That dosn't make much sense.. Ofcourse they'd pull the plug in the west, regardless of what AION's doing in the east.. The servers are entirley different, in two different places, and like popinjay said they are ran by pretty much two different companies (NC Soft West & NC Soft East.) And the reason this game is a gold mine for NC Soft East is because its a pay by the hour game in korea; which scores them loads more then pay by the month here in USA.
Trust me, if the game failed to deliver NC Soft will pull the plug; but i do think you guys are safe until atleast GW2 comes out and then some.. I defiantly don't think the game is where NC Soft thought it would be (atleast for western audience) but it is still doing well enough to cover server costs im sure..
But yeah, check NC Softs track record.. TR is not the only MMO they've pulled the plug on.. Theres atleast 4-6 other MMO's they've given the same treatment too.
I bet they would never pull the plug on Aion because it's their current blockbuster title, I think it's foolish to compare it to the only NC developed MMO that was shut down (not 4-6) Dungeon Runners, which was a completely different story as it was only developed for the Western market.
NCsoft West is not like a different company at all, they are just the P.R, marketing and translators for the West. They don't make any decisions by themselves. Most of their staff is there 'cause they can speak and write English, that's it.
Also seeing that Lineage is still running, I'm very surprised that some people are talking about Aion shutting down. I'm sorry to disappoint the people who are craving for it to happen, but it's not.
By comparison, L2 still has some 8 servers in the West, and no MMO apart from WoW is doing too hotly either. If Aion were to ever shut down, then WoW and EvE would probably be the only 2 MMOs still running in the West because all the rest would have to shut down before / with Aion. Just face it, MMOs don't shut down on a whim, it's a niche market with the exception of the anomaly WoW. It's an exception.
As for the "you guys are safe", it's been a couple of months since I've cancelled. Might try the expansion out, but I don't expect to stick with it for long as there's something really tasty on the horizon!
Originally posted by Electriceye Originally posted by Hellfyre420
That dosn't make much sense.. Ofcourse they'd pull the plug in the west, regardless of what AION's doing in the east.. The servers are entirley different, in two different places, and like popinjay said they are ran by pretty much two different companies (NC Soft West & NC Soft East.) And the reason this game is a gold mine for NC Soft East is because its a pay by the hour game in korea; which scores them loads more then pay by the month here in USA. Trust me, if the game failed to deliver NC Soft will pull the plug; but i do think you guys are safe until atleast GW2 comes out and then some.. I defiantly don't think the game is where NC Soft thought it would be (atleast for western audience) but it is still doing well enough to cover server costs im sure.. But yeah, check NC Softs track record.. TR is not the only MMO they've pulled the plug on.. Theres atleast 4-6 other MMO's they've given the same treatment too.
I bet they would never pull the plug on Aion because it's their current blockbuster title, I think it's foolish to compare it to the only NC developed MMO that was shut down (not 4-6) Dungeon Runners, which was a completely different story as it was only developed for the Western market. NCsoft West is not like a different company at all, they are just the P.R, marketing and translators for the West. They don't make any decisions by themselves. Most of their staff is there 'cause they can speak and write English, that's it. Also seeing that Lineage is still running, I'm very surprised that some people are talking about Aion shutting down. I'm sorry to disappoint the people who are craving for it to happen, but it's not. By comparison, L2 still has some 8 servers in the West, and no MMO apart from WoW is doing too hotly either. If Aion were to ever shut down, then WoW and EvE would probably be the only 2 MMOs still running in the West because all the rest would have to shut down before / with Aion. Just face it, MMOs don't shut down on a whim, it's a niche market with the exception of the anomaly WoW. It's an exception. As for the "you guys are safe", it's been a couple of months since I've cancelled. Might try the expansion out, but I don't expect to stick with it for long as there's something really tasty on the horizon!
Well, it's a blockbuster title in the East but not in the West.
The East haven't had any servers merging up as far as I've heard, while the West is potential two merges away from having just one server total.
The original AION release as well as any new expansions were made solely with the Eastern market in mind, not the West. Anything coming off the West is extra gravy.
Again, unless the West is pulling it's own weight financially or at least breaking even, it's doesn't have much of a future. If it continues to do so (I still think it's in the black) then it is safe for sometime.
Lineage was released in 1998 and has long been completely paid for by this point, that's why it's still running. Same with Lineage2; paid in full. Wasn't Dungeon Runners a F2P game? Those are totally different than subscription games so not sure it's a valid matchup. But any game that can bring in positive cashflow will still run; no company keeps games up and running losing money simply because some people like to play them.
I honestly don't know of any game that was losing money that still operated today, especially with the prospect of just ONE server down the line as we are talking about.
Again, don't let the fact that 2.0 (new expansion) being released is somehow a commitment on NCSoft's part to AION (west). That expansion was already paid for by the East subscriptions. It's not like it was made specifically to keep the Western markets happy and subbed; it's basically a hand-me-down from the Eastern market with translations.
But no one is saying AION is shutting down even though you mentioned it for some reason. EVE is doing pretty well and has been for a number of years; which is nothing like WoW. FFXI still does well enough to keep running as 1) it's completly paid for and 2) still has enough subscriptions to justify the keeping it running.
That dosn't make much sense.. Ofcourse they'd pull the plug in the west, regardless of what AION's doing in the east.. The servers are entirley different, in two different places, and like popinjay said they are ran by pretty much two different companies (NC Soft West & NC Soft East.) And the reason this game is a gold mine for NC Soft East is because its a pay by the hour game in korea; which scores them loads more then pay by the month here in USA.
Trust me, if the game failed to deliver NC Soft will pull the plug; but i do think you guys are safe until atleast GW2 comes out and then some.. I defiantly don't think the game is where NC Soft thought it would be (atleast for western audience) but it is still doing well enough to cover server costs im sure..
But yeah, check NC Softs track record.. TR is not the only MMO they've pulled the plug on.. Theres atleast 4-6 other MMO's they've given the same treatment too.
I bet they would never pull the plug on Aion because it's their current blockbuster title, I think it's foolish to compare it to the only NC developed MMO that was shut down (not 4-6) Dungeon Runners, which was a completely different story as it was only developed for the Western market.
NCsoft West is not like a different company at all, they are just the P.R, marketing and translators for the West. They don't make any decisions by themselves. Most of their staff is there 'cause they can speak and write English, that's it.
Also seeing that Lineage is still running, I'm very surprised that some people are talking about Aion shutting down. I'm sorry to disappoint the people who are craving for it to happen, but it's not.
By comparison, L2 still has some 8 servers in the West, and no MMO apart from WoW is doing too hotly either. If Aion were to ever shut down, then WoW and EvE would probably be the only 2 MMOs still running in the West because all the rest would have to shut down before / with Aion. Just face it, MMOs don't shut down on a whim, it's a niche market with the exception of the anomaly WoW. It's an exception.
As for the "you guys are safe", it's been a couple of months since I've cancelled. Might try the expansion out, but I don't expect to stick with it for long as there's something really tasty on the horizon!
Well, it's a blockbuster title in the East but not in the West.
The East haven't had any servers merging up as far as I've heard, while the West is potential two merges away from having just one server total.
The original AION release as well as any new expansions were made solely with the Eastern market in mind, not the West. Anything coming off the West is extra gravy.
Again, unless the West is pulling it's own weight financially or at least breaking even, it's doesn't have much of a future. If it continues to do so (I still think it's in the black) then it is safe for sometime.
Lineage was released in 1998 and has long been completely paid for by this point, that's why it's still running. Same with Lineage2; paid in full. Wasn't Dungeon Runners a F2P game? Those are totally different than subscription games so not sure it's a valid matchup. But any game that can bring in positive cashflow will still run; no company keeps games up and running losing money simply because some people like to play them.
I honestly don't know of any game that was losing money that still operated today, especially with the prospect of just ONE server down the line as we are talking about.
Again, don't let the fact that 2.0 (new expansion) being released is somehow a commitment on NCSoft's part to AION (west). That expansion was already paid for by the East subscriptions. It's not like it was made specifically to keep the Western markets happy and subbed; it's basically a hand-me-down from the Eastern market with translations.
But no one is saying AION is shutting down even though you mentioned it for some reason. EVE is doing pretty well and has been for a number of years; which is nothing like WoW. FFXI still does well enough to keep running as 1) it's completly paid for and 2) still has enough subscriptions to justify the keeping it running.
The thing you're not getting is that the game had already found it's niche months ago, and the population had been stable for some time before the merges. They could and should have done the merges 3months after launch, it would have been the same but sadly they were late with merges.
In addition, more than half of the server population were quite good before merges, in Europe at least, and people are actually complaining that there are way too many players and sieges are unplayable for a lot of the population just like at launch. I know both of my previous servers Spatalos and Gorgos had a healthy population, yet they were merged together for some stupid reason.
There won't be any new merges any time soon. There won't be the silly ONE SERVER theory you keep bringing up. It's been a year, and population has been somehwat stable for months. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming free expansion brought back a lot of players. I know I'm gonna check it out even after it lost its appeal to me.
Is it losing players? Yep. Is it losing more players than other games in the market? Nope. As I said previously, it's laughable to suggest that NC will be pulling the plug on Aion (which if you read the guy I quoted you'd know that I wasn't the one who brought it up), when other titles which were and are much worse off got through O.K. Some are still struggling after years, but you get the point.
My point about L1 and L2 was that they are 2 of the most hated games in the West, yet they survived up till now, they were "paid in full" successfully. Aion is much more geared towards the West than both of those games combined, thus I see no reason to think it won't do at least as well. It's more like WoW than L2 anyway lol.
The thing you're not getting is that the game had already found it's niche months ago, and the population had been stable for some time before the merges. They could and should have done the merges 3months after launch, it would have been the same but sadly they were late with merges.
AION isn't a niche game.. It's pretty much a wow-clone.. EvE and FE are niche games.. The population was stable for the first few months after launch, but as more people hit 50 it declined.. Trust me, i remember thinking AION was the play all end all game.. I was also there around the same time as the mass exodus of people left AION.. The 3 month mark was around the time that started happening, and i agree with you it wouldve been the best move for them to merge around that time.
In addition, more than half of the server population were quite good before merges, in Europe at least, and people are actually complaining that there are way too many players and sieges are unplayable for a lot of the population just like at launch. I know both of my previous servers Spatalos and Gorgos had a healthy population, yet they were merged together for some stupid reason.
I'am not sure how succesful this game is in Europe.. Can't really comment on it too much.. Besides the fact that AION's fort raids were always pretty unplayable.. The forts were actually impossible to take when the game first launched because of these bugs.. Months later the game still crashed for 1/2 the players anytime you got more then a hundred people fighting for a fort.. So the game crashing dosn't really mean theres a lot of players, it just goes to show you how unpolished the fort battles were in AION.
There won't be any new merges any time soon. There won't be the silly ONE SERVER theory you keep bringing up. It's been a year, and population has been somehwat stable for months. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming free expansion brought back a lot of players. I know I'm gonna check it out even after it lost its appeal to me.
Who are you to say if there wont be any new merges anytime soon? Or jus one server? It's something a lot of people are asking for.. And the game hasn't been "stable" for months.. Check out the server population and also other websites have been commenting on the ammount of people leaving AION recently.. It's because NC Soft just didnt include enough end-game content for these players.. The expansion may bring back some players; shoot i might even check it out.. But the fact of the matter is NC Soft cant churn out the number of patches and expansions this game needs.. It took them almost a year to get this far.. Their current buisness model sucks, NC Soft East makes all the big descisions and 90% of the games developers are NC Soft East.
Is it losing players? Yep. Is it losing more players than other games in the market? Nope. As I said previously, it's laughable to suggest that NC will be pulling the plug on Aion (which if you read the guy I quoted you'd know that I wasn't the one who brought it up), when other titles which were and are much worse off got through O.K. Some are still struggling after years, but you get the point.
It's not that laughable to suggest NC will be pulling the plug on AION.. NC Soft may very well be the ones to get the last laugh.. The Auto MMO was shut down, Tabula Rasa (which still had a modest ammount of subs left), Exteel, and a few other MMO's have been shut down by NC Soft, and those are three within the last 3 or 4 years.. Like i said, and popinjay said, when the game cant cover its costs then NC will pull the plug.. They just don't have the passion like some companies to keep the game a live.. I mean look at EvE, at one point in time it was a suffering MMO (around 7 or 8 years ago) and now its the #2 most played MMO atm; because CCP has a passion for the market and attempted to keep the game alive thru thick and thin.. NC Soft dosn't have this, they are a big companie and shut games down to compensate for the loss of money they spent developeing and keeping the game alive.. AION was in the works for several years, so theres a lot cost they have to make up for the game.. My guess is it won't start paying off for a little while down the road.
My point about L1 and L2 was that they are 2 of the most hated games in the West, yet they survived up till now, they were "paid in full" successfully. Aion is much more geared towards the West than both of those games combined, thus I see no reason to think it won't do at least as well. It's more like WoW than L2 anyway lol.
L1 and L2 launched when there wernt many MMO's in town.. and WoW didn't have a stranglehold on the market.. They had room to grow, and they eventually paid them selves off way before WoW got its 12million subs.. It won't do atleast as well because of WoW; it's sad to say but that is the reason why many MMO's arnt doing as well as they used to when they launched.. I think if AION got a passionate developeing team behind it, and NC Soft gave that team the green light to finnaly westernize the game then they'd get a lot of subs back; or maybe not because that is something they tottaly should've done at launch.
Trust me.. I don't want to see the game shut down.. I still keep in contact with a lot of my legion mates, some still play AION.. I'am just being realistic and looking at AION's track record.. You have to be optimisitic about this game because of it; otherwise you'll be rageing when NC actually does pull the plug.. Anyone who's been playing MMO's for a while knows NC Soft will pull the plug on underperforming MMO's.. And to laugh and think they wouldnt do the same for AION is stupid.. There's always a small % chance when you have a money hungry company behind you're game like NC Soft.
Currently Playing: Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I really don't think there is anything wrong with the game , other than the fact that NCsoft bans people for anything and everything. Even when you didn't do anything wrong you are at the risk of the "banhammer" as they like to call it.
The thing you're not getting is that the game had already found it's niche months ago, and the population had been stable for some time before the merges. They could and should have done the merges 3months after launch, it would have been the same but sadly they were late with merges.
In addition, more than half of the server population were quite good before merges, in Europe at least, and people are actually complaining that there are way too many players and sieges are unplayable for a lot of the population just like at launch. I know both of my previous servers Spatalos and Gorgos had a healthy population, yet they were merged together for some stupid reason.
There won't be any new merges any time soon. There won't be the silly ONE SERVER theory you keep bringing up. It's been a year, and population has been somehwat stable for months. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming free expansion brought back a lot of players. I know I'm gonna check it out even after it lost its appeal to me.
Is it losing players? Yep. Is it losing more players than other games in the market? Nope. As I said previously, it's laughable to suggest that NC will be pulling the plug on Aion (which if you read the guy I quoted you'd know that I wasn't the one who brought it up), when other titles which were and are much worse off got through O.K. Some are still struggling after years, but you get the point.
My point about L1 and L2 was that they are 2 of the most hated games in the West, yet they survived up till now, they were "paid in full" successfully. Aion is much more geared towards the West than both of those games combined, thus I see no reason to think it won't do at least as well. It's more like WoW than L2 anyway lol.
The population was not stable at all, and certainly isn't stable now. AION was a spike launch game with tons of subs early, then a steady and predictible decline. There was no steady growth in subs and it never plateaued out to steady or stable levels as you suggest.
You admitted several times you aren't playing anymore so how would you know if you're not in the game? When is the last time you checked the numbers on the servers from the official site breakdown? I'd wager its been months. Here, take a peek:
If that were true there would be no need for merges. They didn't close half the servers because the population had somehow settled. They closed servers because the action on the ones that were opened slowed down to almost a crawl. Higher level 50s were bored (still are a lot of them) and the lower level people were getting trounced.
I'm not sure when you left, but I left pretty recently (sub is still active actually; cancelled but can still log in).
I have been in the newbie Poeta zone recently (made a new alt to bank goods when I moved to Zikel) and I can tell you this: there is NO activity in it at all. There are now more bots starting new toons than real people; just like at launch. The only people moving around in the 1-10/10-20 zones are twinks for the most part; bored 50s who are rerolling toons.
I did not bring up the "one server" theory you claim I did: he did:
Originally posted by SoulSurfer I hope more people quit do the game goes to one server, (yay we can emulate EVE now) ... maybe this way we can actually pvp....
To which I replied:
If things keep going the way they are, this would certainly happen IF NCsoft let the game whittle down to one server.
More than likely, it would be shut down NA side by NCSoft considering GW2 is coming out from NCSoft and they'd just keep the AION asian servers running since that's the most profitable revenue.
In my posts I was explaining why AION wouldn't allow things to go to one server, but that they'd shut this game down before it got to that stage. You are not reading these posts but skimming them, which is a bad habit to have.
I have no idea how on the one hand you claim the population is stable, yet acknowledging that it is losing players. Games don't merge servers because populations have been "stable for months", lol.
When a company is losing money/subs, they don't go "Well, compared to Game X we aren't losing as many so we'll keep it open." That's some crazy business thinking there, so who cares if it's not losing subs at the rate of any other MMO as you claim? (with nothing but opinion to back it up)
Now to clarify before you claim I'm wishing it or saying it: AION is far from dead. The game has an expansion that will bring SOME people back, but newer players won't flock to it; they are too far behind considering the expansion will raise the cap to 54 and are more than likely going to play other ones coming out.
For a new person trying to PvP in AION, that's at least 50 levels of pure hell vs players with a year's worth of advantage gear and kinah they'll never overcome.
NC Soft dosn't have this, they are a big companie and shut games down to compensate for the loss of money they spent developeing and keeping the game alive.. AION was in the works for several years, so theres a lot cost they have to make up for the game.. My guess is it won't start paying off for a little while down the road.
Trust me.. I don't want to see the game shut down.. I still keep in contact with a lot of my legion mates, some still play AION.. I'am just being realistic and looking at AION's track record.. You have to be optimisitic about this game because of it; otherwise you'll be rageing when NC actually does pull the plug.. Anyone who's been playing MMO's for a while knows NC Soft will pull the plug on underperforming MMO's.. And to laugh and think they wouldnt do the same for AION is stupid.. There's always a small % chance when you have a money hungry company behind you're game like NC Soft.
Damn good points (and some of the others you made) that I liked reading.
Some people aren't able to tell the difference between a constructive, realistic discussion and a flaming comment about AION. They get pretty defensive about the game accusing people of wanting to shut it down and go to one server and such. Good to read some sober comments
One thing above I might disagree with you is I believe NCSoft already made its development money back on AION already. Why?
Because the game was originally released in the EAST in November 2008 to its primary market; asians. The game was well received and had been announcing its sales continually:
That link was from May 2009 which was long before the NA versions were even shipped and they announced "The company held a conference call to discuss their sales figures and revealed Aion has generated 42.65 billion Korean won (around $34.57 million).". Now look at the later release dates:
-- Japan: NCSoft released the game on July 17, 2009 in Japan under NCSoft Japan.
-- Taiwan: NCsoft began an open beta of Aion in Taiwan on June 7, 2009, and was released on July 21, 2009. v1.5 was released on October 21, 2009
-- Australia: NCsoft is distributing Aion in Australia through QV Software, and was released on September 22, 2009.
-- Europe: NCsoft released the final version of Aion in Europe on September 25, 2009.
-- North America: Aion was released in North America on September 22, 2009.
-- Russia: Aion open beta running since December 8, 2009
After the intial development, all they had to do for the most part was translation and some minor changes to each new market which couldn't have cost all that much. It wasn't like they had to re-invent the game each time; almost a copy/paste job so those later markets were 1) gravy and 2) cheap to open.
The 2.0 expansion is in the same boat; it's already been paid for pretty much by the Asian community to an extend and the aftersubs in the secondary market. Then figure in the box sales and subs from the first several months in each new market.. that was pretty huge.
I'm pretty confident that NCSoft has made most if not all, of their money back after all those new markets released so they could close NA, EU or anything and still rely on the asian market to keep the game going.
The thing you're not getting is that the game had already found it's niche months ago, and the population had been stable for some time before the merges. They could and should have done the merges 3months after launch, it would have been the same but sadly they were late with merges.
AION isn't a niche game.. It's pretty much a wow-clone.. EvE and FE are niche games.. The population was stable for the first few months after launch, but as more people hit 50 it declined.. Trust me, i remember thinking AION was the play all end all game.. I was also there around the same time as the mass exodus of people left AION.. The 3 month mark was around the time that started happening, and i agree with you it wouldve been the best move for them to merge around that time.
Aion is a niche game dude. Most zones have open world PvP and ganking, it's a considerable grind to reach level cap, it's not solo-friendly. NCsoft simply didn't market the game like it had to, but it is obvious that Aion is simply NOT catered for casuals.
In addition, more than half of the server population were quite good before merges, in Europe at least, and people are actually complaining that there are way too many players and sieges are unplayable for a lot of the population just like at launch. I know both of my previous servers Spatalos and Gorgos had a healthy population, yet they were merged together for some stupid reason.
I'am not sure how succesful this game is in Europe.. Can't really comment on it too much.. Besides the fact that AION's fort raids were always pretty unplayable.. The forts were actually impossible to take when the game first launched because of these bugs.. Months later the game still crashed for 1/2 the players anytime you got more then a hundred people fighting for a fort.. So the game crashing dosn't really mean theres a lot of players, it just goes to show you how unpolished the fort battles were in AION.
It was extra unplayable at launch due to the number of players. Then performance got better because of the exodus after the first couple of months and made sieges relatively playable. You don't need to tell me that siege performance sucked, my worst gaming experiences ever were in huge zergfests in Aion when taking or defending a fortress. I didn't talk about crashing as it doesn't happen a lot, but the lag and frame rates used to drop to like 10 on most PCs which sucks. Nowadays people are complaining that it is much worse, akin to launch.
There won't be any new merges any time soon. There won't be the silly ONE SERVER theory you keep bringing up. It's been a year, and population has been somehwat stable for months. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming free expansion brought back a lot of players. I know I'm gonna check it out even after it lost its appeal to me.
Who are you to say if there wont be any new merges anytime soon? Or jus one server? It's something a lot of people are asking for.. And the game hasn't been "stable" for months.. Check out the server population and also other websites have been commenting on the ammount of people leaving AION recently.. It's because NC Soft just didnt include enough end-game content for these players.. The expansion may bring back some players; shoot i might even check it out.. But the fact of the matter is NC Soft cant churn out the number of patches and expansions this game needs.. It took them almost a year to get this far.. Their current buisness model sucks, NC Soft East makes all the big descisions and 90% of the games developers are NC Soft East.
I use Xfire, personal experience on 2 servers, other people's personal experiences, put them together, and with a bit of common sense it's really easy to figure out. A lot of people are asking for what? merges? of course not, the some 13 Westerrn servers are all packed ready to explode, I already gave you the Gorgos+Spatalos example.
It's not very wise to take forums as Gospel. If that was so, then WoW should have been dead by now, I mean have you seen the amount of QQ on these forums?
True, they aren't updating the game fast enough.
Is it losing players? Yep. Is it losing more players than other games in the market? Nope. As I said previously, it's laughable to suggest that NC will be pulling the plug on Aion (which if you read the guy I quoted you'd know that I wasn't the one who brought it up), when other titles which were and are much worse off got through O.K. Some are still struggling after years, but you get the point.
It's not that laughable to suggest NC will be pulling the plug on AION.. NC Soft may very well be the ones to get the last laugh.. The Auto MMO was shut down, Tabula Rasa (which still had a modest ammount of subs left), Exteel, and a few other MMO's have been shut down by NC Soft, and those are three within the last 3 or 4 years.. Like i said, and popinjay said, when the game cant cover its costs then NC will pull the plug.. They just don't have the passion like some companies to keep the game a live.. I mean look at EvE, at one point in time it was a suffering MMO (around 7 or 8 years ago) and now its the #2 most played MMO atm; because CCP has a passion for the market and attempted to keep the game alive thru thick and thin.. NC Soft dosn't have this, they are a big companie and shut games down to compensate for the loss of money they spent developeing and keeping the game alive.. AION was in the works for several years, so theres a lot cost they have to make up for the game.. My guess is it won't start paying off for a little while down the road.
Auto Assault was never developed by NCsoft -> Not their game. They were just the publishers of that. TR I already stated that it was an exception because of the issue with Richard Garriott, you might want to read up on that. Exteel is not an MMO and was developed by an NCsoft subsidiary, similar to, say GW.
Sadly, NCsoft's reputation preceeds them. They have only ever shut down one MMO, and that was Dungeon Runners which was not only F2P, but just for the Western market, there are no comparisons to have there.
My point about L1 and L2 was that they are 2 of the most hated games in the West, yet they survived up till now, they were "paid in full" successfully. Aion is much more geared towards the West than both of those games combined, thus I see no reason to think it won't do at least as well. It's more like WoW than L2 anyway lol.
L1 and L2 launched when there wernt many MMO's in town.. and WoW didn't have a stranglehold on the market.. They had room to grow, and they eventually paid them selves off way before WoW got its 12million subs.. It won't do atleast as well because of WoW; it's sad to say but that is the reason why many MMO's arnt doing as well as they used to when they launched.. I think if AION got a passionate developeing team behind it, and NC Soft gave that team the green light to finnaly westernize the game then they'd get a lot of subs back; or maybe not because that is something they tottaly should've done at launch.
How is that relevant? I already went through this point: WoW is an exception, not the rule. 200k subs are very profitable for a company, you don't need to have WoW's millions to be successful. How do you define "success"? Sub numbers, but no one has any info on that. Server numbers? Each game server holds a different amount of players, so that's not very accurate.
I think xfire is a decent tool to measure trends, it's always accurate. You might not get the exact number, but you can know whether a game is in decline, stable, or gaining subs. After the exodus from the first few months, Aion has stabilized at #7-#11 for months, and still is.
It might surprise you, but even though most MMO players in the West don't like such a game design (and that makes it even more of a niche), there are enough players here who like it, and some who even love it.
They could have "Westernized" the game properly at launch, but tbh? there are enough fast food MMOs, the slow leveling curve and the stress on grouping is what differentiates Aion the most from the competition. I'm glad they kept it the way it is and only tweaked a few things, otherwise I would never have enjoyed the ~8months I played the game.
Trust me.. I don't want to see the game shut down.. I still keep in contact with a lot of my legion mates, some still play AION.. I'am just being realistic and looking at AION's track record.. You have to be optimisitic about this game because of it; otherwise you'll be rageing when NC actually does pull the plug.. Anyone who's been playing MMO's for a while knows NC Soft will pull the plug on underperforming MMO's.. And to laugh and think they wouldnt do the same for AION is stupid.. There's always a small % chance when you have a money hungry company behind you're game like NC Soft.
As said above, NCsoft only ever pulled the plug once on an MMO they had developed. It's unfortunate that some people just jump on the bandwagon and go "lulz, nc$oft kills yet another gamezz". Sure they wanna be profitable, it's the whole point of a business, but contrary to what you seem to think, they don't do that every few months, and imo at least, there is no danger whatsoever that they are going to pull the plug on Aion West except if something implausible happens, like Aion shrinking to one server before the end of the year.
@popinjay: The reason they merged them now is because they were painfully late with them. People had been shouting for server merges 3months in, and it's now that they gave the players what they wanted.
The last time I played was yesterday, inactive accounts were activated this weekend to check out the 1.9 changes and server activity. Didn't really play newbie zones, just talked with some guildies, did a couple of dreds, and lagged out at a fortress siege. xD
I explained above why I'm claiming that it has 'somewhat' stabilized, albeit with a very slow decline, just like every single MMO except EvE for different factors including people getting bored, the shitty economy etc.
@popinjay: The reason they merged them now is because they were painfully late with them. People had been shouting for server merges 3months in, and it's now that they gave the players what they wanted.
The last time I played was yesterday, inactive accounts were activated this weekend to check out the 1.9 changes and server activity. Didn't really play newbie zones, just talked with some guildies, did a couple of dreds, and lagged out at a fortress siege. xD
I explained above why I'm claiming that it has 'somewhat' stabilized, albeit with a very slow decline, just like every single MMO except EvE for different factors including people getting bored, the shitty economy etc.
EDIT: Fixed the awful coloring! xD
Did you face a premade in that Dredge? If so, how bad did you get pounded?
Lately after merges, it seems training is making a comeback as well. Not sure why but I guess AP is at a premium since every server is dominated by one faction or another with none having any type of balance at all.
But trust me, those noobie zones are empty. You don't see anyone in them which is a startling omen.
Given that the people you are supposed to see in Poeta are the players of tomorrow, it certainly doesn't look good for the future. Most 50s have at least 2 or 3 lowbie alts so any registered toon from 20 under probably has a ratio of 4:1 or higher of bank alts/storage toons to actual new players.
Having people come back for 2.0 is cool and all, but what any game really wants is new players to pick up several months of game time. Older players coming back after quitting an MMO usually don't stay longer than a month if you ask around.
Usually when people quit a mmo, they already know why they quit and sooner or later, those old feelings come back while they are playing and they quit again. 2.0 wouldn't have any appeal to a new player as it would be many months til they got to experience that content.
Well, I got pounded once vs premades and we had low levels with us, but second time I grouped up with a few guildies and steamrolled them lol. Sadly there's much less PvP in dred after the 1.9 changes.
Seriously they have got to do something about that, add in ranks or something 'cause a balanced dred happens like once in a blue moon, and faction imbalances overall is really bad on 90% of the servers. I'm curious to see how they'll go about in solving this.
Anyway, it's true that 2.0 won't bring back the peeps who hated the grind, or the ganking, or the very gear-based game play, but the old lvl50s who got bored after getting their gold sets and not having anything to do in the less than stellar "endgame" would have a good reason to resub, I think there's a sizeable portion of those. Having no serious MMO launching in the near future apart from possibly FFXIV (which is still far enough) will help in that.
Do you play on US servers? as far as I know the situation there is considerably worse than in Europe. Having said that, there are definitely less and less players getting the game thus the empty noob zones, but I think that's just part and parcel of level based games. I mean it has been a year, and really few updates (One) to shaken things up. Also not many players create alts except for maybe having them as banks or low level twinks 'cause there isn't enough content for 2 play-throughs, and it's boring and really long to do everything over again on another char.
Originally posted by Electriceye Well, I got pounded once vs premades and we had low levels with us, but second time I grouped up with a few guildies and steamrolled them lol. Sadly there's much less PvP in dred after the 1.9 changes. Seriously they have got to do something about that, add in ranks or something 'cause a balanced dred happens like once in a blue moon, and faction imbalances overall is really bad on 90% of the servers. I'm curious to see how they'll go about in solving this.
Anyway, it's true that 2.0 won't bring back the peeps who hated the grind, or the ganking, or the very gear-based game play, but the old lvl50s who got bored after getting their gold sets and not having anything to do in the less than stellar "endgame" would have a good reason to resub, I think there's a sizeable portion of those. Having no serious MMO launching in the near future apart from possibly FFXIV (which is still far enough) will help in that.
Do you play on US servers? as far as I know the situation there is considerably worse than in Europe. Having said that, there are definitely less and less players getting the game thus the empty noob zones, but I think that's just part and parcel of level based games. I mean it has been a year, and really few updates (One) to shaken things up. Also not many players create alts except for maybe having them as banks or low level twinks 'cause there isn't enough content for 2 play-throughs, and it's boring and really long to do everything over again on another char.
Yeah the Dredge situation is really pretty bad, and sadly... right now thats where most of the PvP is. Everyone stops pretty much whatever they are doing when a Dredge pops its so predictable.. like welfare checks handed out and the line starts forming.
The real probblem with Dredge is that if you apply for it when you are eligible (46) you won't get ANY invites.. not even if youre a cleric. You are simply too low and too undergeared to last, take hits or do any dps. Unless you got your own team which probably would be made up of lower people as well, you're hitting the "Quick Entry" button all day and waiting. A LONG time. And once it starts and you look at the opposing team, you pretty much know youre gonna lose 9/10, so half the team goes AFK once you get beat two or three meetings. Going into Dredge at 46 v 50s geared is pretty much like going to the Abyss at 30. gg, lol.
I was on the Fregion server, and then got merged into Vaizel. That server is a complete mess on the Elyos side and they are just eating each other alive on the /LFG channel. It's not a happy place to be due to all the losing. To make matters worse, you have people with Asmos toons (nice move NCSoft!) adding to the spamchat goading people on.
I moved over to Zikel because I couldn't take the whining from the "hardcore pvpers" berating the casual "carebear" players over /LFG, or the casual players complaining about the ganking Asmos. Both sides have valid points, but it's just way too much QQ from both camps. (Although I think the E-thug pvpers cry more, despite what they say about the carebears, lol)
Its too late IMO for them to fix it, but its not like they havent had many chances. Clearly they want their MMO to be a grinder and they will not change that and its likely NCWest has 0 control or say over any part of the game, they are just the messengers.
The games current biggest problem being server imbalance they cant fix unless they allow faction transfers. 4/5 servers are heavy Elyos and 1/5 is heavy Asmo which means they could maybe make 2 balanced servers out of that. There just arent enough Asmo players anymore to balance 5 servers. That is also their fault since they made everything much easier for Elyos over Asmo(I know I have 50's on both factions). In fact their server imbalance is so bad and they are so stuck on how to fix it this past week they came to the top 3 elyos guilds on Zikel and secretly asked them to transfer to Vaizel the only heavy Asmo server. These 3 guilds agreed and are now selling spots in their guilds to highest bidders to transfer off the server with them lol.
Well, I got pounded once vs premades and we had low levels with us, but second time I grouped up with a few guildies and steamrolled them lol. Sadly there's much less PvP in dred after the 1.9 changes.
Seriously they have got to do something about that, add in ranks or something 'cause a balanced dred happens like once in a blue moon, and faction imbalances overall is really bad on 90% of the servers. I'm curious to see how they'll go about in solving this.
Anyway, it's true that 2.0 won't bring back the peeps who hated the grind, or the ganking, or the very gear-based game play, but the old lvl50s who got bored after getting their gold sets and not having anything to do in the less than stellar "endgame" would have a good reason to resub, I think there's a sizeable portion of those. Having no serious MMO launching in the near future apart from possibly FFXIV (which is still far enough) will help in that.
Do you play on US servers? as far as I know the situation there is considerably worse than in Europe. Having said that, there are definitely less and less players getting the game thus the empty noob zones, but I think that's just part and parcel of level based games. I mean it has been a year, and really few updates (One) to shaken things up. Also not many players create alts except for maybe having them as banks or low level twinks 'cause there isn't enough content for 2 play-throughs, and it's boring and really long to do everything over again on another char.
Yeah the Dredge situation is really pretty bad, and sadly... right now thats where most of the PvP is. Everyone stops pretty much whatever they are doing when a Dredge pops its so predictable.. like welfare checks handed out and the line starts forming.
The real probblem with Dredge is that if you apply for it when you are eligible (46) you won't get ANY invites.. not even if youre a cleric. You are simply too low and too undergeared to last, take hits or do any dps. Unless you got your own team which probably would be made up of lower people as well, you're hitting the "Quick Entry" button all day and waiting. A LONG time. And once it starts and you look at the opposing team, you pretty much know youre gonna lose 9/10, so half the team goes AFK once you get beat two or three meetings. Going into Dredge at 46 v 50s geared is pretty much like going to the Abyss at 30. gg, lol.
I was on the Fregion server, and then got merged into Vaizel. That server is a complete mess on the Elyos side and they are just eating each other alive on the /LFG channel. It's not a happy place to be due to all the losing. To make matters worse, you have people with Asmos toons (nice move NCSoft!) adding to the spamchat goading people on.
I moved over to Zikel because I couldn't take the whining from the "hardcore pvpers" berating the casual "carebear" players over /LFG, or the casual players complaining about the ganking Asmos. Both sides have valid points, but it's just way too much QQ from both camps. (Although I think the E-thug pvpers cry more, despite what they say about the carebears, lol)
Popinjay you played Fregion? You ever heard of a legion named Sov? I lead their fort raids.. then i joined up with Rem who was the #1 legion on Fregion (more points then asmo #1 legion too.) And if im not mistaken are like #3 elyos legion on Vaziel now.. Maybe you know me? I Was a cleric named Hellfyre..
Currently Playing: Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I would like them to do one little thing that would improve my experiance, tone down the spell effects. In a full group with everyone attacking and casting I CANT SEE SHIT.
i find it funny that the op is only a lvl 23 cleric and already complaining about the grind.. like really?
anyways I didn't find the grind to bad in the game to be honest. I quit after 2 months and had a 45 sin.
Deal breakers for me were mostly pvp which is why I bought it.
Flight pvp was stupid, you can run away to easy and is just really annoying especially for melee.
Everyone is a pussy in this game, they either run away or only fight when its like 4v1. The dungeons in this game are sub par at best. Sieges are a terrible attempt at pvp mixing pve.
Comments
I bet they would never pull the plug on Aion because it's their current blockbuster title, I think it's foolish to compare it to the only NC developed MMO that was shut down (not 4-6) Dungeon Runners, which was a completely different story as it was only developed for the Western market.
NCsoft West is not like a different company at all, they are just the P.R, marketing and translators for the West. They don't make any decisions by themselves. Most of their staff is there 'cause they can speak and write English, that's it.
Also seeing that Lineage is still running, I'm very surprised that some people are talking about Aion shutting down. I'm sorry to disappoint the people who are craving for it to happen, but it's not.
By comparison, L2 still has some 8 servers in the West, and no MMO apart from WoW is doing too hotly either. If Aion were to ever shut down, then WoW and EvE would probably be the only 2 MMOs still running in the West because all the rest would have to shut down before / with Aion. Just face it, MMOs don't shut down on a whim, it's a niche market with the exception of the anomaly WoW. It's an exception.
As for the "you guys are safe", it's been a couple of months since I've cancelled. Might try the expansion out, but I don't expect to stick with it for long as there's something really tasty on the horizon!
NCsoft West is not like a different company at all, they are just the P.R, marketing and translators for the West. They don't make any decisions by themselves. Most of their staff is there 'cause they can speak and write English, that's it.
Also seeing that Lineage is still running, I'm very surprised that some people are talking about Aion shutting down. I'm sorry to disappoint the people who are craving for it to happen, but it's not.
By comparison, L2 still has some 8 servers in the West, and no MMO apart from WoW is doing too hotly either. If Aion were to ever shut down, then WoW and EvE would probably be the only 2 MMOs still running in the West because all the rest would have to shut down before / with Aion. Just face it, MMOs don't shut down on a whim, it's a niche market with the exception of the anomaly WoW. It's an exception.
As for the "you guys are safe", it's been a couple of months since I've cancelled. Might try the expansion out, but I don't expect to stick with it for long as there's something really tasty on the horizon!
Well, it's a blockbuster title in the East but not in the West.
The East haven't had any servers merging up as far as I've heard, while the West is potential two merges away from having just one server total.
The original AION release as well as any new expansions were made solely with the Eastern market in mind, not the West. Anything coming off the West is extra gravy.
Again, unless the West is pulling it's own weight financially or at least breaking even, it's doesn't have much of a future. If it continues to do so (I still think it's in the black) then it is safe for sometime.
Lineage was released in 1998 and has long been completely paid for by this point, that's why it's still running. Same with Lineage2; paid in full. Wasn't Dungeon Runners a F2P game? Those are totally different than subscription games so not sure it's a valid matchup. But any game that can bring in positive cashflow will still run; no company keeps games up and running losing money simply because some people like to play them.
I honestly don't know of any game that was losing money that still operated today, especially with the prospect of just ONE server down the line as we are talking about.
Again, don't let the fact that 2.0 (new expansion) being released is somehow a commitment on NCSoft's part to AION (west). That expansion was already paid for by the East subscriptions. It's not like it was made specifically to keep the Western markets happy and subbed; it's basically a hand-me-down from the Eastern market with translations.
But no one is saying AION is shutting down even though you mentioned it for some reason. EVE is doing pretty well and has been for a number of years; which is nothing like WoW. FFXI still does well enough to keep running as 1) it's completly paid for and 2) still has enough subscriptions to justify the keeping it running.
"TO MICHAEL!"
The thing you're not getting is that the game had already found it's niche months ago, and the population had been stable for some time before the merges. They could and should have done the merges 3months after launch, it would have been the same but sadly they were late with merges.
In addition, more than half of the server population were quite good before merges, in Europe at least, and people are actually complaining that there are way too many players and sieges are unplayable for a lot of the population just like at launch. I know both of my previous servers Spatalos and Gorgos had a healthy population, yet they were merged together for some stupid reason.
There won't be any new merges any time soon. There won't be the silly ONE SERVER theory you keep bringing up. It's been a year, and population has been somehwat stable for months. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming free expansion brought back a lot of players. I know I'm gonna check it out even after it lost its appeal to me.
Is it losing players? Yep. Is it losing more players than other games in the market? Nope. As I said previously, it's laughable to suggest that NC will be pulling the plug on Aion (which if you read the guy I quoted you'd know that I wasn't the one who brought it up), when other titles which were and are much worse off got through O.K. Some are still struggling after years, but you get the point.
My point about L1 and L2 was that they are 2 of the most hated games in the West, yet they survived up till now, they were "paid in full" successfully. Aion is much more geared towards the West than both of those games combined, thus I see no reason to think it won't do at least as well. It's more like WoW than L2 anyway lol.
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
I really don't think there is anything wrong with the game , other than the fact that NCsoft bans people for anything and everything. Even when you didn't do anything wrong you are at the risk of the "banhammer" as they like to call it.
The population was not stable at all, and certainly isn't stable now. AION was a spike launch game with tons of subs early, then a steady and predictible decline. There was no steady growth in subs and it never plateaued out to steady or stable levels as you suggest.
You admitted several times you aren't playing anymore so how would you know if you're not in the game? When is the last time you checked the numbers on the servers from the official site breakdown? I'd wager its been months. Here, take a peek:
AION Server Statistics
If that were true there would be no need for merges. They didn't close half the servers because the population had somehow settled. They closed servers because the action on the ones that were opened slowed down to almost a crawl. Higher level 50s were bored (still are a lot of them) and the lower level people were getting trounced.
I'm not sure when you left, but I left pretty recently (sub is still active actually; cancelled but can still log in).
I have been in the newbie Poeta zone recently (made a new alt to bank goods when I moved to Zikel) and I can tell you this: there is NO activity in it at all. There are now more bots starting new toons than real people; just like at launch. The only people moving around in the 1-10/10-20 zones are twinks for the most part; bored 50s who are rerolling toons.
I did not bring up the "one server" theory you claim I did: he did:
To which I replied:
In my posts I was explaining why AION wouldn't allow things to go to one server, but that they'd shut this game down before it got to that stage. You are not reading these posts but skimming them, which is a bad habit to have.
I have no idea how on the one hand you claim the population is stable, yet acknowledging that it is losing players. Games don't merge servers because populations have been "stable for months", lol.
When a company is losing money/subs, they don't go "Well, compared to Game X we aren't losing as many so we'll keep it open." That's some crazy business thinking there, so who cares if it's not losing subs at the rate of any other MMO as you claim? (with nothing but opinion to back it up)
Now to clarify before you claim I'm wishing it or saying it: AION is far from dead. The game has an expansion that will bring SOME people back, but newer players won't flock to it; they are too far behind considering the expansion will raise the cap to 54 and are more than likely going to play other ones coming out.
For a new person trying to PvP in AION, that's at least 50 levels of pure hell vs players with a year's worth of advantage gear and kinah they'll never overcome.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Damn good points (and some of the others you made) that I liked reading.
Some people aren't able to tell the difference between a constructive, realistic discussion and a flaming comment about AION. They get pretty defensive about the game accusing people of wanting to shut it down and go to one server and such. Good to read some sober comments
One thing above I might disagree with you is I believe NCSoft already made its development money back on AION already. Why?
Because the game was originally released in the EAST in November 2008 to its primary market; asians. The game was well received and had been announcing its sales continually:
Aion leading sales for NCsoft
That link was from May 2009 which was long before the NA versions were even shipped and they announced "The company held a conference call to discuss their sales figures and revealed Aion has generated 42.65 billion Korean won (around $34.57 million).". Now look at the later release dates:
-- Japan: NCSoft released the game on July 17, 2009 in Japan under NCSoft Japan.
-- Taiwan: NCsoft began an open beta of Aion in Taiwan on June 7, 2009, and was released on July 21, 2009. v1.5 was released on October 21, 2009
-- Australia: NCsoft is distributing Aion in Australia through QV Software, and was released on September 22, 2009.
-- Europe: NCsoft released the final version of Aion in Europe on September 25, 2009.
-- North America: Aion was released in North America on September 22, 2009.
-- Russia: Aion open beta running since December 8, 2009
After the intial development, all they had to do for the most part was translation and some minor changes to each new market which couldn't have cost all that much. It wasn't like they had to re-invent the game each time; almost a copy/paste job so those later markets were 1) gravy and 2) cheap to open.
The 2.0 expansion is in the same boat; it's already been paid for pretty much by the Asian community to an extend and the aftersubs in the secondary market. Then figure in the box sales and subs from the first several months in each new market.. that was pretty huge.
I'm pretty confident that NCSoft has made most if not all, of their money back after all those new markets released so they could close NA, EU or anything and still rely on the asian market to keep the game going.
"TO MICHAEL!"
@popinjay: The reason they merged them now is because they were painfully late with them. People had been shouting for server merges 3months in, and it's now that they gave the players what they wanted.
The last time I played was yesterday, inactive accounts were activated this weekend to check out the 1.9 changes and server activity. Didn't really play newbie zones, just talked with some guildies, did a couple of dreds, and lagged out at a fortress siege. xD
I explained above why I'm claiming that it has 'somewhat' stabilized, albeit with a very slow decline, just like every single MMO except EvE for different factors including people getting bored, the shitty economy etc.
EDIT: Fixed the awful coloring! xD
OP: How to fix AION, in your opinion
Me: Turn off the servers
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Funny, I was just going to say something like that.
I once fixed my cat by cutting off its balls. Perhaps one could fix wow clones the same way. Kill their ability to reproduce.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
Did you face a premade in that Dredge? If so, how bad did you get pounded?
Lately after merges, it seems training is making a comeback as well. Not sure why but I guess AP is at a premium since every server is dominated by one faction or another with none having any type of balance at all.
But trust me, those noobie zones are empty. You don't see anyone in them which is a startling omen.
Given that the people you are supposed to see in Poeta are the players of tomorrow, it certainly doesn't look good for the future. Most 50s have at least 2 or 3 lowbie alts so any registered toon from 20 under probably has a ratio of 4:1 or higher of bank alts/storage toons to actual new players.
Having people come back for 2.0 is cool and all, but what any game really wants is new players to pick up several months of game time. Older players coming back after quitting an MMO usually don't stay longer than a month if you ask around.
Usually when people quit a mmo, they already know why they quit and sooner or later, those old feelings come back while they are playing and they quit again. 2.0 wouldn't have any appeal to a new player as it would be many months til they got to experience that content.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Well, I got pounded once vs premades and we had low levels with us, but second time I grouped up with a few guildies and steamrolled them lol. Sadly there's much less PvP in dred after the 1.9 changes.
Seriously they have got to do something about that, add in ranks or something 'cause a balanced dred happens like once in a blue moon, and faction imbalances overall is really bad on 90% of the servers. I'm curious to see how they'll go about in solving this.
Anyway, it's true that 2.0 won't bring back the peeps who hated the grind, or the ganking, or the very gear-based game play, but the old lvl50s who got bored after getting their gold sets and not having anything to do in the less than stellar "endgame" would have a good reason to resub, I think there's a sizeable portion of those. Having no serious MMO launching in the near future apart from possibly FFXIV (which is still far enough) will help in that.
Do you play on US servers? as far as I know the situation there is considerably worse than in Europe. Having said that, there are definitely less and less players getting the game thus the empty noob zones, but I think that's just part and parcel of level based games. I mean it has been a year, and really few updates (One) to shaken things up. Also not many players create alts except for maybe having them as banks or low level twinks 'cause there isn't enough content for 2 play-throughs, and it's boring and really long to do everything over again on another char.
Yeah the Dredge situation is really pretty bad, and sadly... right now thats where most of the PvP is. Everyone stops pretty much whatever they are doing when a Dredge pops its so predictable.. like welfare checks handed out and the line starts forming.
The real probblem with Dredge is that if you apply for it when you are eligible (46) you won't get ANY invites.. not even if youre a cleric. You are simply too low and too undergeared to last, take hits or do any dps. Unless you got your own team which probably would be made up of lower people as well, you're hitting the "Quick Entry" button all day and waiting. A LONG time. And once it starts and you look at the opposing team, you pretty much know youre gonna lose 9/10, so half the team goes AFK once you get beat two or three meetings. Going into Dredge at 46 v 50s geared is pretty much like going to the Abyss at 30. gg, lol.
I was on the Fregion server, and then got merged into Vaizel. That server is a complete mess on the Elyos side and they are just eating each other alive on the /LFG channel. It's not a happy place to be due to all the losing. To make matters worse, you have people with Asmos toons (nice move NCSoft!) adding to the spamchat goading people on.
I moved over to Zikel because I couldn't take the whining from the "hardcore pvpers" berating the casual "carebear" players over /LFG, or the casual players complaining about the ganking Asmos. Both sides have valid points, but it's just way too much QQ from both camps. (Although I think the E-thug pvpers cry more, despite what they say about the carebears, lol)
"TO MICHAEL!"
R.I.P
This game had huge potential but was mis-managed from the start.
Its too late IMO for them to fix it, but its not like they havent had many chances. Clearly they want their MMO to be a grinder and they will not change that and its likely NCWest has 0 control or say over any part of the game, they are just the messengers.
The games current biggest problem being server imbalance they cant fix unless they allow faction transfers. 4/5 servers are heavy Elyos and 1/5 is heavy Asmo which means they could maybe make 2 balanced servers out of that. There just arent enough Asmo players anymore to balance 5 servers. That is also their fault since they made everything much easier for Elyos over Asmo(I know I have 50's on both factions). In fact their server imbalance is so bad and they are so stuck on how to fix it this past week they came to the top 3 elyos guilds on Zikel and secretly asked them to transfer to Vaizel the only heavy Asmo server. These 3 guilds agreed and are now selling spots in their guilds to highest bidders to transfer off the server with them lol.
Popinjay you played Fregion? You ever heard of a legion named Sov? I lead their fort raids.. then i joined up with Rem who was the #1 legion on Fregion (more points then asmo #1 legion too.) And if im not mistaken are like #3 elyos legion on Vaziel now.. Maybe you know me? I Was a cleric named Hellfyre..
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
if they wanna have more subs in west, it's simple, listen the west costumer
we are not asian people that play 16 hours everyday, so low rate drop, expensive things and a lot of exp could be very bad for us
but i believe ncsoft doesn't matter out opinion :S
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I would like them to do one little thing that would improve my experiance, tone down the spell effects. In a full group with everyone attacking and casting I CANT SEE SHIT.
i find it funny that the op is only a lvl 23 cleric and already complaining about the grind.. like really?
anyways I didn't find the grind to bad in the game to be honest. I quit after 2 months and had a 45 sin.
Deal breakers for me were mostly pvp which is why I bought it.
Flight pvp was stupid, you can run away to easy and is just really annoying especially for melee.
Everyone is a pussy in this game, they either run away or only fight when its like 4v1. The dungeons in this game are sub par at best. Sieges are a terrible attempt at pvp mixing pve.
My 2 cents.