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Aion is NCSoft's MMO With a Pretty Face
Eurogamer has an interesting review of a game that you might not have even heard about amidst all the hype for other games coming out in the near future. NCSoft's Aion is taking a stab at dispelling the myth that MMOs can be either beautiful or gameplay-rich, but not both. "Best of all, most of Aion's splendor is achieved through rich color and fine art, rather than particle effects and polygons, meaning it shouldn't be as expensive to run as it looks. NCsoft appears to have thought of everything. That's just as well - if it's going to bridge the abyss between the Eastern and Western MMO, it will need to. The big question is whether Aion can be all things to all MMO players, and still retain a soul of its own. We'll find out when it's released early next year."
NCSoft's Aion is taking a stab at dispelling the myth that MMOs can be either beautiful or gameplay-rich, but not both.
Who ever thought that? I thought WoW was a very beautiful game (though not everybody liked the cartoony style) and the gameplay was very "rich." Where did this "myth" come from?
One of the main differences I have noticed between 'eastern' and 'western' MMOs is the control scheme. Many eastern ones feel as if they have the taboo that if you're using more than one hand to do EVERYTHING in the game, you're going to hell. However, western ones sometimes get the opposite problem in that every possible action is somehow mapped to a key on the keyboard... Lineage 2, fun as it is, drives me NUTS at times with all the clicking and few (if any) shortcut keys. Other games, like EQ2, you can have up to 3 action bars key mapped (1, Alt-1, Shift-1, I think) for any of them. While useful, if I change the bar layout for any reason, such as a new ability, I gotta rememorize where everything goes.
I want to try Aion, but I do not get much out of a game with a control scheme similar to Lineage 2's. While it does make smoking easier, the constant mouse movement makes playing more than 30 minutes painful. Does anyone know what type of control scheme Aion is looking at? I really loved the videos and want to love this game.
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From what I've seen, a bridge between Eastern and Western MMOs is going to be difficult. Eastern MMOs tend to reward hard work and perseverance, whereas western players tend to dislike excessive grind. Even the business models differ, with a lot of eastern MMOs being "free to play" but having a lot of in-game items that need to be purchased with real money. Western MMOs tend to have monthly fees, but discourage or outright ban using actual money in a way that influences gameplay.
I read the internet for the articles.
The only thing I dislike is that flight seems to be heavily limited, the ether system sounds to be designed to keep you on the ground. I just hope there still will be enough so you don't hold on it for rare short bursts.
After all, it appears to be the most distinguishable feature of the game. Class selection, combat, crafting and even visuals do not seem to stand out of other MMORPGs that much.
I think they mean something more along the lines of "between MMOs designed in the West and those designed in the East", rather than what people play there.
Probably the players are still... players, in all corners of the world. But there seem to be certain assumptions that some major designers make, which are culture related. And are as often wrong in the East as they are in the West.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Best of all, most of Aion's splendor is achieved through rich color and fine art, rather than particle effects and polygons, meaning it shouldn't be as expensive to run as it looks.
Seems to me, this is alot like the art direction that Guild Wars took. It relied on artwork for a lot of it's beauty, keeping the poly count fairly low. It certainly allowed it to run on a wide variety of PCs.
Of course, NCSoft was only the publisher of that game; Arenanet was the developing company. I wonder if this announcement might effect development of Guild Wars 2...
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I agree, the screenshots to this game look slightly better, but only slightly so, and that's the ones they've handpicked. Maybe they spent some more time on the design of things than usual, but I wasn't like "Wow, this is so much better looking than WOW or guild wars." I think what they actually mean is that it looks like final fantasy but plays like wow. It's never good when a new game tries to beat a dominant game at it's own game. All the "halo killers" turned out to suck (Resistance 1, looking right at you.) Zelda killers did too (dark cloud one). Why not make up something totally new? Worried you'll fall flat on your face? Guess what, you're going to do that anyway if you try to make another WOW.
I think a bigger myth that needs to be busted is that in order to make a successful MMO, it needs to be the same type of RPG as WOW. I haven't done an in-depth study, but it seems like developers either spend a lot of time and money on something that is a WOW clone, like this seems to be (a bit premature to call that, I realize) or they half ass it and it, predictably, goes nowhere. Gunz, a free over the shoulder shooting MMORPG seemed really interesting to me, then I find out it's basically broken, no one does anything but exploit gliches. You get what you pay for of course, but even the subscription based MMORPGs seem to either be WOW, WOW clones, or not worth your time.
Aion looks fabulous, so far. Flight looks amazing, and the world seems very polished. However, I've yet to play an Asian MMO that didn't bore me to tears through the use of grind, grind, and more grind. If what they mean by combining the East and West is that it avoids this mind-numbing grind that Asian MMOs seem to adore, I may give it a shot.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
It would be nice if they could make the female avatars look good without resorting to the usual skimpy outfits as they seem to have done. At least the eastern ones usually let you have cutsie avatars as well as overtly sexual ones, or even just normal looking ones.
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This will be the most interesting thing to see if they can overcome.
Eastern/Asian MMOs are, as a general rule, all similar. It's all about how many potions you can carry, what kind of timers they have, and how much range damage you can produce. Melee combat is a major afterthought, as they tend to serve no purpose in groups. And they often are the "free to play, with an item mall!" model. Ugh! The graphics are often very well done, though the female models all start to look the same after a while. Everyone and their brother has a merchant booth set up in the middle of town or in the pathways in/out of town. Dungeons tend to be few, so grouping is not necessary, except to power level through a zone.
Western MMOs tend to focus more on grouping, though solo play is supported. Potions are more of an afterthought, though some games like WoW have healing potions, just with much longer timers to keep it from being a potion-based healing system. Classes are more varied, and there are generally accepted rolls to fulfil. (Healer, tank, DPS, crowd control, etc.)
Personally, I can't stand most Eastern/Asian MMOs. There seems to be so little skill involved in most of them. It's all about carrying a lot of potions, and attacking the mob from range. I've never needed to group in any of the ones I've played, and I find item malls insulting. I'd rather see players earn stuff, and not just buy it. Ebay toons are bad enough, but at least they generally cost a lot more than buying some great weapon/armor piece with cash for a lot less. They all just feel like they are the same game, with slighly different land masses to run over until your bags are full or you run out of potions, then sell, and repeat.
NCSoft is not having the greatest of luck with its Eastern model MMOs, with Lineage II being the only possible exception here in North America. (CoH/V was done seperately, I believe.)
Vanguard is better than this - even in it's state now (it's a lot more playable than at launch, but still not what it could be.. lots of art assets in that 17GB not being used - new player models for better looks and better performance on the way).
Was the OP paid to submit this? Because those screenshots don't look as good as vanguard.
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