Age of Conan may well have had potential and I agree that its rocky launch really didnt do it any wonders. Its different approach to combat and its high quality graphics have always been something in its favour though. I hear that it has become a much better game now although its been a while since I last played it. I must admit that it didnt hook me on the fun factor (I just didnt find it addictive enough to want to keep paying and playing) but it certainly isnt one of the worst games around.
WAR on the other hand is a different story. In my opinion it wasnt simply the case that the game was released too early that made the game so bad. It was the fact that its entire design is absolutely terrible that made it unplayable for me. I cant see how this game ever had any potential to be a good game at all. All of its elements seem to conflict with each other. Its as though its designers could not decide what they were trying to make. All they could think was "We want a game that players of WoW will feel familiar with so they will stop playing that and come to our game and we want to cater to every style of mmo gameplay there is. We want to make a game that does everything". Their answer to this was to very closely copy the standard PvE questing game that exists in WoW and also have PvP instanced mini-battlegrounds also just like WoW. Then as a final afterthought they added open PvP "playpens" where players could choose to fight each other.....or not. Apparently these were added in beta as the players were complaining about how incredibly boring the game was and that it was a very poor carbon copy of WoW......which was inevitable as it was never any secret that EA Mythic were openly trying to emulate that behemoth.
Basicly the game was always destined to be a mess. PvP focused game? Hardly. They actually had problems convincing the players to fight each other in the playpens......which was blatantly obvious considering they forgot to actually design a reason for PvP into the game. Thats insane! The only goal the players are given is to "gain levels". The game was always designed as a very ordinary levelling treadmill in which the players just walk in a straight line through a linear map. They can either level up by doing bog standard PvE quests (which is where all the real content of the game is because WAR is actually designed as a PvE game not a PvP one), they can level up by repeating PvP instances or they can wander around an empty PvP enabled playpen hoping that someone comes along to fight them. Either way its players were forced to pick one of those 3 seperate games to play, each of which had no real impact on anything as there was no gameworld as such to effect or care about. Yeah sure if enough players on one realm do well enough then they can unlock the enemies keep at the end of the game. Woopee! Thats hardly a game designed around PvP is it. Thats just a game with PvP added as optional content.....exactly like what WoW already has. The game is simply comprised of 4 big rooms that the players have to walk through one after the other as they get shuffled along the level grinding escalator......and each room is divided into 3 different anti-chambers (PvE, scenarios and playpens) which keeps the players divided even further. I actually found the PvP in WoW far more entertaining and much better designed. Amusingly all WoW had to do was add a little button onto the UI that allowed players to join PvP instances at any time and allow players to gain exp by doing instances. In no time at all Blizzard had incorporated WARs entire attempt at PvP game design into their own game.......simply as an extra patch. What a joke!
So will Aion go the same way as these games? Well I personally get the impression that it will do much better than both of them. It doesnt suffer from the buggy and incomplete launch of AoC. It also seems like its designers know what kind of game they are trying to make. Unlike WAR its PvP elements appear to have been rather well planned and designed rather than simply being added as an after thought. It seems quite clear that the PvP conflict was in the designers minds from the very beginning. They also have the third npc faction to help keep PvP from growing stagnant (one of the things that made DAoC PvP so entertaining. Its just a shame the third faction isnt a playable one) and also it seems like the game runs smoothly and can support large battles. In fact it seems like all the things that caused AoC and WAR to not do so well simply dont appear to be present in Aion.
Sure Aion doesnt offer anything new or original. Its pretty standard as MMOs go. Flying appears to be a bit of a gimic and PvP enabled zones isnt anything new. That doesnt mean it wont be popular though. What exactly would be the definition of Aion failing anyway? If lots of people log in, play the game and enjoy it enough that it receives the funding to keep growing then surely thats a success isnt it? It seems pretty obvious to me that this game will be much bigger than other MMOs we have been seeing lately. It also offers players with a new PvP focused MMO to choose from which is very much needed considering the only other decent modern PvP offering available is EVE (everything else has been crap).
Its strange that you talk about how Aion will fail because it doesnt offer anything new......and yet in your last paragraph the description you give of what you think will be successful is a generic MMO with nothing new or original at all. You dont even seem to be able to think beyond level grinding and just assume that all MMOs must have it.
"The next mmo that will become as succesful or nearly as succesful as WoW will involve several ways for characters to level all of which are appealing to different types of players."
That sounds exactly like Warhammer Online to me. A game that tries to cater to everyone (without doing anything new) and ends up doing nothing particularly well. Ermmm no sorry that sounds like a recipe for failure to me. Whats the point in making a game that tries to do everything? I would much rather have lots of different MMO's to choose from, each one of which is focused on doing a particular thing (or small set of things) extremely well.
Aion has been hyped just as much as any other mmo before it. Warhammer was hyped to be great, Age of Conan was hyped to be great, they all were, and they all did some things right, but many things wrong. Aion is in many ways no different.
Let me talk about Age of Conan and Warhammer first. What was the issue with these games that caused them to fail as they did? I think that most people unanimously agree that both games were not polished, lacked content, and were released too early. Both warhammer and Age of Conan did some things well. Most would agree that AoC had an innovative and entertaining combat system despite some flaws, and many would agree that Warhammer had fairly good PvP gameplay, and that the ability to level through PvP made the process of leveling much less of a bore.
Both games had potential from the start. What killed them both was the fact that both products were released before they were ready, and that both games were in an "infant" state so to speak. Realistically nobody expects a new game to have the same levels of content as an established game like world of warcraft, and age of conan and warhammer did not have content that could compare to WoW. I think we all understood that both games could compete with WoW if more promising content was added as the game aged, but players are presented with a choice. Does a player want to play WoW, or Warhammer/Aoc. We all have access to all mmos if we pay the price, so why would we choose warhammer and Aoc over established, polished, and content rich games? The only answer that makes sense is "Because warhammer and AoC show promise in the future, and X player is willing to wait it out and see what content is added".
This is what kills new games. WoW was no different when it was released. It lacked content, and it was bug filled, but it and EQ2 were the first of a new generation of mmos, and therefore there were really no other games with richer content for players to choose. This gave developers precious time to expand their games and polish them eventually leading to the solid games that exist today.
Is Aion different? This is a question that every knowledgeable gamer has been asking him or her self. Aion has an advantage that AoC and War did not have. Aion was released in korea and china, and has been polished and expanded there before being introduced to the North American market. This is a huge advantage and eliminates the issues that plagued AoC and Warhammer, but does that mean Aion will succeed? In my opinion it does not. Aion has good content, Aion is polished, but Aion is not original. Warhammer and AoC both had a lot of original concepts, they both offered something new. Aion does not. While flying and PvPvE have been marketed as innovation, they simply are not. Flying only offers so much excitement, and creates a plethora of balancing issues that would not othwerwise exist. PvPvE is simply a term created to label a previously existing concept that exists in most other mmos. PvPvE is a PvP enabled zone... nothing more. The abyss is a zone filled with mobs in which you can PvP. It is not an amazing new concept dont let yourself be convinced otherwise.
All of those points do not make Aion a bad game, Aion is not a bad game. Aion is a niche game. Why? Because Aion is grindy. Why did Aion have such success in eastern markets? Because eastern gamers enjoy grinding far more than us westerners. This is a general statement please do not give me individual cases as I understand that there are americans who enjoy grinding more than some koreans. That being said, it is essentially fact that most NA players do not like to grind for long periods of time. In Aion you will HAVE TO grind for long periods of time. Level 30-50 involves extensive amounts of grinding. It is not nearly comparable to games like lineage 2, but it is still grindy, and that will still deter many many players. Aion will fail for this reason alone.
The future of mmos does not involve grinding. In the future grinding will be nonexistant. What the genre needs is a way to level that is entertaining, but does not sacrafice the sense of accomplishment that you get from leveling. There are many ways to accomplish this, one of which has already been introduced by warhammer.
The next mmo that will become as succesful or nearly as succesful as WoW will involve several ways for characters to level all of which are appealing to different types of players. Grinding doesn't need to be eliminated as many players enjoy it, there simply needs to be alternatives. On top of this the games need to be developed and launched with more care and patience. We all know from AoC and War that releasing a product too early leads to disaster. Developers need to take more time to both polish their game, and expand it's content. The combination of patience, polish, content, and diverse paths to leveling will lead to a great mmo, and a next generation mmo.
Oh gawd wall of text run.
Haha God if this is what you people think grinding is then you should have been around for EQ1!!
It will fail because of grinding?
Let me let you in on a little secret, some of us *GASP* really enjoy "grinding".
It weeds people out, if you're and instant gratification person who wants everything without the work, thats fine. Thats your play style and thats what games like WoW are for. But some people feel acomplished and secure when they work for what they get, and thats where games like AION come in. And games like WAR did do decently in the begining, but honestly everyone in game in AION is really happy and having a lot of fun. I absolutely HATE HATE soloing, but I haven't even tried to group yet because I'm having so much fun enjoying the beautiful world and defining my character. There are similar things about every MMO nowadays, but honestly I believe AION stands out. And as I've said before, I don't care how it compares to WoW or any other game out there, its doing well, people like it, if you don't, tough luck.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
you know how the next game is going to match or beat WoW's numbers? When more of the worlds populations gains computers capable of playing todays games.
you know how the next game is going to match or beat WoW's numbers? When more of the worlds populations gains computers capable of playing todays games.
That's a concept I don't see talked about much on these boards. For instance, an underseas cable was completed earlier this month that will bring much of east Africa online. Who knows what kind of games this new generation of users will prefer, or how it will impact the market.
More on point, to predict Aion will fail is a little shortsighted. As long as the game is sustainable and turning a decent profit margin, it can be considered a success.
WAR brought nothing new it was WoW 2 as pvp version it almost looked the same it was not innovative at all thats why it failed. not what OP say.
AoC looked nice lack content was very very limted maps of max 50 players lol liniair you go through map some small maps with follow one road LOAD SCREENS many loadscreens.
Bottlenecks in maps where players of high lvl could gank low players pvp totally sucked no risk stupid classes that where and still are unballanced (ranger).
Raids on clan towns what ajoke awefull and badly implemented.
Lack of conetent.
Aion ive not played but from what ive seen and hear no thx a fluffy themepark copyed for huge part lineage2 with WoW implementations or more accurate themepark casual ezmode, flying angels lol asians prolly like it with aion there is nothing new here it will prolly fail in europe/us.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Aion has gotten past any chance of failing. As far as how big it will get in the UA and EU? I don't feel it'll do that much better than any other recent;y released MMO. It'll peak high, then teeter off over the next few months, just like WAR and AOC, settling somewhere above 200k or more. MMOs from the east just don't blow the doors off outside their region. FFXI, L2...none of them match their eastern numbers.
As its been said, Aion is a well designed MMO, doesn't do anything we haven't seen before, but at least does what it does well. As good as WOW? I don't think so, but thats me. After playing, it just didnt' grab me like WOW, because it felt all too familiar and its zone design was a BIG, BIG step backwards....far too linear and enclosed. The invisible walls and lack of swimming is one of the minor nags that brings the game down. I just don't understand how any MMO can omit swimming now a days and using invisible walls to keep people on a path is a crutch I can't get over. The racial choices were too limiting and classes didn't bring anything new to the table. Love the animation though. The UI looks good on the surface but needs a lot more customization to be really effective for PvP or group play. An endless PvP tugOwar just gets old when you know you can never really win.
Like WAR, I'll probably get a couple of months out of the game and drop it. but I'm sure plenty will find it fun longer.
The original post is kind of too long for this subject but going by the title...
A game doesn't really need to have 10mil subs to be successful, the new generation of MMO players can't seem to comprehend this. Any game that profits and doesn't put a development team member out of a job is a success.
I'm not an Aion fan but I think it will do fine, it already profits off of china alone so it is definitely a success if it is giving the developers profit.
Haha God if this is what you people think grinding is then you should have been around for EQ1!!
Yeah I remember those days. I used to love grinding mobs in that game. However that was my first experience of MMO's so it was all shiny and new then. Games have moved on now though so I am looking for more interesting things to do. However grinding will probably always exist to a certain degree and I dont really mind it. You even find it in single player games. Dungeon Seige was a massive grind but it was fun. Same goes for Diablo. All games involve a degree of repitition.
It will fail because of grinding?
Let me let you in on a little secret, some of us *GASP* really enjoy "grinding".
Thats true. A lot of people do actually enjoy it. Having lots of repititive things to do in a game oddly enough isnt a reason for a game to fail. I have never played any MMO which doesnt have huge amounts of it.
It weeds people out, if you're and instant gratification person who wants everything without the work, thats fine. Thats your play style and thats what games like WoW are for.
Sorry but thats complete nonsense. WoW is most definately NOT an instant gratification game. Its the complete opposite. How does it give you everything without requiring any time spent on the players part? If I want to achieve something in that game then I have to dedicate time to getting it in exactly the same way that I do in any other MMO......and there is huge amounts of repetitive grinding involved for pretty much everything. Sure WoW certainly isnt a difficult game to understand and anyone can dive straight in, but it requires just as much time to get anywhere as any other game. In fact no MMO is an instant gratification game. All of them require a heavy time investment.
But some people feel acomplished and secure when they work for what they get, and thats where games like AION come in.
Thats true they do.......even though the sense of accomplishment is a false one because no real effort was involved. It simply requires a certain length of time to pass while you repeat a simple action before the game hands you a reward. Anyone can kill mobs all day long. A 30 year old achieving goals in the game that a 7 year old can also easily achieve isnt really something to feel proud about.......and yet oddly enough it does give a sense of satisfaction. Aion will probably do quite well in this respect as I expect the ease with which goals can be reached will be quite addictive for many.
I'm not knocking the game by the way as I will probably get sucked into it myself. I just think its a bit daft to make out as though this game is going to be really challenging and more difficult and complex than other MMO's because it really wont be. Its just a game.
And games like WAR did do decently in the begining, but honestly everyone in game in AION is really happy and having a lot of fun. I absolutely HATE HATE soloing, but I haven't even tried to group yet because I'm having so much fun enjoying the beautiful world and defining my character. There are similar things about every MMO nowadays, but honestly I believe AION stands out. And as I've said before, I don't care how it compares to WoW or any other game out there, its doing well, people like it, if you don't, tough luck.
Yep I agree.......except the bit about WAR of course
Whether it does well or bombs in the U.S. or Europe (which it won't) doesn't matter. The Asian subs alone are enough to prove his prediction wrong.
It might not matter, but it'll be interesting to see. I don't think Aion is half the game that AoC is, and yet its initial success in the US has been staggering. All because of hype, or what? And unlike WAR and AoC, it is polished. It doesn't lack content exactly, but it's a much simpler game than AoC, involving much less content. It's practically designed not to need it, due to the utilitarian level-grind style. And yet, does kinda look like its going to do incredibly well, but how well in the long run? I don't see any obvious reasons it'll lose players like AoC did, but maybe the simplistic grind will wear thin with American gamers?
It's even worse than WoW, in terms of simplicity, and it's probably going to be the second game devs are going to look to as an example of what does well in this genre? Kinda sad.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Can anyone please explain how a game like Aion with 4 million + subs is a FAIL? I am missing some logic here? I do not understand....
I think the idea was why it would fail in the Western Market.
Tho I think I read all that to see what simply could have been stated as: The game has grind.. I don't like grind .. so it will fail.
The only real issue I see with the game is the fact that many people cannot login. Anyone with a few active brain cells knows that people are not going to want to pay for a product they have never seen.. or should I say continue to pay. So then there is this entire discussion which revoloves around....
1) WoW had "waiting lines".... Where I would say that WoW had more than 12 NA servers...
2) Go to a lower pop server. ... People want to play with their friends... or the fact those servers are no longer low pop.
3) All MMO's are like this at launch ... Oddly I've never not been able to login to an MMO I paid for.. EVER (including the first month of wow).
4) If they open more servers it will be like WAR... Yes because they couldn't have launched with say 20 servers.. it would have had to been 65 or 85 or 100.... anything over 12 would have had to been HUGE.
The Grind... after WoW what was the most successful MMO in North America subscriber wise? Well that answer may not be what I think it is.. but of the mainstream MMO's... I'm not talking about AoC or WAR who had impressive first month stats... So my guess would still be old school EverQuest ... which was pretty grindy.
I think its hard to argue that the entire player base of WoW (which is hugely popular in eastern markets as well but was totally recoded to be grindy there (oh really?)) only played because they heard they could quest to end game... Considering the size of say the NA audience.. most had probably never played an MMO. So we don't know if WoW had been "grindy" what the effect would have been.
So that's just a non factor. Heck even DAoC was grindy... get in a group and do this camp or that camp (which is exactly what EQ was.. just EQ had a ton of down time).
So to me that is an odd topic...
So I'll stick with "not being able to login" because your launch month is where the impression of your game comes from.
Other than that when the "masses" who are what most genericly call carebears... start getting rift ganked.. then you'll see another layer of epic fail in the western market (as the actual in game penalty systems were made for the eastern market which likes that stuff so much they complained until there was a penalty system). That's not really supposed to be a discussion as I personally like pvp... but being steam rolled in your pve area has never been traditionally successful in western markets.
I saw your wall of text OP and made my own.
*note* Most of this stuff really isn't something that bothers me... its just observations of general market/attitude and my interpretation of what will happen based on some bad (in my opinion) choices.
*final note* I do think its pretty historicly accurate in MMO terms that people quit when they don't like something. AoC was lack of content past level 20 (it wasn't about grind it was about lack of content and end game mechanics that didn't work or sucked), WAR was similiar in the end game to AoC in that city sieges were fubar and then the fact that in general the game didn't come close to what it should have been.
So you need to look at things like that as to why an MMO will fail in a market. People complain to a degree in Aion about lack of quests in some areas. However, those discussions are still drowned out by the masses that cannot login or people pissed about "afk shops' (and the impressions those are making them have to wait even longer).
Whether it does well or bombs in the U.S. or Europe (which it won't) doesn't matter. The Asian subs alone are enough to prove his prediction wrong.
It might not matter, but it'll be interesting to see. I don't think Aion is half the game that AoC is, and yet its initial success in the US has been staggering. All because of hype, or what? And unlike WAR and AoC, it is polished. It doesn't lack content exactly, but it's a much simpler game than AoC, involving much less content. It's practically designed not to need it, due to the utilitarian level-grind style. And yet, does kinda look like its going to do incredibly well, but how well in the long run? I don't see any obvious reasons it'll lose players like AoC did, but maybe the simplistic grind will wear thin with American gamers?
It's even worse than WoW, in terms of simplicity, and it's probably going to be the second game devs are going to look to as an example of what does well in this genre? Kinda sad.
I don't agree that Aion is simpler that AoC. Skill system - yes, game as a whole - no.
It delivers where AoC failed - polish and fun massive PvP.
Doomsday article... boring, dont believe you. Sorry
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I do not think Aion will get it's wings clipped, but I do think it will fare a lot worse than the hype machine would have us believe. But thats a given as MMO's never live up to the companies claims.
I foresee a good launch, but with many leaving at mid levels as the lack of content shows. But this will still make for a profitable game as far as it's company is concerned.
I do not think Aion will get it's wings clipped, but I do think it will fare a lot worse than the hype machine would have us believe. But thats a given as MMO's never live up to the companies claims. I foresee a good launch, but with many leaving at mid levels as the lack of content shows. But this will still make for a profitable game as far as it's company is concerned.
WAR and AOC failing does not mean all MMOs will fail. Somehow the op seem to have forgot why WAR and AOC failed. Premature launch is one thing - having fundemental game system working properly is totally another. And WAR and AOC didn't have those at launch - and they still dont have it. Probably never will.
As far as Aion is conserned. I haven't tried it cause I simply dont have time atm (RL). But I have more hope for AIon since the game has already been out for few months now in Asia - and is still going strong. This shows that the basic systems of the game are working properly and the game should be decently polished after beeing so long out.
WAR and AOC will probably be catagorised in the same group as Vanguard and Tabula Rasa. Unfinished products that had so big issues - too big to be able to fix them for the sub money.
Finally - about Grinding. Thats a personal opinion when a game becomes a grind. Is it a grind when you have to kill more than one mob of same type ? Is it a grind when you do quests more than once ? Are daily quests in WOW a grind then ? And is that ok to grind AFTER you get to max level ? Is gathering materials to take part in raids a grind ?
personally - I do not matter to have abit of relaxing time in MMOs. Be that fishing - picking flowers - skinning mobs - or whatever. Its a personal opinion and I doubt Aion has it any worse than other MMOs atm. Renown in WAR is probably the biggest Grind in any game anyway.
It is amazing how many fail posts u can find here for a game that new and so polished like Aion.
Did u ever consider that some people are trying to find something new to play after all this years of warcraft.
WoW was and is a success no one can claim otherwise , but other than that it is just an old and outdated game where people grind countless hours the same raids , or the same BG'S or Arena's for PVP or PVE gear.
Yet they flood these forums with posts saying that Aion is just an asian grinder.
If doing the same raid for a 100 times or more is not grinding then what is.
Blizz is getting all these crazy cash each month , delivering the same old outdated cartoony graphics engine , yet people love it.
I donot know if millions will play Aion and honestly i don't care , all i know is that many players nowadays need a new game with graphics and gameplay that looks and feels like a game of today not a decade ago.
So stop these fail posts ur precious wow will be around another 10 years anyway cause blizz is not giving u anything new unless u stop paying them for the same old game.
Comments
Age of Conan may well have had potential and I agree that its rocky launch really didnt do it any wonders. Its different approach to combat and its high quality graphics have always been something in its favour though. I hear that it has become a much better game now although its been a while since I last played it. I must admit that it didnt hook me on the fun factor (I just didnt find it addictive enough to want to keep paying and playing) but it certainly isnt one of the worst games around.
WAR on the other hand is a different story. In my opinion it wasnt simply the case that the game was released too early that made the game so bad. It was the fact that its entire design is absolutely terrible that made it unplayable for me. I cant see how this game ever had any potential to be a good game at all. All of its elements seem to conflict with each other. Its as though its designers could not decide what they were trying to make. All they could think was "We want a game that players of WoW will feel familiar with so they will stop playing that and come to our game and we want to cater to every style of mmo gameplay there is. We want to make a game that does everything". Their answer to this was to very closely copy the standard PvE questing game that exists in WoW and also have PvP instanced mini-battlegrounds also just like WoW. Then as a final afterthought they added open PvP "playpens" where players could choose to fight each other.....or not. Apparently these were added in beta as the players were complaining about how incredibly boring the game was and that it was a very poor carbon copy of WoW......which was inevitable as it was never any secret that EA Mythic were openly trying to emulate that behemoth.
Basicly the game was always destined to be a mess. PvP focused game? Hardly. They actually had problems convincing the players to fight each other in the playpens......which was blatantly obvious considering they forgot to actually design a reason for PvP into the game. Thats insane! The only goal the players are given is to "gain levels". The game was always designed as a very ordinary levelling treadmill in which the players just walk in a straight line through a linear map. They can either level up by doing bog standard PvE quests (which is where all the real content of the game is because WAR is actually designed as a PvE game not a PvP one), they can level up by repeating PvP instances or they can wander around an empty PvP enabled playpen hoping that someone comes along to fight them. Either way its players were forced to pick one of those 3 seperate games to play, each of which had no real impact on anything as there was no gameworld as such to effect or care about. Yeah sure if enough players on one realm do well enough then they can unlock the enemies keep at the end of the game. Woopee! Thats hardly a game designed around PvP is it. Thats just a game with PvP added as optional content.....exactly like what WoW already has. The game is simply comprised of 4 big rooms that the players have to walk through one after the other as they get shuffled along the level grinding escalator......and each room is divided into 3 different anti-chambers (PvE, scenarios and playpens) which keeps the players divided even further. I actually found the PvP in WoW far more entertaining and much better designed. Amusingly all WoW had to do was add a little button onto the UI that allowed players to join PvP instances at any time and allow players to gain exp by doing instances. In no time at all Blizzard had incorporated WARs entire attempt at PvP game design into their own game.......simply as an extra patch. What a joke!
So will Aion go the same way as these games? Well I personally get the impression that it will do much better than both of them. It doesnt suffer from the buggy and incomplete launch of AoC. It also seems like its designers know what kind of game they are trying to make. Unlike WAR its PvP elements appear to have been rather well planned and designed rather than simply being added as an after thought. It seems quite clear that the PvP conflict was in the designers minds from the very beginning. They also have the third npc faction to help keep PvP from growing stagnant (one of the things that made DAoC PvP so entertaining. Its just a shame the third faction isnt a playable one) and also it seems like the game runs smoothly and can support large battles. In fact it seems like all the things that caused AoC and WAR to not do so well simply dont appear to be present in Aion.
Sure Aion doesnt offer anything new or original. Its pretty standard as MMOs go. Flying appears to be a bit of a gimic and PvP enabled zones isnt anything new. That doesnt mean it wont be popular though. What exactly would be the definition of Aion failing anyway? If lots of people log in, play the game and enjoy it enough that it receives the funding to keep growing then surely thats a success isnt it? It seems pretty obvious to me that this game will be much bigger than other MMOs we have been seeing lately. It also offers players with a new PvP focused MMO to choose from which is very much needed considering the only other decent modern PvP offering available is EVE (everything else has been crap).
Its strange that you talk about how Aion will fail because it doesnt offer anything new......and yet in your last paragraph the description you give of what you think will be successful is a generic MMO with nothing new or original at all. You dont even seem to be able to think beyond level grinding and just assume that all MMOs must have it.
"The next mmo that will become as succesful or nearly as succesful as WoW will involve several ways for characters to level all of which are appealing to different types of players."
That sounds exactly like Warhammer Online to me. A game that tries to cater to everyone (without doing anything new) and ends up doing nothing particularly well. Ermmm no sorry that sounds like a recipe for failure to me. Whats the point in making a game that tries to do everything? I would much rather have lots of different MMO's to choose from, each one of which is focused on doing a particular thing (or small set of things) extremely well.
Haha God if this is what you people think grinding is then you should have been around for EQ1!!
It will fail because of grinding?
Let me let you in on a little secret, some of us *GASP* really enjoy "grinding".
It weeds people out, if you're and instant gratification person who wants everything without the work, thats fine. Thats your play style and thats what games like WoW are for. But some people feel acomplished and secure when they work for what they get, and thats where games like AION come in. And games like WAR did do decently in the begining, but honestly everyone in game in AION is really happy and having a lot of fun. I absolutely HATE HATE soloing, but I haven't even tried to group yet because I'm having so much fun enjoying the beautiful world and defining my character. There are similar things about every MMO nowadays, but honestly I believe AION stands out. And as I've said before, I don't care how it compares to WoW or any other game out there, its doing well, people like it, if you don't, tough luck.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
Rampant predications of failure yet so few actual failed games. I see a pattern and the next big MMO must be the one that will fail!
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
you know how the next game is going to match or beat WoW's numbers? When more of the worlds populations gains computers capable of playing todays games.
Can anyone please explain how a game like Aion with 4 million + subs is a FAIL? I am missing some logic here? I do not understand....
That's a concept I don't see talked about much on these boards. For instance, an underseas cable was completed earlier this month that will bring much of east Africa online. Who knows what kind of games this new generation of users will prefer, or how it will impact the market.
More on point, to predict Aion will fail is a little shortsighted. As long as the game is sustainable and turning a decent profit margin, it can be considered a success.
OP, have you considered changing your user name to " Nostradamus" ?. I think it would be far more suitable for you ....
There are two type of threads made out of pure fail:
The first ones popup usually before open beta. The second ones usually close to launch date.
WAR brought nothing new it was WoW 2 as pvp version it almost looked the same it was not innovative at all thats why it failed. not what OP say.
AoC looked nice lack content was very very limted maps of max 50 players lol liniair you go through map some small maps with follow one road LOAD SCREENS many loadscreens.
Bottlenecks in maps where players of high lvl could gank low players pvp totally sucked no risk stupid classes that where and still are unballanced (ranger).
Raids on clan towns what ajoke awefull and badly implemented.
Lack of conetent.
Aion ive not played but from what ive seen and hear no thx a fluffy themepark copyed for huge part lineage2 with WoW implementations or more accurate themepark casual ezmode, flying angels lol asians prolly like it with aion there is nothing new here it will prolly fail in europe/us.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Aion has gotten past any chance of failing. As far as how big it will get in the UA and EU? I don't feel it'll do that much better than any other recent;y released MMO. It'll peak high, then teeter off over the next few months, just like WAR and AOC, settling somewhere above 200k or more. MMOs from the east just don't blow the doors off outside their region. FFXI, L2...none of them match their eastern numbers.
As its been said, Aion is a well designed MMO, doesn't do anything we haven't seen before, but at least does what it does well. As good as WOW? I don't think so, but thats me. After playing, it just didnt' grab me like WOW, because it felt all too familiar and its zone design was a BIG, BIG step backwards....far too linear and enclosed. The invisible walls and lack of swimming is one of the minor nags that brings the game down. I just don't understand how any MMO can omit swimming now a days and using invisible walls to keep people on a path is a crutch I can't get over. The racial choices were too limiting and classes didn't bring anything new to the table. Love the animation though. The UI looks good on the surface but needs a lot more customization to be really effective for PvP or group play. An endless PvP tugOwar just gets old when you know you can never really win.
Like WAR, I'll probably get a couple of months out of the game and drop it. but I'm sure plenty will find it fun longer.
The original post is kind of too long for this subject but going by the title...
A game doesn't really need to have 10mil subs to be successful, the new generation of MMO players can't seem to comprehend this. Any game that profits and doesn't put a development team member out of a job is a success.
I'm not an Aion fan but I think it will do fine, it already profits off of china alone so it is definitely a success if it is giving the developers profit.
Haha God if this is what you people think grinding is then you should have been around for EQ1!!
Yeah I remember those days. I used to love grinding mobs in that game. However that was my first experience of MMO's so it was all shiny and new then. Games have moved on now though so I am looking for more interesting things to do. However grinding will probably always exist to a certain degree and I dont really mind it. You even find it in single player games. Dungeon Seige was a massive grind but it was fun. Same goes for Diablo. All games involve a degree of repitition.
It will fail because of grinding?
Let me let you in on a little secret, some of us *GASP* really enjoy "grinding".
Thats true. A lot of people do actually enjoy it. Having lots of repititive things to do in a game oddly enough isnt a reason for a game to fail. I have never played any MMO which doesnt have huge amounts of it.
It weeds people out, if you're and instant gratification person who wants everything without the work, thats fine. Thats your play style and thats what games like WoW are for.
Sorry but thats complete nonsense. WoW is most definately NOT an instant gratification game. Its the complete opposite. How does it give you everything without requiring any time spent on the players part? If I want to achieve something in that game then I have to dedicate time to getting it in exactly the same way that I do in any other MMO......and there is huge amounts of repetitive grinding involved for pretty much everything. Sure WoW certainly isnt a difficult game to understand and anyone can dive straight in, but it requires just as much time to get anywhere as any other game. In fact no MMO is an instant gratification game. All of them require a heavy time investment.
But some people feel acomplished and secure when they work for what they get, and thats where games like AION come in.
Thats true they do.......even though the sense of accomplishment is a false one because no real effort was involved. It simply requires a certain length of time to pass while you repeat a simple action before the game hands you a reward. Anyone can kill mobs all day long. A 30 year old achieving goals in the game that a 7 year old can also easily achieve isnt really something to feel proud about.......and yet oddly enough it does give a sense of satisfaction. Aion will probably do quite well in this respect as I expect the ease with which goals can be reached will be quite addictive for many.
I'm not knocking the game by the way as I will probably get sucked into it myself. I just think its a bit daft to make out as though this game is going to be really challenging and more difficult and complex than other MMO's because it really wont be. Its just a game.
And games like WAR did do decently in the begining, but honestly everyone in game in AION is really happy and having a lot of fun. I absolutely HATE HATE soloing, but I haven't even tried to group yet because I'm having so much fun enjoying the beautiful world and defining my character. There are similar things about every MMO nowadays, but honestly I believe AION stands out. And as I've said before, I don't care how it compares to WoW or any other game out there, its doing well, people like it, if you don't, tough luck.
Yep I agree.......except the bit about WAR of course
I'm so glad to have had the chance to read your informative post.
Now I fully realize and understand why Aion will fail.
And I was thinking about buying it, I'm sure glad you got your post out first, thank you!
It might not matter, but it'll be interesting to see. I don't think Aion is half the game that AoC is, and yet its initial success in the US has been staggering. All because of hype, or what? And unlike WAR and AoC, it is polished. It doesn't lack content exactly, but it's a much simpler game than AoC, involving much less content. It's practically designed not to need it, due to the utilitarian level-grind style. And yet, does kinda look like its going to do incredibly well, but how well in the long run? I don't see any obvious reasons it'll lose players like AoC did, but maybe the simplistic grind will wear thin with American gamers?
It's even worse than WoW, in terms of simplicity, and it's probably going to be the second game devs are going to look to as an example of what does well in this genre? Kinda sad.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I think the idea was why it would fail in the Western Market.
Tho I think I read all that to see what simply could have been stated as: The game has grind.. I don't like grind .. so it will fail.
The only real issue I see with the game is the fact that many people cannot login. Anyone with a few active brain cells knows that people are not going to want to pay for a product they have never seen.. or should I say continue to pay. So then there is this entire discussion which revoloves around....
1) WoW had "waiting lines".... Where I would say that WoW had more than 12 NA servers...
2) Go to a lower pop server. ... People want to play with their friends... or the fact those servers are no longer low pop.
3) All MMO's are like this at launch ... Oddly I've never not been able to login to an MMO I paid for.. EVER (including the first month of wow).
4) If they open more servers it will be like WAR... Yes because they couldn't have launched with say 20 servers.. it would have had to been 65 or 85 or 100.... anything over 12 would have had to been HUGE.
The Grind... after WoW what was the most successful MMO in North America subscriber wise? Well that answer may not be what I think it is.. but of the mainstream MMO's... I'm not talking about AoC or WAR who had impressive first month stats... So my guess would still be old school EverQuest ... which was pretty grindy.
I think its hard to argue that the entire player base of WoW (which is hugely popular in eastern markets as well but was totally recoded to be grindy there (oh really?)) only played because they heard they could quest to end game... Considering the size of say the NA audience.. most had probably never played an MMO. So we don't know if WoW had been "grindy" what the effect would have been.
So that's just a non factor. Heck even DAoC was grindy... get in a group and do this camp or that camp (which is exactly what EQ was.. just EQ had a ton of down time).
So to me that is an odd topic...
So I'll stick with "not being able to login" because your launch month is where the impression of your game comes from.
Other than that when the "masses" who are what most genericly call carebears... start getting rift ganked.. then you'll see another layer of epic fail in the western market (as the actual in game penalty systems were made for the eastern market which likes that stuff so much they complained until there was a penalty system). That's not really supposed to be a discussion as I personally like pvp... but being steam rolled in your pve area has never been traditionally successful in western markets.
I saw your wall of text OP and made my own.
*note* Most of this stuff really isn't something that bothers me... its just observations of general market/attitude and my interpretation of what will happen based on some bad (in my opinion) choices.
*final note* I do think its pretty historicly accurate in MMO terms that people quit when they don't like something. AoC was lack of content past level 20 (it wasn't about grind it was about lack of content and end game mechanics that didn't work or sucked), WAR was similiar in the end game to AoC in that city sieges were fubar and then the fact that in general the game didn't come close to what it should have been.
So you need to look at things like that as to why an MMO will fail in a market. People complain to a degree in Aion about lack of quests in some areas. However, those discussions are still drowned out by the masses that cannot login or people pissed about "afk shops' (and the impressions those are making them have to wait even longer).
It might not matter, but it'll be interesting to see. I don't think Aion is half the game that AoC is, and yet its initial success in the US has been staggering. All because of hype, or what? And unlike WAR and AoC, it is polished. It doesn't lack content exactly, but it's a much simpler game than AoC, involving much less content. It's practically designed not to need it, due to the utilitarian level-grind style. And yet, does kinda look like its going to do incredibly well, but how well in the long run? I don't see any obvious reasons it'll lose players like AoC did, but maybe the simplistic grind will wear thin with American gamers?
It's even worse than WoW, in terms of simplicity, and it's probably going to be the second game devs are going to look to as an example of what does well in this genre? Kinda sad.
I don't agree that Aion is simpler that AoC. Skill system - yes, game as a whole - no.
It delivers where AoC failed - polish and fun massive PvP.
OP:
Doomsday article... boring, dont believe you. Sorry
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Aion is really good imho.
Sorry OP but your logic fails to persued me to your side.
I do not think Aion will get it's wings clipped, but I do think it will fare a lot worse than the hype machine would have us believe. But thats a given as MMO's never live up to the companies claims.
I foresee a good launch, but with many leaving at mid levels as the lack of content shows. But this will still make for a profitable game as far as it's company is concerned.
What lack of content are you speaking of?
dont know its missing one thing
an ncsoft event announcement or a bunch of event lol
this game cant support the hype expectation just by it self
but then i posted about this issue countless time here lol
WAR and AOC failing does not mean all MMOs will fail. Somehow the op seem to have forgot why WAR and AOC failed. Premature launch is one thing - having fundemental game system working properly is totally another. And WAR and AOC didn't have those at launch - and they still dont have it. Probably never will.
As far as Aion is conserned. I haven't tried it cause I simply dont have time atm (RL). But I have more hope for AIon since the game has already been out for few months now in Asia - and is still going strong. This shows that the basic systems of the game are working properly and the game should be decently polished after beeing so long out.
WAR and AOC will probably be catagorised in the same group as Vanguard and Tabula Rasa. Unfinished products that had so big issues - too big to be able to fix them for the sub money.
Finally - about Grinding. Thats a personal opinion when a game becomes a grind. Is it a grind when you have to kill more than one mob of same type ? Is it a grind when you do quests more than once ? Are daily quests in WOW a grind then ? And is that ok to grind AFTER you get to max level ? Is gathering materials to take part in raids a grind ?
personally - I do not matter to have abit of relaxing time in MMOs. Be that fishing - picking flowers - skinning mobs - or whatever. Its a personal opinion and I doubt Aion has it any worse than other MMOs atm. Renown in WAR is probably the biggest Grind in any game anyway.
It is amazing how many fail posts u can find here for a game that new and so polished like Aion.
Did u ever consider that some people are trying to find something new to play after all this years of warcraft.
WoW was and is a success no one can claim otherwise , but other than that it is just an old and outdated game where people grind countless hours the same raids , or the same BG'S or Arena's for PVP or PVE gear.
Yet they flood these forums with posts saying that Aion is just an asian grinder.
If doing the same raid for a 100 times or more is not grinding then what is.
Blizz is getting all these crazy cash each month , delivering the same old outdated cartoony graphics engine , yet people love it.
I donot know if millions will play Aion and honestly i don't care , all i know is that many players nowadays need a new game with graphics and gameplay that looks and feels like a game of today not a decade ago.
So stop these fail posts ur precious wow will be around another 10 years anyway cause blizz is not giving u anything new unless u stop paying them for the same old game.
Why <insert game here> will fail...because i dont like it so no one else should and all should agree with my superior opinion.