How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ??? )))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
all of it ammounts to killing mobs . In my book that`s worse then standing in one place to kill mobs . I dont care much for killing mobs , other then my xp bar , there is no real entertainment in it....if i want "scripted" stuff, reading a book is faar more rewarding
So imho whatever ammounts to killing NPC`s is a grind , and in my book it`s made worse by horible attempts at making it "interesting" by scripting crap and what not
The problem that i see is the haters or trolls. The people with crapy computersystems that slander a game couse its "laggy", the people that are playing a game for 10mins and judge it from that, the people that cant really play and wants to be spoonfeed ect ect ect......thoose are the people we need to get rid off, the pesimist that brings theire crapy life-attitude up on a public forum.
The Second group is the Fanboys that can take everything, they dont care what happens around them, they just happily play along until the current game they play dies.
So, theire is more then one-side to the problem as i see it.
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ??? )))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
all of it ammounts to killing mobs . In my book that`s worse then standing in one place to kill mobs . I dont care much for killing mobs , other then my xp bar , there is no real entertainment in it....if i want "scripted" stuff, reading a book is faar more rewarding
So imho whatever ammounts to killing NPC`s is a grind , and in my book it`s made worse by horible attempts at making it "interesting" by scripting crap and what not
I agree, and would ad that "phasing" sucks.
I want a coherent world, where what I see is what you see, what everyone on that server sees. I don't want something to "phase" that's just a graphical equivalent of the same NPC giving the same quest to everyone in the game, but telling me thanks for doing the quest and it's done now, while someone is standing in line behind me to do the same quest.
whenever i see wow post i see zorndorf praising this game... yawn.
@ OP: I trust reviews in maybe 50%, never buy a game because somebody wrote a good review about it. I rather ask friend if he has played it.
@ grinding: so - we have quest grinding, mob grinding, and grinding. If there was a game that gives alot of xp for crafting people would craftgrind. lets face it - grind means getting xp these days. what we want is plenty of different ways to grind this xp so we aint bored with having to repeat same things over and over. unfortunatelly most games dont offer that and thats the nail to the coffin IMO(!) -.-
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ??? )))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
As opposed to a Blizzard a french copycat ?
Zorndorf once again demonstrates the type of post the OP is talking about . Hes never played AION by his own admitance in his other posts . So where does he get his imformation from ?
I ll admit i dont like his beloved WoW anymore but the difference between him and me is that i actually played it for 4 years and have first hand experiance of the game .
This is a guy that argued the average age of a WoW player is 30 which is laughable .
Reviews of MMO's are as bad as people who review movies. When it really comes down to it, it's a matter of opinion. I agree with you some games do get OVER-HYPED but at the end of the day it's what the reviewers cup of tea really is.
However when people over-hype games on the forum, thats when it gets annoying "GUYZ OMG DIZ IS THE NEW WOW KILLERZ LOL U CAN LIEK CUT HEADZ OFF AND LIKE WOW U CAN HAVE PROPPAR WARRS MANN LOLOL" ...
Zorndorf once again demonstrates the type of post the OP is talking about . Hes never played AION by his own admitance in his other posts . So where does he get his imformation from ?
I ll admit i dont like his beloved WoW anymore but the difference between him and me is that i actually played it for 4 years and have first hand experiance of the game .
This is a guy that argued the average age of a WoW player is 30 which is laughable .
BEWARE OF THE TROLL
Zorn's so far past fanboi he almost can be considered a high priest of WOW or something.
There's marketing people at Blizzard that are less zealous about the game.
Most people don' t really lie about games, its just that their opinions are molded by their perceptions, preferences and general state of mind. This is why we all see things so differently (like why anyone would play any game besides EVE is beyond me)
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
It's very hard to quantify opinion. If a reviewer likes a certain game, they will give it a good review. There is no one standard as far as how enjoyable a game is. Some people will have fun with it and others won't.
The lesson to learn is that you can't blindly follow what others say, especially on the internet. If you do the work and investigate the pros and cons using several reviews you will probably not be as disappointed in the future. You have to be ready to sort out the biases and find reviewers who have the same likes and dislikes as you do. Don't get caught up in all the hype. Take a realistic look at game mechanics and decide for yourself.
I think this sums it up nicely. Pros and cons are the way to go. People have very greyscale interests in games.
For example:
Grinding <---> Questing
Set Skill Tree <---> Classless Progression
Open World <---> Linear
PvP <---> PvE
Party <---> Solo
So if I'm 70% Grinding and 30% Questing I will probably feel that Aion has enough quests. If I'm 90% Questing and 10% Grinding, I'll probably balk at having to grind.
Or, if I'm playing FFXI and I'm 50% Solo, 50% Party, I'll probably be more upset about FFXI's party system than somebody who is 15% Solo and 85% Party.
Do you not see what you just did in that little chart just now? How you label Hunting as a grind? To a player like me just roaming the lands and killing shit is called "hunting" and is far less of a grind as Quest stacking is because I choose in which way I wanna go and I'm not forced to be lead around by some Npc and his horrid kill 300 boar quest.
The problem with reviews is that EVERYONE is bias, A person like me would rate a Quest stacker a pitiful rating while you label a game with more of a group focus and hunting as its main mechanic a grind with no content.
First I'd like to know why you think that the genre is dying. I remember that people said RPGs were dying, like 10 years ago. And there were even hints that this could happen, because very few ones were released. But now there are lots of RPGs released constantly. Not as much as maybe FPS games or whatever, but still far more than you could have expected back in the days.
So why are MMORPGs dying? I don't see it. There are lots of them released and a lot of them are doing fine. Of course not all are doing fine, that's the same with all games. Some are just disappointing. That's part of all entertainment stuff in general. Some movies are disappointing too, yet I wouldn't say that movies in general will die out anytime soon.
About the grind: it's part of about every MMORPG. In WoW you grind reputation and tokens, in WAR you grind for that pvp-rank stuff, in Aion you grind simply to level up, in FE you often visit the same locations of resource nodes when you need those, etcetc. The trick is that some games make the grind more interesting than others, and some games give alternate ways for you to gain your resources and xp.
And about gamers and reviewers lying about MMORPGs... Well, a small number of them is part of the team who made the game. Of course they get sent to websites and claim to have made the greatest experiences with those games. And some reviewers get paid or some other stuff for beeing nice to the game. It's normal. But the majority is simply players who have that opinion, or simply say what others told them what to believe. For them it's true, because they believe it, and they ain't lying.
As a customer, you have several options. If you have the financial resources, simply by any game whichs rough description you like, without reading reviews, without beeing biased, and make your own opinion. Another option is to read many reviews, watch videos, screenshots, discussions, player opinions to find out what the general gist is. This takes more time but gives you an impression on what the game might be like before spending money. The best way might be to use a free trial, if available.
Fanboys, people lying about games, people giving everyone rose-tinted glasses is what's killing this genre more than anything. Lates example Aion, people who tell you there's no grind when the game past lvl 20 is one HUGE grind, hours of grinding to get one level when you're lvl 20+. Vanguard, another example, people claiming it had no bugs when it had tons on release and everyone QQ'ing they crashed. There needs to be a new system in-place where people are much much more scrutinised when they lie about MMO. I am so incredibly sick of this, you can't even trust normal people anymore since they will hide every faulty aspect of their game and everyone is disappointed when they finally play it. When people and especially magazines / bloggers and sites, LIE, they need to be pointed out and scrutinised. Every time a PC game gets sold under the wrong impression, the wrong companies keep on making money. No wonder this industry is in so much trouble.
I can tell you from playing Aion that IGN was LYING and Eurogamer wasn't. How am *I*..........as a consumer, supposed to take this stuff serious anymore?
Aion is grindtastic, take it from a player whose friends begged him into giving it a try.
Now I'm level 21 Sorc, committing mass genocide to a group of retarding dancing corn people (0o) that would make Hitler's jaw drop....0o
I mean at this level I have 1,500,000 xp to go and I'm only getting 3K per mob, there's hardly any quests to be found so you do the math....>>
Fanboys, people lying about games, people giving everyone rose-tinted glasses is what's killing this genre more than anything. Lates example Aion, people who tell you there's no grind when the game past lvl 20 is one HUGE grind, hours of grinding to get one level when you're lvl 20+. Vanguard, another example, people claiming it had no bugs when it had tons on release and everyone QQ'ing they crashed. There needs to be a new system in-place where people are much much more scrutinised when they lie about MMO. I am so incredibly sick of this, you can't even trust normal people anymore since they will hide every faulty aspect of their game and everyone is disappointed when they finally play it. When people and especially magazines / bloggers and sites, LIE, they need to be pointed out and scrutinised. Every time a PC game gets sold under the wrong impression, the wrong companies keep on making money. No wonder this industry is in so much trouble.
I can tell you from playing Aion that IGN was LYING and Eurogamer wasn't. How am *I*..........as a consumer, supposed to take this stuff serious anymore?
EVERY MMO HAS A GRIND. Just thought someone should try and get that through your head first. Reviews are "opinions." Take them with a grain of salt. For example I NEVER read movie reviews. if I think I will like a movie I go see it. If I end up not liking it, I am out -- what $10. Who cares ? I bought AION and did not read one single review about it. I love the game. Its all personal preference. And as far as a rough grind post level 20 ? GOOD (AGAIN ALL MMOS HAVE GRINDS). I come from old schoold MMOs like EQ. The grind there was incredible !! If the grind in AION keeps wow kiddies away, then I am all for it.
The OP made the statement the genre is getting "killed," without really going into detail about what exactly has been "killed."
So I ask now, what is wrong with MMO's and how can you say they are being "killed."
You're always going to have shoddy reviews for games. If you run out and buy the game based on that you deserve whatever garbage you end up with. Do some research and read a number of reviews not just one.
Like when Ebert gave Star Wars The Phantom Menace 5 stars lol... what kind crap is that ? He gave each following movie 4-5 stars too and they were absolutely horribad.
The OP made the statement the genre is getting "killed," without really going into detail about what exactly has been "killed." So I ask now, what is wrong with MMO's and how can you say they are being "killed." You're always going to have shoddy reviews for games. If you run out and buy the game based on that you deserve whatever garbage you end up with. Do some research and read a number of reviews not just one. Like when Ebert gave Star Wars The Phantom Menace 5 stars lol... what kind crap is that ? He gave each following movie 4-5 stars too and they were absolutely horribad.
I think the feel of MMOs is being killed.. you look at so many games that over-use instancing which cultivates into a non-world experience, and then you look at the fact how WoW has turned the ENTIRE genre into poor questing, because questing can be good, if it forces you to group up and that quest takes a while. Making quests like that repeatable also helps.. anyway, I think the main problem is they are getting away from making it feel like a unique world and just a world you happen to be playing in.
Most reviews are opinions with bias. Before I buy an MMO now i read many reviews, wait a few months for the huge bug fix patch pushes then try the 14day trials 6months after they come out. I also never trust a damn thing IGN says
Originally posted by Gameloading Well yeah but a big majorit of the time spend in Aion is also spend on quests. Also, Why would you play that way in number 1? If you invested in enough bag space, it's more accurate like this:
My example was a simplified (but accurate) comparison between the sheer amount of grinding in Aion vs. WOW. In WOW I switched what I did (between doing and getting quests) frequently, whereas in Aion it was dramatically less frequent.
If you're honestly trying to tell me you think the breadth and frequency of questing in Aion is anything close to WOW, you'll ironically have proven that plenty of people do lie (or at least mislead themselves) about MMOs. :P
Or maybe you're still in the newbie area, where the amount of questing is actually almost the same?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think a few people have hit near to the point in here, and that is we need a set definition of what is a grind, and what is this and what is that. Grind for most people means killing mods without gaining quest xp apon finishing the killing of said mobs. I hate killing mobs, I hated it in EQ but I did it and I do it well. I can kill one mob of X type, of X lvl and calculate how many more of those I need to kill to lvl. Then figure out how long that will take. I can live with that if I am doing it to get one or two lvls. To many games today what you to do this for 30 + lvls, to me that doesn't wash.
I'd say most people that play mmo's will agree that killing mobs = grinding, killing mobs for loot = farming, doing quests = questing. Now to those people that say WoW had grinding I'll sorta agree, when it came out you ran out of solo quests around lvl 50 or so, I know cause I went from 1-50 in about a week and a half. If my memory serves that left ten levels of group instance runs and grinds. LoTRo conked out at 48 on it's quest on lanuch, Eq had quests galore if you could find them, as that was back in the days before the lovely ! over peoples heads, so you ended up just grinding most things.
Now to the crux of the matter, lieing is killing the industry but not in reviews, it's killing the industry from companies that use the hype train to sell their products. AoC was said to have prestige classes at lvl 40, pvp realms, and working cities. At launch it had cities, then got pvp realms later, they axed the prestige classes prelaunch. WoW promissed hero classes at launch, took them what three years to give us one? STO, the one perpetual was making, promissed ship interiors then reniged and cost them their company, a fact I enjoy hartily.
So whats the real meaning behind my post, it's that a company should be held to what they promiss, and not praised when they get around to it three years late. I have never bought Wrath of the Lich King, and I never will, simply because Blizzard promissed that class and many others before they lanuched the game, then years later gives it to the players for a price. I personally think if a company promisses something before a game launches as part of that game at launch, then fails to launch with it. Said company should be required to give access to that feature to players free once they get it working.
To me thats like ordering a computer with windows 7 on it, but it's not out yet so they send you the computer anyway, but when windows 7 comes out they try to charge you for the full price of win 7. You already paid for it because it when you got the product, but since it wasn't ready they rused it out before hand, and now they want you to pay for something you already paid for. I think if companies were required to produce what they promissed to produce we would have better games and products in general.
Originally posted by Umbral I don't see why you have the impression that in AION you will just stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up. In AION there are a ton of kill quests, crafting quests, lore related quests and PVP quests. If you know where to look and if you do group questing you will not need to to "stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up."
Edit- AION leveling and PvP is much, much more enjoyable in groups, people who want to reach end game fast alone or be a loner avenger in PVP will have hard times.
Ironically the game's shallow PVP (both in combat mechanics, and in being a world PVP game where my group effortlessly slaughtered huge numbers of opponents, which quickly became boring) was what pushed me to quit. I don't know why I expect MMORPGs with a PVP focus to have good PVP, but I keep making that mistake. Did it with WAR and now Aion.
Crafting quests? The ones that gave me a mere fraction of the XP I'd get from just grinding mobs?
"Tons" of quests is very vague. There are tons. But when measured over gametime it's pretty trivial. I don't even have to whip out the WOW comparison. Even compared with the recently-released Champions, Aion is terrible at quest frequency.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ironically the game's shallow PVP (both in combat mechanics, and in being a world PVP game where my group effortlessly slaughtered huge numbers of opponents, which quickly became boring) was what pushed me to quit.
Ironically, You just proved that Aion's world PvP is, in fact, not shallow. whether you did it knowingly or not.
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
Originally posted by Axehilt Ironically the game's shallow PVP (both in combat mechanics, and in being a world PVP game where my group effortlessly slaughtered huge numbers of opponents, which quickly became boring) was what pushed me to quit.
Ironically, You just proved that Aion's world PvP is, in fact, not shallow. whether you did it knowingly or not.
16 players cleaving through clusters of 2-5 enemy players is not PVP. There's nothing fun in slaughter, on either side of the equation. I want a fun game where my actions matter, not some game where "whoever gets the biggest gang wins". That's not fun.
It's shallow. It lacks depth. It boils down to one singular deciding factor: who has more players? Shallow.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
16 players cleaving through clusters of 2-5 enemy players is not PVP. There's nothing fun in slaughter, on either side of the equation. I want a fun game where my actions matter, not some game where "whoever gets the biggest gang wins". That's not fun. It's shallow. It lacks depth. It boils down to one singular deciding factor: who has more players? Shallow.
I thought they were huge number of noobs ?
So you make a case that an Organized group of 16 people, easily winning against groups of 2-5 unorganized players is not 'fun'. And use this argument to suggest that Aion's PvP is shallow. Now i wonder if this argument also applies on every other MMO with world PvP or objectives or not ? Do other MMOs with world PvP/Objectives lack 'Zerging' ?
Your actions wont matter much in any PvP scenario that involve more than 20 vs 20 players.Did it cross your mind that World PvP is not for you ? And why participate in 'Shallow' Zerg PvP when you can use rifts for a more tactical experience.
You seem to prefer the instanced PvP model with a limited equal numbers on both sides. There is one battleground in Aion, but if you really like that sort of PvP... May i suggest that you play Dota ?
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
While these quests are certainly there, they are rare and similar quests also exist in Aion, even at the starter levels at least on the Elyos side.
For instance, one time you will have to poison the soup of the enemy, You'll have to find a missing pet, you'll have to fight your way into a dungeon to turn off a system that opens a gate to the abyss. Interesting enough, the last patch actually adds an instance where the area you started in is overrun and destroyed.
Perhaps one of the more interesting quests i received was when I was playing was in the starter area of Elyos. Unlike in WoW, there is actually a storyline and reason as to why your character is travelling the world and such. It becomes clear in the quests leading up to that one that you're a character who lost his memory and you're now part of a group of mercenaries who are helping the local townsfolk. One of the NPC lets you relive a memory of your past. Suddenly you're in an instance by yourself, but you look different. Your clothes look fancy and noble like, your weapons look fancy and suddenly NPC's adress you with noble terms.
You also have the ability to fly and there is a big fight going on, with people fighting around you in the sky.
There is quite a bit of focus on the personal storyline of your character.
Ofcourse these quests are, just like in WoW, a bit rare.
It's rather silly to say WoW has variaty when you describe quests that maybe make up for about 5% of the total experience.
While I find it quite funny that WoW's biggest fanboy is accusing other people of lying, your post is incredibly weak as expected.
I haven't experienced Wrath of the Lich king nor is that a particular strong argument. Wrath of the Lich King is only the latest expansion, so you're now admitting that the questing experience up to WoTLK was crap which is about say, 85% of WoW's content?
Aion is already past the first month buddy, the game has been released in Asia for over year. The debate if the game has staying power has already long past.
While I find it quite funny that WoW's biggest fanboy is accusing other people of lying, your post is incredibly weak as expected.
I haven't experienced Wrath of the Lich king nor is that a particular strong argument. Wrath of the Lich King is only the latest expansion, so you're now admitting that the questing experience up to WoTLK was crap which is about say, 85% of WoW's content? Aion is already past the first month buddy, the game has been released in Asia for over year. The debate if the game has staying power is already long past.
You would be blown away by the WotlK/TBC quest design. With ease.
So next time when you compare quest designs....be on top of what was ALREADY being published in the last 2 years.
As for the WESTERN staying power of Aion, I simply see 14US/16 EU servers after a 10 day launch (that's 200K concurrent users).
The 180 dollar subscription test will come in the next 3 months.
A 30% retention rate would be a record for the next 3 months in our 180 dollar western subs world.
Enjoy the following 2 weeks, you'll need it in the future.:))))
Wrath of the lich kings quest design comes 4 years after WoW's so release and only has about 20% of the total content. So it took Blizzard 4 years to create quests like this and they only make up a small portion of the total experience.
First of all you have no idea how many subscribers Aion has in the west and all you have is speculation. The only thing we know is that the game had 400k pre - orders and that the servers are filled with ques that can last over 2 hours. As the launch was last week, we know that this isn't just launch rush anymore.
While asian mmorpgs don't tend to reach the same success they have in the east, one thing they do have in common is their staying power. Games such as Lineage 2, Final Fantasy XI and Ragnarok Online had very stable communities even when they had to deal with enormous pirate server problems.
Comments
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP
and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ???
)))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
all of it ammounts to killing mobs . In my book that`s worse then standing in one place to kill mobs . I dont care much for killing mobs , other then my xp bar , there is no real entertainment in it....if i want "scripted" stuff, reading a book is faar more rewarding
So imho whatever ammounts to killing NPC`s is a grind , and in my book it`s made worse by horible attempts at making it "interesting" by scripting crap and what not
The problem that i see is the haters or trolls. The people with crapy computersystems that slander a game couse its "laggy", the people that are playing a game for 10mins and judge it from that, the people that cant really play and wants to be spoonfeed ect ect ect......thoose are the people we need to get rid off, the pesimist that brings theire crapy life-attitude up on a public forum.
The Second group is the Fanboys that can take everything, they dont care what happens around them, they just happily play along until the current game they play dies.
So, theire is more then one-side to the problem as i see it.
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP
and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ???
)))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
all of it ammounts to killing mobs . In my book that`s worse then standing in one place to kill mobs . I dont care much for killing mobs , other then my xp bar , there is no real entertainment in it....if i want "scripted" stuff, reading a book is faar more rewarding
So imho whatever ammounts to killing NPC`s is a grind , and in my book it`s made worse by horible attempts at making it "interesting" by scripting crap and what not
I agree, and would ad that "phasing" sucks.
I want a coherent world, where what I see is what you see, what everyone on that server sees. I don't want something to "phase" that's just a graphical equivalent of the same NPC giving the same quest to everyone in the game, but telling me thanks for doing the quest and it's done now, while someone is standing in line behind me to do the same quest.
whenever i see wow post i see zorndorf praising this game... yawn.
@ OP: I trust reviews in maybe 50%, never buy a game because somebody wrote a good review about it. I rather ask friend if he has played it.
@ grinding: so - we have quest grinding, mob grinding, and grinding. If there was a game that gives alot of xp for crafting people would craftgrind. lets face it - grind means getting xp these days. what we want is plenty of different ways to grind this xp so we aint bored with having to repeat same things over and over. unfortunatelly most games dont offer that and thats the nail to the coffin IMO(!) -.-
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
You forgot.
8. Phasing techniques used to "revsit" the place in history (local phasing, that's not the world changing phasing).
9. Take vehicules or mounts or shape shifting to do minigames which award experience.
10. Go - if you are in the mood - to a BG to have experience and level and have honor just as a diversion. Click on the dual spec of PVP/PVE and click one button to change the gear. End the PvP and ... be right back to were you were in the open world (and do PvP there if you're playing on a PvP server).
You just leveled trhough doing PvP
and are right back on track to where you left ...
11. Find a VERY interesting dungeon under way? In patch 3.3 of WOW... dungeons are server clustered (90K max players in the LFG tool).
12. Want to have fun in that dungeon multiple times to reach out for that rare sword? Shut down the experience gain in WOW for a while.
See the HUGE differences in OPTIONS already ???
)))
That's simply the difference between Blizzard and a Korean copycat. Simple really.
As opposed to a Blizzard a french copycat ?
Zorndorf once again demonstrates the type of post the OP is talking about . Hes never played AION by his own admitance in his other posts . So where does he get his imformation from ?
I ll admit i dont like his beloved WoW anymore but the difference between him and me is that i actually played it for 4 years and have first hand experiance of the game .
This is a guy that argued the average age of a WoW player is 30 which is laughable .
Reviews of MMO's are as bad as people who review movies. When it really comes down to it, it's a matter of opinion. I agree with you some games do get OVER-HYPED but at the end of the day it's what the reviewers cup of tea really is.
However when people over-hype games on the forum, thats when it gets annoying "GUYZ OMG DIZ IS THE NEW WOW KILLERZ LOL U CAN LIEK CUT HEADZ OFF AND LIKE WOW U CAN HAVE PROPPAR WARRS MANN LOLOL" ...
it`s all subjective
but for me...i know what to look for in reviews
if it starts with whines about graphic/sound , it sparks my interest , if it`s whining about lack of quests , i`m half-in purchasing the game
what i`m saying is when reading reviews i allways look for the criticism in them not fanboism
As opposed to a Blizzard a french copycat ?
Zorndorf once again demonstrates the type of post the OP is talking about . Hes never played AION by his own admitance in his other posts . So where does he get his imformation from ?
I ll admit i dont like his beloved WoW anymore but the difference between him and me is that i actually played it for 4 years and have first hand experiance of the game .
This is a guy that argued the average age of a WoW player is 30 which is laughable .
Zorn's so far past fanboi he almost can be considered a high priest of WOW or something.
There's marketing people at Blizzard that are less zealous about the game.
Most people don' t really lie about games, its just that their opinions are molded by their perceptions, preferences and general state of mind. This is why we all see things so differently (like why anyone would play any game besides EVE is beyond me)
I was going to say some more, but I'd be lying.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
Making an ethical observation about reviews based on Eurogamer? LoL... Good luck with that.
Let me guess, are you Zitron?
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
I think this sums it up nicely. Pros and cons are the way to go. People have very greyscale interests in games.
For example:
Grinding <---> Questing
Set Skill Tree <---> Classless Progression
Open World <---> Linear
PvP <---> PvE
Party <---> Solo
So if I'm 70% Grinding and 30% Questing I will probably feel that Aion has enough quests. If I'm 90% Questing and 10% Grinding, I'll probably balk at having to grind.
Or, if I'm playing FFXI and I'm 50% Solo, 50% Party, I'll probably be more upset about FFXI's party system than somebody who is 15% Solo and 85% Party.
Do you not see what you just did in that little chart just now? How you label Hunting as a grind? To a player like me just roaming the lands and killing shit is called "hunting" and is far less of a grind as Quest stacking is because I choose in which way I wanna go and I'm not forced to be lead around by some Npc and his horrid kill 300 boar quest.
The problem with reviews is that EVERYONE is bias, A person like me would rate a Quest stacker a pitiful rating while you label a game with more of a group focus and hunting as its main mechanic a grind with no content.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
First I'd like to know why you think that the genre is dying. I remember that people said RPGs were dying, like 10 years ago. And there were even hints that this could happen, because very few ones were released. But now there are lots of RPGs released constantly. Not as much as maybe FPS games or whatever, but still far more than you could have expected back in the days.
So why are MMORPGs dying? I don't see it. There are lots of them released and a lot of them are doing fine. Of course not all are doing fine, that's the same with all games. Some are just disappointing. That's part of all entertainment stuff in general. Some movies are disappointing too, yet I wouldn't say that movies in general will die out anytime soon.
About the grind: it's part of about every MMORPG. In WoW you grind reputation and tokens, in WAR you grind for that pvp-rank stuff, in Aion you grind simply to level up, in FE you often visit the same locations of resource nodes when you need those, etcetc. The trick is that some games make the grind more interesting than others, and some games give alternate ways for you to gain your resources and xp.
And about gamers and reviewers lying about MMORPGs... Well, a small number of them is part of the team who made the game. Of course they get sent to websites and claim to have made the greatest experiences with those games. And some reviewers get paid or some other stuff for beeing nice to the game. It's normal. But the majority is simply players who have that opinion, or simply say what others told them what to believe. For them it's true, because they believe it, and they ain't lying.
As a customer, you have several options. If you have the financial resources, simply by any game whichs rough description you like, without reading reviews, without beeing biased, and make your own opinion. Another option is to read many reviews, watch videos, screenshots, discussions, player opinions to find out what the general gist is. This takes more time but gives you an impression on what the game might be like before spending money. The best way might be to use a free trial, if available.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Aion is grindtastic, take it from a player whose friends begged him into giving it a try.
Now I'm level 21 Sorc, committing mass genocide to a group of retarding dancing corn people (0o) that would make Hitler's jaw drop....0o
I mean at this level I have 1,500,000 xp to go and I'm only getting 3K per mob, there's hardly any quests to be found so you do the math....>>
EVERY MMO HAS A GRIND. Just thought someone should try and get that through your head first. Reviews are "opinions." Take them with a grain of salt. For example I NEVER read movie reviews. if I think I will like a movie I go see it. If I end up not liking it, I am out -- what $10. Who cares ? I bought AION and did not read one single review about it. I love the game. Its all personal preference. And as far as a rough grind post level 20 ? GOOD (AGAIN ALL MMOS HAVE GRINDS). I come from old schoold MMOs like EQ. The grind there was incredible !! If the grind in AION keeps wow kiddies away, then I am all for it.
The OP made the statement the genre is getting "killed," without really going into detail about what exactly has been "killed."
So I ask now, what is wrong with MMO's and how can you say they are being "killed."
You're always going to have shoddy reviews for games. If you run out and buy the game based on that you deserve whatever garbage you end up with. Do some research and read a number of reviews not just one.
Like when Ebert gave Star Wars The Phantom Menace 5 stars lol... what kind crap is that ? He gave each following movie 4-5 stars too and they were absolutely horribad.
I think the feel of MMOs is being killed.. you look at so many games that over-use instancing which cultivates into a non-world experience, and then you look at the fact how WoW has turned the ENTIRE genre into poor questing, because questing can be good, if it forces you to group up and that quest takes a while. Making quests like that repeatable also helps.. anyway, I think the main problem is they are getting away from making it feel like a unique world and just a world you happen to be playing in.
Most reviews are opinions with bias. Before I buy an MMO now i read many reviews, wait a few months for the huge bug fix patch pushes then try the 14day trials 6months after they come out. I also never trust a damn thing IGN says
My example was a simplified (but accurate) comparison between the sheer amount of grinding in Aion vs. WOW. In WOW I switched what I did (between doing and getting quests) frequently, whereas in Aion it was dramatically less frequent.
If you're honestly trying to tell me you think the breadth and frequency of questing in Aion is anything close to WOW, you'll ironically have proven that plenty of people do lie (or at least mislead themselves) about MMOs. :P
Or maybe you're still in the newbie area, where the amount of questing is actually almost the same?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think a few people have hit near to the point in here, and that is we need a set definition of what is a grind, and what is this and what is that. Grind for most people means killing mods without gaining quest xp apon finishing the killing of said mobs. I hate killing mobs, I hated it in EQ but I did it and I do it well. I can kill one mob of X type, of X lvl and calculate how many more of those I need to kill to lvl. Then figure out how long that will take. I can live with that if I am doing it to get one or two lvls. To many games today what you to do this for 30 + lvls, to me that doesn't wash.
I'd say most people that play mmo's will agree that killing mobs = grinding, killing mobs for loot = farming, doing quests = questing. Now to those people that say WoW had grinding I'll sorta agree, when it came out you ran out of solo quests around lvl 50 or so, I know cause I went from 1-50 in about a week and a half. If my memory serves that left ten levels of group instance runs and grinds. LoTRo conked out at 48 on it's quest on lanuch, Eq had quests galore if you could find them, as that was back in the days before the lovely ! over peoples heads, so you ended up just grinding most things.
Now to the crux of the matter, lieing is killing the industry but not in reviews, it's killing the industry from companies that use the hype train to sell their products. AoC was said to have prestige classes at lvl 40, pvp realms, and working cities. At launch it had cities, then got pvp realms later, they axed the prestige classes prelaunch. WoW promissed hero classes at launch, took them what three years to give us one? STO, the one perpetual was making, promissed ship interiors then reniged and cost them their company, a fact I enjoy hartily.
So whats the real meaning behind my post, it's that a company should be held to what they promiss, and not praised when they get around to it three years late. I have never bought Wrath of the Lich King, and I never will, simply because Blizzard promissed that class and many others before they lanuched the game, then years later gives it to the players for a price. I personally think if a company promisses something before a game launches as part of that game at launch, then fails to launch with it. Said company should be required to give access to that feature to players free once they get it working.
To me thats like ordering a computer with windows 7 on it, but it's not out yet so they send you the computer anyway, but when windows 7 comes out they try to charge you for the full price of win 7. You already paid for it because it when you got the product, but since it wasn't ready they rused it out before hand, and now they want you to pay for something you already paid for. I think if companies were required to produce what they promissed to produce we would have better games and products in general.
Ironically the game's shallow PVP (both in combat mechanics, and in being a world PVP game where my group effortlessly slaughtered huge numbers of opponents, which quickly became boring) was what pushed me to quit. I don't know why I expect MMORPGs with a PVP focus to have good PVP, but I keep making that mistake. Did it with WAR and now Aion.
Crafting quests? The ones that gave me a mere fraction of the XP I'd get from just grinding mobs?
"Tons" of quests is very vague. There are tons. But when measured over gametime it's pretty trivial. I don't even have to whip out the WOW comparison. Even compared with the recently-released Champions, Aion is terrible at quest frequency.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ironically, You just proved that Aion's world PvP is, in fact, not shallow. whether you did it knowingly or not.
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
-Lots of other settings
Learn how by reading this guide at Aionsource
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-guides/84379-definite-guide-aions-graphical-settings-performance-tips.html
Ironically, You just proved that Aion's world PvP is, in fact, not shallow. whether you did it knowingly or not.
16 players cleaving through clusters of 2-5 enemy players is not PVP. There's nothing fun in slaughter, on either side of the equation. I want a fun game where my actions matter, not some game where "whoever gets the biggest gang wins". That's not fun.
It's shallow. It lacks depth. It boils down to one singular deciding factor: who has more players? Shallow.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I thought they were huge number of noobs ?
So you make a case that an Organized group of 16 people, easily winning against groups of 2-5 unorganized players is not 'fun'. And use this argument to suggest that Aion's PvP is shallow. Now i wonder if this argument also applies on every other MMO with world PvP or objectives or not ? Do other MMOs with world PvP/Objectives lack 'Zerging' ?
Your actions wont matter much in any PvP scenario that involve more than 20 vs 20 players.Did it cross your mind that World PvP is not for you ? And why participate in 'Shallow' Zerg PvP when you can use rifts for a more tactical experience.
You seem to prefer the instanced PvP model with a limited equal numbers on both sides. There is one battleground in Aion, but if you really like that sort of PvP... May i suggest that you play Dota ?
Improve Aion's Graphics with a simple text file that you can create by yourself:
-Increase in-game Field of View to 175% or more
-Increase view distance for players to 100 meters with camera at max distance
-Lots of other settings
Learn how by reading this guide at Aionsource
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-guides/84379-definite-guide-aions-graphical-settings-performance-tips.html
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
While these quests are certainly there, they are rare and similar quests also exist in Aion, even at the starter levels at least on the Elyos side.
For instance, one time you will have to poison the soup of the enemy, You'll have to find a missing pet, you'll have to fight your way into a dungeon to turn off a system that opens a gate to the abyss. Interesting enough, the last patch actually adds an instance where the area you started in is overrun and destroyed.
Perhaps one of the more interesting quests i received was when I was playing was in the starter area of Elyos. Unlike in WoW, there is actually a storyline and reason as to why your character is travelling the world and such. It becomes clear in the quests leading up to that one that you're a character who lost his memory and you're now part of a group of mercenaries who are helping the local townsfolk. One of the NPC lets you relive a memory of your past. Suddenly you're in an instance by yourself, but you look different. Your clothes look fancy and noble like, your weapons look fancy and suddenly NPC's adress you with noble terms.
You also have the ability to fly and there is a big fight going on, with people fighting around you in the sky.
There is quite a bit of focus on the personal storyline of your character.
Ofcourse these quests are, just like in WoW, a bit rare.
It's rather silly to say WoW has variaty when you describe quests that maybe make up for about 5% of the total experience.
While I find it quite funny that WoW's biggest fanboy is accusing other people of lying, your post is incredibly weak as expected.
I haven't experienced Wrath of the Lich king nor is that a particular strong argument. Wrath of the Lich King is only the latest expansion, so you're now admitting that the questing experience up to WoTLK was crap which is about say, 85% of WoW's content?
Aion is already past the first month buddy, the game has been released in Asia for over year. The debate if the game has staying power has already long past.
You would be blown away by the WotlK/TBC quest design. With ease.
So next time when you compare quest designs....be on top of what was ALREADY being published in the last 2 years.
As for the WESTERN staying power of Aion, I simply see 14US/16 EU servers after a 10 day launch (that's 200K concurrent users).
The 180 dollar subscription test will come in the next 3 months.
A 30% retention rate would be a record for the next 3 months in our 180 dollar western subs world.
Enjoy the following 2 weeks, you'll need it in the future.:))))
Wrath of the lich kings quest design comes 4 years after WoW's so release and only has about 20% of the total content. So it took Blizzard 4 years to create quests like this and they only make up a small portion of the total experience.
First of all you have no idea how many subscribers Aion has in the west and all you have is speculation. The only thing we know is that the game had 400k pre - orders and that the servers are filled with ques that can last over 2 hours. As the launch was last week, we know that this isn't just launch rush anymore.
While asian mmorpgs don't tend to reach the same success they have in the east, one thing they do have in common is their staying power. Games such as Lineage 2, Final Fantasy XI and Ragnarok Online had very stable communities even when they had to deal with enormous pirate server problems.