I can see it having a record breaking number in Korea because they have what like 9 billion Asians playing the game. But here, I doubt it will last very long at all especially with how all of these mmorpg's are flopping these days.
Don't forget that over half of WoW's 11 million subscribers are in Asia. Aion now has over 5 million subscribers in Korea and China, even if it only hits a few hundred thousand in the west, that still put its, globally, as the second largest subscription MMO ever behind World of Warcraft.
As it plays just like WoW, only prettier and with decent well thought out PvP, I expect it to do quite well, perhaps maybe even hitting a million subscribers across both North America and Europe, which I think is pretty impressive considering how WAR, AoC and everything else has been flopping recently.
Also, Aion has no technical problems or unfinished content, because it has already been released in two territories and these issues have long since been dealt with. It will have an incredibly smooth western launch.
The question is though, are people looking for a new WoW? If they aren't, then they won't like Aion.
I can see it having a record breaking number in Korea because they have what like 9 billion Asians playing the game. But here, I doubt it will last very long at all especially with how all of these mmorpg's are flopping these days.
Don't forget that over half of WoW's 11 million subscribers are in Asia. Aion now has over 5 million subscribers in Korea and China, even if it only hits a few hundred thousand in the west, that still put its, globally, as the second largest subscription MMO ever behind World of Warcraft.
As it plays just like WoW, only prettier and with decent well thought out PvP, I expect it to do quite well, perhaps maybe even hitting a million subscribers across both North America and Europe, which I think is pretty impressive considering how WAR, AoC and everything else has been flopping recently.
Also, Aion has no technical problems or unfinished content, because it has already been released in two territories and these issues have long since been dealt with. It will have an incredibly smooth western launch.
The question is though, are people looking for a new WoW? If they aren't, then they won't like Aion.
If it is another WoW clone no thank you. I've had my fare share with WoW clones and WoW itself. I can't say for certain if it will flop or be a success but I can say opinion wise I don't think it will appeal much in the US. If it does then grats to them. And yes WoW has a lot of of Asians playing but you gotta remember that WoW is not a Asian mmo and Aion is and playing all of these Asian made mmorpg's have never made it successfully in the US. So that is what I base my opinion on. And if it is another WoW clone then I SERIOUSLY doubt it will make it successful in the US.
mmorpg's flop faster then mcdonalds cheese burgers these days.
If it is another WoW clone no thank you. I've had my fare share with WoW clones and WoW itself. I can't say for certain if it will flop or be a success but I can say opinion wise I don't think it will appeal much in the US. If it does then grats to them. And yes WoW has a lot of of Asians playing but you gotta remember that WoW is not a Asian mmo and Aion is and playing all of these Asian made mmorpg's have never made it successfully in the US. So that is what I base my opinion on. And if it is another WoW clone then I SERIOUSLY doubt it will make it successful in the US.
What type of MMO would be successful in the US?
From what I've seen, we have four basic types of MMO.
Kill Progression - You basically go out and kill kill kill, the reason you kill is to level, the more you level the more you kill, the endless cycle of boredom is upon us. This is what 99% of Asian MMOs are like and is what old skool MMOs were like (UO, EQ).
Quest Progression - This is the current top dog as far as MMOs go, WoW, Aion, WAR, LOTRO, AoC, SWTOR, they all fall into this category. Usually they are linear in the progression style too, dragging you through specific content with some half-arsed attempt at a story.
Sandbox - A mythical beast that no one really knows anything about. pre-NGE SWG was perhaps the last good sandbox MMO. Darkfall is the latest sandbox MMO and is pitifully bad.
Casual - Usually these are kid based, so easy even your grandma who's never touched a PC before could play one. Free Realms, Wizard 101, FusionFall, etc.
Now, considering no one likes Kill Progression, I think we can rule that. Also no one will invest in Sandbox MMOs, so we should perhaps rule that one out too, there after all, must be a reason why no big publisher is willing to invest in Sandbox MMOs. That leaves Quest Progression and Casual. Yes, Casual is the area of the online market that is currently growing at an exponential rate, but I don't think that is because it is bringing in new people, not converting current MMO players.
Just my thoughts though. I do tend to generalise things a lot, I mean Aion is significantly better made and more polished than both WAR and AoC, but it is scary the amount of prejudice there is against it simply because it is made by NCSoft Korea.
but I also notice it is by the company, playNC, which has a number of different MMO's which have not been very successful (Lineage 1 & 2, Guildwars, City of Heroes/Villains).
L2 & GW not successful?
btw: its NCSoft,not PlayNC
btw2: yes, Aion will be the next best thing...not only because its a quite decent game on itself,but because the other new mainstream games (namely AoC and WAR) are just awful and everybody is jumping that sinking ships...
Instead of aiming for the fences, gaming companies need to focus on making teh game fun and look for 300,000 to 500,000 in subs. That will be a roaring success. Unseating WoW is an unrealistic goal for any game out the gate. It will happen, but its like watching water boil - it will happen on its own time.
Fact: It cannot and will nto be as big as wow, due to the hardware required to play it. But realistically it will be one of the biggest. I would say and im currently playing it on the chinese servers that the gui is taken from WOW, but the gameplay is much closer to EQ, the original. It won game of the year in korea and the fastest growing game in china so it really does not matter if it is the number one game in America NCsoft is a KOREAN companie and it plays well to it market. But it is ignorant to say the game is like WOW if you have never played it.
Actually you are wrong, the GUI is actually the same GUI system they used in L2, my guess would be they have some in-house GUI API and it was used in L2 and again with Aion, ofc they improved/changed it, but in essence it is exactly the same.
"but I also notice it is by the company, playNC, which has a number of different MMO's which have not been very successful (Lineage 1 & 2, Guildwars, City of Heroes/Villains)."
LOL. I'm guessing you have never played Lineage 1 or Lineage 2... Seeing how Lineage 1 use to be the "The next big MMO" and how Lineage 2 is only getting better
Instead of aiming for the fences, gaming companies need to focus on making teh game fun and look for 300,000 to 500,000 in subs. That will be a roaring success. Unseating WoW is an unrealistic goal for any game out the gate. It will happen, but its like watching water boil - it will happen on its own time.
The next Big MMO doesn't need to unseat WoW... It just needs have high Subs, like your 300k to 500k mark. I'd Say that would make it the next big MMO.
Face it WoW is the 1st and only MMO that has got or will get 11 million subs.... No MMO after it will get that high, just won't happen.
I just played Aion for about 10-15 minutes. It's a very pretty game.... and I mean very very pretty.
Hate the control style... The right click on target and you automaticly run over and attack. Never cared for that style, but I'm not going to let that ruin the game for me.
I still think it going to do well, here in the US, but SW:TOR is going to do better.
I was playing on a server in Central China and it was so crowded that there were 1800 player queues on all 15 servers (there are 5 regions to choose from all with a grouping of servers). They added about 5 more servers to that area to alleviate the crowding and they did it in a timely manner. Even with that many people playing I was still getting high FPS rates. I had a single GTX 260 OC which I have now made times 2 in SLI. I have moved to a different server because as you get higher grouping becomes more important and not speaking Chinese was becoming an issue. There is a group of Americans playing on Azariel on a North China server. It is not as crowded. It is not the typical Asian game. They have blended east and west very well. The camera works very well and the casting and combat does too. There is storyline and storyclips woven throughout that tie the lore of Aion into your game very well. If you do the personal line (which it is hard to avoid) you will understand what happened to blow the world apart by the time you hit the level cap.
As to your title, "Will Aion be the next big MMO?" I will just say it sure does have potential. I know tons of people who are watching it, myself included; however, we're not getting to excited until it's released.
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
The next Big MMO doesn't need to unseat WoW... It just needs have high Subs, like your 300k to 500k mark. I'd Say that would make it the next big MMO.
Face it WoW is the 1st and only MMO that has got or will get 11 million subs.... No MMO after it will get that high, just won't happen. I just played Aion for about 10-15 minutes. It's a very pretty game.... and I mean very very pretty.
Hate the control style... The right click on target and you automaticly run over and attack. Never cared for that style, but I'm not going to let that ruin the game for me. I still think it going to do well, here in the US, but SW:TOR is going to do better.
You can turn off mouse movement in the options menu, along with turning off the move into range feature when you use a skill.
The controls can be setup to easily mirror either a typical western MMO (WASD) or a typical Asian MMO (mouse controls).
I totally agree that SWTOR will do better in NA & EU, but Star Wars has nearly no appeal in Asia so it is going to have a much harder time hitting big global figures. Everyone has to keep in mind that WoW is judged on it's global figure, that 11 million is worldwide, so it is about time that we started judging all MMOs on a global scale.
Here we go again. To start with, this game is very dissimilar from Wow. Anyone trying to compare it to Wow has never seen the game or played it. Despite the many negative posts this game wil do quite well in US and the European areas. It might now hurt Wow much, but it will seriously hurt games like AoC and Warhammer. It will be this years hit. There is no doubt whatsoever in that. If you play AoC or Warhammer, get ready for a serious population loss.
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
You can customize your character to be as ugly, short, tall, beautiful, fat, thin, as you want. It is not the typicle asian mmo. Play it before you post about what it is or is not. Its easy enough to get the link for the chinese download and an english language converter. I love the game and I also appreciate that I get to play without the usual whining you have in American betas. WoW was revolutionary in its on right (whether you agree it is a good or bad game). Aion is a step above WoW in my opinion and yes there are similarities but there are definite differences. Hardly anyone remembers that when WoW went live the servers crashed almost daily. They even ended up giving us free time. I have found very few glitches in Aion so far and can I say again how visually stunning the world is. It may not pull the WoW cavemen from their dens but it will certainly attract an audience looking for a new good game.
Hardly anyone remembers that when WoW went live the servers crashed almost daily. They even ended up giving us free time. I have found very few glitches in Aion so far and can I say again how visually stunning the world is. It may not pull the WoW cavemen from their dens but it will certainly attract an audience looking for a new good game.
I just started playing WoW and I'm still having issues with the client.... >.> The beast is not quite as stable and smooth as some would have us think. Their billing department is a total pain the butt too. Good thing the game is fun and pretty, very easy though I'm thinking a few months and that'll be that
Here we go again. To start with, this game is very dissimilar from Wow. Anyone trying to compare it to Wow has never seen the game or played it. Despite the many negative posts this game wil do quite well in US and the European areas. It might now hurt Wow much, but it will seriously hurt games like AoC and Warhammer. It will be this years hit. There is no doubt whatsoever in that. If you play AoC or Warhammer, get ready for a serious population loss.
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
Anyone who wants to refute this is just looking ridiculous at this point.
Aion is already the next big MMO. Other than World Of Warcraft what game is doing better? I am sure this game has more subs then any other game out there world wide other than World of Warcraft and this game is yet to even be released in Japan, Europe and United States.
Here we go again. To start with, this game is very dissimilar from Wow. Anyone trying to compare it to Wow has never seen the game or played it. Despite the many negative posts this game wil do quite well in US and the European areas. It might now hurt Wow much, but it will seriously hurt games like AoC and Warhammer. It will be this years hit. There is no doubt whatsoever in that. If you play AoC or Warhammer, get ready for a serious population loss.
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
Also they all cater to the casual player, and I heard Aion will as well, so that is another similarity.
So even though they are differences they are all fundamentally the same. Casual with linear progression with lots of quests. Differences is mainly how/if they do PvP.
If you wan't a game that is very different then Darkfall is where you should look. However I heard the actual game is very different from the concept (i.e. it sucks).
The next Big MMO doesn't need to unseat WoW... It just needs have high Subs, like your 300k to 500k mark. I'd Say that would make it the next big MMO.
Face it WoW is the 1st and only MMO that has got or will get 11 million subs.... No MMO after it will get that high, just won't happen. I just played Aion for about 10-15 minutes. It's a very pretty game.... and I mean very very pretty.
Hate the control style... The right click on target and you automaticly run over and attack. Never cared for that style, but I'm not going to let that ruin the game for me. I still think it going to do well, here in the US, but SW:TOR is going to do better.
Pardon, but it is VERY hard for me to believe you actually played Aion after comments like these. Unless you played at PAX, have a Korean retail or chinese beta account, there is no other way you played it recently. Chinese beta has long ques and you would have had to register to get in via lotto months ago. Korean retail would have required you to either use a korean players account, or purchase your own via 3rd party site ringing you up for around $60 USD. For 10-15 mins play time, I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt you went through the effort to
1. Download the client
2. Apply for the lotto (and get in which, was a pain in the ass if i remeber correctly)
3. Pay for your account
4. Call up your Korean buddy and get him to give you his username and password
I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
BTW: I have a Korean retail Account
It's almost 2010, and I am just not wiling to tolerate clunky graphics while being told that "gameplay is more important than graphics". That excuse won't wash with me any more. I expect my games to have both good graphics and good gameplay. -Quote Isoke(VN boards)
I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
Keeping in mind one thing.....doesn't matter if AION gets 10M subs in APAC, what will be the real measure of the game is how many can it appeal to in the West, where the big money really is.
We'll see what happens once its released in the West, but judging from the pace NCSoft is going at they probably aren't expecting too much.
Still, 300-500K would be a huge success and maybe they can pull it off.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
Keeping in mind one thing.....doesn't matter if AION gets 10M subs in APAC, what will be the real measure of the game is how many can it appeal to in the West, where the big money really is.
We'll see what happens once its released in the West, but judging from the pace NCSoft is going at they probably aren't expecting too much.
Still, 300-500K would be a huge success and maybe they can pull it off.
That's sort of true. People forget that games like Lineage and Lineage 2 were huge in the east. Not so much in the west. Now granted, Aion has more of a western sensibility in certain game play decions but I think when people in the West start asking as to whether or not something is going to be the next big thing, they are thinking about "Big thing in the West". So sure, Aion might garner a million + subs in the East (and I think L2 had that at one point?) but will Europe and the U.S. follow?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Aion is already the next big MMO. Other than World Of Warcraft what game is doing better? I am sure this game has more subs then any other game out there world wide other than World of Warcraft and this game is yet to even be released in Japan, Europe and United States.
Now this is a very good comment. Ignoring geography and just speaking numbers, Aion is already "a big thing" and widespread easy access isn't even available yet.
I find it quite... amusing to read some of the comments in this thread. Anybody that's really put some research time into Aion I'd think would be able to see it's high probability of popularity. I'm talking about following along with reviews, news, ingame video, player comments and reactions, reports of solid performance, etc. Aion's reports are very positive at a high percentage. In fact, it's hard to find all that much negative coming out of it, even from people playing on a foreign language server. That is a direct opposite of what's happened with the last few 'big' release games. Aion is packing servers and forcing additional in it's two current locations at a point where the last two suppose to be big games were bleeding heavily and already thinking of merging servers, which they've now done. It feels to me like many people are making comments from a defensive standpoint against their current game or the one they think will be good, without an indepth, unbiased look into Aion. I won't even mention what has become the cliche phrase when so many look at new games. It makes me sick. I guess it's too much to ask for people to really look into a game before commenting.
So, is it the next big thing? Speaking generally, not about 'killing' other games but in subscriber numbers comparison, yeah, it should be a "big thing." I personally don't believe anything that's come out in the past year or will come out before Aion will do as well.
Comments
Don't forget that over half of WoW's 11 million subscribers are in Asia. Aion now has over 5 million subscribers in Korea and China, even if it only hits a few hundred thousand in the west, that still put its, globally, as the second largest subscription MMO ever behind World of Warcraft.
As it plays just like WoW, only prettier and with decent well thought out PvP, I expect it to do quite well, perhaps maybe even hitting a million subscribers across both North America and Europe, which I think is pretty impressive considering how WAR, AoC and everything else has been flopping recently.
Also, Aion has no technical problems or unfinished content, because it has already been released in two territories and these issues have long since been dealt with. It will have an incredibly smooth western launch.
The question is though, are people looking for a new WoW? If they aren't, then they won't like Aion.
Don't forget that over half of WoW's 11 million subscribers are in Asia. Aion now has over 5 million subscribers in Korea and China, even if it only hits a few hundred thousand in the west, that still put its, globally, as the second largest subscription MMO ever behind World of Warcraft.
As it plays just like WoW, only prettier and with decent well thought out PvP, I expect it to do quite well, perhaps maybe even hitting a million subscribers across both North America and Europe, which I think is pretty impressive considering how WAR, AoC and everything else has been flopping recently.
Also, Aion has no technical problems or unfinished content, because it has already been released in two territories and these issues have long since been dealt with. It will have an incredibly smooth western launch.
The question is though, are people looking for a new WoW? If they aren't, then they won't like Aion.
If it is another WoW clone no thank you. I've had my fare share with WoW clones and WoW itself. I can't say for certain if it will flop or be a success but I can say opinion wise I don't think it will appeal much in the US. If it does then grats to them. And yes WoW has a lot of of Asians playing but you gotta remember that WoW is not a Asian mmo and Aion is and playing all of these Asian made mmorpg's have never made it successfully in the US. So that is what I base my opinion on. And if it is another WoW clone then I SERIOUSLY doubt it will make it successful in the US.
mmorpg's flop faster then mcdonalds cheese burgers these days.
What type of MMO would be successful in the US?
From what I've seen, we have four basic types of MMO.
Kill Progression - You basically go out and kill kill kill, the reason you kill is to level, the more you level the more you kill, the endless cycle of boredom is upon us. This is what 99% of Asian MMOs are like and is what old skool MMOs were like (UO, EQ).
Quest Progression - This is the current top dog as far as MMOs go, WoW, Aion, WAR, LOTRO, AoC, SWTOR, they all fall into this category. Usually they are linear in the progression style too, dragging you through specific content with some half-arsed attempt at a story.
Sandbox - A mythical beast that no one really knows anything about. pre-NGE SWG was perhaps the last good sandbox MMO. Darkfall is the latest sandbox MMO and is pitifully bad.
Casual - Usually these are kid based, so easy even your grandma who's never touched a PC before could play one. Free Realms, Wizard 101, FusionFall, etc.
Now, considering no one likes Kill Progression, I think we can rule that. Also no one will invest in Sandbox MMOs, so we should perhaps rule that one out too, there after all, must be a reason why no big publisher is willing to invest in Sandbox MMOs. That leaves Quest Progression and Casual. Yes, Casual is the area of the online market that is currently growing at an exponential rate, but I don't think that is because it is bringing in new people, not converting current MMO players.
Just my thoughts though. I do tend to generalise things a lot, I mean Aion is significantly better made and more polished than both WAR and AoC, but it is scary the amount of prejudice there is against it simply because it is made by NCSoft Korea.
L2 & GW not successful?
btw: its NCSoft,not PlayNC
btw2: yes, Aion will be the next best thing...not only because its a quite decent game on itself,but because the other new mainstream games (namely AoC and WAR) are just awful and everybody is jumping that sinking ships...
{ Mod Edit }
We need to stop waiting on the next "big" MMO.
Instead of aiming for the fences, gaming companies need to focus on making teh game fun and look for 300,000 to 500,000 in subs. That will be a roaring success. Unseating WoW is an unrealistic goal for any game out the gate. It will happen, but its like watching water boil - it will happen on its own time.
Actually you are wrong, the GUI is actually the same GUI system they used in L2, my guess would be they have some in-house GUI API and it was used in L2 and again with Aion, ofc they improved/changed it, but in essence it is exactly the same.
LOL i didnt even read anything on this thread. just the title says it all.
and the answer is, NO!
Without realizing it, you made a larger point.
Point being, we are not enjoying the games we are playing and are looking for something better.
I can totally relate to this feeling.
LOL. I'm guessing you have never played Lineage 1 or Lineage 2... Seeing how Lineage 1 use to be the "The next big MMO" and how Lineage 2 is only getting better
The next Big MMO doesn't need to unseat WoW... It just needs have high Subs, like your 300k to 500k mark. I'd Say that would make it the next big MMO.
Face it WoW is the 1st and only MMO that has got or will get 11 million subs.... No MMO after it will get that high, just won't happen.
I just played Aion for about 10-15 minutes. It's a very pretty game.... and I mean very very pretty.
Hate the control style... The right click on target and you automaticly run over and attack. Never cared for that style, but I'm not going to let that ruin the game for me.
I still think it going to do well, here in the US, but SW:TOR is going to do better.
I was playing on a server in Central China and it was so crowded that there were 1800 player queues on all 15 servers (there are 5 regions to choose from all with a grouping of servers). They added about 5 more servers to that area to alleviate the crowding and they did it in a timely manner. Even with that many people playing I was still getting high FPS rates. I had a single GTX 260 OC which I have now made times 2 in SLI. I have moved to a different server because as you get higher grouping becomes more important and not speaking Chinese was becoming an issue. There is a group of Americans playing on Azariel on a North China server. It is not as crowded. It is not the typical Asian game. They have blended east and west very well. The camera works very well and the casting and combat does too. There is storyline and storyclips woven throughout that tie the lore of Aion into your game very well. If you do the personal line (which it is hard to avoid) you will understand what happened to blow the world apart by the time you hit the level cap.
As to your title, "Will Aion be the next big MMO?" I will just say it sure does have potential. I know tons of people who are watching it, myself included; however, we're not getting to excited until it's released.
I Reject your Reality and Substitute it with My Own!
Here we go again. To start with, this game is very dissimilar from Wow. Anyone trying to compare it to Wow has never seen the game or played it.
Despite the many negative posts this game wil do quite well in US and the European areas.
It might now hurt Wow much, but it will seriously hurt games like AoC and Warhammer. It will be this years hit. There is no doubt whatsoever in that.
If you play AoC or Warhammer, get ready for a serious population loss.
You can turn off mouse movement in the options menu, along with turning off the move into range feature when you use a skill.
The controls can be setup to easily mirror either a typical western MMO (WASD) or a typical Asian MMO (mouse controls).
I totally agree that SWTOR will do better in NA & EU, but Star Wars has nearly no appeal in Asia so it is going to have a much harder time hitting big global figures. Everyone has to keep in mind that WoW is judged on it's global figure, that 11 million is worldwide, so it is about time that we started judging all MMOs on a global scale.
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
You can customize your character to be as ugly, short, tall, beautiful, fat, thin, as you want. It is not the typicle asian mmo. Play it before you post about what it is or is not. Its easy enough to get the link for the chinese download and an english language converter. I love the game and I also appreciate that I get to play without the usual whining you have in American betas. WoW was revolutionary in its on right (whether you agree it is a good or bad game). Aion is a step above WoW in my opinion and yes there are similarities but there are definite differences. Hardly anyone remembers that when WoW went live the servers crashed almost daily. They even ended up giving us free time. I have found very few glitches in Aion so far and can I say again how visually stunning the world is. It may not pull the WoW cavemen from their dens but it will certainly attract an audience looking for a new good game.
I just started playing WoW and I'm still having issues with the client.... >.> The beast is not quite as stable and smooth as some would have us think. Their billing department is a total pain the butt too. Good thing the game is fun and pretty, very easy though I'm thinking a few months and that'll be that
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
Anyone who wants to refute this is just looking ridiculous at this point.
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Aion is already the next big MMO. Other than World Of Warcraft what game is doing better? I am sure this game has more subs then any other game out there world wide other than World of Warcraft and this game is yet to even be released in Japan, Europe and United States.
For reference, WoW is a linear progression quest based MMO, so is WAR, AOC, LOTRO and AION.
Obviously there are differences, but they are the same type of MMO.
Also they all cater to the casual player, and I heard Aion will as well, so that is another similarity.
So even though they are differences they are all fundamentally the same. Casual with linear progression with lots of quests. Differences is mainly how/if they do PvP.
If you wan't a game that is very different then Darkfall is where you should look. However I heard the actual game is very different from the concept (i.e. it sucks).
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Pardon, but it is VERY hard for me to believe you actually played Aion after comments like these. Unless you played at PAX, have a Korean retail or chinese beta account, there is no other way you played it recently. Chinese beta has long ques and you would have had to register to get in via lotto months ago. Korean retail would have required you to either use a korean players account, or purchase your own via 3rd party site ringing you up for around $60 USD. For 10-15 mins play time, I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt you went through the effort to
1. Download the client
2. Apply for the lotto (and get in which, was a pain in the ass if i remeber correctly)
3. Pay for your account
4. Call up your Korean buddy and get him to give you his username and password
I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
BTW: I have a Korean retail Account
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I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
Keeping in mind one thing.....doesn't matter if AION gets 10M subs in APAC, what will be the real measure of the game is how many can it appeal to in the West, where the big money really is.
We'll see what happens once its released in the West, but judging from the pace NCSoft is going at they probably aren't expecting too much.
Still, 300-500K would be a huge success and maybe they can pull it off.
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I should throw out there, it is calculated that Aion has already achieved 1mil, if not more, subs in Korea alone, only 5 months after release.
I should also add that contrary to what many people have stated here, Aion has little to no hype here in the US, if you were to go onto WoW trade chat and ask "Who here is going to play Aion?" You will get responses like "WTF is Aion?" "Is that a raid in the next patch?" "Never heard of it, is it a shooter?" or "GTFO scrub nobody knows or cares".( believe me, I've done it)
The only hype you get is on places where it is already talked about, where it is hyped by a vocal and actually decent sized community. NCsoft has done little to no marketing outside of Korea China and Japan.
Keeping in mind one thing.....doesn't matter if AION gets 10M subs in APAC, what will be the real measure of the game is how many can it appeal to in the West, where the big money really is.
We'll see what happens once its released in the West, but judging from the pace NCSoft is going at they probably aren't expecting too much.
Still, 300-500K would be a huge success and maybe they can pull it off.
That's sort of true. People forget that games like Lineage and Lineage 2 were huge in the east. Not so much in the west. Now granted, Aion has more of a western sensibility in certain game play decions but I think when people in the West start asking as to whether or not something is going to be the next big thing, they are thinking about "Big thing in the West". So sure, Aion might garner a million + subs in the East (and I think L2 had that at one point?) but will Europe and the U.S. follow?
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to bad aion is just a crappy version of lineage2 for the west.
Now this is a very good comment. Ignoring geography and just speaking numbers, Aion is already "a big thing" and widespread easy access isn't even available yet.
I find it quite... amusing to read some of the comments in this thread. Anybody that's really put some research time into Aion I'd think would be able to see it's high probability of popularity. I'm talking about following along with reviews, news, ingame video, player comments and reactions, reports of solid performance, etc. Aion's reports are very positive at a high percentage. In fact, it's hard to find all that much negative coming out of it, even from people playing on a foreign language server. That is a direct opposite of what's happened with the last few 'big' release games. Aion is packing servers and forcing additional in it's two current locations at a point where the last two suppose to be big games were bleeding heavily and already thinking of merging servers, which they've now done. It feels to me like many people are making comments from a defensive standpoint against their current game or the one they think will be good, without an indepth, unbiased look into Aion. I won't even mention what has become the cliche phrase when so many look at new games. It makes me sick. I guess it's too much to ask for people to really look into a game before commenting.
So, is it the next big thing? Speaking generally, not about 'killing' other games but in subscriber numbers comparison, yeah, it should be a "big thing." I personally don't believe anything that's come out in the past year or will come out before Aion will do as well.