I've been following Aion since mid 2007, and organizing for it through all the delays . I would have never expected Aion to even hit 5 million subscribers world wide....but:
Blizzard has walked over a mine in China. They broke of the deal with The9, which is the company that handles the localized version of WoW in China and now The9 have sued Blizzard in the Chinese courts. According to Chinese media all WoW servers have been shut down for transfer of hardware to another company, but that is going to take a couple of weeks. But that?s only a small part of Blizzards problem. Servers going down for 3-4 weeks, making Blizzard loose many customers over to its rivals, especially the newly released Aion, which at the end of May reached a staggering 3,3 million subscribers only after 2 months of its release in China. Blizzard's other headache is that The9 is keeping its 5 million subscribers hostage until the matter is solved. No one really knows when that will happen. The9 and Blizzard are set to meet in Shanghai Pudong's Supreme Court on June 18th, 2009. If matters are not solved and things drags on there is a chance that Blizzard will pull out from China and consequently loose 5 million of its player base.
Aion with 3.3 million subscribers already, a potential 5 million Chinese WoW players will be looking for something to do, perfect time for NCsoft to give out 1 week free trials in China. lol, Aion can potentially be a WoW killer. 3.3 million subscribers in 6 months and still growing at fast rate is ridiculous, no MMO has come even remotely close to that.
Ah, thats why I actually see a new ad campaign in german tv, they need new players *g*
Yeah I saw a coca cola add yesterday on Dutch TV. Apparently coca cola is in trouble too. No one drinking coke anymore.
afaik Korea, Japan and Taiwan make around 2 million WoW subs (6-7 Million WoW players are in Asia)...Its funny to hear people mention other MMO's besides WoW being popular in Asia...Is there some magic rule that applies to every game but WoW? WoW gets most of its success from Asia, most of its players are from Asia, and it's the most popular game in Asia...They like what we, or anybody else likes.
So I guess theres a magic rule for Aion that even though WoW is popular among Americans, Europeans and Asians, Aion will only be popular among Asians.
And Warhammer killed itself, it went from like 1mill to 250k subs, it has pretty much become a niche game for fanboys, WAR and AoC combined in a year haven't done what Aion has in only a few months.
nothing will be the wow killer to be honest untill blizzard comes out with their new mmo. Its just to good of a game, I however don't play anymore although i played for 4+ years. I've never played a p2p game for even half that amount of time and theres a good reason for it. I'd go into details on why, but i don't think i really have to atm.
Aion will be a sick game, but compared to wow release it won't compare.
Aion will be the last game to "kill WOW". Aion has too many facotrs that will limit its appeal to WOW players. What perople forget is that to "kill WOW" the game must appeal directly to ~10 million WOW players. Such things with Aion as the graphics style, the fact it is consider a "grinder", nCSoft's complete inability to control bots and the fact that PVP is pretty much required to get anywhere, and the end-game is 99% PVP focused, AION will not appeal to your average WOW gamer. And I honestly could care less is Aion has 1 subscrtiber or 100 million subscribers in China. Numbers mean nothing in this market. Both AOC and WAR had incredible numbers prior to launch (preview weekends, visiotrs to the site, pre-orders, etc...) and we know how those games turned out. And yes the hype following the first major preview weekend for AOC is very similar to what happened with Aion this past weekend. Past success in other parts of the world does not mean future success in other parts of the world. So far the conventional wisdom from most people I have read is that Aion is the same ole same ole only with PVP and wings. It does not have that hook that a new MMO requires for staying power. For AOC the hook was supposedly the combat - it was to be wild and visceral. True it was but it also got repetitive to a fault after a while. For WAR, it was the RVR - it was nice but again instanced RVR was boring and a waste of time. AIon has no hook from what I have seen. Most people will tell you, even vets of the game, that 1-25 is boring and the "real game begins at 25". That's great, but for most people, they need to be hooked immediately now. Few will give the game time to hook them, much less 25 levels of it. Remember, to "kill WOW", the game has to not only be on par with WOW but be better than WOW and cause the player to say "This game is better than WOW for _____ reasons". Every game since WOW has launched has failed to do that. AIon's playerbase will come from WOW and if Aion isn't better than WOW, the players will go back to WOW very quickly. What people are also forgetting is that Aion launches about 2 weeks after Blizzcon where Blizzard will most likely announce the next expansion and/or some really cool features of the upcoming patch. By that time, it should be 3.3, which will probably introduce Arthas and the Icecrown citadel - the culminating event of WotLK. This will be an immediate hook for most WOW players and Aion will have to compete with that. I expect Aion to do well. My guess is 500k-750k subs at the start and it will level off to about 250k or so. It will be a success in its own right, but no where near a WOW killer.
People who talk about "grinder" makes me laugh. WoW is the bigest grind fest out there. Tell me do you do the daily "grind" of daily quests for gold and reputation. lol. Oh, I want this epic head piece so now i have to go kill this mob every day for the next 47 days.......
People who talk about "grinder" makes me laugh. WoW is the bigest grind fest out there. Tell me do you do the daily "grind" of daily quests for gold and reputation. lol. Oh, I want this epic head piece so now i have to go kill this mob every day for the next 47 days.......
If you think WOW is a grind then you are new to the MMO market. Try playing EQ back in the day of corpse disappearance and losing LEVELS (not just experience) or DAOC when leveling to 50 took months on end. Those were grinds. And there is nothing in WOW that I would consider a grind at all. If you do, then you really do not understand the meaning of grind in the way I am using the term.
so true..nobody understands grind anymore.....atleast in newer games (post-Wow) you can see your experience bar move. I used to try without vail to see that EQ bar move...somehow it did..but way slower then my eye could see
WOW is the olny thing that can kill WOW. I think the way the term " wow killer " is being misunderstood/misused is to be blamed for the disagreements in this thread . People think of a few diffrent ways to interpret it. My way to take it is a game or games that will return wow to average sub numbers. Personally I think Aion may have a chance to help do this (if ncsoft can keep the bots out).
I currently play wow or i should say i have a sub to it. The olny time I can bring myself to play it is on raid nights to play with my friends. I personally love/hate the way wow has changed, mostly hate. They have some great things they added like flying mounts and battlegrounds. On the flip side they cant keep class balance and with 2 xpac there is still no leveling curve to speak of. In short wow is trying to be everything to everyone and is killing its self by doing this.
I think alot of players like myself feel like this and are waiting on anouther quality game to come out to play. There are alot of outher quality games out like Lineage 2 and Everquest 2 but noone likes to feel left behind or play in empty zones trying to figure out what to do where to go by themselfs(a least i dont).
In short to sum up my rambling thoughts, Aion will not kill wow, wow will kill wow. With that said Aion will do very well.
def not, this game doesn't appeal to alot of people. it looks decent but there are many reasons that WoW worked into why it is the way it is now and this won't
WoW could work on any computer even the worst of the worst
WoW appeals to babies and girls with cartoony kiddy graphics
WoW is the most popular gateway MMO on the market. Remember what it was like leaving your first MMO? Heartbreaking almost right? Considering most of WoW's playerbase never even knew what an MMO was before they played it i doubt they'll be leaving it anytime soon.
Posts like these are such uneducated dumb garbage. The only WoW killer will be Blizzard themselves ignoring the playerbase even more, until people finally see the light.
Posts like these are such uneducated dumn garbage. The only WoW killer will be Blizzard themselves ignoring the playerbase even more, until people finally see the light.
um wha? Ignoring the player base?
Last I looked, WoW players constituted a huge part of the player base, that's the reason 12million are playing their game.
You might not like it, but WoW is the game that is catering the most to the player base.
I've been following Aion since mid 2007, and organizing for it through all the delays . I would have never expected Aion to even hit 5 million subscribers world wide....but:
Blizzard has walked over a mine in China. They broke of the deal with The9, which is the company that handles the localized version of WoW in China and now The9 have sued Blizzard in the Chinese courts. According to Chinese media all WoW servers have been shut down for transfer of hardware to another company, but that is going to take a couple of weeks. But that?s only a small part of Blizzards problem. Servers going down for 3-4 weeks, making Blizzard loose many customers over to its rivals, especially the newly released Aion, which at the end of May reached a staggering 3,3 million subscribers only after 2 months of its release in China. Blizzard's other headache is that The9 is keeping its 5 million subscribers hostage until the matter is solved. No one really knows when that will happen. The9 and Blizzard are set to meet in Shanghai Pudong's Supreme Court on June 18th, 2009. If matters are not solved and things drags on there is a chance that Blizzard will pull out from China and consequently loose 5 million of its player base.
Aion with 3.3 million subscribers already, a potential 5 million Chinese WoW players will be looking for something to do, perfect time for NCsoft to give out 1 week free trials in China. lol, Aion can potentially be a WoW killer. 3.3 million subscribers in 6 months and still growing at fast rate is ridiculous, no MMO has come even remotely close to that.
WoW killer? WoW dying? Everytime I see this foolishness typed on the screen I remember UO and how it's STILL active to this very day! Get a grip fellas, please. Hmmm Asian market compared to the U.S. market....where to begin... First let's point out that Blizzard is a company better established in the asian market than you can even wrap your jaded brain around...Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft IPs, STILL get top playing time in the WCG circle. See DOTA and SC for references. Asians hunger for anything Blizzard dishes out. The annoncement of Starcraft II in Korea first, tells me they respect Blizzard's attention to quality.
Hell, Lineage is a direct ripoff of the Diablo style of graphics and interface. I played it to see what all the talk was about with it's millions of players. Which brings me to my point. The asian market has ALWAYS been big on video games in general. Several professional competions, players there treated that rival our own sport stars, T.V. programs devoted to dishing out video game related info 24/7 and a level of acceptance to gaming bigger than all the other 6 contenients combined.
Now flip over to NCSoft and the western market and you can just hear the crickets chirpin.... First of all western players are not keen on games as much. I mean don't get me wrong we love our games but it doesn't come close to what we see in the asian market. But it's their playing style that don't mix well with western players. Look how long it took them to finally understand that to play in this market you're gonna HAVE to adapt to our wasd lovin movement , drop the sharp curve in higher level grinding to mask not having endgame content, tone down the shiny armor and the overly female looking MALE characters, deal with very vocal players who expect action from a company when they purchase their product and practice aggressive policing of banning bots, gold farming and doing so without the use of a third party anti-hacking program that interfere with our PC configs.
All of that along with the fact that NO asian developed MMO has ever held a majority of the western market when compared to western based MMOs, period. That translates to it doesn't matter what THEY enjoy overseas, if it doesn't appeal to us it won't take hold in our pysche. And it will never "kill" a MMO developed in the west for western players.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Yeah these threads get old fast....its like every single MMo that comes out is going to be a WoW killer.......I think too many people are putting too much stock in the Asian sub numbers......First of all Hello Kitty Online would probably sell millions there......The Asians tend to really love their video games, regardless of the quality of the games......Also its hard to get an accurate sub count as the way I understand it they dont pay a 15 dollar monthly like NA/EU do, but they pay by the hour in gaming type cafes......Basically if they sign up for any account they are counted as a sub whether they actually play or not (same goes for WoW subs in Asia also)........If they pay ten cents for that month they are still counted from what I understand.......
Lets see how Aion does in the Western market before crowning it king ......Im sure it will be like AoC and WAr with alot of initial hype and interest but can Aion hold on to subscribers once they get a month or so of gameplay??
Lets see how Aion does in the Western market before crowning it king ......Im sure it will be like AoC and WAr with alot of initial hype and interest but can Aion hold on to subscribers once they get a month or so of gameplay??
I'm sure they can.
I don't know if it will get initially the same numbers AoC and WAR had (mainly due to the Eastern style, bad reputation in the west etc.), but I'm willing to bet that the retention rate after a few months will be MUCH better than the others.
Why? well one of the main reasons is that everything in the game works.
Main reason AoC and WAR (to a lesser extent) failed to retain more than 50% of their subs in a couple of months, is because, in particular, AoC was a trainwreck. I was extremely surprised that they were able to steady the ship somewhat a couple of months ago. It was hell at launch, After tortage it lacked severely in every department, especially performance. As for WAR, game design was truly awful and extremely repetitive, characters felt very rigid, and the endgame was unplayable due to performance issues, not to mention very grindy and boring. If it had stayed in development a year longer, they would have thought things over more, and released a very good game IMO.
Anyway, I bet Aion will retain a whole lot more % of subscribers than AoC and WAR did, and subs will increase steadily for the few coming months. You can quote me on that.
Lets see how Aion does in the Western market before crowning it king ......Im sure it will be like AoC and WAr with alot of initial hype and interest but can Aion hold on to subscribers once they get a month or so of gameplay??
I'm sure they can.
I don't know if it will get initially the same numbers AoC and WAR had (mainly due to the Eastern style, bad reputation in the west etc.), but I'm willing to bet that the retention rate after a few months will be MUCH better than the others.
Why? well one of the main reasons is that everything in the game works.
Main reason AoC and WAR (to a lesser extent) failed to retain more than 50% of their subs in a couple of months, is because, in particular, AoC was a trainwreck. I was extremely surprised that they were able to steady the ship somewhat a couple of months ago. It was hell at launch, After tortage it lacked severely in every department, especially performance. As for WAR, game design was truly awful and extremely repetitive, characters felt very rigid, and the endgame was unplayable due to performance issues, not to mention very grindy and boring. If it had stayed in development a year longer, they would have thought things over more, and released a very good game IMO.
Anyway, I bet Aion will retain a whole lot more % of subscribers than AoC and WAR did, and subs will increase steadily for the few coming months. You can quote me on that.
However It'll never get close to WoW.
Not even half it's subs.
Looking at WoW and its history, the only game upon release that really dented WoW numbers was AoC. Blizzard changed schedules, posted numerous press releases to stock holders, etc. However, Age of Conan was not a finished game when it shipped. Customer's were not going to wait nine months for fixes as well thus the overwhelming majority went back to WoW.
So can lightning strike twice? WoW is primarily a very well polished pve game with optional fast paced pvp. The majority of WoW players are even on pve servers. However, Aion is a finished and polished game. However, the mythology is not known and the ability to really opt out of pvp is not present. Thus I agree that Aion will get subs and retain them but WoW numbers are not realistically reachable.
Been playing WoW since release. The raids now are better then ever (aside from Naxx). Don't say they are "for kids" until you've killed Algalon (which I doubt). Aion will not kill WoW.
We had heroic Ulduar cleared 2 and a half weeks after it was released, wow raids have been greatly simplified from the early game. Old wow, you were not pugging BWL the day it was released were you? Blizzard has made raiding too simple for the old schoolers who PREFER to earn the right to raid. It has been simplified to allow the children to raid. Which is fine imo, to each their own.
They practically give the gear needed to raid away, I assume that is what you refer to as "raids are better then ever". Blizzard is giving away the right to raid rather then making people earn the right. that explains why decent tanks are hard to find. Every kid gets the freebie gear and slaps it on and thinks they are a real tank.
Aion reminds me of the old WoW, where you have to fight and earn your keep.
Everyone I know who was in WoW from the very begining would prefer the old 40 man raids, however the ones who were never part of that (40 man raids that is) think its great as it is. There was a day where you would stand in ironforge with pride wearing your might and wrath armor, now there is no pride because the top end gear is a dime a dozen.
So you were in the top 1% of the guilds in the world then that cleared Ulduar and killed agalon? Why keep chatting crap. You think old wow was hard because it took 40 people and took hours upon hours to grind 1 dungeon??? newsflash thats not hard its tediuos. BWL, mc, aq, zg WERE NOT HARD, they were tediuos because they had 10000000 million trash and long ass routes. The bosses back then were no different to wow once you had them all on lock down, they all seemed harder because it all seemed new. Hell 40 mans raid were the worst, half the raids was afk on follow so dont give me crap about old wow raids being good, The only thing good about them was going to BRM and fighting guilds in BRM b4 raids, or in silithus b4 raids.
probably 2% of the wow population prefers the old style 40 man raids, which were the longets and biggest grinds known to bloody man. Anyone that says killing millions of trash is fun or was hard is bloody crazy. The rep grinds back then were insane, they were not hard, they were tediuos get it staright. Nobody wants to go back to those days of grinding. Hell I used to love being on my guild back in those days I know what you talking about there were some trully epic times back then, but the game has moved on and those days are not coming back, and I for one have no wish ever to go back to those days of grinding and grinding and grinding for months and months.
You tlak about pride, like you know anything about it, I bet everyone that plays the game, YES GAME, have pride in what they accomplish, and DONT play the GAME as if it were a job. You kepe talking about tanks and and the raids simplified for kids, Newsflash and joe dick or tom could raid in Vanilla wow, like I said half the raids used to be AFK so nobody would notice, so yes alot of people got boosted, so dotnt alk crap about it being simplified. Any noob back then could tank if they wanted same like now, so get a grip, and Noob that was afk for half the raid could stand in IF and show of his armour, NEWSFLASH in todays 25 man raids nobody can go afk unless you doing normal 10 man instance
"Yesss, I feel the anger swelling in you now... I am unarmed, take your weapon and strike me down with all of your hate and your journey to the darkside will be complete"
In old woW we were the top horde guild in NA period, oh wait back then there was only NA and all the top guilds were Horde. The only mundane instance we had was AQ 40, and when we found a way to hack thru the walls to get to the last boss Blizzard made us all pay the ultimate price for it. If you are old WoW you would know what guild I mentored in. If not google can be your friend. But anyway those were the good old days.
I never said old wow was hard, from a guild perspective it was a challenge. It was not a grind, clearing a instance took teamwork and skill. The only people who constantly AFK in the instance were the ones who thought it was tedious, so I have plenty of experience with YOUR style of play.
You may be within 30% with your statement of 2% of the wow pop prefering the 40 mans, but then again 90% of the serious raiders no longer play wow. You are confused on your statements regarding trash, there was not that much more trash it was just more of a challenge (specially for those people who afk like I suspect you were). It was about what i expect from an instance, but my expectation and yours are obviously quite abit apart, mine are high and yours seem low. There was very little grind in WoW back then, you needed runecloth for alliance/horde rep (either work the ah to make the gold to buy it or go grind it). Most other rep came from running the instances that actually got you gear, nice to get rep and gear at the same time dont you think? WOTLK is nothing but daily quest rep grind, the grind started in BC to get the netherdrake and so forth.... do you remember grinding them?
If you have pride in your work in WOTLK all i can say is that in my opinion your standards are alot lower then mine.
I find your comments on tanks a bit funny because I ran nothing but tanks when I played WoW. Warriors were the only viable main tank back then and if you were well experienced you would know that. We used nothing but warriors, as time went on some bears became viable. Pally's were nothing but healers, it wasnt till BC that they became viable trash tanks. Tanks and healers are the most important thing in raid, you should know that. A good tank (like me) is hard to find.
News flash, in todays 10 and 25 man raid you can 6 man and 15 man them so get your editor to retract the news flash. I run the raids with people afk for hours.
This guy again. Runs his mouth but has yet to actually give any real proof about his claims. I mean at least people that are full of it pick out a fake armory and say it's them. Oh wait, you were the scrub guild that cheated in AQ 40 and got banned. Way to go champion.
This guy again. Runs his mouth but has yet to actually give any real proof about his claims. I mean at least people that are full of it pick out a fake armory and say it's them. Oh wait, you were the scrub guild that cheated in AQ 40 and got banned. Way to go champion.
Stick to the topic dstar....
Yea #1 in the world kind of scrub, name calling and hostility the last resort in a losing argument. think I'll log onto WoW and lead a 25 man pug thru Ulduar, clear half the instance tonight.
Comments
Ah, thats why I actually see a new ad campaign in german tv, they need new players *g*
Yeah I saw a coca cola add yesterday on Dutch TV. Apparently coca cola is in trouble too. No one drinking coke anymore.
afaik Korea, Japan and Taiwan make around 2 million WoW subs (6-7 Million WoW players are in Asia)...Its funny to hear people mention other MMO's besides WoW being popular in Asia...Is there some magic rule that applies to every game but WoW? WoW gets most of its success from Asia, most of its players are from Asia, and it's the most popular game in Asia...They like what we, or anybody else likes.
So I guess theres a magic rule for Aion that even though WoW is popular among Americans, Europeans and Asians, Aion will only be popular among Asians.
And Warhammer killed itself, it went from like 1mill to 250k subs, it has pretty much become a niche game for fanboys, WAR and AoC combined in a year haven't done what Aion has in only a few months.
nothing will be the wow killer to be honest untill blizzard comes out with their new mmo. Its just to good of a game, I however don't play anymore although i played for 4+ years. I've never played a p2p game for even half that amount of time and theres a good reason for it. I'd go into details on why, but i don't think i really have to atm.
Aion will be a sick game, but compared to wow release it won't compare.
People who talk about "grinder" makes me laugh. WoW is the bigest grind fest out there. Tell me do you do the daily "grind" of daily quests for gold and reputation. lol. Oh, I want this epic head piece so now i have to go kill this mob every day for the next 47 days.......
yah aion will kill wow so hard it'll all be like dead where it was slain dead by aion
dead dead dead
deaditty dead
more dead than alive
because its dead
dead by aion
slain so hard
all dead
dead
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
People who talk about "grinder" makes me laugh. WoW is the bigest grind fest out there. Tell me do you do the daily "grind" of daily quests for gold and reputation. lol. Oh, I want this epic head piece so now i have to go kill this mob every day for the next 47 days.......
If you think WOW is a grind then you are new to the MMO market. Try playing EQ back in the day of corpse disappearance and losing LEVELS (not just experience) or DAOC when leveling to 50 took months on end. Those were grinds. And there is nothing in WOW that I would consider a grind at all. If you do, then you really do not understand the meaning of grind in the way I am using the term.
so true..nobody understands grind anymore.....atleast in newer games (post-Wow) you can see your experience bar move. I used to try without vail to see that EQ bar move...somehow it did..but way slower then my eye could see
WOW is the olny thing that can kill WOW. I think the way the term " wow killer " is being misunderstood/misused is to be blamed for the disagreements in this thread . People think of a few diffrent ways to interpret it. My way to take it is a game or games that will return wow to average sub numbers. Personally I think Aion may have a chance to help do this (if ncsoft can keep the bots out).
I currently play wow or i should say i have a sub to it. The olny time I can bring myself to play it is on raid nights to play with my friends. I personally love/hate the way wow has changed, mostly hate. They have some great things they added like flying mounts and battlegrounds. On the flip side they cant keep class balance and with 2 xpac there is still no leveling curve to speak of. In short wow is trying to be everything to everyone and is killing its self by doing this.
I think alot of players like myself feel like this and are waiting on anouther quality game to come out to play. There are alot of outher quality games out like Lineage 2 and Everquest 2 but noone likes to feel left behind or play in empty zones trying to figure out what to do where to go by themselfs(a least i dont).
In short to sum up my rambling thoughts, Aion will not kill wow, wow will kill wow. With that said Aion will do very well.
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
.jpg)
def not, this game doesn't appeal to alot of people. it looks decent but there are many reasons that WoW worked into why it is the way it is now and this won't
WoW could work on any computer even the worst of the worst
WoW appeals to babies and girls with cartoony kiddy graphics
WoW is the most popular gateway MMO on the market. Remember what it was like leaving your first MMO? Heartbreaking almost right? Considering most of WoW's playerbase never even knew what an MMO was before they played it i doubt they'll be leaving it anytime soon.
The question is not if Aion will kill WOW BUT what can kill Aion.......
Just do a google search on Aion hacks...That's is scary!
Aion is hack to death already in China/Korea and Ncsoft got a hard time to fix/stop those hacks..
How long till it hit NA version after the release? Hmm
I'm sorry but I will wait a little before putting any money on a game that will be boot to death, speedhack ect..
Aion will never kill WoW cause it will die before it happen.
Blizzard is nothing Compard to NcSoft then is comes to subscription only in Asia Aion have over 12 million players.
Posts like these are such uneducated dumb garbage. The only WoW killer will be Blizzard themselves ignoring the playerbase even more, until people finally see the light.
the only wow-killer i can see will be blizzards next mmorpg. might even be the next rl-killer too. say goodbye to social outings.
um wha? Ignoring the player base?
Last I looked, WoW players constituted a huge part of the player base, that's the reason 12million are playing their game.
You might not like it, but WoW is the game that is catering the most to the player base.
WoW killer? WoW dying? Everytime I see this foolishness typed on the screen I remember UO and how it's STILL active to this very day! Get a grip fellas, please. Hmmm Asian market compared to the U.S. market....where to begin... First let's point out that Blizzard is a company better established in the asian market than you can even wrap your jaded brain around...Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft IPs, STILL get top playing time in the WCG circle. See DOTA and SC for references. Asians hunger for anything Blizzard dishes out. The annoncement of Starcraft II in Korea first, tells me they respect Blizzard's attention to quality.
Hell, Lineage is a direct ripoff of the Diablo style of graphics and interface. I played it to see what all the talk was about with it's millions of players. Which brings me to my point. The asian market has ALWAYS been big on video games in general. Several professional competions, players there treated that rival our own sport stars, T.V. programs devoted to dishing out video game related info 24/7 and a level of acceptance to gaming bigger than all the other 6 contenients combined.
Now flip over to NCSoft and the western market and you can just hear the crickets chirpin.... First of all western players are not keen on games as much. I mean don't get me wrong we love our games but it doesn't come close to what we see in the asian market. But it's their playing style that don't mix well with western players. Look how long it took them to finally understand that to play in this market you're gonna HAVE to adapt to our wasd lovin movement , drop the sharp curve in higher level grinding to mask not having endgame content, tone down the shiny armor and the overly female looking MALE characters, deal with very vocal players who expect action from a company when they purchase their product and practice aggressive policing of banning bots, gold farming and doing so without the use of a third party anti-hacking program that interfere with our PC configs.
All of that along with the fact that NO asian developed MMO has ever held a majority of the western market when compared to western based MMOs, period. That translates to it doesn't matter what THEY enjoy overseas, if it doesn't appeal to us it won't take hold in our pysche. And it will never "kill" a MMO developed in the west for western players.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Yeah these threads get old fast....its like every single MMo that comes out is going to be a WoW killer.......I think too many people are putting too much stock in the Asian sub numbers......First of all Hello Kitty Online would probably sell millions there......The Asians tend to really love their video games, regardless of the quality of the games......Also its hard to get an accurate sub count as the way I understand it they dont pay a 15 dollar monthly like NA/EU do, but they pay by the hour in gaming type cafes......Basically if they sign up for any account they are counted as a sub whether they actually play or not (same goes for WoW subs in Asia also)........If they pay ten cents for that month they are still counted from what I understand.......
Lets see how Aion does in the Western market before crowning it king ......Im sure it will be like AoC and WAr with alot of initial hype and interest but can Aion hold on to subscribers once they get a month or so of gameplay??
Last two posts before this one pretty much just ended this thread.
I'm sure they can.
I don't know if it will get initially the same numbers AoC and WAR had (mainly due to the Eastern style, bad reputation in the west etc.), but I'm willing to bet that the retention rate after a few months will be MUCH better than the others.
Why? well one of the main reasons is that everything in the game works.
Main reason AoC and WAR (to a lesser extent) failed to retain more than 50% of their subs in a couple of months, is because, in particular, AoC was a trainwreck. I was extremely surprised that they were able to steady the ship somewhat a couple of months ago. It was hell at launch, After tortage it lacked severely in every department, especially performance. As for WAR, game design was truly awful and extremely repetitive, characters felt very rigid, and the endgame was unplayable due to performance issues, not to mention very grindy and boring. If it had stayed in development a year longer, they would have thought things over more, and released a very good game IMO.
Anyway, I bet Aion will retain a whole lot more % of subscribers than AoC and WAR did, and subs will increase steadily for the few coming months. You can quote me on that.
However It'll never get close to WoW.
Not even half it's subs.
I'm sure they can.
I don't know if it will get initially the same numbers AoC and WAR had (mainly due to the Eastern style, bad reputation in the west etc.), but I'm willing to bet that the retention rate after a few months will be MUCH better than the others.
Why? well one of the main reasons is that everything in the game works.
Main reason AoC and WAR (to a lesser extent) failed to retain more than 50% of their subs in a couple of months, is because, in particular, AoC was a trainwreck. I was extremely surprised that they were able to steady the ship somewhat a couple of months ago. It was hell at launch, After tortage it lacked severely in every department, especially performance. As for WAR, game design was truly awful and extremely repetitive, characters felt very rigid, and the endgame was unplayable due to performance issues, not to mention very grindy and boring. If it had stayed in development a year longer, they would have thought things over more, and released a very good game IMO.
Anyway, I bet Aion will retain a whole lot more % of subscribers than AoC and WAR did, and subs will increase steadily for the few coming months. You can quote me on that.
However It'll never get close to WoW.
Not even half it's subs.
Looking at WoW and its history, the only game upon release that really dented WoW numbers was AoC. Blizzard changed schedules, posted numerous press releases to stock holders, etc. However, Age of Conan was not a finished game when it shipped. Customer's were not going to wait nine months for fixes as well thus the overwhelming majority went back to WoW.
So can lightning strike twice? WoW is primarily a very well polished pve game with optional fast paced pvp. The majority of WoW players are even on pve servers. However, Aion is a finished and polished game. However, the mythology is not known and the ability to really opt out of pvp is not present. Thus I agree that Aion will get subs and retain them but WoW numbers are not realistically reachable.
We had heroic Ulduar cleared 2 and a half weeks after it was released, wow raids have been greatly simplified from the early game. Old wow, you were not pugging BWL the day it was released were you? Blizzard has made raiding too simple for the old schoolers who PREFER to earn the right to raid. It has been simplified to allow the children to raid. Which is fine imo, to each their own.
They practically give the gear needed to raid away, I assume that is what you refer to as "raids are better then ever". Blizzard is giving away the right to raid rather then making people earn the right. that explains why decent tanks are hard to find. Every kid gets the freebie gear and slaps it on and thinks they are a real tank.
Aion reminds me of the old WoW, where you have to fight and earn your keep.
Everyone I know who was in WoW from the very begining would prefer the old 40 man raids, however the ones who were never part of that (40 man raids that is) think its great as it is. There was a day where you would stand in ironforge with pride wearing your might and wrath armor, now there is no pride because the top end gear is a dime a dozen.
So you were in the top 1% of the guilds in the world then that cleared Ulduar and killed agalon? Why keep chatting crap. You think old wow was hard because it took 40 people and took hours upon hours to grind 1 dungeon??? newsflash thats not hard its tediuos. BWL, mc, aq, zg WERE NOT HARD, they were tediuos because they had 10000000 million trash and long ass routes. The bosses back then were no different to wow once you had them all on lock down, they all seemed harder because it all seemed new. Hell 40 mans raid were the worst, half the raids was afk on follow so dont give me crap about old wow raids being good, The only thing good about them was going to BRM and fighting guilds in BRM b4 raids, or in silithus b4 raids.
probably 2% of the wow population prefers the old style 40 man raids, which were the longets and biggest grinds known to bloody man. Anyone that says killing millions of trash is fun or was hard is bloody crazy. The rep grinds back then were insane, they were not hard, they were tediuos get it staright. Nobody wants to go back to those days of grinding. Hell I used to love being on my guild back in those days I know what you talking about there were some trully epic times back then, but the game has moved on and those days are not coming back, and I for one have no wish ever to go back to those days of grinding and grinding and grinding for months and months.
You tlak about pride, like you know anything about it, I bet everyone that plays the game, YES GAME, have pride in what they accomplish, and DONT play the GAME as if it were a job. You kepe talking about tanks and and the raids simplified for kids, Newsflash and joe dick or tom could raid in Vanilla wow, like I said half the raids used to be AFK so nobody would notice, so yes alot of people got boosted, so dotnt alk crap about it being simplified. Any noob back then could tank if they wanted same like now, so get a grip, and Noob that was afk for half the raid could stand in IF and show of his armour, NEWSFLASH in todays 25 man raids nobody can go afk unless you doing normal 10 man instance
"Yesss, I feel the anger swelling in you now... I am unarmed, take your weapon and strike me down with all of your hate and your journey to the darkside will be complete"
In old woW we were the top horde guild in NA period, oh wait back then there was only NA and all the top guilds were Horde. The only mundane instance we had was AQ 40, and when we found a way to hack thru the walls to get to the last boss Blizzard made us all pay the ultimate price for it. If you are old WoW you would know what guild I mentored in. If not google can be your friend. But anyway those were the good old days.
I never said old wow was hard, from a guild perspective it was a challenge. It was not a grind, clearing a instance took teamwork and skill. The only people who constantly AFK in the instance were the ones who thought it was tedious, so I have plenty of experience with YOUR style of play.
You may be within 30% with your statement of 2% of the wow pop prefering the 40 mans, but then again 90% of the serious raiders no longer play wow. You are confused on your statements regarding trash, there was not that much more trash it was just more of a challenge (specially for those people who afk like I suspect you were). It was about what i expect from an instance, but my expectation and yours are obviously quite abit apart, mine are high and yours seem low. There was very little grind in WoW back then, you needed runecloth for alliance/horde rep (either work the ah to make the gold to buy it or go grind it). Most other rep came from running the instances that actually got you gear, nice to get rep and gear at the same time dont you think? WOTLK is nothing but daily quest rep grind, the grind started in BC to get the netherdrake and so forth.... do you remember grinding them?
If you have pride in your work in WOTLK all i can say is that in my opinion your standards are alot lower then mine.
I find your comments on tanks a bit funny because I ran nothing but tanks when I played WoW. Warriors were the only viable main tank back then and if you were well experienced you would know that. We used nothing but warriors, as time went on some bears became viable. Pally's were nothing but healers, it wasnt till BC that they became viable trash tanks. Tanks and healers are the most important thing in raid, you should know that. A good tank (like me) is hard to find.
News flash, in todays 10 and 25 man raid you can 6 man and 15 man them so get your editor to retract the news flash. I run the raids with people afk for hours.
Have a good one buddy.
This guy again. Runs his mouth but has yet to actually give any real proof about his claims. I mean at least people that are full of it pick out a fake armory and say it's them. Oh wait, you were the scrub guild that cheated in AQ 40 and got banned. Way to go champion.
Stick to the topic dstar....
Yea #1 in the world kind of scrub, name calling and hostility the last resort in a losing argument. think I'll log onto WoW and lead a 25 man pug thru Ulduar, clear half the instance tonight.