I've played games with poor populations. Aion isn't one of those! It's a solid game with a dedicated playerbase. Players can try Aion and be confident that they are playing a game that gets plenty of developer TLC and has more content on the way.
It actually has a very very active playerbase on its servers. The expansion gave western audiences exactly what they wanted. Leveling isn't much a grind anymore and that whole hit level 30 and you have to grind out levels on mobs because quests give like no xp is gone.
The problem was that the game was advertised as being a quest-grind game like WoW, or at least it was made to appear that way, thus all the people that flocked to the game in the hopes that it was WoW's shiny successor, or WoW's primary alternative (and there are ALOT of these people), tried it out for a month or 2 and inevitably quit: Game was never meant for them from the start. There was grinding, ganking, Eastern art style, game got more and more group-based the closer you got to 50, it's a nightmare for any WoW player.
All that coupled with the gold sellers and bots were too much for these players => you have the mass exodus that happened during the first couple of months, it weeded them out.
What happened after the population took a dip after the first couple of months? it continued to decrease but at an extremely slow rate for a few months then stabilized => late server merges.
Disregarding the fact that free tranfers messed up server balance, Aion has now 13 fully-packed servers if I'm not mistaken, and is still hovering between #7 and #10 on xfire, has been that way since after the population's strong decrease after the first couple of months.
the gold sellers and private shops everywhere, was what made me quit... the quest grinds only helped. See the problem was also in all the open beta's the level cap was low. And to be fair until you hit the mid level 20's, there are plenty of quests.... much more than you'd think. People just excpected that to be the case all the way through.
Those daev parts of armour, when i pointed out to get the full set for 30, you'd have to have so many characters at that and share them around...... people started realising. Then once i hit 34 one of the first on the servers to do so..... the repeat quests, crappy XP and poor system... started kicking in.
It was an asian grindfest, with gold sellers and shops everywhere.... no wonder people legged it ... the games no longer a 6-9 hour wait queue. it's their own fault. we warned them in open beta more quests were needed.
problem is, we don't have a western dev team (not really), all they do is change some things from the original version we get from the east.
i dunno, i wouldn't go back...... it's a beautiful looking game and some of the zones (although very contained) were fantastic to walk through (if linear and not explorable as you could only fly in certain areas yadda yadda).
just felt more a better version of guild wars than anything WoW was, or is. Brutal but honest.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
The problem was that the game was advertised as being a quest-grind game like WoW, or at least it was made to appear that way, thus all the people that flocked to the game in the hopes that it was WoW's shiny successor, or WoW's primary alternative (and there are ALOT of these people), tried it out for a month or 2 and inevitably quit: Game was never meant for them from the start. There was grinding, ganking, Eastern art style, game got more and more group-based the closer you got to 50, it's a nightmare for any WoW player.
All that coupled with the gold sellers and bots were too much for these players => you have the mass exodus that happened during the first couple of months, it weeded them out.
What happened after the population took a dip after the first couple of months? it continued to decrease but at an extremely slow rate for a few months then stabilized => late server merges.
Disregarding the fact that free tranfers messed up server balance, Aion has now 13 fully-packed servers if I'm not mistaken, and is still hovering between #7 and #10 on xfire, has been that way since after the population's strong decrease after the first couple of months.
the gold sellers and private shops everywhere, was what made me quit... the quest grinds only helped. See the problem was also in all the open beta's the level cap was low. And to be fair until you hit the mid level 20's, there are plenty of quests.... much more than you'd think. People just excpected that to be the case all the way through.
Those daev parts of armour, when i pointed out to get the full set for 30, you'd have to have so many characters at that and share them around...... people started realising. Then once i hit 34 one of the first on the servers to do so..... the repeat quests, crappy XP and poor system... started kicking in.
It was an asian grindfest, with gold sellers and shops everywhere.... no wonder people legged it ... the games no longer a 6-9 hour wait queue. it's their own fault. we warned them in open beta more quests were needed.
problem is, we don't have a western dev team (not really), all they do is change some things from the original version we get from the east.
i dunno, i wouldn't go back...... it's a beautiful looking game and some of the zones (although very contained) were fantastic to walk through (if linear and not explorable as you could only fly in certain areas yadda yadda).
just felt more a better version of guild wars than anything WoW was, or is. Brutal but honest.
The daevic armor quest isn't a required set of armor by any means. There are plenty of attainable alternatives out there. Forcing yourself into the mindset that Aion is requiring you to level multiple characters to 30 for a set of armor is a thought process you do not share with the entire community, pointing to the fact that that set of armor should be the result of having that many alternative characters because you enjoyed them, not forcing yourself to level to 30 five or six times to get the complete set because you think you need it to move on. And comparing Aion to an instanced, town-lobby game is pretty off in the scope of the game.
All I can say at this point is to all those out there who won't play Aion because they tried it and didn't like it, thanks for giving it a go, sorry you didn't like it, Atreia appreciated you stopping by. To those who tried the game a year ago and quit and are basing their opinions and assumptions off what is obviously dated gameplay and mechanics, go ahead and continue being oblivious to what has shaped up to be a decent little title.
The problem was that the game was advertised as being a quest-grind game like WoW, or at least it was made to appear that way, thus all the people that flocked to the game in the hopes that it was WoW's shiny successor, or WoW's primary alternative (and there are ALOT of these people), tried it out for a month or 2 and inevitably quit: Game was never meant for them from the start. There was grinding, ganking, Eastern art style, game got more and more group-based the closer you got to 50, it's a nightmare for any WoW player.
All that coupled with the gold sellers and bots were too much for these players => you have the mass exodus that happened during the first couple of months, it weeded them out.
What happened after the population took a dip after the first couple of months? it continued to decrease but at an extremely slow rate for a few months then stabilized => late server merges.
Disregarding the fact that free tranfers messed up server balance, Aion has now 13 fully-packed servers if I'm not mistaken, and is still hovering between #7 and #10 on xfire, has been that way since after the population's strong decrease after the first couple of months.
the gold sellers and private shops everywhere, was what made me quit... the quest grinds only helped. See the problem was also in all the open beta's the level cap was low. And to be fair until you hit the mid level 20's, there are plenty of quests.... much more than you'd think. People just excpected that to be the case all the way through.
Those daev parts of armour, when i pointed out to get the full set for 30, you'd have to have so many characters at that and share them around...... people started realising. Then once i hit 34 one of the first on the servers to do so..... the repeat quests, crappy XP and poor system... started kicking in.
It was an asian grindfest, with gold sellers and shops everywhere.... no wonder people legged it ... the games no longer a 6-9 hour wait queue. it's their own fault. we warned them in open beta more quests were needed.
problem is, we don't have a western dev team (not really), all they do is change some things from the original version we get from the east.
i dunno, i wouldn't go back...... it's a beautiful looking game and some of the zones (although very contained) were fantastic to walk through (if linear and not explorable as you could only fly in certain areas yadda yadda).
just felt more a better version of guild wars than anything WoW was, or is. Brutal but honest.
A few points :
-"the community relations team are comunicating all the time " . In first few months you had a total of three ( 3 ) GM's and they communicated through Twitter only . The GM for Europe only tweeted in German as well. So much for good communication ( with any triple A title you make damn sure the support system is in place prior to release , not NCsoft though ) . You had cases where there were unannounced server maintenances and we only got a german tweet about it .
- "bots and goldsellers " comments . At one point there were so many private shops of goldselling outfits they positively obscured quest NPC's in towns . You simply couldn't see those NPC's due to all the shops . There were bot trains in numerous zones . It took them months to first acknowledge the presence of those bots and goldsellers and then weeks again to address this . Obviously the main problem is the reason why those bots and goldsellers were present in the first place i.e. the grind .
- the game was marketed as a competitor to WoW ( anyone saying differently is falsifying facts ) while it doesn't even come close in terms of casual -friendliness.
- it was - and still is, to my knowledge - a straight Asian port ( it's translated but that's about it, the changes are marginal ) even though promises were made before,during and after beta they would adjust gameplay for western audiences .
If you reread my original post I clearly state the reasons why folks left and are unlikely to return ( whatever changes they might adopt ) . That isn't because the game wasn't improved upon- I'm sure it has improved - but because of severe lack of confidence in NCsoft's capability and wilingness to address player-concerns . When you lose credibility like they did after Aion launch in the west it's very hard - if not , impossible- to regain that trust . The only ones - sofar- who have pulled that off are AoC and DDO . And that took a tremendous effort .Given the reputation already in existence for NCsoft I'm doubting they can do that as well ( after the Tabula Rasa , Auto Assault debacle which already put a serious dent in their credibility ) . The long term problem for NCsoft is their lack of commitment to western markets . Sure they want to release Aion in the west but at minimal expense ( lacking support system,no dedicated western client etc. ) and the same goes for any of their other titles ( Lineage 2 is another good example ) originating in Asia .It also shows in them canceling a major western MMO after barely ONE year ( TR and to a lesser extent Auto Assault ) which we all know is ridiculous .If Blizzard had adopted the same policy they'd have pulled the plug on WoW after 12 months as well .
Well if you look at Xfire, Aion is clocking alot more hours than all the nay-sayers seem to think. In fact it clocks more than double than Guildwars and EVE and almost 4 times more than AoC/WAR.
So i don't know if there's something fishy with the stats on Xfire, but Aion is the 2nd most played MMO on there, and it's not a "close" 2nd, it's significantly ahead of 3rd ...
Majority of people who posted negative in thsi post you can tell havent played in months. The 1.9 patch basically (wowized) the game. It has no hard leveling curve anymore air pvp does still favor range or the fast. But thier was things put in place to balance that people just too carebear to learn how. Then they came in forums complained because it was too hard. All games are not meant to be hello kitty pvp. I see people complain in the same manner in conan and gw1. In fact wow the main reason for so many pvp qqers. Has stated their own pvp was inferior and needed revamp.
I love how a lot of Aion players seem to think that it is a hardcore PvP game, nothing could be further from the truth. You lose nothing but Abyss Points when you die in PvP, not like Darkfall or EVE where you lose pretty much everything. Also, the best way of building AP in Aion is PvE! God forbid you actually go and PvP for it.
Aye, Aion really is hardcore PvP...
MMORPG History: Playing - EVE Online. Played (Retired) - AO, SWG, MxO, WoW, RFO, SoR, CoX, EQ2, GW, L2, Vanguard, LotRO, AoC, TCoS, Aion. Favourite MMO - Pre-CU SWG, 3 Years, 4 Accounts, 2 Pre-CU Jedi (1 Pre-9). Awaiting - Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Earthrise.
Majority of people who posted negative in thsi post you can tell havent played in months. The 1.9 patch basically (wowized) the game. It has no hard leveling curve anymore air pvp does still favor range or the fast. But thier was things put in place to balance that people just too carebear to learn how. Then they came in forums complained because it was too hard. All games are not meant to be hello kitty pvp. I see people complain in the same manner in conan and gw1. In fact wow the main reason for so many pvp qqers. Has stated their own pvp was inferior and needed revamp.
I love how a lot of Aion players seem to think that it is a hardcore PvP game, nothing could be further from the truth. You lose nothing but Abyss Points when you die in PvP, not like Darkfall or EVE where you lose pretty much everything. Also, the best way of building AP in Aion is PvE! God forbid you actually go and PvP for it.
Aye, Aion really is hardcore PvP...
A fluffy pet system does not signify "hardcore pvp" to me. That is clearly aimed at the more casual types. So while Aion have alot of Warhammer like "open pvp" in place, it's still very much as "friendly" as WoW. ...this is not a bad thing imho. Hardcore PvP games are always reduced to a niche market, if you remotely want to cater for a broader market you can't do so with "full loot" and "no area is safe" rules.
A whole bunch of people I Never met before (but knew some of my guildies who tried out Aion) all quit at the same time thanks to some HUGE faction inbalances where one side was camping the "port in" thingy because the other side had so few people all day every day, all quit Aion. They knew server merges were coming and everything, but just kept saying how it was way to little way to late.
It's great that they merged their servers so there is enough on each side now (I hope). But I will call whoever said that War has 250-350 players tops during prime time totally wrong. There is easily that many people just in the pvp lakes in that are 40. That doesn't include in cities, doing SCs, doing PvE, or whatever. Nor does that include any of the lower level players. Is there more people playing War than Aion? I doubt it. But the way Aion has been bleeding subs, I doubt it will be long before that happens.
Highly acclaimed flight mechanic.....you mean the one in which melee can't be involved in still to this day. Highly acclaimed is a bit of an overstatement.
In my experience the flight mechanic is one of the worst of any games that have flight. Advertising that the game has flight when it is so limited is a bit ridiculous.
Nice update, keeps trying to repair itself and fails. Another minus, the updater is buggy. Now I have to reload from disk I guess.
Well if you look at Xfire, Aion is clocking alot more hours than all the nay-sayers seem to think. In fact it clocks more than double than Guildwars and EVE and almost 4 times more than AoC/WAR.
So i don't know if there's something fishy with the stats on Xfire, but Aion is the 2nd most played MMO on there, and it's not a "close" 2nd, it's significantly ahead of 3rd ...
How many MMO players use Xfire? Answer is not many. Something the FPS crowd uses, has no real meaning to a MMO player. You will find that a lot of the younger people use it too, hence Xfire numbers are meaningless unless you are primarily looking at a particular market segment for the younger players.
A whole bunch of people I Never met before (but knew some of my guildies who tried out Aion) all quit at the same time thanks to some HUGE faction inbalances where one side was camping the "port in" thingy because the other side had so few people all day every day, all quit Aion. They knew server merges were coming and everything, but just kept saying how it was way to little way to late.
It's great that they merged their servers so there is enough on each side now (I hope). But I will call whoever said that War has 250-350 players tops during prime time totally wrong. There is easily that many people just in the pvp lakes in that are 40. That doesn't include in cities, doing SCs, doing PvE, or whatever. Nor does that include any of the lower level players. Is there more people playing War than Aion? I doubt it. But the way Aion has been bleeding subs, I doubt it will be long before that happens.
well since you don't play the game, and from what I can see during the prime time, you are pulling number out of your a**, and really if you don't like the game is ok but at least complain about real things, you don't need to lie about it just because you don't like the game
Comments
I've played games with poor populations. Aion isn't one of those! It's a solid game with a dedicated playerbase. Players can try Aion and be confident that they are playing a game that gets plenty of developer TLC and has more content on the way.
It actually has a very very active playerbase on its servers. The expansion gave western audiences exactly what they wanted. Leveling isn't much a grind anymore and that whole hit level 30 and you have to grind out levels on mobs because quests give like no xp is gone.
the gold sellers and private shops everywhere, was what made me quit... the quest grinds only helped. See the problem was also in all the open beta's the level cap was low. And to be fair until you hit the mid level 20's, there are plenty of quests.... much more than you'd think. People just excpected that to be the case all the way through.
Those daev parts of armour, when i pointed out to get the full set for 30, you'd have to have so many characters at that and share them around...... people started realising. Then once i hit 34 one of the first on the servers to do so..... the repeat quests, crappy XP and poor system... started kicking in.
It was an asian grindfest, with gold sellers and shops everywhere.... no wonder people legged it ... the games no longer a 6-9 hour wait queue. it's their own fault. we warned them in open beta more quests were needed.
problem is, we don't have a western dev team (not really), all they do is change some things from the original version we get from the east.
i dunno, i wouldn't go back...... it's a beautiful looking game and some of the zones (although very contained) were fantastic to walk through (if linear and not explorable as you could only fly in certain areas yadda yadda).
just felt more a better version of guild wars than anything WoW was, or is. Brutal but honest.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
im not suprised ppl are leaving Aion, with all the high pop p servers out there.
There are a ton of western players its just nothing compared the massive eastern audience
The daevic armor quest isn't a required set of armor by any means. There are plenty of attainable alternatives out there. Forcing yourself into the mindset that Aion is requiring you to level multiple characters to 30 for a set of armor is a thought process you do not share with the entire community, pointing to the fact that that set of armor should be the result of having that many alternative characters because you enjoyed them, not forcing yourself to level to 30 five or six times to get the complete set because you think you need it to move on. And comparing Aion to an instanced, town-lobby game is pretty off in the scope of the game.
All I can say at this point is to all those out there who won't play Aion because they tried it and didn't like it, thanks for giving it a go, sorry you didn't like it, Atreia appreciated you stopping by. To those who tried the game a year ago and quit and are basing their opinions and assumptions off what is obviously dated gameplay and mechanics, go ahead and continue being oblivious to what has shaped up to be a decent little title.
A few points :
-"the community relations team are comunicating all the time " . In first few months you had a total of three ( 3 ) GM's and they communicated through Twitter only . The GM for Europe only tweeted in German as well. So much for good communication ( with any triple A title you make damn sure the support system is in place prior to release , not NCsoft though ) . You had cases where there were unannounced server maintenances and we only got a german tweet about it .
- "bots and goldsellers " comments . At one point there were so many private shops of goldselling outfits they positively obscured quest NPC's in towns . You simply couldn't see those NPC's due to all the shops . There were bot trains in numerous zones . It took them months to first acknowledge the presence of those bots and goldsellers and then weeks again to address this . Obviously the main problem is the reason why those bots and goldsellers were present in the first place i.e. the grind .
- the game was marketed as a competitor to WoW ( anyone saying differently is falsifying facts ) while it doesn't even come close in terms of casual -friendliness.
- it was - and still is, to my knowledge - a straight Asian port ( it's translated but that's about it, the changes are marginal ) even though promises were made before,during and after beta they would adjust gameplay for western audiences .
If you reread my original post I clearly state the reasons why folks left and are unlikely to return ( whatever changes they might adopt ) . That isn't because the game wasn't improved upon- I'm sure it has improved - but because of severe lack of confidence in NCsoft's capability and wilingness to address player-concerns . When you lose credibility like they did after Aion launch in the west it's very hard - if not , impossible- to regain that trust . The only ones - sofar- who have pulled that off are AoC and DDO . And that took a tremendous effort .Given the reputation already in existence for NCsoft I'm doubting they can do that as well ( after the Tabula Rasa , Auto Assault debacle which already put a serious dent in their credibility ) . The long term problem for NCsoft is their lack of commitment to western markets . Sure they want to release Aion in the west but at minimal expense ( lacking support system,no dedicated western client etc. ) and the same goes for any of their other titles ( Lineage 2 is another good example ) originating in Asia .It also shows in them canceling a major western MMO after barely ONE year ( TR and to a lesser extent Auto Assault ) which we all know is ridiculous .If Blizzard had adopted the same policy they'd have pulled the plug on WoW after 12 months as well .
Well if you look at Xfire, Aion is clocking alot more hours than all the nay-sayers seem to think. In fact it clocks more than double than Guildwars and EVE and almost 4 times more than AoC/WAR.
So i don't know if there's something fishy with the stats on Xfire, but Aion is the 2nd most played MMO on there, and it's not a "close" 2nd, it's significantly ahead of 3rd ...
MMORPG History:
Playing - EVE Online.
Played (Retired) - AO, SWG, MxO, WoW, RFO, SoR, CoX, EQ2, GW, L2, Vanguard, LotRO, AoC, TCoS, Aion.
Favourite MMO - Pre-CU SWG, 3 Years, 4 Accounts, 2 Pre-CU Jedi (1 Pre-9).
Awaiting - Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Earthrise.
A fluffy pet system does not signify "hardcore pvp" to me. That is clearly aimed at the more casual types. So while Aion have alot of Warhammer like "open pvp" in place, it's still very much as "friendly" as WoW. ...this is not a bad thing imho. Hardcore PvP games are always reduced to a niche market, if you remotely want to cater for a broader market you can't do so with "full loot" and "no area is safe" rules.
A whole bunch of people I Never met before (but knew some of my guildies who tried out Aion) all quit at the same time thanks to some HUGE faction inbalances where one side was camping the "port in" thingy because the other side had so few people all day every day, all quit Aion. They knew server merges were coming and everything, but just kept saying how it was way to little way to late.
It's great that they merged their servers so there is enough on each side now (I hope). But I will call whoever said that War has 250-350 players tops during prime time totally wrong. There is easily that many people just in the pvp lakes in that are 40. That doesn't include in cities, doing SCs, doing PvE, or whatever. Nor does that include any of the lower level players. Is there more people playing War than Aion? I doubt it. But the way Aion has been bleeding subs, I doubt it will be long before that happens.
In my experience the flight mechanic is one of the worst of any games that have flight. Advertising that the game has flight when it is so limited is a bit ridiculous.
Nice update, keeps trying to repair itself and fails. Another minus, the updater is buggy. Now I have to reload from disk I guess.
How many MMO players use Xfire? Answer is not many. Something the FPS crowd uses, has no real meaning to a MMO player. You will find that a lot of the younger people use it too, hence Xfire numbers are meaningless unless you are primarily looking at a particular market segment for the younger players.
well since you don't play the game, and from what I can see during the prime time, you are pulling number out of your a**, and really if you don't like the game is ok but at least complain about real things, you don't need to lie about it just because you don't like the game