been playing since beta #2. and ofcourse playing headstart... but i just realized.... the lack of variety. begining with how a templar only using 1h swords. ( unless the greatsword, but isnt exactly for temp).. like... WTF? we can use 1h mace.. but why would we?
there is more.. but im tired and gonna sleep....
btw... the creation is sexy awesome... id go gay for my guy. xD game is just sexy looking. but kinda seems its all it gives.
I've played in the last closed beta and open beta as well as the head start program...
to be honest it's all around as the review says.
BUT I do see alot of honest complaints as to why the head start isn't looking at its best right now... (-_-;; There are practically no servers that can hold the amount of players that have pre ordered... I don't want to think about all the people that join in later when it's released live. It's got something around 12 servers, I haven't counted... but it's not goin to look good if they don't plan on creating more.
as far as waiting for the bonus items.. I got em on my second day... not bad, not GREAT, but not bad. They aren't all that important to a great game anyways. the quests can and WILL get monotonous to any mmo player, but what mmo has actually offered anything that is somewhat creative. WOW did a few interesting things in their quests... but it's the same across the board. On a positive note, I CAN CHARGE THROUGH THE FIRST TEN LEVELS IN ABOUT 2 HOURS! WOO! lol.....
The one thing that bothered me though... is the server world size is a little small for the amount of population it can hold, which is actually kinda cool since it allows some "interaction" but then it also creates those "boring waiting times" that can only be cured by patience. An example of overpopulation and poor server size is this; I get a quest for a map on a ship, and wait a good hour for the map to respawn, mostly because it takes about 3-10 minutes for it to spawn and a small amount of people are all standing around on the boat picking our noses, thinking, "doesn't this remind you of the final fantasy corsair quest?" except kinda small, with people around you... heh... too bad I don't know any of these people from FFXI anymore...
And while the server is well populated, no one really encourages a sensible bond that I enjoyed in final fantasy... but ahh well... it's not as if I've played that long or have even put much effort into thinking about any sort of communication as I REALLY want to get to the pvpve... Which I have read is looking pretty good. Imagine a lord of the rings pvp system but rather then controlling npc like monsters you fight two other factions for control over one large map, one being an npc faction, the other being the opposing faction.... which is a nice creative element. (Ponders whether the A.I. will actually react to combat simular to an actual person) Sounds fun, and kinda freaky... anyone feel kinda terminated?
The class balance, since it's EVERYONE's HUGE concern, is actually looking interesting. you get the nice option of playing a basic version of the class you play as before deciding on which class it is you will play as. But I find myself mesmerized by the game during fights rather then interested... maybe it's the game's atmosphere? So I hope there's a little hype and interest in techniques available for what I think will shine in pvpve... And while most concern about "OMG that arrow shot me in the throat and silenced my awesome spell" and "OMG that giant sword wielding gladiator just knocked me on my ass and stopped me from defending myself" or "OMG that annoying clereic just healed the tank for 9999 hp and stopped us from winning the battle" and my favourite "OMG that sorcer just hit me for like 5000 damage and caused a massive imbalance in the battle even though it took like 10 seconds to cast." I'm more interested in how I'll be able to see the difference be kept different and make us capable of choosing our "prey" and creating a sense of nessecary strategy and team work, rather then, "My class can't beat yours this month, but you wait... next patch I'll be so OP'd I can win against like 20 people."
I expect to be burnt toast, so I'm going to finish my toast and say "cheers" I have some nice expectations for this game.
OH... and don't forget to jump if you're human, I might not be able to tell the difference. All in good humour and enjoyable reflections, Kyligraphy/ProjectJump/Spiritwalker/Dreamstasis.
p.s. I'll be playing the kaisnel server (Or what not) mostly past 6p.m. My clerics name is Jump, and my scouts name is Spiritwalker. And if I'm not supposed to be writing a review before it's officially released or for some other odd reason, please do me a favour and give me a second chance and a copy of this game with the chance to invite some friends of mine.
Originally posted by Thunderpeel Originally posted by Thunderpeel The problem is all the people complaining tend to forget how horrid other game launches are! Look at recent game lauch failures such as CO. Aion has had hardly any issues other than some lag they fixed in beta and an overwhelming amount of people trying to sign on at one time. Crap look at WoW when it launched! That was awful compared to what you are all complaining about. Aion has shown that even below standard computers can play the game. I appluad NCSoft and all they have done. They brought us a good game.
Bump BUmp BUMp BUMP it up!
It is a polished game. It is a decently coded game. There are numerous things that scream Asian ginder, however. Water being a big one, the way objects can be hidden by something in front of them by more than the model because of the way objects work is another big one. Many little things about style and gameplay do as well. They gave it a little bit of a story, but it is still the same thing as many others. This is no great achievement.
This is a much better launch so far than WoW, or some others, but the problems arose during the headstart. That is not launch, and during the pre-release access there should be no such problems. This is an indication that they are just not ready.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
ooi! I forgot to mention something, I hope this isn't one of those games where everyone does the same things and thinks like a robot with perfect memory and ends up acting like someone else without thinking about it. I end up looking at things in frustration that people do in online gaming communities and end up feeling like I'm being policed over small pranks and jokes that frustrate the hell out of people... it still makes me laugh though when I see it happen again, it's just annoying that I end up with people who tend to gravitate towards the same old stupidity instead of doing something entirely surprising or different... isn't that the point of being a person? The sense of being a part of a community that is actually relate-able because they are in essence unique rather then entirely predictable... Or maybe I'm just too observant... (-_-;
DAMN YOU STAR GAZER WHO FOUND OUT HOW THOSE STAR SIGNS WORK AND TOLD ME THE SECRETS OF HOW TO PLAN MY DAY BY READINDG MY HOROSCOPE IN THE MORNING!
anyways, I hope you see a sense of exageration and mindless bread dead humour in this post about how Artificial Intelligence and the human sense of curiosity can compare in a way that creates what is known as the learning process of blah blahblah blah blah (charlie brown effect) wah wha wha wwah waaah! wha wah! and as such we find that the computer is actually not a person on the other end but rather another computer created AI that is ment to emulate human interaction and simulate a situation in which you might not be in on every day occasion. Meaning if you are to enjoy this interaction, make it an incomparable moment that can only be told in story and laughter.
The one thing that bothered me though... is the server world size is a little small for the amount of population it can hold, which is actually kinda cool since it allows some "interaction" but then it also creates those "boring waiting times" that can only be cured by patience. An example of overpopulation and poor server size is this; I get a quest for a map on a ship, and wait a good hour for the map to respawn, mostly because it takes about 3-10 minutes for it to spawn and a small amount of people are all standing around on the boat picking our noses, thinking, "doesn't this remind you of the final fantasy corsair quest?" except kinda small, with people around you... heh... too bad I don't know any of these people from FFXI anymore...
For this you can actually change to other channels that's not so populated, there's 10 in total...
I'm on kaisnel server, so yea... it's one of the more unpopulated server, though yesterday, it was pretty busy... tonight its nice and quiet. It's still almost what is expected to me on how it launched, but I'm not one to complain and would be willing to wait the first month to play... When I think about it, it is argue-able on how that could effect a games outcome... =/
like many, when I think mmo, I think social aspect... yet seem to shy away because I feel kinda targeted... as a gamer and almost humiliated by my choice of personal preference on what game I play... (they almost nearly flood the channel with how wow is the best of the best for newbie areas) I see alot of that in pretty much all games, and oddly end up seeing those games go *FLOP* because everyone assumes "Meh, the launch is worse then the game I currently play, I think I'll just head back to what I'm comfortable with" To be honest, I liked a few games that have ended up being empty after awhile... pirates of the burning sea was fun, Age of Conan was an almost unbeatable concept in my eyes (but seemed trashed as a concept because of their xbox mix up) and a few other games...
So yea... Not to get back to repeated history of MMO games, but I would like to see this one break the mold of the way a game launch should be done... So far I kinda see that it's not too bad aside from the usual intro chatter and the high server populations, the game itself is interesting to a guy like me (who played FFXI and is almost lost in nostalgia) and is pretty bug free from what I've noticed.
Most players won't realize the problems with this game until they get to the end game since it is heavily pvp based. It has been proven time and time again that a two faction pvp system just does not work. Eventually one side starts winning constantly and then the other side just gives up. This was even evident in Beta somewhat. The crafting system is nothing more than a basic one. So what is going to occupy players at the end game?
Just watch this game follow the same course as War has. It is a lot harder to satisfy the masses on this side of the pond than on their side.
There is a third faction that is computer AI controlled, you clearly didnt pay attention.
if you have played in headstart you know why there is a queue! it is there to keep both faction balanced on each server! war did not do that they just let everybody create their character and ended up 80% destruction 20% Order! also both factions have the same classes! So the faction pvp will be more balanced then in any other mmo so far! Now also the queue has nothing to do with NCsoft it is as always the players fault opening a private store so they do not have to log out! there are 3000+ players doing exactly that on each server! Only thing NC could do is restart the servers!
if you have played in headstart you know why there is a queue! it is there to keep both faction balanced on each server! war did not do that they just let everybody create their character and ended up 80% destruction 20% Order! also both factions have the same classes! So the faction pvp will be more balanced then in any other mmo so far! Now also the queue has nothing to do with NCsoft it is as always the players fault opening a private store so they do not have to log out! there are 3000+ players doing exactly that on each server! Only thing NC could do is restart the servers!
I played WAR for a while, never seen 80/20 on servers. There is a queue their because they have crappy servers for a crappy game.
Most players won't realize the problems with this game until they get to the end game since it is heavily pvp based. It has been proven time and time again that a two faction pvp system just does not work. Eventually one side starts winning constantly and then the other side just gives up. This was even evident in Beta somewhat. The crafting system is nothing more than a basic one. So what is going to occupy players at the end game?
Just watch this game follow the same course as War has. It is a lot harder to satisfy the masses on this side of the pond than on their side.
Yeah i'm thinking you will see that just like Destruction over powered Order in War, Some stuff i have read are showing that to be the case overseas already, on a lot of servers the Elyos is pretty much dead, giving up trying ot fight a hopeless one sided battle.
Some may like that challenge, but frustration pushes people away. They are gonna need to do something to make the Elyos more appealing or the same thing will happen here.
Nice well rounded impression though the hyping of the graphics is odd. Aion doesn't look WoW bad, but its not competitive with most newer MMOs for player or world graphics. Be hard pressed to say Aion has more detail in poly count, texture, animation than say WAR, AoC, CO, LotRO, EQ2, TR(RiP)... Its good looking but it is still limited by a 5 year old engine and the PvP focus. Otherwise good write-up.
First of all, there is a third faction that will attack the dominate one to balance things out, second NCsoft has tried to keep servers as balanced as possible, you can see this on their website under servers. They even have locked a few to keep the balance. Clearly most of you don't actually look into the game and just came to this topic to bitch about a game you clearly know little about. I find it surprising how quickly this entire site went right to hell. I honestly will be trying AION out myself because you never know till you try. Also for those of you that are not looking forward to this game I have one question. Why the hell are you posting about it?
For anyone that came here wanting to know about headstart, the game is indeed fun...when you can actually play it. A LOT of the server had queues that had players wait in excess of 3 hours, on some servers i hear the wait times were as high as 8 hours. So there were very many people that were promised early access that did not even get to play. NCSoft has not said anything to the people that were misled into paying early, nor have they said anything about situation other than acknowledging that there is a problem. Also the bonus items that were promised for preorders to be available during headstart are not. So not only did they fail to deliver on the headstart due to their own ineptitude, they also blatantly lied about the bonus item availability. I have not given up on the game yet, but the article makes it sounds like it's all roses and this point with the current server status I would not consider the game anything but beta quality. Hopefully they will remedy this soon.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Sorry man, you put my name in there when it wasn't even my post. You were quoting danison, not me.
For anyone that came here wanting to know about headstart, the game is indeed fun...when you can actually play it. A LOT of the server had queues that had players wait in excess of 3 hours, on some servers i hear the wait times were as high as 8 hours. So there were very many people that were promised early access that did not even get to play. NCSoft has not said anything to the people that were misled into paying early, nor have they said anything about situation other than acknowledging that there is a problem. Also the bonus items that were promised for preorders to be available during headstart are not. So not only did they fail to deliver on the headstart due to their own ineptitude, they also blatantly lied about the bonus item availability. I have not given up on the game yet, but the article makes it sounds like it's all roses and this point with the current server status I would not consider the game anything but beta quality. Hopefully they will remedy this soon.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Actually you have no clue what YOU are talking about. I write software that is massively scalable, there is no excuse. They knew the preorder numbers, they could have prevented these terribly disruptive issues but they did not. I have over 10 years of experience in this problem domain, how about you? Think before you type.
I responded to your post much farther back in the thread. Your 10 years of writing software means nothing to me when we are talking about games. We are talking about servers, not scalable software. So your problem domain is NOT MMO GAMES LOL. Since you did not respond to my post, here it is again.
I never said it was an excuse. A lot of gamers do not pre order so just going by pre-orders isn't enough. It is clearly not easy to approximately figure out how many gamers are going to play on launch day. There is alot of variables to deal with. It is way better to start with less rather then too many in my opinion. I have come to this conclusion after watching other MMO launches in my 10 yr MMO history. It is much better PR to add more servers after knowing the exact demand rather then guess before launch and have too many. Over guessing can lead to closing some empty servers a few months later. This happened with WAR.
There was a lot of complaining for WAR to add more servers right before launch based on how popular WAR's Open Beta was. Mythic didn't want to as they already had a lot but they caved in. This ended up being a huge mistake for WAR as it backfired a few months later. There was too many servers which led to populations being spread thin and etc. This led to server merges and closures which, regardless of the reason, is always bad PR for MMO's. The same people who wanted more servers were now crying that some servers were dead!
I agree with Streea, the game isn't out yet so this isn't a first impression of the game. That aside, this article sparked some intrest in Aion for me. It sounds like a pretty solid game. I'll be interested to see what happens when it goes live.
But it did go live. 2 days early for people that preordered the game.
I am having fun with Aion!
Actually ... did not! In that 2 days early you was able ONLY to CREATE 2 alts and give them of course name. No playing.
I have to add my two cents and say that I played the open beta and wasn't impressed at all with Aion. Sure, its pretty, but its just the same old MMO that has been done a thousand times with a new face. There's nothing new or innovative or fresh with Aion at all. The quests are 'yawn' like WoW and all the other cookie-cutter "Go kill X number" or "Go collect X number" or "Go deliver this to so-and-so" games we have seen done to freaking death. Its just another class-based, linear lead-you-by-the-nose MMO that seems to be the industry standard these days. Can't anyone come up with anything new? Also, if you've played any Asian MMO (i.e. Perfect World, Runes of Magic, etc) then you have played Aion. It has the same feel, same layout of terrain and monsters, same quests, etc. You start out at the same starting area for each of the two factions with every new character (so much fun to raise yet another alt on the same quests), have the same level-based/gear-based design that other MMOs have and combat is also the same. If you don't like pvp then Aion is a huge let down as they have open pvp past I believe 30, where you have to enter the zones where the other faction goes as well, so you will get ganked and attacked no matter what server you are on. Like role-play? Not on Aion, they have no designated RP server and won't enforce any RP rules at all. There are also player vendors and anyone who played SWG in the day knows that will lead to huge lag in town clustered with masses of spamming player vendors. So why play Aion? If you're playing an MMO now, you're probably playing Aion with a different face so don't waste your money if your not impressed with your WoW/Conan/Warhammer/etc game already. You'll find nothing new here. So in short, don't. Quite honestly its a huge disappointent.
I guess you are the visionary here, what do we know.... I love how people make these posts about how a game is basically "crap" or not worth a play because it has systems so similar to other games out on the market. News flash if companies put out any old crap just to be different there aren't enough of you people screaming for different to even make a successful game not to mention you'll probably find something it's similar to and just trash it as a copy anyway. For once I want to see one of you people who come with all the doom and gloom to enlighten us as to what is "new" and has never been tried before. You guys always make it sound so easy you must have some insight into what it takes? And if not why not just quit mmos until the industry has progressed enough to "seem" new to you.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
friend of mine let me install his game on my PC so that I could play his account when he was at work (conveniently in the evenings) and after playing some of the open beta and now the pre release I don't think I'll be picking it up. It all feels too generic and has the "I've done this before" feel to it. I've played several mmo's in the past 10 years from SWG, WoW, EQ, AoC, WAR, etc and this one feels like just another notch, nothing really new, nothing different other than the flight gimmick. I guess most people are just super excited that its a new MMO coming out rather than a truly revolutionary mmo.
Disappointing review...there have been plenty of reviews about the beta all summer long.
That being said, I read most of the replies here, what surprises me is that no one made any mention of Lineage II.
If you had played that game you would recognise the Artistic Direction of the game, as well as many systems, such as the Class system the Vendor System, Siting down to regenerate, XP loss etc... there is really nothing "new" about it all, not even the flying, since as a concept existed since Lineage II.
Btw, L2 was a big disappointment in the western world it was the game that practically coined the description of "Korean Grind"...it has really nice looking graphics when it came out (about 6 months before WoW), and these were its main attraction but its gameplay made it so that the servers were populated by 50% Gold farmers.
NCSoft had made a game for RMT, and it is the reason I quit that game along with my guild and many others. So I somehow got my lesson with that game and am very skeptical about NcSoft games (I am glad Richard Garriot went on his marry way as well).
Long story short, NCSoft never liked the fact that WoW was so much more popular than L2, I remember massive exodus of people switching to WoW from L2 when it came out. And I believe AION is somewhat an attempt at a taking a peace of the pie from WoW (not something unique to NCSoft but in this case there is a small history behind it). It should come as no surprise that it contains many similar features, in essence it maybe a combination of Lineage2 and WoW...
Still I do not trust NCSoft's capacity to create good gameplay (they do create very nice and stable graphics) since Lineage II...it maybe unfortunate but it is how it is, and so I shall wait a couple of months and see how things go with AION before deciding to give it a try myself.
I'll wait for real reviews, not the ones like the past 10 of them starting with How awesome graphics look. I want to hear about the Leveling curves past lvl 20, want to hear about the game's economics and how grindy or not grindy it is, and you can be sure I am going to be monitoring sites for Kinah (in Lineage II it was Adena) offers..but most importantly I would like to hear about the community of players in two months from now.
In Lineage II, the players Community was the Greediest I have ever seen in my MMOG playing History which made for a very poor in game atmosphere.
Cheers! And don't get "too" mesmerised by sparkling dust, nice and good looking graphics are not only what makes up an MMOG.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
I agree with Streea, the game isn't out yet so this isn't a first impression of the game. That aside, this article sparked some intrest in Aion for me. It sounds like a pretty solid game. I'll be interested to see what happens when it goes live.
But it did go live. 2 days early for people that preordered the game.
I am having fun with Aion!
Actually ... did not! In that 2 days early you was able ONLY to CREATE 2 alts and give them of course name. No playing.
No you are wrong! the 18th - 20th was for creating characters only, then the 20th - 22nd was headstart playing in the game! The game launch was on the 22nd. I know for a fact I was playing it when this article came out!!! Get it right!
Here is a link to another article here that will tell you that you actualy play the game for headstart.
Ive been play the last few days I even got the CE addition and Ive read most of this.
The game has the same issues it did when the first closed beta of L2 was going on. Yes i said L2 beta. The game has some slight updated UI, but even then its not up to gaming standard.
The game is pretty that is about it. Nothing new nothing exciting. Same problems as before with no interaction that i have seen from NCSoft. If they are expecting this to compete with WoW they failed when they didnt not learn from there previous games or from Blizzards examples. But at least they didnt follow SOE example.. =P
Hopefully SWTOR, Stargate or Star Trek online will give WoW a run for its money.
Sorry but I didn't get anything from this article. I learned nothing new except ... well ... nothing.
This entire piece just seemed like it was written by someone who is a fanboi but doesn't have any real pros or cons except that you can logon and play but still wants to appear neutral.
Please play for a while, forget the entire beta experience and tells us details about the live game. To do that of course you must play fr more than a few days. Get back to us when you have done something but thanks for trying.
Sorry but I didn't get anything from this article. I learned nothing new except ... well ... nothing. This entire piece just seemed like it was written by someone who is a fanboi but doesn't have any real pros or cons except that you can logon and play but still wants to appear neutral. Please play for a while, forget the entire beta experience and tells us details about the live game. To do that of course you must play fr more than a few days. Get back to us when you have done something but thanks for trying.
That was about the Live game. And nothing has changed from the final beta. So that would mean he has played it for more than a few days.
For anyone that came here wanting to know about headstart, the game is indeed fun...when you can actually play it. A LOT of the server had queues that had players wait in excess of 3 hours, on some servers i hear the wait times were as high as 8 hours. So there were very many people that were promised early access that did not even get to play. NCSoft has not said anything to the people that were misled into paying early, nor have they said anything about situation other than acknowledging that there is a problem. Also the bonus items that were promised for preorders to be available during headstart are not. So not only did they fail to deliver on the headstart due to their own ineptitude, they also blatantly lied about the bonus item availability. I have not given up on the game yet, but the article makes it sounds like it's all roses and this point with the current server status I would not consider the game anything but beta quality. Hopefully they will remedy this soon.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Sorry man, you put my name in there when it wasn't even my post. You were quoting danison, not me.
Comments
been playing since beta #2. and ofcourse playing headstart... but i just realized.... the lack of variety. begining with how a templar only using 1h swords. ( unless the greatsword, but isnt exactly for temp).. like... WTF? we can use 1h mace.. but why would we?
there is more.. but im tired and gonna sleep....
btw... the creation is sexy awesome... id go gay for my guy. xD game is just sexy looking. but kinda seems its all it gives.
I've played in the last closed beta and open beta as well as the head start program...
to be honest it's all around as the review says.
BUT I do see alot of honest complaints as to why the head start isn't looking at its best right now... (-_-;; There are practically no servers that can hold the amount of players that have pre ordered... I don't want to think about all the people that join in later when it's released live. It's got something around 12 servers, I haven't counted... but it's not goin to look good if they don't plan on creating more.
as far as waiting for the bonus items.. I got em on my second day... not bad, not GREAT, but not bad. They aren't all that important to a great game anyways. the quests can and WILL get monotonous to any mmo player, but what mmo has actually offered anything that is somewhat creative. WOW did a few interesting things in their quests... but it's the same across the board. On a positive note, I CAN CHARGE THROUGH THE FIRST TEN LEVELS IN ABOUT 2 HOURS! WOO! lol.....
The one thing that bothered me though... is the server world size is a little small for the amount of population it can hold, which is actually kinda cool since it allows some "interaction" but then it also creates those "boring waiting times" that can only be cured by patience. An example of overpopulation and poor server size is this; I get a quest for a map on a ship, and wait a good hour for the map to respawn, mostly because it takes about 3-10 minutes for it to spawn and a small amount of people are all standing around on the boat picking our noses, thinking, "doesn't this remind you of the final fantasy corsair quest?" except kinda small, with people around you... heh... too bad I don't know any of these people from FFXI anymore...
And while the server is well populated, no one really encourages a sensible bond that I enjoyed in final fantasy... but ahh well... it's not as if I've played that long or have even put much effort into thinking about any sort of communication as I REALLY want to get to the pvpve... Which I have read is looking pretty good. Imagine a lord of the rings pvp system but rather then controlling npc like monsters you fight two other factions for control over one large map, one being an npc faction, the other being the opposing faction.... which is a nice creative element. (Ponders whether the A.I. will actually react to combat simular to an actual person) Sounds fun, and kinda freaky... anyone feel kinda terminated?
The class balance, since it's EVERYONE's HUGE concern, is actually looking interesting. you get the nice option of playing a basic version of the class you play as before deciding on which class it is you will play as. But I find myself mesmerized by the game during fights rather then interested... maybe it's the game's atmosphere? So I hope there's a little hype and interest in techniques available for what I think will shine in pvpve... And while most concern about "OMG that arrow shot me in the throat and silenced my awesome spell" and "OMG that giant sword wielding gladiator just knocked me on my ass and stopped me from defending myself" or "OMG that annoying clereic just healed the tank for 9999 hp and stopped us from winning the battle" and my favourite "OMG that sorcer just hit me for like 5000 damage and caused a massive imbalance in the battle even though it took like 10 seconds to cast." I'm more interested in how I'll be able to see the difference be kept different and make us capable of choosing our "prey" and creating a sense of nessecary strategy and team work, rather then, "My class can't beat yours this month, but you wait... next patch I'll be so OP'd I can win against like 20 people."
I expect to be burnt toast, so I'm going to finish my toast and say "cheers" I have some nice expectations for this game.
OH... and don't forget to jump if you're human, I might not be able to tell the difference. All in good humour and enjoyable reflections, Kyligraphy/ProjectJump/Spiritwalker/Dreamstasis.
p.s. I'll be playing the kaisnel server (Or what not) mostly past 6p.m. My clerics name is Jump, and my scouts name is Spiritwalker. And if I'm not supposed to be writing a review before it's officially released or for some other odd reason, please do me a favour and give me a second chance and a copy of this game with the chance to invite some friends of mine.
Bump BUmp BUMp BUMP it up!
It is a polished game. It is a decently coded game. There are numerous things that scream Asian ginder, however. Water being a big one, the way objects can be hidden by something in front of them by more than the model because of the way objects work is another big one. Many little things about style and gameplay do as well. They gave it a little bit of a story, but it is still the same thing as many others. This is no great achievement.
This is a much better launch so far than WoW, or some others, but the problems arose during the headstart. That is not launch, and during the pre-release access there should be no such problems. This is an indication that they are just not ready.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
ooi! I forgot to mention something, I hope this isn't one of those games where everyone does the same things and thinks like a robot with perfect memory and ends up acting like someone else without thinking about it. I end up looking at things in frustration that people do in online gaming communities and end up feeling like I'm being policed over small pranks and jokes that frustrate the hell out of people... it still makes me laugh though when I see it happen again, it's just annoying that I end up with people who tend to gravitate towards the same old stupidity instead of doing something entirely surprising or different... isn't that the point of being a person? The sense of being a part of a community that is actually relate-able because they are in essence unique rather then entirely predictable... Or maybe I'm just too observant... (-_-;
DAMN YOU STAR GAZER WHO FOUND OUT HOW THOSE STAR SIGNS WORK AND TOLD ME THE SECRETS OF HOW TO PLAN MY DAY BY READINDG MY HOROSCOPE IN THE MORNING!
anyways, I hope you see a sense of exageration and mindless bread dead humour in this post about how Artificial Intelligence and the human sense of curiosity can compare in a way that creates what is known as the learning process of blah blahblah blah blah (charlie brown effect) wah wha wha wwah waaah! wha wah! and as such we find that the computer is actually not a person on the other end but rather another computer created AI that is ment to emulate human interaction and simulate a situation in which you might not be in on every day occasion. Meaning if you are to enjoy this interaction, make it an incomparable moment that can only be told in story and laughter.
For this you can actually change to other channels that's not so populated, there's 10 in total...
RIP Orc Choppa
I'm on kaisnel server, so yea... it's one of the more unpopulated server, though yesterday, it was pretty busy... tonight its nice and quiet. It's still almost what is expected to me on how it launched, but I'm not one to complain and would be willing to wait the first month to play... When I think about it, it is argue-able on how that could effect a games outcome... =/
like many, when I think mmo, I think social aspect... yet seem to shy away because I feel kinda targeted... as a gamer and almost humiliated by my choice of personal preference on what game I play... (they almost nearly flood the channel with how wow is the best of the best for newbie areas) I see alot of that in pretty much all games, and oddly end up seeing those games go *FLOP* because everyone assumes "Meh, the launch is worse then the game I currently play, I think I'll just head back to what I'm comfortable with" To be honest, I liked a few games that have ended up being empty after awhile... pirates of the burning sea was fun, Age of Conan was an almost unbeatable concept in my eyes (but seemed trashed as a concept because of their xbox mix up) and a few other games...
So yea... Not to get back to repeated history of MMO games, but I would like to see this one break the mold of the way a game launch should be done... So far I kinda see that it's not too bad aside from the usual intro chatter and the high server populations, the game itself is interesting to a guy like me (who played FFXI and is almost lost in nostalgia) and is pretty bug free from what I've noticed.
There is a third faction that is computer AI controlled, you clearly didnt pay attention.
if you have played in headstart you know why there is a queue! it is there to keep both faction balanced on each server! war did not do that they just let everybody create their character and ended up 80% destruction 20% Order! also both factions have the same classes! So the faction pvp will be more balanced then in any other mmo so far! Now also the queue has nothing to do with NCsoft it is as always the players fault opening a private store so they do not have to log out! there are 3000+ players doing exactly that on each server! Only thing NC could do is restart the servers!
I played WAR for a while, never seen 80/20 on servers. There is a queue their because they have crappy servers for a crappy game.
Yeah i'm thinking you will see that just like Destruction over powered Order in War, Some stuff i have read are showing that to be the case overseas already, on a lot of servers the Elyos is pretty much dead, giving up trying ot fight a hopeless one sided battle.
Some may like that challenge, but frustration pushes people away. They are gonna need to do something to make the Elyos more appealing or the same thing will happen here.
http://uk.aiononline.com/promotion/preselection/
Looks quite ballenced to me, there are things in place to stop once side getting a to big of edge in numbers.
Nice well rounded impression though the hyping of the graphics is odd. Aion doesn't look WoW bad, but its not competitive with most newer MMOs for player or world graphics. Be hard pressed to say Aion has more detail in poly count, texture, animation than say WAR, AoC, CO, LotRO, EQ2, TR(RiP)... Its good looking but it is still limited by a 5 year old engine and the PvP focus. Otherwise good write-up.
First of all, there is a third faction that will attack the dominate one to balance things out, second NCsoft has tried to keep servers as balanced as possible, you can see this on their website under servers. They even have locked a few to keep the balance. Clearly most of you don't actually look into the game and just came to this topic to bitch about a game you clearly know little about. I find it surprising how quickly this entire site went right to hell. I honestly will be trying AION out myself because you never know till you try. Also for those of you that are not looking forward to this game I have one question. Why the hell are you posting about it?
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Sorry man, you put my name in there when it wasn't even my post. You were quoting danison, not me.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Actually you have no clue what YOU are talking about. I write software that is massively scalable, there is no excuse. They knew the preorder numbers, they could have prevented these terribly disruptive issues but they did not. I have over 10 years of experience in this problem domain, how about you? Think before you type.
I responded to your post much farther back in the thread. Your 10 years of writing software means nothing to me when we are talking about games. We are talking about servers, not scalable software. So your problem domain is NOT MMO GAMES LOL. Since you did not respond to my post, here it is again.
I never said it was an excuse. A lot of gamers do not pre order so just going by pre-orders isn't enough. It is clearly not easy to approximately figure out how many gamers are going to play on launch day. There is alot of variables to deal with. It is way better to start with less rather then too many in my opinion. I have come to this conclusion after watching other MMO launches in my 10 yr MMO history. It is much better PR to add more servers after knowing the exact demand rather then guess before launch and have too many. Over guessing can lead to closing some empty servers a few months later. This happened with WAR.
There was a lot of complaining for WAR to add more servers right before launch based on how popular WAR's Open Beta was. Mythic didn't want to as they already had a lot but they caved in. This ended up being a huge mistake for WAR as it backfired a few months later. There was too many servers which led to populations being spread thin and etc. This led to server merges and closures which, regardless of the reason, is always bad PR for MMO's. The same people who wanted more servers were now crying that some servers were dead!
AION THE MARMITE OF MMO WORLD!
But it did go live. 2 days early for people that preordered the game.
I am having fun with Aion!
Actually ... did not! In that 2 days early you was able ONLY to CREATE 2 alts and give them of course name. No playing.
I guess you are the visionary here, what do we know.... I love how people make these posts about how a game is basically "crap" or not worth a play because it has systems so similar to other games out on the market. News flash if companies put out any old crap just to be different there aren't enough of you people screaming for different to even make a successful game not to mention you'll probably find something it's similar to and just trash it as a copy anyway. For once I want to see one of you people who come with all the doom and gloom to enlighten us as to what is "new" and has never been tried before. You guys always make it sound so easy you must have some insight into what it takes? And if not why not just quit mmos until the industry has progressed enough to "seem" new to you.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
friend of mine let me install his game on my PC so that I could play his account when he was at work (conveniently in the evenings) and after playing some of the open beta and now the pre release I don't think I'll be picking it up. It all feels too generic and has the "I've done this before" feel to it. I've played several mmo's in the past 10 years from SWG, WoW, EQ, AoC, WAR, etc and this one feels like just another notch, nothing really new, nothing different other than the flight gimmick. I guess most people are just super excited that its a new MMO coming out rather than a truly revolutionary mmo.
Disappointing review...there have been plenty of reviews about the beta all summer long.
That being said, I read most of the replies here, what surprises me is that no one made any mention of Lineage II.
If you had played that game you would recognise the Artistic Direction of the game, as well as many systems, such as the Class system the Vendor System, Siting down to regenerate, XP loss etc... there is really nothing "new" about it all, not even the flying, since as a concept existed since Lineage II.
Btw, L2 was a big disappointment in the western world it was the game that practically coined the description of "Korean Grind"...it has really nice looking graphics when it came out (about 6 months before WoW), and these were its main attraction but its gameplay made it so that the servers were populated by 50% Gold farmers.
NCSoft had made a game for RMT, and it is the reason I quit that game along with my guild and many others. So I somehow got my lesson with that game and am very skeptical about NcSoft games (I am glad Richard Garriot went on his marry way as well).
Long story short, NCSoft never liked the fact that WoW was so much more popular than L2, I remember massive exodus of people switching to WoW from L2 when it came out. And I believe AION is somewhat an attempt at a taking a peace of the pie from WoW (not something unique to NCSoft but in this case there is a small history behind it). It should come as no surprise that it contains many similar features, in essence it maybe a combination of Lineage2 and WoW...
Still I do not trust NCSoft's capacity to create good gameplay (they do create very nice and stable graphics) since Lineage II...it maybe unfortunate but it is how it is, and so I shall wait a couple of months and see how things go with AION before deciding to give it a try myself.
I'll wait for real reviews, not the ones like the past 10 of them starting with How awesome graphics look. I want to hear about the Leveling curves past lvl 20, want to hear about the game's economics and how grindy or not grindy it is, and you can be sure I am going to be monitoring sites for Kinah (in Lineage II it was Adena) offers..but most importantly I would like to hear about the community of players in two months from now.
In Lineage II, the players Community was the Greediest I have ever seen in my MMOG playing History which made for a very poor in game atmosphere.
Cheers! And don't get "too" mesmerised by sparkling dust, nice and good looking graphics are not only what makes up an MMOG.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
But it did go live. 2 days early for people that preordered the game.
I am having fun with Aion!
Actually ... did not! In that 2 days early you was able ONLY to CREATE 2 alts and give them of course name. No playing.
No you are wrong! the 18th - 20th was for creating characters only, then the 20th - 22nd was headstart playing in the game! The game launch was on the 22nd. I know for a fact I was playing it when this article came out!!! Get it right!
Here is a link to another article here that will tell you that you actualy play the game for headstart.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/253/feature/3537/page/1
Ive been play the last few days I even got the CE addition and Ive read most of this.
The game has the same issues it did when the first closed beta of L2 was going on. Yes i said L2 beta. The game has some slight updated UI, but even then its not up to gaming standard.
The game is pretty that is about it. Nothing new nothing exciting. Same problems as before with no interaction that i have seen from NCSoft. If they are expecting this to compete with WoW they failed when they didnt not learn from there previous games or from Blizzards examples. But at least they didnt follow SOE example.. =P
Hopefully SWTOR, Stargate or Star Trek online will give WoW a run for its money.
Sorry but I didn't get anything from this article. I learned nothing new except ... well ... nothing.
This entire piece just seemed like it was written by someone who is a fanboi but doesn't have any real pros or cons except that you can logon and play but still wants to appear neutral.
Please play for a while, forget the entire beta experience and tells us details about the live game. To do that of course you must play fr more than a few days. Get back to us when you have done something but thanks for trying.
Hi, nice review, just wanted to say that since I started playing last monday I just cant stop playing.
That was about the Live game. And nothing has changed from the final beta. So that would mean he has played it for more than a few days.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Unfortunately you are wrong Smut. The planning had nothing to do with it. If you check out the server status at the time you would have known that the issue was too many people trying to get on the same servers. There were plenty of servers that had low-meduim wait times to get in. I like how everyone always has the perfect solution to how a company should be run or what they did or didn't do. If you don't have first hand knowlegde how can you assume that they didn't plan? Think seem so easy when your on a forum gripping about something you have no experience with. Think before you type.
Sorry man, you put my name in there when it wasn't even my post. You were quoting danison, not me.
My bad man. I got carried away I guess.