Yes, it has. Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
I'd like to see your proof of it, actually. All I can find is an article on IGN stating they surpassed the 3.5 million subs mark, and that was a few months ago.
In the meantime, no panic: www.xfire.com shows the Aion US/EU Beta results at around 25% less players as War /AoC had at exactly the same Beta timings last year. (4.5/5K agains 3.4K). So taking into account Aion shows a 25% lesser interest, it is targeting an opening sell now of around 400K copies. Encouraging for Aion is that War's Beta even showed a drop of in population in the last 3 weeks before launch. We will see in the following weeks to have an even more accurate guess.
What nonsense.... you know not everyone uses xfire... hell because I'm not playing any FPS games atm the I don't even have it installed.
Only reason I use it is to join a server a friend is on, in something like COD4.
Dude X-Fire is not the definitive end all be all of statistics for any MMO. As has been stated, not everyone uses it. So quoting those numbers to prop up your opinion just makes it sound tainted. Besides i do believe Aion will sell well and keep a substancial number of subs months after its release.
Well I haven't played beta and this is the first in game action that I have seen of Aion. It looks very polished I will give it that, but to be honest it looks exactly like WOW, I mean exactly.
If I didn't know this was Aion and someone said this is the new hero class in the WOW expansion, it would be believable.
Well I haven't played beta and this is the first in game action that I have seen of Aion. It looks very polished I will give it that, but to be honest it looks exactly like WOW, I mean exactly. If I didn't know this was Aion and someone said this is the new hero class in the WOW expansion, it would be believable.
MMORPGs are MMORPGs, it would be like noting that half-life and halo look the same even though both didn't create most FPS standards
Aion has a very different endgame from what I've heard, saying it is a WoW-clone is ignorant... even though of course it has many aspects in terms of gameplay/ui/feel etc to wow, that has more to do with the genre/style considering neither wow nor aion standardised many aspects of that style of MMORPG (games like Everquest or DAOC did). again, it would be like saying that two non-mario platformers look the same, OF COURSE THEY LOOK THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME GENRE
is aion the way it is because wow was so successful with the formula?
sure, but (to use the half-life/halo example again) to say that aion copied wow is like saying that halo copied half-life in terms of ALL gameplay aspects (original halo, halo 2-3 suck) because half-life invented the whole genre out of thin air (while half-life instead used what was already established in FPS gaming and mixed around the story telling, since even the original hl used an engine that they didn't come up with)... and even then comparing halo and half-life is still bad considering half-life did actually change the genre while WoW didn't and hasn't... WoW instead uses concepts from other games that pretty much worked and added them to their game (and sometimes makes the concepts better).
either way, aion doesn't have achievements, so I'm happy.
go actually read up or play endgame before jumping to stupid conclusions about a genre you obviously know nothing about.
if anything wow has been a drain on the genre, instead of going into a different direction and TAKE A RISK, blizzard decides to go with stuff that already has worked and fit it into their game. their worse then microsoft IMO, they suck up original ideas from other games to make one monster game that has everything.
i REALLY hope nothing ever kills wow....you have played it right? you know what kind of community it has. ther is a reason people use barens chat as prime example of it.
The exact same comparison about character was being made when AoC is about to be release, but as many players here have said, graphics isn't everything. It will be fair to give an opinion for a game after it's release for a few months, when the majority of players have rech more than level 20 and some already doing end-game... Hopefully we get a unbias review then, without comparing with WoW... just on the game itself ...
Aion's endgame is currently being played by millions in Asia for 8+ months....i don't think AoC every had that luxury. (nice comparison hehe)
Servers in China jumped from 40 to 120 to allow for the increase in players, you do math? i think they like game..
WoW being offline in china for a month helped too. Wonder how many of those servers will merge now that wow is back?
If I were in China id say screw the government and WoW for changing skellies into bags and chests and play Aion. I played Aion for 3 days and I already like it more than WoW, that could be because I like Asian stuff. Hopefully they fixed the problems with musical Keeps that WAR had. September is going to be rough....... I might be subbed to 2 games come the 22 it all depends how much FE sucks me in.
Wow was online in China when Aion reached the 120 servers milestone. Wow went offline some weeks ago there, and wow is going back with TBC.
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
)))))
Care to comment? ))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
No it has only "around" 1.5 M Asian subs. You can find it in the info of NCSoft last financial result pages.
All vey clear, with even nice pictures of servers and how they were distributed (along Korea and China).
You are the fan of the game, you should know it. Look it up and don't be lazy.
In the meantime, no panic: www.xfire.com shows the Aion US/EU Beta results at around 25% less players as War /AoC had at exactly the same Beta timings last year. (4.5/5K agains 3.4K).
So taking into account Aion shows a 25% lesser interest, it is targeting an opening sell now of around 400K copies.
Encouraging for Aion is that War's Beta even showed a drop of in population in the last 3 weeks before launch.
We will see in the following weeks to have an even more accurate guess.
I have looked, those financial results dont back up your claims at all, in fact, they tend to point out you're wrong and I am right, with a 7,2K PCU we're estimating there are 28k people per server if we use the current math for newly released games (max users per server multiplied by four), multiplied by 170 servers, which would make 4,480,000 subs.
And xfire means shit if we're talking about asian subs, since nobody in asia uses that, and it also means shit in NA/EU, since it creates an arythmetic media of users weekly, and Aion beta is opened 3 days every 14.
I'm having serious problems getting into this game. I was crazy excited for it before the closed betas. But after playing it these past couple weeks, nothing pulls me in.
It is a beautiful game, but I feel like it's missing that awe that most other mmorpgs capture. Even WoW has this feeling of "Dear god there is so much in here, even the first 1-60 lvls". Im no WoW fanboy at all, i just started playing again and even on these closed beta weekends I have been logging out more and more from Aion to go play in WoW.
This game will be successful, but not as much as all these fanboys say. There is a huge grind, then you get to Abyss, where you grind PvP some more. Nothing special just another TYPICAL MMO that everyone refuses to understand.
Oh and edit for the poster above me: Dear god doing math with how many people CAN be in servers does not equate to how many subs there are. You have fail written all over your posts.
Wow was online in China when Aion reached the 120 servers milestone. Wow went offline some weeks ago there, and wow is going back with TBC.
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
)))))
Care to comment? ))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
No it has only "around" 1.5 M Asian subs. You can find it in the info of NCSoft last financial result pages.
All vey clear, with even nice pictures of servers and how they were distributed (along Korea and China).
You are the fan of the game, you should know it. Look it up and don't be lazy.
In the meantime, no panic: www.xfire.com shows the Aion US/EU Beta results at around 25% less players as War /AoC had at exactly the same Beta timings last year. (4.5/5K agains 3.4K).
So taking into account Aion shows a 25% lesser interest, it is targeting an opening sell now of around 400K copies.
Encouraging for Aion is that War's Beta even showed a drop of in population in the last 3 weeks before launch.
We will see in the following weeks to have an even more accurate guess.
No.
1. Most players tried Aion in China and are either playing over there and/or waiting for release. It isn't a 25% lesser interest when there is 15x more information released about Aion, there is no NDA and players have more than one source to play the game. XFire takes stats from a select playerbase, it's a skewed statistic (like all of the statistics you use), I don't use XFire and I don't believe I need 10 million players playing my game to justify playing it. If 10 million players were playing Aion, I'd have to fear carebear content and increase leveling speed every couple months and a gazillion instance PvP zones.
To be frank, I don't know why you are so interested in trolling Aion. Everyone knows you are a well known troll on mmorpg.com, try another forum maybe?
Well I haven't played beta and this is the first in game action that I have seen of Aion. It looks very polished I will give it that, but to be honest it looks exactly like WOW, I mean exactly. If I didn't know this was Aion and someone said this is the new hero class in the WOW expansion, it would be believable.
MMORPGs are MMORPGs, it would be like noting that half-life and halo look the same even though both didn't create most FPS standards
Aion has a very different endgame from what I've heard, saying it is a WoW-clone is ignorant... even though of course it has many aspects in terms of gameplay/ui/feel etc to wow, that has more to do with the genre/style considering neither wow nor aion standardised many aspects of that style of MMORPG (games like Everquest or DAOC did). again, it would be like saying that two non-mario platformers look the same, OF COURSE THEY LOOK THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME GENRE
is aion the way it is because wow was so successful with the formula?
sure, but (to use the half-life/halo example again) to say that aion copied wow is like saying that halo copied half-life in terms of ALL gameplay aspects (original halo, halo 2-3 suck) because half-life invented the whole genre out of thin air (while half-life instead used what was already established in FPS gaming and mixed around the story telling, since even the original hl used an engine that they didn't come up with)... and even then comparing halo and half-life is still bad considering half-life did actually change the genre while WoW didn't and hasn't... WoW instead uses concepts from other games that pretty much worked and added them to their game (and sometimes makes the concepts better).
either way, aion doesn't have achievements, so I'm happy.
go actually read up or play endgame before jumping to stupid conclusions about a genre you obviously know nothing about.
if anything wow has been a drain on the genre, instead of going into a different direction and TAKE A RISK, blizzard decides to go with stuff that already has worked and fit it into their game. their worse then microsoft IMO, they suck up original ideas from other games to make one monster game that has everything.
Umm... well dang dude I wasn't trying to bash Aion really just saying it looks exactly like WOW from that little video I saw. I'm sure the mechanics and end game are different but just in general it looks just like WOW.
Just seems like there was a bigger jump in design from EQ > WOW > Aion.
Good luck to everyone playing or wanting to play the game, hope it fills all of your voids, just isn't my cup of tea.
Aion for sure brings something different to the mmo table. Is fresh and envigorating. In the current in general gaming market that has been so slow this year Aion is like one in a million ... Kinda the only good mmo that has come out in a while.. I dont know about you guys, but im tired of being dissapointed by playing weak Mmos ... Aion is just delighful Like it or not, Aion will steal a huge part of the population of most Mmos right now and hopefully kill some weak ass mmos. (Yeah darkfall)
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Wow was online in China when Aion reached the 120 servers milestone. Wow went offline some weeks ago there, and wow is going back with TBC.
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
)))))
Care to comment? ))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
Do you have stock in NCsoft and did this particular poster reveal himself as the second coming of christ or the anti christ himself with the power to bring down Aion with a single wave of his hand? Because you are getting really emotional about his comment. And he atleast posted facts and where he got them from you actually pulled 4M out of your ass and offered no source to back up your own information.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Aion for sure brings something different to the mmo table. Is fresh and envigorating. In the current in general gaming market that has been so slow this year Aion is like one in a million ... Kinda the only good mmo that has come out in a while.. I dont know about you guys, but im tired of being dissapointed by playing weak Mmos ... Aion is just delighful Like it or not, Aion will steal a huge part of the population of most Mmos right now and hopefully kill some weak ass mmos. (Yeah darkfall)
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Just wait until it launches and dissapoints and all of these people proclaiming it as the second coming come back and start to bitch and moan about it (AOC anyone) then we who aren't sheep will laugh at them they will flame us for it and the cycle will continue.
OP it's nice to be excited about a game but as I've stated so many times you guys really need to remember this game needs to keep your attention for a year plus to be considered a success and you could not possibly have the kind of experience yet to make any kind of assesment of what this game will be like so your only climbing higher therefore allowing the fall to be greater.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Aion is nothing more than more of the same. I guess those who cut their teeth on MMO's starting with WOW will be drawn in to it, but for long time MMOers who're jaded with what's out there, I don't seem them getting far in to this one before becoming very bored when they feeling of they done this all before hits them.
Aion for sure brings something different to the mmo table. Is fresh and envigorating. In the current in general gaming market that has been so slow this year Aion is like one in a million ... Kinda the only good mmo that has come out in a while.. I dont know about you guys, but im tired of being dissapointed by playing weak Mmos ... Aion is just delighful Like it or not, Aion will steal a huge part of the population of most Mmos right now and hopefully kill some weak ass mmos. (Yeah darkfall)
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Just wait until it launches and dissapoints and all of these people proclaiming it as the second coming come back and start to bitch and moan about it (AOC anyone) then we who aren't sheep will laugh at them they will flame us for it and the cycle will continue.
OP it's nice to be excited about a game but as I've stated so many times you guys really need to remember this game needs to keep your attention for a year plus to be considered a success and you could not possibly have the kind of experience yet to make any kind of assesment of what this game will be like so your only climbing higher therefore allowing the fall to be greater.
I do not wish it to fail, and I hope it turns out to be fun for those that want to play it but I just cannot understand the hype for this game. I do not see anything new (other then graphics and story) compared to what is on the market now.
I just do not get it. I will not be playing Aion for the simple fact that I will not play any game with quest hubs again. I hate doing a million pointless quest that do not effect the world I am playing in. A quest to me is something that changes the world it is being done in.
Isn't the new FF mmo going to be exclusive to PS3?
QQ I don't have one.
As for Aion, I hope it succeeds (no, that does not mean killing wow. We all know wow can't be killed by another mmo anymore!!!)
Although, a diablo mmo might have killed wow, but that woulda been a blizzard game anyways. lol oh the the spirals of irony.
But tbh, I play one mmo at a time (If I'm trying a new one out I take a break from my 'main mmo......has more to do with time allocations for other things in my life. Playing more then 1 mmo could seriously hurt the social life). And right now, after having a stint at WaR and AOC, I deleted wow toons older then some people's cars. So I need a new mmo.......especially when my in-laws come to visit in October. (yay Aion release date).
The point: I need to change my pants, this game is exciting me.
Do you have the willpower to delete YOUR wow toons? XD
So does anyone who isn't a fanboy care to explain to me the differences in Aion and WoW other than aesthetics? I haven't seen a single god damn mechanic that hasn't been done before. Oh look; you can fly! What in the fuck is a Z-axis? Is this new?! Same whore with prettier makeup, so far.
When you move in combat it gives you bonus/ minus to dmg, armor, evasion. Im not sure if that was done before or not. There is arial combat as well I don't think thats been done in a MMO. But the PvP is supposed to be more like WAR compared to WoW.
Heh everyone compares this game to WoW but you have to remember that Wow was nothing new as well they just rehashed a bunch of old ideas. Not many game companies make a complete game from scratch using brand new Ideas.
I have to agree with cukimunga on his points, besides i have not seen or heard of any MMO's that use flight combat mechanics or minor movement combat buffs in the same game. Granted this was never inteneded as a next gen or revolutionary MMO, players are the ones who have hyped it as such. Aion does bring a different aspect to the genre and it's new instead of the same old stuff people have played.
So does anyone who isn't a fanboy care to explain to me the differences in Aion and WoW other than aesthetics? I haven't seen a single god damn mechanic that hasn't been done before. Oh look; you can fly! What in the fuck is a Z-axis? Is this new?! Same whore with prettier makeup, so far.
Well other than looking WAYYY better there is also the mechanic of combo chains which WOW does not have... As you level you gain starter abilities and also chain abilities that link to the starter ability they start to create trees of moves... You have to really learn what chain ability to use in the situation to best serve you at that moment in combat.. As you get higher in levels the tree expands even more making combat very involved.
IE start with one move. which opens up 2 other moves... you have to choose which one you want to use or which one will best benifit you.. Then that move you used will open up 2 more moves which will be completely different than the abilities your other choice would have opened up for you..
Another mechanic that it has that WOW doesnt is opening up your own store... much like EQ1s old Bazaar. Where you have players that instead of using the broker advertise their wares in an store message and take a seat on a stool as they sell their wares...
I have posted in another thread. Aion has more of an EQ1 feel to it to me than a WOW feel. PVP is more open world skirmish based than Battleground. There are a few instances where PVP will be found but they are actually dungeons with goals rather than a battleground..It would be like running an instance in WOW for the PVE but having the other side also running in the same instance for the same goals with areas that crisscross where you might meat up.. with boss fights and all.
I played WOW for the first 2 years. I will not knock the game like alot of people do. I enjoyed it during the time I was in it. I just like games that dont seem as simple. I ended up moving to Vanguard (im an old school EQer) Aion appeals to me because it seems move involved. Some people might say it is grindy because it takes you a bit longer to level up. But for some its as much about the trip to the destination as it is about the destination itself. and well Aion succeeds in that trip up through the levels quite well from what I can see so far.
So what is the content like? Does it have at least as much as current state WoW? As much as the monolithic Everquest?
What is crafting like? What is there to do besides killing? Is the world big? Is the game linear? How does the game manage to keep someone playing?
Right now I just don't see a lick of Everquest in the game, no offense. A combo system, flying, and a switch of scenery isn't enough to do it for me.
I'm just taking it at face value here. I'm getting vibes of a rehashed system that we've been fed for the last 6 or 7 years, with a new coat of paint. I really hope I'm wrong. I'd like something that isn't simple that won't attract a twelve year old, but I see nothing of the sorts so far.
Oh, and the video in the OP's link showcases pretty graphics and animations and nothing else. Does anyone have a link to a good features video?
Comments
I'd like to see your proof of it, actually. All I can find is an article on IGN stating they surpassed the 3.5 million subs mark, and that was a few months ago.
What nonsense.... you know not everyone uses xfire... hell because I'm not playing any FPS games atm the I don't even have it installed.
Only reason I use it is to join a server a friend is on, in something like COD4.
like I said early xfire mean nothing.
Dude X-Fire is not the definitive end all be all of statistics for any MMO. As has been stated, not everyone uses it. So quoting those numbers to prop up your opinion just makes it sound tainted. Besides i do believe Aion will sell well and keep a substancial number of subs months after its release.
showing the same animation again and again is meh
either way, wow has been dead for some time now already anyway
Aion will be a great distraction until Sw:TOR and WOD comes out. Cant weait to play it.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Well I haven't played beta and this is the first in game action that I have seen of Aion. It looks very polished I will give it that, but to be honest it looks exactly like WOW, I mean exactly.
If I didn't know this was Aion and someone said this is the new hero class in the WOW expansion, it would be believable.
MMORPGs are MMORPGs, it would be like noting that half-life and halo look the same even though both didn't create most FPS standards
Aion has a very different endgame from what I've heard, saying it is a WoW-clone is ignorant... even though of course it has many aspects in terms of gameplay/ui/feel etc to wow, that has more to do with the genre/style considering neither wow nor aion standardised many aspects of that style of MMORPG (games like Everquest or DAOC did). again, it would be like saying that two non-mario platformers look the same, OF COURSE THEY LOOK THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME GENRE
is aion the way it is because wow was so successful with the formula?
sure, but (to use the half-life/halo example again) to say that aion copied wow is like saying that halo copied half-life in terms of ALL gameplay aspects (original halo, halo 2-3 suck) because half-life invented the whole genre out of thin air (while half-life instead used what was already established in FPS gaming and mixed around the story telling, since even the original hl used an engine that they didn't come up with)... and even then comparing halo and half-life is still bad considering half-life did actually change the genre while WoW didn't and hasn't... WoW instead uses concepts from other games that pretty much worked and added them to their game (and sometimes makes the concepts better).
either way, aion doesn't have achievements, so I'm happy.
go actually read up or play endgame before jumping to stupid conclusions about a genre you obviously know nothing about.
if anything wow has been a drain on the genre, instead of going into a different direction and TAKE A RISK, blizzard decides to go with stuff that already has worked and fit it into their game. their worse then microsoft IMO, they suck up original ideas from other games to make one monster game that has everything.
i REALLY hope nothing ever kills wow....you have played it right? you know what kind of community it has. ther is a reason people use barens chat as prime example of it.
Aion's endgame is currently being played by millions in Asia for 8+ months....i don't think AoC every had that luxury. (nice comparison hehe)
Servers in China jumped from 40 to 120 to allow for the increase in players, you do math? i think they like game..
WoW being offline in china for a month helped too. Wonder how many of those servers will merge now that wow is back?
If I were in China id say screw the government and WoW for changing skellies into bags and chests and play Aion. I played Aion for 3 days and I already like it more than WoW, that could be because I like Asian stuff. Hopefully they fixed the problems with musical Keeps that WAR had. September is going to be rough....... I might be subbed to 2 games come the 22 it all depends how much FE sucks me in.
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
Care to comment?
))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
No it has only "around" 1.5 M Asian subs. You can find it in the info of NCSoft last financial result pages.
All vey clear, with even nice pictures of servers and how they were distributed (along Korea and China).
You are the fan of the game, you should know it. Look it up and don't be lazy.
In the meantime, no panic: www.xfire.com shows the Aion US/EU Beta results at around 25% less players as War /AoC had at exactly the same Beta timings last year. (4.5/5K agains 3.4K).
So taking into account Aion shows a 25% lesser interest, it is targeting an opening sell now of around 400K copies.
Encouraging for Aion is that War's Beta even showed a drop of in population in the last 3 weeks before launch.
We will see in the following weeks to have an even more accurate guess.
I have looked, those financial results dont back up your claims at all, in fact, they tend to point out you're wrong and I am right, with a 7,2K PCU we're estimating there are 28k people per server if we use the current math for newly released games (max users per server multiplied by four), multiplied by 170 servers, which would make 4,480,000 subs.
And xfire means shit if we're talking about asian subs, since nobody in asia uses that, and it also means shit in NA/EU, since it creates an arythmetic media of users weekly, and Aion beta is opened 3 days every 14.
Next.
I'm having serious problems getting into this game. I was crazy excited for it before the closed betas. But after playing it these past couple weeks, nothing pulls me in.
It is a beautiful game, but I feel like it's missing that awe that most other mmorpgs capture. Even WoW has this feeling of "Dear god there is so much in here, even the first 1-60 lvls". Im no WoW fanboy at all, i just started playing again and even on these closed beta weekends I have been logging out more and more from Aion to go play in WoW.
This game will be successful, but not as much as all these fanboys say. There is a huge grind, then you get to Abyss, where you grind PvP some more. Nothing special just another TYPICAL MMO that everyone refuses to understand.
Oh and edit for the poster above me: Dear god doing math with how many people CAN be in servers does not equate to how many subs there are. You have fail written all over your posts.
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
Care to comment?
))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
No it has only "around" 1.5 M Asian subs. You can find it in the info of NCSoft last financial result pages.
All vey clear, with even nice pictures of servers and how they were distributed (along Korea and China).
You are the fan of the game, you should know it. Look it up and don't be lazy.
In the meantime, no panic: www.xfire.com shows the Aion US/EU Beta results at around 25% less players as War /AoC had at exactly the same Beta timings last year. (4.5/5K agains 3.4K).
So taking into account Aion shows a 25% lesser interest, it is targeting an opening sell now of around 400K copies.
Encouraging for Aion is that War's Beta even showed a drop of in population in the last 3 weeks before launch.
We will see in the following weeks to have an even more accurate guess.
No.
1. Most players tried Aion in China and are either playing over there and/or waiting for release. It isn't a 25% lesser interest when there is 15x more information released about Aion, there is no NDA and players have more than one source to play the game. XFire takes stats from a select playerbase, it's a skewed statistic (like all of the statistics you use), I don't use XFire and I don't believe I need 10 million players playing my game to justify playing it. If 10 million players were playing Aion, I'd have to fear carebear content and increase leveling speed every couple months and a gazillion instance PvP zones.
To be frank, I don't know why you are so interested in trolling Aion. Everyone knows you are a well known troll on mmorpg.com, try another forum maybe?
MMORPGs are MMORPGs, it would be like noting that half-life and halo look the same even though both didn't create most FPS standards
Aion has a very different endgame from what I've heard, saying it is a WoW-clone is ignorant... even though of course it has many aspects in terms of gameplay/ui/feel etc to wow, that has more to do with the genre/style considering neither wow nor aion standardised many aspects of that style of MMORPG (games like Everquest or DAOC did). again, it would be like saying that two non-mario platformers look the same, OF COURSE THEY LOOK THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME GENRE
is aion the way it is because wow was so successful with the formula?
sure, but (to use the half-life/halo example again) to say that aion copied wow is like saying that halo copied half-life in terms of ALL gameplay aspects (original halo, halo 2-3 suck) because half-life invented the whole genre out of thin air (while half-life instead used what was already established in FPS gaming and mixed around the story telling, since even the original hl used an engine that they didn't come up with)... and even then comparing halo and half-life is still bad considering half-life did actually change the genre while WoW didn't and hasn't... WoW instead uses concepts from other games that pretty much worked and added them to their game (and sometimes makes the concepts better).
either way, aion doesn't have achievements, so I'm happy.
go actually read up or play endgame before jumping to stupid conclusions about a genre you obviously know nothing about.
if anything wow has been a drain on the genre, instead of going into a different direction and TAKE A RISK, blizzard decides to go with stuff that already has worked and fit it into their game. their worse then microsoft IMO, they suck up original ideas from other games to make one monster game that has everything.
Umm... well dang dude I wasn't trying to bash Aion really just saying it looks exactly like WOW from that little video I saw. I'm sure the mechanics and end game are different but just in general it looks just like WOW.
Just seems like there was a bigger jump in design from EQ > WOW > Aion.
Good luck to everyone playing or wanting to play the game, hope it fills all of your voids, just isn't my cup of tea.
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Sooner or Later
According to NCSoft in MAY this year ...
Korea Aion had 41 servers for aproxx. 400K players (the same as Jan btw).
And China had 113 servers for approx 1 M players in MAY... AT LAUNCH.
If it is true that Aion reached now "a milestone" n China with 120 servers, it would mean the game stagnated in server numbers in Korea (for more than 8 months now) and ... grew with ... 7 China servers in the past 5 months.
------ > FYI: WOW is still and by far the biggest played MMORPG in the Korean homeland of AION itself with ... 800K Korean subs.
The last confirmed WOW subscriptions from June 05 was 11.600.000 subscribers. As mainland Chinese servers were off from June 8th to July 27th, it will be interesting to see what the number will be after WOTLK publishes in the following days. Taiwan servers were NEVER off line.
As CEO of Activision/Blizzard stated in June on a broadcasted interview that mainland China (not Taiwan) accounted for around 4.5 M Wow internet café accounts, it would be interesting to note that 11.6 Mminus 4.5 Mstill equals 7.1 million mostly "monthly" paying subs.
Aion had a last official confirmation of 1.400.000 (internet café players). Only around 200K Koreans play it with a western based kind of subs.
At the moment Aion stands at ZERO western paying methods. So Xfire will be VERY interesting to see how it will stand up against LOtrO, EVE etc. Of course WOW is in a complete different league.
My Prediction 400K NA/EU players at launch. After 3 months around 150K subs (around Lotro number on Xfire).
I am glad we will have the tools to control here in the west. Server numbers and XFire will counter lies with ease
Care to comment?
))))
What exactly does any of that bullshit have to do with the post you're quoting?
PS: Aion has more than 4M subs in asia, rage about that fact.
No it simply hasn't.
And the above are the facts (with server numbers) coming from the official NCSoft sources.
I can give all references to what I wrote above with offical statements btw. Your 4 M comes out of thin air.
Yes, it has.
Try to prove me wrong with link to those sources, and please dont come with assumptions about server limits this time. Else shut the fuck up.
Do you have stock in NCsoft and did this particular poster reveal himself as the second coming of christ or the anti christ himself with the power to bring down Aion with a single wave of his hand? Because you are getting really emotional about his comment. And he atleast posted facts and where he got them from you actually pulled 4M out of your ass and offered no source to back up your own information.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Just wait until it launches and dissapoints and all of these people proclaiming it as the second coming come back and start to bitch and moan about it (AOC anyone) then we who aren't sheep will laugh at them they will flame us for it and the cycle will continue.
OP it's nice to be excited about a game but as I've stated so many times you guys really need to remember this game needs to keep your attention for a year plus to be considered a success and you could not possibly have the kind of experience yet to make any kind of assesment of what this game will be like so your only climbing higher therefore allowing the fall to be greater.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Aion is nothing more than more of the same. I guess those who cut their teeth on MMO's starting with WOW will be drawn in to it, but for long time MMOers who're jaded with what's out there, I don't seem them getting far in to this one before becoming very bored when they feeling of they done this all before hits them.
What new feature did Aion bring to the table? It brings nothing new to the table other then a new story and new graphics.
I am sick of reading about Aion and how great it is or will be. Guess what its not even released yet, nobody has any idea how this game will be once its released. Only the full beta people know for sure and they are under an NDA.
The weekend previews are useless because it has a limit cap on it. Aion will just be another quest grind game like any others on the market now. With pretty new graphics and flying.
Just wait until it launches and dissapoints and all of these people proclaiming it as the second coming come back and start to bitch and moan about it (AOC anyone) then we who aren't sheep will laugh at them they will flame us for it and the cycle will continue.
OP it's nice to be excited about a game but as I've stated so many times you guys really need to remember this game needs to keep your attention for a year plus to be considered a success and you could not possibly have the kind of experience yet to make any kind of assesment of what this game will be like so your only climbing higher therefore allowing the fall to be greater.
I do not wish it to fail, and I hope it turns out to be fun for those that want to play it but I just cannot understand the hype for this game. I do not see anything new (other then graphics and story) compared to what is on the market now.
I just do not get it. I will not be playing Aion for the simple fact that I will not play any game with quest hubs again. I hate doing a million pointless quest that do not effect the world I am playing in. A quest to me is something that changes the world it is being done in.
Sooner or Later
Isn't the new FF mmo going to be exclusive to PS3?
QQ I don't have one.
As for Aion, I hope it succeeds (no, that does not mean killing wow. We all know wow can't be killed by another mmo anymore!!!)
Although, a diablo mmo might have killed wow, but that woulda been a blizzard game anyways. lol oh the the spirals of irony.
But tbh, I play one mmo at a time (If I'm trying a new one out I take a break from my 'main mmo......has more to do with time allocations for other things in my life. Playing more then 1 mmo could seriously hurt the social life). And right now, after having a stint at WaR and AOC, I deleted wow toons older then some people's cars. So I need a new mmo.......especially when my in-laws come to visit in October. (yay Aion release date).
The point: I need to change my pants, this game is exciting me.
Do you have the willpower to delete YOUR wow toons? XD
[Retired: WoW, RO, EvE, WaR, AoC, LoTR]
great tube. Loved it.
So does anyone who isn't a fanboy care to explain to me the differences in Aion and WoW other than aesthetics?
I haven't seen a single god damn mechanic that hasn't been done before. Oh look; you can fly! What in the fuck is a Z-axis? Is this new?!
Same whore with prettier makeup, so far.
When you move in combat it gives you bonus/ minus to dmg, armor, evasion. Im not sure if that was done before or not. There is arial combat as well I don't think thats been done in a MMO. But the PvP is supposed to be more like WAR compared to WoW.
Heh everyone compares this game to WoW but you have to remember that Wow was nothing new as well they just rehashed a bunch of old ideas. Not many game companies make a complete game from scratch using brand new Ideas.
I have to agree with cukimunga on his points, besides i have not seen or heard of any MMO's that use flight combat mechanics or minor movement combat buffs in the same game. Granted this was never inteneded as a next gen or revolutionary MMO, players are the ones who have hyped it as such. Aion does bring a different aspect to the genre and it's new instead of the same old stuff people have played.
Well other than looking WAYYY better there is also the mechanic of combo chains which WOW does not have... As you level you gain starter abilities and also chain abilities that link to the starter ability they start to create trees of moves... You have to really learn what chain ability to use in the situation to best serve you at that moment in combat.. As you get higher in levels the tree expands even more making combat very involved.
IE start with one move. which opens up 2 other moves... you have to choose which one you want to use or which one will best benifit you.. Then that move you used will open up 2 more moves which will be completely different than the abilities your other choice would have opened up for you..
Another mechanic that it has that WOW doesnt is opening up your own store... much like EQ1s old Bazaar. Where you have players that instead of using the broker advertise their wares in an store message and take a seat on a stool as they sell their wares...
I have posted in another thread. Aion has more of an EQ1 feel to it to me than a WOW feel. PVP is more open world skirmish based than Battleground. There are a few instances where PVP will be found but they are actually dungeons with goals rather than a battleground..It would be like running an instance in WOW for the PVE but having the other side also running in the same instance for the same goals with areas that crisscross where you might meat up.. with boss fights and all.
I played WOW for the first 2 years. I will not knock the game like alot of people do. I enjoyed it during the time I was in it. I just like games that dont seem as simple. I ended up moving to Vanguard (im an old school EQer) Aion appeals to me because it seems move involved. Some people might say it is grindy because it takes you a bit longer to level up. But for some its as much about the trip to the destination as it is about the destination itself. and well Aion succeeds in that trip up through the levels quite well from what I can see so far.
So what is the content like? Does it have at least as much as current state WoW? As much as the monolithic Everquest?
What is crafting like?
What is there to do besides killing?
Is the world big?
Is the game linear?
How does the game manage to keep someone playing?
Right now I just don't see a lick of Everquest in the game, no offense. A combo system, flying, and a switch of scenery isn't enough to do it for me.
I'm just taking it at face value here. I'm getting vibes of a rehashed system that we've been fed for the last 6 or 7 years, with a new coat of paint. I really hope I'm wrong. I'd like something that isn't simple that won't attract a twelve year old, but I see nothing of the sorts so far.
Oh, and the video in the OP's link showcases pretty graphics and animations and nothing else. Does anyone have a link to a good features video?