People have been biased and lying in their non-professional reviews of products since the first piece of fish was sold at market. I don't think people mean to lie. I think they are emotionally involved in their games and that might cause them to be biased. If you want unbiased reviews, I suggest you trust paid, professional reviewers before you trust well-meaning players on an internet forum.
I'm willing to bet the op is pointing to alot of them as well, and I think this because I honestly feel the same way. Companies strong arm these companies to not dog them too bad all the time and the reviewers have no choice but to comply because ultimately these games pay the bills and they can't be pissing people off.
A good example of this to me is just about any review done on a game by this site alone, I have never ever read a bad review lukewarm yes but as I've stated these guys are just as afraid to totally dog a game as the companies are afraid to get dogged. Now with as much complaining that goes on about alot of these substandard products some of which aren;t even around anymore can you actually beleive ther has never been a bad mmo? Again a vast majority of reviewers professional or not would have you believe this if you only used their reviews to judge.
Really I've read a million horrible reviews in gameinformer but when it comes to the internet and mmo's there is honesty nor transparency.
Also I think reviews and reviewers are bad but let's talk about the devs themselves. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how AOC can make the mistake of printing boxes with features on it that still to date do not work in game, if you printed the boxes a month before launch yet a year and a half later these features aren't done I really need to know exactly how something like this can happen because again the only logical answer is you told a bold faced lie to sell your product.
As far as who can you trust, I've found a good medium read the forums (much like mmorpg) before you buy any game obviously everyones opinion can't be followed to the letter but I think you get a good general idea on what is and is not true from taking a sampling of opinions before making a decision on a game.
But yes right now the industry is in a sad state wether it's from fanbois lying in the hopes that once you do try the game you will see it as they do and overlook it's faults or from devs who lie and hope they can get things fixed later the lying does need to stop.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Originally posted by Aleste So you make a case that an Organized group of 16 people, easily winning against groups of 2-5 unorganized players is not 'fun'. And use this argument to suggest that Aion's PvP is shallow. Now i wonder if this argument also applies on every other MMO with world PvP or objectives or not ? Do other MMOs with world PvP/Objectives lack 'Zerging' ? Your actions wont matter much in any PvP scenario that involve more than 20 vs 20 players.Did it cross your mind that World PvP is not for you ? And why participate in 'Shallow' Zerg PvP when you can use rifts for a more tactical experience. You seem to prefer the instanced PvP model with a limited equal numbers on both sides. There is one battleground in Aion, but if you really like that sort of PvP... May i suggest that you play Dota ?
Yes, my statements apply to all games with World PVP.
My actions can matter in games with more than 20v20. In Planetside population was capped at 200v200, and every single kill I made was therefore a meaningful contribution toward my faction winning.
It doesn't take small scale for PVP to avoid being shallow. It simply takes balanced teams.
DOTA is alright, but I usually play TF2 nowadays for my PVP fix. Might dabble in DOW2 too, as I've been watching a lot of games and it's pretty amusing. Was a professional game balancer for RTS games for a while, and got kinda burned out on playing them so much.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wrath of the lich kings quest design comes 4 years after WoW's so release and only has about 20% of the total content. So it took Blizzard 4 years to create quests like this and they only make up a small portion of the total experience. First of all you have no idea how many subscribers Aion has in the west and all you have is speculation. The only thing we know is that the game had 400k pre - orders and that the servers are filled with ques that can last over 2 hours. As the launch was last week, we know that this isn't just launch rush anymore. While asian mmorpgs don't tend to reach the same success they have in the east, one thing they do have in common is their staying power. Games such as Lineage 2 and Ragnarok Online had very stable communities even when they had to deal with enormous pirate server problems.
First: the maximum number of players an Aion server can hold is 7K according to NCsoft They have 30 servers.
Do the count.
In Korea NCsoft published they had 400K players for 41 servers back in May.
Do the count.
Of course when you have a rush of 400K players on 24, now 30, servers you create waiting queues resulting in ... 7 hour playing sessions.
The problem is ... getting the players resubscribe into the 180 dollars yearly subs system in the West.
That was always the problem. And this problem always stuck its ugly head out after the initial 4 weeks launch period (which started around Sep 20 in the US and a few days later in EU).
Only when you' ll have those servers FULL on Nov 1st, you'll know Aion has a staying power in the western market.
All the rest is player hype, which we've seen already enough from the supposed 3.5M Asian players too.
So be my guest to invent those fabulous PVE questlines. That's what the OP was talking about.
I merely showed what was evident.
You can't do the count because you don't have solid numbers. The playtimes in asia and the west can be very different and we don't know how many people are in que for all servers at any given time.
Do only thing we know is that the game has 400k pre - orders and that the servers are full.
Also pre - orders have been able to play before release, I think it was 20 september?
If you claim that you only know when the servers are full on nov 1st, then why are you already claiming the game will lose subscribers? Considering the game has already enormous staying power in the east, there is no reason to assume it will decline fast. Ofcourse some will leave as the game obviously isn't for everyone.
Invent those fabulous PVE questlines? I didn't invent anything buddy, that quest line is in the starter area of elyos area. Anybody who has played Elyos up to level 10 and did the quests can confirm it's there.
Also, Source for your claim NCsoft said the game had 400k subscribers in Korea and that the servers can hold 7k players.
You can't do the count because you don't have solid numbers. The playtimes in asia and the west can be very different and we don't know how many people are in que for all servers at any given time. Do only thing we know is that the game has 400k pre - orders and that the servers are full. Also pre - orders have been able to play before release, I think it was 20 september? If you claim that you only know when the servers are full on nov 1st, then why are you already claiming the game will lose subscribers? Considering the game has already enormous staying power in the east, there is no reason to assume it will decline fast. Ofcourse some will leave as the game obviously isn't for everyone. Invent those fabulous PVE questlines? I didn't invent anything buddy, that quest line is in the starter area of elyos area. Anybody who has played Elyos up to level 10 and did the quests can confirm it's there.
You can count the servers. In Korea: 41 servers for 400K players NCsoft stated clearly:
In NA/EU they stand at 14/16 servers for the moment with a 400K launching start (also official NCsoft statement). No wonder there are queuing lines (although ALREADY less and less ....).
To have a long term staying power of 400K players they'll NEED to open at least 40 servers (like they did in Korea and in China (that was 113 servers for 1M players there at launch).
So like I said: do the server count and you know exaclty the maximum capacity of Aion in the west.
You invented the PVE questline in comparaison with WOW without taking into account what people already HAVE seen in Wotlk.
You can describe it through the roof for my part: the only thing is .... people can see now for themselves. Hype time is ...over. They too can play.
You don't need to describe the quests, they have the ability to see the differences in PVE content themselves.
Again, I'll ask you once more: Where did NCsoft say that the game has 400k subscribers in Korea?
As long as you don't have any evidence that the game has 400k subscribers, your assumptions are worthless.
I didn't invent the PVE questline, it's right there in the game. One of the posters mentioned a questline in WoW that was different from the standard ones to claim it had variaty. I simply pointed out that Aion has these as well.
But you're right. People can see now for themselves and so far the servers are filled with players so they seem to have a great time.
I skimmed over the report but I didn't see anywhere where NCsoft mentioned that the game has 400k subscribers. The only mention i have seen of 400k is in a blogspot post which is both unreliable and even mentions it's speculation.
You can't directly compare it to China because playtimes are different. For example, China has very strict laws on how long people are allowed to play mmorpgs so naturally people will spend less time playing the game and thus making more space on the servers.
The important thing above shows the (usual) ratio one sees of the 10K players to 1 server you'll find in any "realm" based fantasy mmorpg. So explain me now the NA/EU server count....: do the count: 14/16 servers for 400K players, that's 10 servers short compared to Korea and China.... No wonder there WERE queues. Still not convinced? )))
That is one of the most stupid guesstimate I have ever heard. How do you know the korean server actually reach it's capacity.
If Korean server have queue like the US have, you have a point. But maybe the korean server is only 50% full. No one really knows.
What did you do, read 1 review? Read several, see what people are saying ... its never the same. And AIon isnt even a valid excuse, could have tried out Aion's chinese open beta, pre order beta, mmorpg free beta, file planet beta .... Lies aren't what is killing the genre besides you just mentioned a game plenty of people actually do like. Not sure how the majority of people buying and liking your game is killing it. The other example can be summed up as a crappy game released too early.
its not people lying, its the fact that they put way too much into what people who actually take the time to post on the internet think. as we all know people who actively post on the internet are bottom feeders in society, myself included, and we actually make up a very small percentage of the actual numbers.
I skimmed over the report but I didn't see anywhere where NCsoft mentioned that the game has 400k subscribers. The only mention i have seen of 400k is in a blogspot post which is both unreliable and even mentions it's speculation. You can't directly compare it to China because playtimes are different. For example, China has very strict laws on how long people are allowed to play mmorpgs so naturally people will spend less time playing the game and thus making more space on the servers.
If you can't see the obvious above, I guess we're done discussing.
I even explained to you why there were queues. 24 and later 30 servers is too few to handle 400K new users all loggin in for the first week.
BTW: NCSoft stated in their technical Q&A that the max load on an Aion server is around 7K concurrent users on line per server. That's max capacity and stress tested btw, so operational servers tend to be a bit below that number.
Sorry it is too late to give you that reference on that 7K concurrent number too, but I am sure your fellow Aion fans can point it with a reference.
As a matter of fact : talking about that staying power:
It is now at position 91 on amazon.com in games sales (slipping from a top 40 place a mere 8 days ago).
I have seen it numurous time.
The first 3 weeks ALL mmorpg hoppers jump in, then the sales charts begin to slip, then the people leaving are not being replaced as the massive number of new players that jumped in at launch, than the subs must be paid after the first free month.).
In viewing the launches of the past 3 years, no launch had a bigger retention rate than 30% in the western paid subscription market after 3 months.
THAT is the reason my friend why NCsoift is so reluctant to add the necessary servers. They KNEW what happened to War.
It seems that you so called Obvious is only reading what you want to believe. When your source of information is a random french blogspot, that says quite enough.
I see you have another attempt at trying to invent your own claims, but again your arguments are weak and unsupported. First of all Amazon is not an accurate representation of sales nor does box sales have anything to do with how much a staying power a game is, merely the amount of new players joining the game.
Ofcourse the game is going to drop in rankings, the game had some great pre - order bonuses and has been avaible for a week now. Everybody who really wanted the game has it by now.
I skimmed over the report but I didn't see anywhere where NCsoft mentioned that the game has 400k subscribers.
The first month is included in the price of the game and you need to submit your CC to activate. Thus in the first month the number of preorders equals the number of subscribers
I skimmed over the report but I didn't see anywhere where NCsoft mentioned that the game has 400k subscribers.
The first month is included in the price of the game and you need to submit your CC to activate. Thus in the first month the number of preorders equals the number of subscribers
That's true, but thats just for North America and Europe. The game has been release in Korea for about a year now and in China for a number of months.
If you can't see the obvious above, I guess we're done discussing. I even explained to you why there were queues. 24 and later 30 servers is too few to handle 400K new users all loggin in for the first week. BTW: NCSoft stated in their technical Q&A that the max load on an Aion server is around 7K concurrent users on line per server. That's max capacity and stress tested btw, so operational servers tend to be a bit below that number. Sorry it is too late to give you that reference on that 7K concurrent number too, but I am sure your fellow Aion fans can point it with a reference. As a matter of fact : talking about that staying power: Aion is already slipping on amazon.com too (far quicker than War btw). http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1254614259/ref=sr_pg_8?ie=UTF8&rs=468642&bbn=468642&rh=n%3A468642%2Cn%3A%2111846801&page=8 It is now at position 91 on amazon.com in games sales (slipping from a top 40 place a mere 8 days ago). I have seen it numurous time. The first 3 weeks ALL mmorpg hoppers jump in, then the sales charts begin to slip, then the people leaving are not being replaced as the massive number of new players that jumped in at launch, than the subs must be paid after the first free month.). In viewing the launches of the past 3 years, no launch had a bigger retention rate than 30% in the western paid subscription market after 3 months. THAT is the reason my friend why NCsoft is so reluctant to add the necessary servers. They KNEW what happened to War.
What exactly is this trying to show? Im' not sure what you trying to prove.
Some of you will be 'amazed' by Aion's performace in the market, this game was fastly filled with people who were burnt by Warhammer and AoC, which regardless of what you think of them. Pale polish-wise compared to Aion.
And excuse me while i laugh at the Op for using Eurogamer's review as an example of honesty. That particular review was the very definition of ignorance, and since i feel generous i,m quoting the first and the last part of it:
After a week playing a Chanter in the open beta for Aion: The Tower of Eternity, NCsoft's new MMO, this sequence of key-presses is hard-coded into the muscle memory my left hand. I can tap it out on a table-top, the rhythm steady, urgent yet patient, hitting every skill's cooldown on the nose. Not a second or a mana point wasted. 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5. "
Last line:
" An ultimately grim and unvarying pursuit. A string of key-presses, in the same endlessly repeating sequence, reaching to the moon and back. 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5... "
Someone send Oli wellish a message and tell him, Aleste leveled a hunter in WoW from lvl10 to lvl80 using a 1 button macro.
Regards
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
If someone uses the term "troll" to describe someone who critiques a game you know they are emotionally invested in the game.
Look at the Aion forums. Tons of "reviews" that try to add the disclaimer "if you're a troll". Once you see that line, just ignore whatever is said beyond that. Its pure garbage.
VG, AOC, WAR, DF, etc., all had threads like that. They would try to call the people who disliked the game a troll. IMO, if there are a good number of negative post about a game, then its probably a poorly made game.
If someone uses the term "troll" to describe someone who critiques a game you know they are emotionally invested in the game.
Look at the Aion forums. Tons of "reviews" that try to add the disclaimer "if you're a troll". Once you see that line, just ignore whatever is said beyond that. Its pure garbage.
VG, AOC, WAR, DF, etc., all had threads like that. They would try to call the people who disliked the game a troll. IMO, if there are a good number of negative post about a game, then its probably a poorly made game.
People have been biased and lying in their non-professional reviews of products since the first piece of fish was sold at market. I don't think people mean to lie. I think they are emotionally involved in their games and that might cause them to be biased. If you want unbiased reviews, I suggest you trust paid, professional reviewers before you trust well-meaning players on an internet forum.
I'm willing to bet the op is pointing to alot of them as well, and I think this because I honestly feel the same way. Companies strong arm these companies to not dog them too bad all the time and the reviewers have no choice but to comply because ultimately these games pay the bills and they can't be pissing people off.
A good example of this to me is just about any review done on a game by this site alone, I have never ever read a bad review lukewarm yes but as I've stated these guys are just as afraid to totally dog a game as the companies are afraid to get dogged. Now with as much complaining that goes on about alot of these substandard products some of which aren;t even around anymore can you actually beleive ther has never been a bad mmo? Again a vast majority of reviewers professional or not would have you believe this if you only used their reviews to judge.
Really I've read a million horrible reviews in gameinformer but when it comes to the internet and mmo's there is honesty nor transparency.
Also I think reviews and reviewers are bad but let's talk about the devs themselves. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how AOC can make the mistake of printing boxes with features on it that still to date do not work in game, if you printed the boxes a month before launch yet a year and a half later these features aren't done I really need to know exactly how something like this can happen because again the only logical answer is you told a bold faced lie to sell your product.
As far as who can you trust, I've found a good medium read the forums (much like mmorpg) before you buy any game obviously everyones opinion can't be followed to the letter but I think you get a good general idea on what is and is not true from taking a sampling of opinions before making a decision on a game.
But yes right now the industry is in a sad state wether it's from fanbois lying in the hopes that once you do try the game you will see it as they do and overlook it's faults or from devs who lie and hope they can get things fixed later the lying does need to stop.
You do make a good point, although i hardly think companies strong arm reviewers. Yes, they may whithold press materials to people doing bad reviews but thats just basically shooting themselves in the foot. The Michelin guide (thats kind of like the scary guy from Ratatouille to the younger generation) will never write a bad review of any restaurant. They simply wont review it at all or, if it meets their technical criteria, will simply state factly its characteristics. Good critics know to speak to the connoiseur as well as to the layman, as an example if someone wrote in a games review that it is likely to appeal to the WOW crowd there are some of us who would know to take a hint. It actually benefits an industry to have an educated public, take wine for instance which relies on tasters to determine wether a particular vintage will end up on the table of a 3 star restaurant or at a shelf in Walmart. Sure, wine makers do ocasionally take a hit when reviews dont go their way, but they know the overall health of the industry relies on being able to deliver quality. Ofc a sofisticated audience is a requisite but this is entirely a diferent discussion as no publication or institution has undertaken establishing criteria we could rally about.
As for the whole thing about the Aion servers its starting to get ridiculous, you cant estimate what the cost effective number of subscribers for each server is. All MMOs loose people on the first couple of months, if NCsofts numbers for NA and Europe estimate demand for servers will be at about their current capacity theyre doing the right thing for their playerbase not ading any further number of servers. Real numbers wont be available until at least half a year from now when will be able to tell without a doubt if Aion can manage growth once the first wave of hyped users has jumped ship. We dont need another WOW, MMOs should be about diversity and a number of diferent offerings doing well on the market, not a bunch of strugling companies fighting over the scraps of a leviathans table. No game should have the numbers that WOW has until the player base has grown by an order of magnitude. I hope Blizzard has enough of a success with their next expansion theyll be encouraged to continue adding content to their game, but other than that hopefully WOWs numbers will slowly dwindle and benefit the industry with a supply of players looking for something diferent in an MMO.
Just to make things clear... I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
That what the OP was saying .... "people's lying is what's killing this genre ...." Aion must be the most lied up game in history by now. It is about time we count the servers and say ... "Hey where are ALL those players playing on ...? " On servers with a max capacity of 7 K concurrent users on line or 'thin air" ?
Can you actually tell me what Aion lied about?
All you said is Aion lied. You didn't say what they lied about.
I could have told you half a year ago that aion is a grind. It had already been said that you quickly run out of quests and that it turns into a grind (compared to the latest other western mmo's).
The ultimate irony is how you would have been slaughtered for pointing this out on aionsource before release but now I see more and more people there complaining.
I could have told you half a year ago that aion is a grind. It had already been said that you quickly run out of quests and that it turns into a grind (compared to the latest other western mmo's).
The ultimate irony is how you would have been slaughtered for pointing this out on aionsource before release but now I see more and more people there complaining.
Comments
I'm willing to bet the op is pointing to alot of them as well, and I think this because I honestly feel the same way. Companies strong arm these companies to not dog them too bad all the time and the reviewers have no choice but to comply because ultimately these games pay the bills and they can't be pissing people off.
A good example of this to me is just about any review done on a game by this site alone, I have never ever read a bad review lukewarm yes but as I've stated these guys are just as afraid to totally dog a game as the companies are afraid to get dogged. Now with as much complaining that goes on about alot of these substandard products some of which aren;t even around anymore can you actually beleive ther has never been a bad mmo? Again a vast majority of reviewers professional or not would have you believe this if you only used their reviews to judge.
Really I've read a million horrible reviews in gameinformer but when it comes to the internet and mmo's there is honesty nor transparency.
Also I think reviews and reviewers are bad but let's talk about the devs themselves. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how AOC can make the mistake of printing boxes with features on it that still to date do not work in game, if you printed the boxes a month before launch yet a year and a half later these features aren't done I really need to know exactly how something like this can happen because again the only logical answer is you told a bold faced lie to sell your product.
As far as who can you trust, I've found a good medium read the forums (much like mmorpg) before you buy any game obviously everyones opinion can't be followed to the letter but I think you get a good general idea on what is and is not true from taking a sampling of opinions before making a decision on a game.
But yes right now the industry is in a sad state wether it's from fanbois lying in the hopes that once you do try the game you will see it as they do and overlook it's faults or from devs who lie and hope they can get things fixed later the lying does need to stop.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Yes, my statements apply to all games with World PVP.
My actions can matter in games with more than 20v20. In Planetside population was capped at 200v200, and every single kill I made was therefore a meaningful contribution toward my faction winning.
It doesn't take small scale for PVP to avoid being shallow. It simply takes balanced teams.
DOTA is alright, but I usually play TF2 nowadays for my PVP fix. Might dabble in DOW2 too, as I've been watching a lot of games and it's pretty amusing. Was a professional game balancer for RTS games for a while, and got kinda burned out on playing them so much.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
First: the maximum number of players an Aion server can hold is 7K according to NCsoft They have 30 servers.
Do the count.
In Korea NCsoft published they had 400K players for 41 servers back in May.
Do the count.
Of course when you have a rush of 400K players on 24, now 30, servers you create waiting queues resulting in ... 7 hour playing sessions.
The problem is ... getting the players resubscribe into the 180 dollars yearly subs system in the West.
That was always the problem. And this problem always stuck its ugly head out after the initial 4 weeks launch period (which started around Sep 20 in the US and a few days later in EU).
Only when you' ll have those servers FULL on Nov 1st, you'll know Aion has a staying power in the western market.
All the rest is player hype, which we've seen already enough from the supposed 3.5M Asian players too.
So be my guest to invent those fabulous PVE questlines. That's what the OP was talking about.
I merely showed what was evident.
You can't do the count because you don't have solid numbers. The playtimes in asia and the west can be very different and we don't know how many people are in que for all servers at any given time.
Do only thing we know is that the game has 400k pre - orders and that the servers are full.
Also pre - orders have been able to play before release, I think it was 20 september?
If you claim that you only know when the servers are full on nov 1st, then why are you already claiming the game will lose subscribers? Considering the game has already enormous staying power in the east, there is no reason to assume it will decline fast. Ofcourse some will leave as the game obviously isn't for everyone.
Invent those fabulous PVE questlines? I didn't invent anything buddy, that quest line is in the starter area of elyos area. Anybody who has played Elyos up to level 10 and did the quests can confirm it's there.
Also, Source for your claim NCsoft said the game had 400k subscribers in Korea and that the servers can hold 7k players.
You can count the servers. In Korea: 41 servers for 400K players NCsoft stated clearly:
In NA/EU they stand at 14/16 servers for the moment with a 400K launching start (also official NCsoft statement). No wonder there are queuing lines (although ALREADY less and less ....).
To have a long term staying power of 400K players they'll NEED to open at least 40 servers (like they did in Korea and in China (that was 113 servers for 1M players there at launch).
So like I said: do the server count and you know exaclty the maximum capacity of Aion in the west.
You invented the PVE questline in comparaison with WOW without taking into account what people already HAVE seen in Wotlk.
You can describe it through the roof for my part: the only thing is .... people can see now for themselves. Hype time is ...over. They too can play.
You don't need to describe the quests, they have the ability to see the differences in PVE content themselves.
Again, I'll ask you once more: Where did NCsoft say that the game has 400k subscribers in Korea?
As long as you don't have any evidence that the game has 400k subscribers, your assumptions are worthless.
I didn't invent the PVE questline, it's right there in the game. One of the posters mentioned a questline in WoW that was different from the standard ones to claim it had variaty. I simply pointed out that Aion has these as well.
But you're right. People can see now for themselves and so far the servers are filled with players so they seem to have a great time.
I skimmed over the report but I didn't see anywhere where NCsoft mentioned that the game has 400k subscribers. The only mention i have seen of 400k is in a blogspot post which is both unreliable and even mentions it's speculation.
You can't directly compare it to China because playtimes are different. For example, China has very strict laws on how long people are allowed to play mmorpgs so naturally people will spend less time playing the game and thus making more space on the servers.
That is one of the most stupid guesstimate I have ever heard. How do you know the korean server actually reach it's capacity.
If Korean server have queue like the US have, you have a point. But maybe the korean server is only 50% full. No one really knows.
What did you do, read 1 review? Read several, see what people are saying ... its never the same. And AIon isnt even a valid excuse, could have tried out Aion's chinese open beta, pre order beta, mmorpg free beta, file planet beta .... Lies aren't what is killing the genre besides you just mentioned a game plenty of people actually do like. Not sure how the majority of people buying and liking your game is killing it. The other example can be summed up as a crappy game released too early.
its not people lying, its the fact that they put way too much into what people who actually take the time to post on the internet think. as we all know people who actively post on the internet are bottom feeders in society, myself included, and we actually make up a very small percentage of the actual numbers.
If you can't see the obvious above, I guess we're done discussing.
I even explained to you why there were queues. 24 and later 30 servers is too few to handle 400K new users all loggin in for the first week.
BTW: NCSoft stated in their technical Q&A that the max load on an Aion server is around 7K concurrent users on line per server. That's max capacity and stress tested btw, so operational servers tend to be a bit below that number.
Sorry it is too late to give you that reference on that 7K concurrent number too, but I am sure your fellow Aion fans can point it with a reference.
As a matter of fact : talking about that staying power:
Aion is already slipping on amazon.com too (far quicker than War btw). http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1254614259/ref=sr_pg_8?ie=UTF8&rs=468642&bbn=468642&rh=n%3A468642%2Cn%3A%2111846801&page=8
It is now at position 91 on amazon.com in games sales (slipping from a top 40 place a mere 8 days ago).
I have seen it numurous time.
The first 3 weeks ALL mmorpg hoppers jump in, then the sales charts begin to slip, then the people leaving are not being replaced as the massive number of new players that jumped in at launch, than the subs must be paid after the first free month.).
In viewing the launches of the past 3 years, no launch had a bigger retention rate than 30% in the western paid subscription market after 3 months.
THAT is the reason my friend why NCsoift is so reluctant to add the necessary servers. They KNEW what happened to War.
It seems that you so called Obvious is only reading what you want to believe. When your source of information is a random french blogspot, that says quite enough.
I see you have another attempt at trying to invent your own claims, but again your arguments are weak and unsupported. First of all Amazon is not an accurate representation of sales nor does box sales have anything to do with how much a staying power a game is, merely the amount of new players joining the game.
Ofcourse the game is going to drop in rankings, the game had some great pre - order bonuses and has been avaible for a week now. Everybody who really wanted the game has it by now.
People still buy boxed MMos?
store.steampowered.com/feeds/weeklytopsellers.xml
Aion is still a top seller @ Steam
The first month is included in the price of the game and you need to submit your CC to activate. Thus in the first month the number of preorders equals the number of subscribers
Maybe 10 years ago.
The first month is included in the price of the game and you need to submit your CC to activate. Thus in the first month the number of preorders equals the number of subscribers
That's true, but thats just for North America and Europe. The game has been release in Korea for about a year now and in China for a number of months.
What exactly is this trying to show? Im' not sure what you trying to prove.
Woltk didn't have digital down load at release.
Some of you will be 'amazed' by Aion's performace in the market, this game was fastly filled with people who were burnt by Warhammer and AoC, which regardless of what you think of them. Pale polish-wise compared to Aion.
And excuse me while i laugh at the Op for using Eurogamer's review as an example of honesty. That particular review was the very definition of ignorance, and since i feel generous i,m quoting the first and the last part of it:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/aion-the-tower-of-eternity-review
OP:
" 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5.
After a week playing a Chanter in the open beta for Aion: The Tower of Eternity, NCsoft's new MMO, this sequence of key-presses is hard-coded into the muscle memory my left hand. I can tap it out on a table-top, the rhythm steady, urgent yet patient, hitting every skill's cooldown on the nose. Not a second or a mana point wasted. 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5. "
Last line:
" An ultimately grim and unvarying pursuit. A string of key-presses, in the same endlessly repeating sequence, reaching to the moon and back. 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5... "
Someone send Oli wellish a message and tell him, Aleste leveled a hunter in WoW from lvl10 to lvl80 using a 1 button macro.
Regards
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
-Lots of other settings
Learn how by reading this guide at Aionsource
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-guides/84379-definite-guide-aions-graphical-settings-performance-tips.html
So?
If someone uses the term "troll" to describe someone who critiques a game you know they are emotionally invested in the game.
Look at the Aion forums. Tons of "reviews" that try to add the disclaimer "if you're a troll". Once you see that line, just ignore whatever is said beyond that. Its pure garbage.
VG, AOC, WAR, DF, etc., all had threads like that. They would try to call the people who disliked the game a troll. IMO, if there are a good number of negative post about a game, then its probably a poorly made game.
Would you consider these posts trollish?
some examples
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/254467/My-Review-of-Aiondis-game-is-shit.html
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/254476/Hello-I-have-done-a-review-of-this-game-and-would-like-your-thoughts.html
I'm willing to bet the op is pointing to alot of them as well, and I think this because I honestly feel the same way. Companies strong arm these companies to not dog them too bad all the time and the reviewers have no choice but to comply because ultimately these games pay the bills and they can't be pissing people off.
A good example of this to me is just about any review done on a game by this site alone, I have never ever read a bad review lukewarm yes but as I've stated these guys are just as afraid to totally dog a game as the companies are afraid to get dogged. Now with as much complaining that goes on about alot of these substandard products some of which aren;t even around anymore can you actually beleive ther has never been a bad mmo? Again a vast majority of reviewers professional or not would have you believe this if you only used their reviews to judge.
Really I've read a million horrible reviews in gameinformer but when it comes to the internet and mmo's there is honesty nor transparency.
Also I think reviews and reviewers are bad but let's talk about the devs themselves. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how AOC can make the mistake of printing boxes with features on it that still to date do not work in game, if you printed the boxes a month before launch yet a year and a half later these features aren't done I really need to know exactly how something like this can happen because again the only logical answer is you told a bold faced lie to sell your product.
As far as who can you trust, I've found a good medium read the forums (much like mmorpg) before you buy any game obviously everyones opinion can't be followed to the letter but I think you get a good general idea on what is and is not true from taking a sampling of opinions before making a decision on a game.
But yes right now the industry is in a sad state wether it's from fanbois lying in the hopes that once you do try the game you will see it as they do and overlook it's faults or from devs who lie and hope they can get things fixed later the lying does need to stop.
You do make a good point, although i hardly think companies strong arm reviewers. Yes, they may whithold press materials to people doing bad reviews but thats just basically shooting themselves in the foot. The Michelin guide (thats kind of like the scary guy from Ratatouille to the younger generation) will never write a bad review of any restaurant. They simply wont review it at all or, if it meets their technical criteria, will simply state factly its characteristics. Good critics know to speak to the connoiseur as well as to the layman, as an example if someone wrote in a games review that it is likely to appeal to the WOW crowd there are some of us who would know to take a hint. It actually benefits an industry to have an educated public, take wine for instance which relies on tasters to determine wether a particular vintage will end up on the table of a 3 star restaurant or at a shelf in Walmart. Sure, wine makers do ocasionally take a hit when reviews dont go their way, but they know the overall health of the industry relies on being able to deliver quality. Ofc a sofisticated audience is a requisite but this is entirely a diferent discussion as no publication or institution has undertaken establishing criteria we could rally about.
As for the whole thing about the Aion servers its starting to get ridiculous, you cant estimate what the cost effective number of subscribers for each server is. All MMOs loose people on the first couple of months, if NCsofts numbers for NA and Europe estimate demand for servers will be at about their current capacity theyre doing the right thing for their playerbase not ading any further number of servers. Real numbers wont be available until at least half a year from now when will be able to tell without a doubt if Aion can manage growth once the first wave of hyped users has jumped ship. We dont need another WOW, MMOs should be about diversity and a number of diferent offerings doing well on the market, not a bunch of strugling companies fighting over the scraps of a leviathans table. No game should have the numbers that WOW has until the player base has grown by an order of magnitude. I hope Blizzard has enough of a success with their next expansion theyll be encouraged to continue adding content to their game, but other than that hopefully WOWs numbers will slowly dwindle and benefit the industry with a supply of players looking for something diferent in an MMO.
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
Can you actually tell me what Aion lied about?
All you said is Aion lied. You didn't say what they lied about.
I could have told you half a year ago that aion is a grind. It had already been said that you quickly run out of quests and that it turns into a grind (compared to the latest other western mmo's).
The ultimate irony is how you would have been slaughtered for pointing this out on aionsource before release but now I see more and more people there complaining.
Other than the grind Aion is still a good MMO.
Good question.
Thats it? LoL