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.
Well, that's where the cinematics kicks in Something that is amiss in WoW.
- Kenneth Tarre - Aion Correspondent The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
lots of cool stuff there, plus mmosite.com has even more on it. its really shaping up to a real excellent game.
I'd take mmosite with a slight grain of salt, in my experience anyway not everything that comes out of there is 100% reliable.
But that could be because of the massive amount of information they try to pump out. I just went by there and it looks like site has undergone some nice improvements as well.
Nearly every mmorpg is a grind! You either grind on quest or just on mobs.. I still think the best grind is in Ragnarok Online due to the huuge variety of places to grind and the mobs with diffrent stats, skills, attack, armor, element, race, size which makes the grind a fun thing and just not something to do to earn .
Any way as long as the grind is fun im up for it . And yeah im totally hoping for this to be like l2! The mmorpg market needs a good game with real castle seiges!
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.
They're aiming for "slightly longer than WoW" for the base game. Nothing was mentioned about lowering the difficulty in future expansions.
I felt that WoW was a little too easy in terms of leveling, but that's me after playing FFXI for 3 years...
"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
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.
Yeah, I noticed that also in WoW. There was no involving story line, just a ton of random quests. Aion will probably have just as many quests. As for the story, Aion will have one... I have no idea how immersed it will be though. Gonna have to wait for more info.
"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
Some people like grind fests, so there will always be a grinding element to any game. I just don't think said element should be the only element to the game.
Tabula Rasa did a great job in hiding the grind by making it very fun to go out killing mobs rather then questing. Aion promises to be a very fun game, I just hope it is less dissapointing then various other MMOs out now.
Well I just saw a post by Ayase on the source saying they don't want to ship an unfinished product, which is why they haven't released any concrete information on betas or launch until they are 110% sure when they'll happen and when the game is even ready for those stages.
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."
You had a respectable post going until you said that right there. So I'm comfortable and their poor so I should play a shitty game to compensate and make the world a better place? Well you go ahead and do that, while I play games I enjoy.
Oh and most people assumptions that "it'll be a grindfest I'm not going to play" Well that's usually right, and if your really going to argue with experience then you clearly have none.
"Grinding" is in your head. All MMOs share common elements. ALL OF THEM. Some are executed in more entertaining ways than others, and that is why some games are considered good or bad.
If your only goal in playing is to reach max level, then every game you ever play will feel like a grind. Period.
If, instead, you approach a game with the intention of experiencing what it has to offer at each and every level ... enjoying the quests, exploration, history, crafting, character development, etc. ... you might find yourself playing a game rather than logging into a boring job.
Oh and most people assumptions that "it'll be a grindfest I'm not going to play" Well that's usually right, and if your really going to argue with experience then you clearly have none.
Maybe they're right that a game will be a grind, most MMOs are afterall: including WoW, AoC, WAR, L2, EQ2 and whatever. They're all grinds. Aion seems to be similar. The problem here is that some people (usually the ones who dont bother to do a single bit of research) seem to think that just because Aion is developed in Korea its going to be some sort of gastronomous hardtastic ultragrind. Thats the kind of generalisation that tends to be annoying.
Yes it will be. All MMO's are grindfests if they weren't they'd have a linear storyline like an FPS and everyone would be the same.
Grinding ensures people will be sort of different, even if their grinding in the same spot as 50 other people.
Yes, in a way, all RPGs' are grindfests, as a game company; they wouldn't want players to reach the endgame in under 2 hours after starting the game.
Everybody has their own definition of "Grindfest":
Grindfest #1: Players spend ridiculous amounts of time murdering mobs just to level up and/or get gold.
Grindfest #2: The moment players have to kill a mob when there's no quests available at their current level.
Grindfest #3: There's no quests or content period, just grinding.
Grindfest #4: "Damn, it's taking too long to hit level 500."
Grindfest #5: The search for the rare/ultimate gear.
Grindfest #6: Korean MMORPG = the ultimate grindfest (Also known as grindfest #1 + #3)
Etc. Etc...
When people look at Aion they say: "Oh, it's made by NCSoft. We got ourselves another ultimate grindfest." Which NCSoft isn't trying to do for Aion in terms of hardcore grinding.
"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
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."
You had a respectable post going until you said that right there. So I'm comfortable and their poor so I should play a shitty game to compensate and make the world a better place? Well you go ahead and do that, while I play games I enjoy.
Oh and most people assumptions that "it'll be a grindfest I'm not going to play" Well that's usually right, and if your really going to argue with experience then you clearly have none.
I regret putting that in my post, as I did out of frustration. I didn't clearly state it, but I wasn't referring to everyone in general if that's what you were thinking. I was aiming towards those complaining and spreading twisted information. I know people have the right to complain, but, if we consider ourselves fortunate civilized people, can we at least act like it?
"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
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
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!
Clearly you haven't played Tabula Rasa then, I do and haven't run out of quests yet and haven't been grinding anywhere.
Therefore, the rest of your statement must be a pile of bollox too,
lots of cool stuff there, plus mmosite.com has even more on it. its really shaping up to a real excellent game.
I'd take mmosite with a slight grain of salt, in my experience anyway not everything that comes out of there is 100% reliable.
But that could be because of the massive amount of information they try to pump out. I just went by there and it looks like site has undergone some nice improvements as well.
right no doubt, but i was only refering to the videos they have as far as the interviews etc.
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.
Well, that's where the cinematics kicks in Something that is amiss in WoW.
yeah that is something i was a bit set back about WoW because one of the signature things about Warcraft are the cinematics. Yet WoW doesn't have anything like that... Yet in Guild Wars which ex-blizzard employees have developed has quite a lot of and even the stories in GW i find personally a lot better than WoW. Irony is a funny thing, but I can't wait to see what GW2 is going to be like.
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?
its funny I read this now and Its funny how like minded people are still around about this...
But Asheron's Call in its hay day was just like that, back in 2000 when i first started playing that, it had these really interesting storylines that would cause real cataclysmic events to happen, whole towns would get destroyed and eventually a year real time later get rebuilt. Players actually had "some" role to play and even one server came very close to causing the devs to have to write a whole different story just for that server alone because they nearly countered what was going on with realeasing this really powerful Shadow Demon called Bael’Zharon. probably the best overall story ever done throughout the history of the game. none thus far have even compared, probably why i don't play as much anymore, besides the game feeling to outdated. Even when someone destroyed one of the crystals that housed this demon that person gained a special item that you could turn into 3 different NPCs that gave out 3 different styles of armor and this armor that the person got from this was so Unique that only one person per server had this item. Even now with the new expansion of AC their random loot generator has this thing to where you can find actual "unique" items looted off creatures. The funny part is that the main writer (Chris L'Etoile) that wrote that story line quit back in 2004 ( which is ironically when i got tired of AC) and is one of main writers for Mass Effect, by Bioware. Which i'm so hoping that guy works on the first MMO title Bioware brings out...
But as far as promise of a game being that way, i'd say look at Hero's Journey by Simultronics to be similar or at least the closest thing to that. At least until we see what Bioware is bringing out. Considering Bioware bought the toolset/engine that Simultronics developed for HJ, it must be real worthwhile to check out at least.
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.
You know, one aspect I haven't seen much in games to actually help out casual gamers is having a "tinkering system" rather than the boring over done "crafting systems". what i mean is have a system where you are able to gather resources from any and every item in the game, simply by salvaging from the items, and each Item has a "Quality Level" to it, so the salvage has different qualities and when you combine salvage to create a "useable chunk" it's overall quality is an average of its combined parts.
This salvage after enough is gained to be "usable" should have each in its own property ie. QL 10 steal could add + 3 max damage to a weapon or +20 Armor to a piece of armor, or QL 10 Bronze could be used to make a weapon faster or Armor resist certain damage better. and of course each item could only be tinkered a certain amount of times. Thus allowing players to created through time spent out and about in the game the ability to make the best weapons and armor in the game that is personalized to their liking.
This is probably the single best aspect about Asheron's Call that I hardly ever see done in games. Guild Wars has something similar but nothing even close to the level of what Asheron's Call has.
Comments
Well, that's where the cinematics kicks in
Something that is amiss in WoW.
-
Kenneth Tarre - Aion Correspondent
The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
holy cow crap topic creator, pull your head out of your ass! please!
I'd take mmosite with a slight grain of salt, in my experience anyway not everything that comes out of there is 100% reliable.
But that could be because of the massive amount of information they try to pump out. I just went by there and it looks like site has undergone some nice improvements as well.
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Nearly every mmorpg is a grind! You either grind on quest or just on mobs.. I still think the best grind is in Ragnarok Online due to the huuge variety of places to grind and the mobs with diffrent stats, skills, attack, armor, element, race, size which makes the grind a fun thing and just not something to do to earn
.
Any way as long as the grind is fun im up for it
. And yeah im totally hoping for this to be like l2! The mmorpg market needs a good game with real castle seiges!
I felt that WoW was a little too easy in terms of leveling, but that's me after playing FFXI for 3 years...
"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
Yeah, I noticed that also in WoW. There was no involving story line, just a ton of random quests. Aion will probably have just as many quests. As for the story, Aion will have one... I have no idea how immersed it will be though. Gonna have to wait for more info.
"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
Yes, after reading some of these posts, my head just sorta ended up in there.
"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
Some people like grind fests, so there will always be a grinding element to any game. I just don't think said element should be the only element to the game.
Tabula Rasa did a great job in hiding the grind by making it very fun to go out killing mobs rather then questing. Aion promises to be a very fun game, I just hope it is less dissapointing then various other MMOs out now.
Well I just saw a post by Ayase on the source saying they don't want to ship an unfinished product, which is why they haven't released any concrete information on betas or launch until they are 110% sure when they'll happen and when the game is even ready for those stages.
That makes me happy ^_^
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Yes it will be. All MMO's are grindfests if they weren't they'd have a linear storyline like an FPS and everyone would be the same.
Grinding ensures people will be sort of different, even if their grinding in the same spot as 50 other people.
You had a respectable post going until you said that right there. So I'm comfortable and their poor so I should play a shitty game to compensate and make the world a better place? Well you go ahead and do that, while I play games I enjoy.
Oh and most people assumptions that "it'll be a grindfest I'm not going to play" Well that's usually right, and if your really going to argue with experience then you clearly have none.
"Grinding" is in your head. All MMOs share common elements. ALL OF THEM. Some are executed in more entertaining ways than others, and that is why some games are considered good or bad.
If your only goal in playing is to reach max level, then every game you ever play will feel like a grind. Period.
If, instead, you approach a game with the intention of experiencing what it has to offer at each and every level ... enjoying the quests, exploration, history, crafting, character development, etc. ... you might find yourself playing a game rather than logging into a boring job.
Yes, in a way, all RPGs' are grindfests, as a game company; they wouldn't want players to reach the endgame in under 2 hours after starting the game.
Everybody has their own definition of "Grindfest":
Grindfest #1: Players spend ridiculous amounts of time murdering mobs just to level up and/or get gold.
Grindfest #2: The moment players have to kill a mob when there's no quests available at their current level.
Grindfest #3: There's no quests or content period, just grinding.
Grindfest #4: "Damn, it's taking too long to hit level 500."
Grindfest #5: The search for the rare/ultimate gear.
Grindfest #6: Korean MMORPG = the ultimate grindfest (Also known as grindfest #1 + #3)
Etc. Etc...
When people look at Aion they say: "Oh, it's made by NCSoft. We got ourselves another ultimate grindfest." Which NCSoft isn't trying to do for Aion in terms of hardcore grinding.
"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
You had a respectable post going until you said that right there. So I'm comfortable and their poor so I should play a shitty game to compensate and make the world a better place? Well you go ahead and do that, while I play games I enjoy.
Oh and most people assumptions that "it'll be a grindfest I'm not going to play" Well that's usually right, and if your really going to argue with experience then you clearly have none.
I regret putting that in my post, as I did out of frustration. I didn't clearly state it, but I wasn't referring to everyone in general if that's what you were thinking. I was aiming towards those complaining and spreading twisted information. I know people have the right to complain, but, if we consider ourselves fortunate civilized people, can we at least act like it?
"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
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
... ?
Gee..um.. thanks for copying and pasting one of my posts...
"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
its not a defeatist attitude buddy, its reality.
Looks like Lineage 3.
They share a similar art direction, but thats about where the similarities end.
Therefore, the rest of your statement must be a pile of bollox too,
nuf-said.
ROFLMFAO!
I'd take mmosite with a slight grain of salt, in my experience anyway not everything that comes out of there is 100% reliable.
But that could be because of the massive amount of information they try to pump out. I just went by there and it looks like site has undergone some nice improvements as well.
right no doubt, but i was only refering to the videos they have as far as the interviews etc.
Well, that's where the cinematics kicks in
Something that is amiss in WoW.
yeah that is something i was a bit set back about WoW because one of the signature things about Warcraft are the cinematics. Yet WoW doesn't have anything like that... Yet in Guild Wars which ex-blizzard employees have developed has quite a lot of and even the stories in GW i find personally a lot better than WoW. Irony is a funny thing, but I can't wait to see what GW2 is going to be like.
its funny I read this now and Its funny how like minded people are still around about this...
But Asheron's Call in its hay day was just like that, back in 2000 when i first started playing that, it had these really interesting storylines that would cause real cataclysmic events to happen, whole towns would get destroyed and eventually a year real time later get rebuilt. Players actually had "some" role to play and even one server came very close to causing the devs to have to write a whole different story just for that server alone because they nearly countered what was going on with realeasing this really powerful Shadow Demon called Bael’Zharon. probably the best overall story ever done throughout the history of the game. none thus far have even compared, probably why i don't play as much anymore, besides the game feeling to outdated. Even when someone destroyed one of the crystals that housed this demon that person gained a special item that you could turn into 3 different NPCs that gave out 3 different styles of armor and this armor that the person got from this was so Unique that only one person per server had this item. Even now with the new expansion of AC their random loot generator has this thing to where you can find actual "unique" items looted off creatures. The funny part is that the main writer (Chris L'Etoile) that wrote that story line quit back in 2004 ( which is ironically when i got tired of AC) and is one of main writers for Mass Effect, by Bioware. Which i'm so hoping that guy works on the first MMO title Bioware brings out...
But as far as promise of a game being that way, i'd say look at Hero's Journey by Simultronics to be similar or at least the closest thing to that. At least until we see what Bioware is bringing out. Considering Bioware bought the toolset/engine that Simultronics developed for HJ, it must be real worthwhile to check out at least.
You know, one aspect I haven't seen much in games to actually help out casual gamers is having a "tinkering system" rather than the boring over done "crafting systems". what i mean is have a system where you are able to gather resources from any and every item in the game, simply by salvaging from the items, and each Item has a "Quality Level" to it, so the salvage has different qualities and when you combine salvage to create a "useable chunk" it's overall quality is an average of its combined parts.
This salvage after enough is gained to be "usable" should have each in its own property ie. QL 10 steal could add + 3 max damage to a weapon or +20 Armor to a piece of armor, or QL 10 Bronze could be used to make a weapon faster or Armor resist certain damage better. and of course each item could only be tinkered a certain amount of times. Thus allowing players to created through time spent out and about in the game the ability to make the best weapons and armor in the game that is personalized to their liking.
This is probably the single best aspect about Asheron's Call that I hardly ever see done in games. Guild Wars has something similar but nothing even close to the level of what Asheron's Call has.