Ok I have been playing MMO's for the last 10 years, about their true emergence into the world of Online play. I played WoW for nearly 4 years. The reasons people are fed up with the games, is mainly due to class balance issues, and the ease of play. Everythign real WoW veterans played, acheived and worked for, was taken away when attunments went out the window. Every tuesday WoW is nearly a new game. I mean seriously what class is exactly the same as when it launched? they constantly have to mess with the mechanics and they really do nothing to help the games attractiveness. Lich king was popular, because Arthas is oen fo the favored characters from WarCraft, and the WoW vets wanted to see new content. Seriously though, people are already doen with the content, and have been since 2 weeks after launch. Blizzard, is pulling out of China, due to China's new policy for WoW and other MMO's, and the LawSuit yes they will lose a ton of subs, but they Do not have 11 million people playing, anymore, despite what numbers are "posted". being a game developer my self, that is 100% pure marketing strategy, millions playing yes, 11 million at this time, no. Aion started in Asia, 6 months posted 3.5 million subs, WoW did not boast those numbers so quickly. The reason Aion is going to be a success, is its the first Korean/Asian based MMO that is being completely localized with each region in mind. They know what American MMO players want and like, as well as the players aroudn the world. So they bring elements that make Korean MMO's huge, and add in flavorful elements from successful games over here. The game is gorgeous, the combat is fun and looks spectacular. People say its alot like WoW but after being in game myself, it just feels liek a little different styled MMO, that really has nothign to do with WoW. The same comparison could be said about EverQuest and WoW... While I can not stand WoW any longer, the following reminds me of EQ, you have alot of time wrapped up into a toon or 2 and you just cant walk away, people get attached. Face WoW is not even the best game out there, it was marketed well, with easy system specs, well I forsee in the forst year of release Aion will be about 5 million plus subs. if it can keep end game interest, let casual players not fall too far behind, then yes, we may have a new standard in MMO's. a WoW killer, well that depends on where the subs coem from, if they coem from current WoW players, then yes it will suffer, however if it is from past WoW players like myself, than maybe there will be a happy co-existance. I played Aion all weekend, it is fairly well polished for a game that was so quickly localized. In the end who cares what is better, people will play what they are comfortable with playing and its their 15 bucks a month to do so, just find a game you like and have fun.
I think the same. I ve read all those posts, from page 1. I think all this *STH* vs WOW things are quite good. I really hope WOW to die. Why ? Dead WOW only means one thing - no more "its like wow, wow is the best, rest sux, 1000x mln subs". I hate that. I hope WoW to die, but only from this point of view. Todays WoW is seen as god of MMORPG. And its not. Its huge succsess, investement vise, but not for a gamer.
I feel horible when every small game I played is pushed to ground with WoW. They say all those small games "got nothing new", are not innovative, etc. All this WoW hype, is killing me. I am not a hater. I like WoW as a game, never played to much, but it has nice lore and ideas. I just didnt play much, cause this type of graphics and small pvp contents are not pleasing me.
But still I wish it death.
Death to the king, 'couse i can stand "better - worse" hype. And with death i mean - wow will lose all those, who could play better games FOR THEM. All those who love wow should stay, and wow would live for ever to them.
I wish Aion will never take place of WoW, together with any other game. If a game, have even 1 totaly addicted player - its good.
And no numbers, and features will change that, u know.
Most of us (in this thread) are just bumping from subs number (11m, 5m, 3m, chinease m.), features (aion got nothing, wow got nothing, eve is old..), and others. All those things all lies. Why? Numbers are just pure marketing. Features are aiming only for specific class of gamers - i dont like raids for eg., still am playin WAR, l2, and many more. Others - bugs, cheats, bots. Every game have it. The most popular and new games have the most. The only pure thing w.o bots is pvp - WaR have little bots due to pvp and small subs numbers, but still it has it. Like every one. ===> to sum up, all those arguments are senseless.
Once again, I wish death to the king. WoW is the king. Why? Couse it is anti-hype'ing every other game. Every one is saing "wow clone," etc. And it this case people are choosing wow, when they could choose a game which they like better.
My 2 cents :)
sorry for bad eng, u can flame me all the way;]
I have 10 years + of hardcore mmo experience, beta tester exp, mmo funboy exp.I ve been with mmorpg site for some time, despite lack of account
Aion is an absolutely Astonishing game, Once it launches it will have 2 new Mega patches installed. People who have been around the block in the MMO market; Will really be able to appreciate everything this game has to offer. I would hold off on anything Negitive said about this game. Try it for yourself, This one is easily one of the best MMO's to date.
The only real problem with this info from china is that if you read the entire article about Blizz problem with china is that the majority of Chinese players have for a long time been playing Wotlk from Taiwan servers since Blizz had a big problem releasing Wotlk directly to china.
The other reason we keep mentioning other games is that in the end its not just that those games didn't attract subscribers intially, its that they failed to keep them past the trial, A game isnt as good as the amount of people it sells to in an MMO market, but rather the amount of people it keeps.
The only MMO "grinder" that i am familiar with is World of Warcraft. With the kind of Asian subscriptions it has, it's gotta be the biggest grinder of all time.
Aion is an absolutely Astonishing game, Once it launches it will have 2 new Mega patches installed. People who have been around the block in the MMO market; Will really be able to appreciate everything this game has to offer. I would hold off on anything Negitive said about this game. Try it for yourself, This one is easily one of the best MMO's to date.
This is kinda of my thoughts as well. I plan to play the game when it is lanched at retail with voice. I want to see what type of tweaking and bot battling that NCsoft is willing to do for the NA / EU markets.
Honestly at this point Aion isn't a WoW killer. But I can see worldwide subscription base to reach similar numbers when all the versions are released.
Only thing different is the fact that Aion has alot of room to make improvements, and that will be dependant on how well NCsoft manages to patch up and continue to update its game on regular basis.
WoW on the otherhand has been as much refined as it can be. Only problems WoW faces are really class imbalances. We've all seen this happen with Crusades and Lich King.
It really just depends on how well NCsoft manages to listen to the gamers and patches and updates the game in favor of the playerbase and not how previously they have been egotistically disregarding players.
GRIND sucks? You wanna be max level in a month? Since when did society award easy-goers and lazy-fools? MAKES ME PHOBIC OF STUPIDITY!
I know I am coming in on the tail end of this and I am not reading every single post, but as both an EQ II player and a WoW player and even sometimes Guild Wars. . . . I am going to say that I agree with the ones that say this NEW game is NOT going to kill WoW. . or any other game for that matter. . at least not any game with substance and a loyal fan base.
Has anyone here ever played Lineage? I think it sucks. . . .Aion may give Lineage a run for its money. . . .it they (NC Soft) don't ruin it like they did Lineage. I mean, when you go into a main city and no one is there or you go out adventuring and you are all alone. . . . . . . or when you go into a main city and all that is there are Sellers and the prices are so darn high no one can afford to buy anything . . . .(if anyone does play Lineage, would you mind telling me why a stupid fluff hat with a feather in it costs 10 million adena?? ) I would much prefer EQ with its station cash and buy a fluff hat (which I have) for the price of buying 20 bucks ingame. .. .
But I digress
No. . . .it wont be a WOW killer. . . .it wont even be an Everquest killer. . . .especially when we have EQ II and Everquest I is still holding its own!
I find it odd that everyone defending WoW is calling Aion a grindfest. Now granted, I stopped playing after I finished my T6, but unless a lot has changed with the reputation system, WoW was a ridiculous grinder. 30+ days to get a factions rep up by doing an hours worth of quests every night, thats not what I'd call quick by any means.
yeah i think when people are talking about grinders they just look at the lvling time to get to max level. WoW isn't a grinder in that sense, but endgame WoW is all grinder and mindless grinding that just leads to more and more grinding.
This game is not even remotely like lineage no more than its a mmo (well mabey look kinda the same). But i assume your talking about lineage 2? L2 is older than wow and its huge compaired to wow at least old world wow. This is probley why you dont see people. L2 is all about the end game and takes a huge investment in time to get there therefore people dont make alts like you whould see in games like wow where you can get to the end game in less than a week. ill give you that prices are high but 10m adena is not that much in the end mabey like a few thousand wow gold. More to the point L2 is a really great game it just has some bad stuff going on with it like farmers.
To make it clear your missing the point of the thread. Its not that it will "kill" wow and they will shut down. Killing wow whould be hurting them where it counts, in the bank. And worldwide Aion may do that if it takes 10% of wow players it whould be devistateing to blizz. You may say thats not much but were talking hundered of thousands of dollars in lost income for blizz. No game can ever "kill" anouther but after x-mass wow may not be the #1 mmo in the world.
Aion is not going to be a WoW killer. It's a decent game but it has a number of things going against it. Those things being anime art style, Gameguard and the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new to the genre.
I wish AIon luck, but the only thing it will "kill" is your hopes & dreams if you want to put in on a pedestal pre-release. These days with such quick dev cycles, games need time to get good they are not mmo-killer release canidates. Hail a game's strong points, look forward to its new angle, and pray for good content updates - anything else & GG.
If you've played a large array of mmos (which I hope, because god forbid your 1st/only was WoW) - its good to see an upcoming mmo with more "classic" mmo traits. While FFXIV & Old Republic I believe are the 2 largest upcoming hopefuls (largest $ backing from very large companies, which lots of dev time in them), Aion looks like other solid NCSoft games...though I did enjoy the 'attempt' at sci-fi with Tabula Rasa, which regardless of your angst at the game it was an attempt which most companies dont dare.
GL Aion, but your glory will only last till D3, blizz's other mmo...or maybe even the 2 I mentioned. Only time will tell.
An aside: Warpiglet, as a veteran MT (horde) for 4 years, I agree with 90% of what you say. While I was not always the hardest of the raiders (because earning a degree was a tad more important than BWL/AQ40 on occasion), the game has been made so "player friendly" and bland its time has come to begin its decline. Also, bad tanks make the mmo world a sad place to be in...especially now with expertise...god forbid they lived in the day of sunder counts.
D3 isnt a MMO, and Lineage 2 was easily one of the most heavily and frequently updated MMORPG's ever. It got like 2-3 times the content upgrades that WoW did being out in relatively the same amount of time.
Aion is not going to be a WoW killer. It's a decent game but it has a number of things going against it. Those things being anime art style, Gameguard and the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new to the genre.
I like the art style perosnally. Wow has not added anything new to the genre just takeing what outhers have done or going to do. Ill give you that gameguard dose suck but the olny thing really going agenst it is the people that want Aion to fail.
The phrase "WoW Killer" has joined the likes of "think outside the box" as one of the most annoying phrases of all time......
Actually i think its the words "....well polished." that has gotten overused. Try another discription of the game please. I really don't know what you mean by "...well polished" .... in terms of what? Ive seen that term at least a million times on here....
This game is not even remotely like lineage no more than its a mmo (well mabey look kinda the same). But i assume your talking about lineage 2? L2 is older than wow and its huge compaired to wow at least old world wow. This is probley why you dont see people. L2 is all about the end game and takes a huge investment in time to get there therefore people dont make alts like you whould see in games like wow where you can get to the end game in less than a week. ill give you that prices are high but 10m adena is not that much in the end mabey like a few thousand wow gold. More to the point L2 is a really great game it just has some bad stuff going on with it like farmers.
To make it clear your missing the point of the thread. Its not that it will "kill" wow and they will shut down. Killing wow whould be hurting them where it counts, in the bank. And worldwide Aion may do that if it takes 10% of wow players it whould be devistateing to blizz. You may say thats not much but were talking hundered of thousands of dollars in lost income for blizz. No game can ever "kill" anouther but after x-mass wow may not be the #1 mmo in the world.
I really really doubt an Asian game will ever ever top Blizzard and World of Warcraft in the United States. I doubt it will make a dent in the overall budget of Wow at all.
Aion will be a blip in the North American MMO world just like all the other Asian market games out there. Ive been around since the days of EQ1 and L1, even played a little L2....
Even though L2 touts amazing numbers and populations I still don't see them as realistic competition for North American MMO's.
Aion is not going to be a WoW killer. It's a decent game but it has a number of things going against it. Those things being anime art style, Gameguard and the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new to the genre.
The phrase "WoW Killer" has joined the likes of "think outside the box" as one of the most annoying phrases of all time......
i crack up everytime i see this word, u dont even have to be a wow fan boi to hate it. and the only thing that will ever be a wow killer is Blizzard lol.
I've been following Aion since mid 2007, and organizing for it through all the delays . I would have never expected Aion to even hit 5 million subscribers world wide....but:
Blizzard has walked over a mine in China. They broke of the deal with The9, which is the company that handles the localized version of WoW in China and now The9 have sued Blizzard in the Chinese courts. According to Chinese media all WoW servers have been shut down for transfer of hardware to another company, but that is going to take a couple of weeks. But that?s only a small part of Blizzards problem. Servers going down for 3-4 weeks, making Blizzard loose many customers over to its rivals, especially the newly released Aion, which at the end of May reached a staggering 3,3 million subscribers only after 2 months of its release in China. Blizzard's other headache is that The9 is keeping its 5 million subscribers hostage until the matter is solved. No one really knows when that will happen. The9 and Blizzard are set to meet in Shanghai Pudong's Supreme Court on June 18th, 2009. If matters are not solved and things drags on there is a chance that Blizzard will pull out from China and consequently loose 5 million of its player base.
Aion with 3.3 million subscribers already, a potential 5 million Chinese WoW players will be looking for something to do, perfect time for NCsoft to give out 1 week free trials in China. lol, Aion can potentially be a WoW killer. 3.3 million subscribers in 6 months and still growing at fast rate is ridiculous, no MMO has come even remotely close to that.
I think WoW will be fine when they are done destroying Aion, Blizzard will release thier new MMO which they claim is in the works and renew themselves as the MMORPG juggernaut that they are, as most of us subscribe to the next game that catches our interests
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?
Comments
I think the same. I ve read all those posts, from page 1. I think all this *STH* vs WOW things are quite good. I really hope WOW to die. Why ? Dead WOW only means one thing - no more "its like wow, wow is the best, rest sux, 1000x mln subs". I hate that. I hope WoW to die, but only from this point of view. Todays WoW is seen as god of MMORPG. And its not. Its huge succsess, investement vise, but not for a gamer.
I feel horible when every small game I played is pushed to ground with WoW. They say all those small games "got nothing new", are not innovative, etc. All this WoW hype, is killing me. I am not a hater. I like WoW as a game, never played to much, but it has nice lore and ideas. I just didnt play much, cause this type of graphics and small pvp contents are not pleasing me.
But still I wish it death.
Death to the king, 'couse i can stand "better - worse" hype. And with death i mean - wow will lose all those, who could play better games FOR THEM. All those who love wow should stay, and wow would live for ever to them.
I wish Aion will never take place of WoW, together with any other game. If a game, have even 1 totaly addicted player - its good.
And no numbers, and features will change that, u know.
Most of us (in this thread) are just bumping from subs number (11m, 5m, 3m, chinease m.), features (aion got nothing, wow got nothing, eve is old..), and others. All those things all lies. Why? Numbers are just pure marketing. Features are aiming only for specific class of gamers - i dont like raids for eg., still am playin WAR, l2, and many more. Others - bugs, cheats, bots. Every game have it. The most popular and new games have the most. The only pure thing w.o bots is pvp - WaR have little bots due to pvp and small subs numbers, but still it has it. Like every one. ===> to sum up, all those arguments are senseless.
Once again, I wish death to the king. WoW is the king. Why? Couse it is anti-hype'ing every other game. Every one is saing "wow clone," etc. And it this case people are choosing wow, when they could choose a game which they like better.
My 2 cents
:)
sorry for bad eng, u can flame me all the way;]
I have 10 years + of hardcore mmo experience, beta tester exp, mmo funboy exp.I ve been with mmorpg site for some time, despite lack of account
Aion is an absolutely Astonishing game, Once it launches it will have 2 new Mega patches installed. People who have been around the block in the MMO market; Will really be able to appreciate everything this game has to offer. I would hold off on anything Negitive said about this game. Try it for yourself, This one is easily one of the best MMO's to date.
This couldn't possibly have anything to do with gold becoming more easily obtained could it....
The only real problem with this info from china is that if you read the entire article about Blizz problem with china is that the majority of Chinese players have for a long time been playing Wotlk from Taiwan servers since Blizz had a big problem releasing Wotlk directly to china.
The other reason we keep mentioning other games is that in the end its not just that those games didn't attract subscribers intially, its that they failed to keep them past the trial, A game isnt as good as the amount of people it sells to in an MMO market, but rather the amount of people it keeps.
The only MMO "grinder" that i am familiar with is World of Warcraft. With the kind of Asian subscriptions it has, it's gotta be the biggest grinder of all time.
This is kinda of my thoughts as well. I plan to play the game when it is lanched at retail with voice. I want to see what type of tweaking and bot battling that NCsoft is willing to do for the NA / EU markets.
Honestly at this point Aion isn't a WoW killer. But I can see worldwide subscription base to reach similar numbers when all the versions are released.
Only thing different is the fact that Aion has alot of room to make improvements, and that will be dependant on how well NCsoft manages to patch up and continue to update its game on regular basis.
WoW on the otherhand has been as much refined as it can be. Only problems WoW faces are really class imbalances. We've all seen this happen with Crusades and Lich King.
It really just depends on how well NCsoft manages to listen to the gamers and patches and updates the game in favor of the playerbase and not how previously they have been egotistically disregarding players.
GRIND sucks? You wanna be max level in a month?
Since when did society award easy-goers and lazy-fools?
MAKES ME PHOBIC OF STUPIDITY!
I know I am coming in on the tail end of this and I am not reading every single post, but as both an EQ II player and a WoW player and even sometimes Guild Wars. . . . I am going to say that I agree with the ones that say this NEW game is NOT going to kill WoW. . or any other game for that matter. . at least not any game with substance and a loyal fan base.
Has anyone here ever played Lineage? I think it sucks. . . .Aion may give Lineage a run for its money. . . .it they (NC Soft) don't ruin it like they did Lineage. I mean, when you go into a main city and no one is there or you go out adventuring and you are all alone. . . . . . . or when you go into a main city and all that is there are Sellers and the prices are so darn high no one can afford to buy anything . . . .(if anyone does play Lineage, would you mind telling me why a stupid fluff hat with a feather in it costs 10 million adena?? ) I would much prefer EQ with its station cash and buy a fluff hat (which I have) for the price of buying 20 bucks ingame. .. .
But I digress
No. . . .it wont be a WOW killer. . . .it wont even be an Everquest killer. . . .especially when we have EQ II and Everquest I is still holding its own!
I find it odd that everyone defending WoW is calling Aion a grindfest. Now granted, I stopped playing after I finished my T6, but unless a lot has changed with the reputation system, WoW was a ridiculous grinder. 30+ days to get a factions rep up by doing an hours worth of quests every night, thats not what I'd call quick by any means.
yeah i think when people are talking about grinders they just look at the lvling time to get to max level. WoW isn't a grinder in that sense, but endgame WoW is all grinder and mindless grinding that just leads to more and more grinding.
The phrase "WoW Killer" has joined the likes of "think outside the box" as one of the most annoying phrases of all time......
This game is not even remotely like lineage no more than its a mmo (well mabey look kinda the same). But i assume your talking about lineage 2? L2 is older than wow and its huge compaired to wow at least old world wow. This is probley why you dont see people. L2 is all about the end game and takes a huge investment in time to get there therefore people dont make alts like you whould see in games like wow where you can get to the end game in less than a week. ill give you that prices are high but 10m adena is not that much in the end mabey like a few thousand wow gold. More to the point L2 is a really great game it just has some bad stuff going on with it like farmers.
To make it clear your missing the point of the thread. Its not that it will "kill" wow and they will shut down. Killing wow whould be hurting them where it counts, in the bank. And worldwide Aion may do that if it takes 10% of wow players it whould be devistateing to blizz. You may say thats not much but were talking hundered of thousands of dollars in lost income for blizz. No game can ever "kill" anouther but after x-mass wow may not be the #1 mmo in the world.
Aion will kill Wow, and hide the body in YOUR basement. I'm calling the cops.!
Aion is not going to be a WoW killer. It's a decent game but it has a number of things going against it. Those things being anime art style, Gameguard and the fact that it doesn't really offer anything new to the genre.
Initial numbers mean nothing over posterity.
I wish AIon luck, but the only thing it will "kill" is your hopes & dreams if you want to put in on a pedestal pre-release. These days with such quick dev cycles, games need time to get good they are not mmo-killer release canidates. Hail a game's strong points, look forward to its new angle, and pray for good content updates - anything else & GG.
If you've played a large array of mmos (which I hope, because god forbid your 1st/only was WoW) - its good to see an upcoming mmo with more "classic" mmo traits. While FFXIV & Old Republic I believe are the 2 largest upcoming hopefuls (largest $ backing from very large companies, which lots of dev time in them), Aion looks like other solid NCSoft games...though I did enjoy the 'attempt' at sci-fi with Tabula Rasa, which regardless of your angst at the game it was an attempt which most companies dont dare.
GL Aion, but your glory will only last till D3, blizz's other mmo...or maybe even the 2 I mentioned. Only time will tell.
An aside: Warpiglet, as a veteran MT (horde) for 4 years, I agree with 90% of what you say. While I was not always the hardest of the raiders (because earning a degree was a tad more important than BWL/AQ40 on occasion), the game has been made so "player friendly" and bland its time has come to begin its decline. Also, bad tanks make the mmo world a sad place to be in...especially now with expertise...god forbid they lived in the day of sunder counts.
D3 isnt a MMO, and Lineage 2 was easily one of the most heavily and frequently updated MMORPG's ever. It got like 2-3 times the content upgrades that WoW did being out in relatively the same amount of time.
I like the art style perosnally. Wow has not added anything new to the genre just takeing what outhers have done or going to do. Ill give you that gameguard dose suck but the olny thing really going agenst it is the people that want Aion to fail.
Actually i think its the words "....well polished." that has gotten overused. Try another discription of the game please. I really don't know what you mean by "...well polished" .... in terms of what? Ive seen that term at least a million times on here....
I really really doubt an Asian game will ever ever top Blizzard and World of Warcraft in the United States. I doubt it will make a dent in the overall budget of Wow at all.
Aion will be a blip in the North American MMO world just like all the other Asian market games out there. Ive been around since the days of EQ1 and L1, even played a little L2....
Even though L2 touts amazing numbers and populations I still don't see them as realistic competition for North American MMO's.
Totally agree.
i crack up everytime i see this word, u dont even have to be a wow fan boi to hate it. and the only thing that will ever be a wow killer is Blizzard lol.
You see, for me, that's what crack me up... Like if Bliz was some kinda god & the the world can turn only by its will.
I'm so fed up with this crap!
I hope Aion kills WoW, that'd be awesome!
I think WoW will be fine when they are done destroying Aion, Blizzard will release thier new MMO which they claim is in the works and renew themselves as the MMORPG juggernaut that they are, as most of us subscribe to the next game that catches our interests
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?