after 9 years, they obviously did something right by me. Most achievements meant something or were unique parts of a temporary but typically story driven event. Even that has been changing.
So, again, is Aion just going to be another MMO or can I expect a real MMORPG for once?
The problem with games is not that they are just grind fests. The problem is that in games like Lineage 2 there is basically nothing to do except grinding until you reach that level where you can be useful in PvP.
I think a steep leveling curve is a good thing since it gives you something to strive for but the key is to have alot of content at lower mid levels as well, besides leveling.
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I think the problem with Lineage2 is it's not inviting to new players, meaning you will have to grind forever and insanely to catch up with the rest of the pvpers (and the low lvling just sucks) etc+it lacks depth beyond grinding, that's pretty much what stops him from succeeding.
I think AION developers learned that more depth should be put in the korean game, like there will be all sorts of carfting and such, the question is if the game's just gonna "copy" what made wow successful or they are gonna take it to the next level and this game will actually be really good,we'll wait and see.
World of Warcraft is a proof that MMORPG quality should affect schedule/budget and not the other way around.
From everything that I've seen so far I can see a little of many mmos: WoW, Everquest II and FFXI being at the forefront.
Anyone that accuses Aion of copying WoW needs to play more mmos and also realize that all mmos borrow from each other... Even WoW did, zomg!
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
I rather not speak for Ayase, I'm sure he/she knows more about Aion than I do. From what I've heard, Aion will be story-quest driven and they're trying to add as much content as possible. By adding enough quests/content; they're also trying to minimize grinding. Servers will be diverse to a point where every individual player action's will change the outcome of the game's environment and/or story. All actions will be recorded by the server. As the server gathers information, at certain points, it will implement changes. There will be multiple changes depending on the action, but how significant the changes are yet to be known.
I think the biggest dilemma Developers have to face when making an MMORPG with pvp elements is that half the population only plays those games as a MMO-PVP-RPG and care nothing for content. Because of that, the other half that wants a true RPG has to suffer. It's just plain tough to make a game where everyone is happy, especially when aiming for majority of the gamers.
If the Aion Devs manage to implement everything they're hoping for. I think you can expect Aion to be one step closer to being a real RPG
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
right even one of the devs for the game said in an interview that they plan to have enough quests to reach max level just by doing quests alone. and most of what i've seen on video the quests are really nice and has cool scenematics.
if you want to check it out more look at
http://eu.aiononline.com/en/
lots of cool stuff there, plus mmosite.com has even more on it. its really shaping up to a real excellent game.
Having thousands of quests doesn't make a game story centric nor immersive nor roleplayable. WoW is the perfect example of that, based on my experience.
When Ayase said slightly longer than WoW did he/she mean b4 the current leveling nerf patch or after... b/c I even felt that WoW was pretty heavy on the grindage pre-BC in BC its alot more fun to lvl.
- Captain Jack "Black Jack" Drake