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Aion: Version 2.0 "Assault on Balaurea" Announced, Trailer Out!
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
With version 1.9 hitting test servers tomorrow (and going live June 2), Aion players are already looking ahead to version 2.0 which has been on the Korean public test servers for a little while now. Aion version 2.0, now known as "Assault on Balaurea" will feature eight new instances, pets with a variety of functions ranging from storing items to assisting in crafting or even acting as guardians, several zones set within the lands of Balaurea (home to the Balaur), a raise in level cap to 55, new flight mechanics, and more!
NCsoft has put together a lengthy trailer showing off many of the new features, click the image above or go here to watch! Assault on Balaurea is set to go live sometime this Fall.
Comments
Aion itself was such a let-down for many people, myself included, that I doubt too many people are hyped up about this.
This will probably make me re-sub.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
An expansion of this game (i bought the collector's edition on preorder) does not interest me. I was one of the people that left this game in frustration over poor game mechanics. If they made an annoucement that flight combat was fixed for melee combat classes or that their was a chance of beating a boss and having it actually drop something I might resub.
You can only run dark poeta so many times and not have anything drop or watch guildies fail so many times on their miragents before you come to realize this game is such a horrible unrewarding grindfest wrapped in pretty packaging.
You are aware, right, that you were playing an Asian MMORPG?
Makes me want to re-sub, but I'm not sold.
All MMO's are a grind in some way or another.. That post that Union made you could swap out Dark Poeta with whatever WoW raid and its the same thing and its not an Asian game.
^ I think his point was that the bosses in Aion dosent always drop items, they do in WoW.
How many times would you run UBRS if the last boss only dropped items 1/4th of the time..
Currently Playing Path of Exile
No, no, maybe you don't understand. In your example of WoW, the bosses will actually drop something. Maybe not what you want, or something you could use, but something. In Aion, many of the times (for me it's been 99% of the damn time) they drop nothing. Not even kinah (gold), just absolutely nothing. This also even applies to rare spawns. Yes, you grind the same instances a lot, but at least in other MMOs there is a sense of progress, whether it's emblems, some loot, cash, or helping gear out someone. In AIon, that sense of progress or reward is many times nil.
Now patch 1.9 is supposedly going to ease the issue and increase drop rates, but at least for me, it's a wait and see. As for 2.0, there are some things which look awesome to me, but the new forts are just kinda meh. They look too much of the same zerg fests the forts are now. But time will tell I guess.
I agree about the boss drops, it was one of the things that made me quit the game a LONG time ago. Amazing that it STILL hasn't been fixed. And after the sham that was the vision trailer, you can stick this trailer you know where.
Believe it or not some people are actually against it that drop rates are getting an increase in 1.9. But if it satisfies most people I guess it makes sense.
Also Vision trailer was and still is a "vision" of what the people at NCsoft have in store for Aion in the future. Patch 2.0 trailer is a patch that is already out in Korea, and is coming in the West in Fall 2010.
I fail to see the point of such a comparaison
Same ol'... they make really awesome trailer with which they expect to win some of the ol' timers back but i suppose that it will be again the same lag fast like before. The oldest trick ever.
Great, so by the time it launches the Koreans will know how to steal all our accounts....oh, never mind......Mine was stolen some time ago
Where they screwed up the instances was making them pointless by making the best PVE gear questable at 50. Why bother with them when you can solo the majority of the Miragents/Fenris set? That set ruined the point of instances and with that you had all the PVE fans pretty much up and leave.
Aion was designed for the Asian mind set. Nothing wrong with the game, except it just not play well here in the west. I just don't see any of these up coming changes doing anything to change that.
If you like grind you can play any of the f2p games and get that for free why sub to Aion, it really does not offer much more than many of the f2p games do and at least in games like Perfect World I can fly as long as I like.
Why do some gamers who are former subscribers of an mmo, seem to always think they somehow have the obligation to try to discredit that same mmo if that mmo comes out with an expansion? How about let other people make up their own mind by evaluating the facts, and not opinions? Sometimes the expansions actually fix problems that previous gamers had and spreading opinions based on grudges is not something I personally would want to be known for.
I have not played Aion, and not even sure if I will try it. I am posting this though based on my observation of a trend that's been happening quite a bit with this game and with AoC as well. It's pretty immature and uncalled for the way some gamers try to discredit an mmo based on their own personal bad experience.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, f2p is where the grinders should reside, after all I don't think any games company could kid anyone anymore that it takes a lot of game development time to put x numbers of re-spawning mobs in an area for a player to earn y xp every hour.
Basically the painful Aion grind was designed to extract the maximum card sub time from the Korean PC bang player market. It didn't translate well into a Western mmo, though, no doubt, some are more tolerant, and I guess some dig the RvR end-game.
The maximum card sub time and the maximum amount payed for their internet cafe places. China liked it as well and they pay by the hour.
Aion wasn't designed with the asian mindset. They specifically said that they designed it with an international mindset.
When I was at their presentation at pax this was repeated several times.
Now, maybe they are used to doing things a different way and weren't able to make the leap completely so some find the leveleing harder than they are used to. My bet is on this.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well that and the fact that people aren't able to get used to the fact that leveling without quests is possible. They are used to every game giving them quest after quest, but in Aion if you group at all or are a little off in where you are looking, you run out sometimes and have to grind. I guess people just don't like that. To be honest I don't think it's that bad because I came from lineage but I am pretty sure people just want quests spoon fed to them to level up to cap.
They complain because they don't get levels handed to them on a platter, nor does the epic gear grow on trees..
Ironic actually.. Since most probably had the opposite complaints about WoW.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
Aion was marketed to the west as an MMO that was developed in Korea but was being 'westernized' in the localization process. In reality, not much happened besides translation. The game remained, and still does to this day, a typical Korean MMO -- full of grind and scantily clad women. They fooled a CE out of me, which after playing CBT for three days, I canceled and got refunded. I followed the game for a long time hoping it would actually be what it claimed. There's nothing NCsoft could do to get me to play their game including the new and improved version of grind and scantily clad women.
And that's the thing, people keep saying grind game but they just havne't played a grind game if they think Aion is a "grind game".
I would say to all those players who say "Aion is a grind game" how do you compare it to a an actual grind game like lineage or lineage 2? Or Archlord or insert another korean game here.
Because I know that I played Lineage 2 for over 4 years and not casually, and though I had come close I was NEVER able to reach level cap.
In Aion you get xp for crafting, for fighting and for gathering.
In a game like Lineage 2 there aren't many quests, the rewards were a bit lackluster and the gathering was done through girnding mobs.
In a game like Aion if you craft you get an item. Just might not be a "special" item if you don't succeed.
In a game like Lineage 2 you have thousands of mats and if you fail you lose all your mats and don't have an item.
In Aion you can at least grab quests and do them. Other girnd games you go to a spot and grind until you are ready to log or there is pvp to be had.
If people really think Aion is a grind I invite you to play actual grind games. I think they will be shocked out of their gourd.
As an additonal note of info in this interview at 7:30 sebastian streiffert indicates that the west does have influence in the game.
http://www.twitvid.com/698D1
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
That's just simply not true.
They added both pve only areas which weren't in the initial Asian version because of the west. They levelled out the levelign curve because of the west and increased quest xp rewards. And of course they made control additions because of the west. There could very well be others but those are what comes to mind at the moment.
As far as the art design, that is what it is. One either likes that design or not. But I don't know of any game that has made drastic art direction redesigns because of localization with the excpetion of areas that don't allow for certain images to be shown. EQ 2 is the only one and they outsourced that and game it as a choice.
Here in the west, last I checked, it's still ok for women to show their midriff if they so choose.
As far as purchasing the collectors edtion, that is a lesson learned. Until you actually try the game and know it's something you will like no one should be buying any sort of collector's editoin unless you are the type of person who likes the gamble.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I know exactly what you mean, I played L2 since C2 and only stopped playing for maybe like three months and only hit 70. People think it's annoying in aion that when they + their weapons they can lose the +. They should try L2 and see the entire weapon break and turn into crystals. I enjoy Aion it just felt like something was missing from it that could hold me like L2. So I guess maybe the people that still play it in the west are the people who realise it doesn't have that much of a grind.
oh, I was going to mention the weapon breaking on enchantment fail but I didn't want to scare people.
Not to mention there was a chance that one could drop items if one died in pve.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo