Aion Shaping Up For US Launch

One of the most promising MMORPGs in development these days is NCSoft's Aion, a fantasy-based offering built on CryEngine. It makes heavy use of flight as a gameplay mechanic, allowing aerial combat and easy travel around the visually stunning game world. There are four basic classes — Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Scout — each of which have two subclasses. For example, Warriors can be tank-like Templars, or berserker-like Gladiators, while Mages can turn into a scholarly Sorcerer or command the elements as a Spiritmaster. Early previews of Aion almost universally comment on how polished the game seems — this is partly due to the fact that it has been up and running since November in South Korea. "Being stable, scalable, reliable and fuss-free is far from a given in MMOs, but Aion is all those things, and can already stand alongside the genre's usability kings, EVE Online and World of Warcraft. Its expansive, zone-free open-world environments look terrific and run smoothly on a wide variety of systems. It just works." Since the game is already in a relatively complete state, NCSoft has been running closed beta "events," where a portion of the game is opened for testing. MMOGamer has a write-up from the latest such event. Aion is due out in September.

Comments

Aion.

[StickansT]

Its a very beautiful game but does any one not thing it is going to keep up with EVE and or WoW?

Re:Aion.

[StickansT]

thing

think*

Re:Aion.

[oneirophrenos]

Very beautiful? You'd think a game powered by CryEngine would produce scenes far more beautiful than what the video shows. WoW doesn't even lose to those graphics, IMHO.

Re:Aion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, there's no WoW in China at the moment, they've been really pushing it there and it seems to pay off.

Re:Aion.

[poetmatt]

For an asian game, it's definitely raising the bar on visual and gameplay quality. That doesn't mean it's a leader.

As far as having a lasting impact vs Eve and Warcraft, no, it doesn't. Not even on the heels of Warhammer. People in the beta have said the game has no more potential as an endgame than wow does except that the game isn't that polished endgame wise yet.

Re:Aion.

[Tridus]

The video doesn't do it justice. I play WoW on its maxed out settings and played the last beta Aion event. Aion looks a whole lot better.

I don't think it plays particularly better, but I didn't get that far into it.

Re:Aion.

[pixelpusher220]

as a long time WoW player and mostly casual player at that...WoW is going to go quietly into the night. Not from this or any other game, but from itself. It probably has 1 maybe 2 more expansions left before it's all pretty much done.

Once the top levels reach 100, we're going to have > +500 stat bonuses for plain blue items! Just starts to border on ridiculousness to me.

unless Blizz can find some way to resolve the inherent inflation in game stats with every expansion, some things will be interesting but more and more it will be just a rehash of past instances and game play. Wintergrasp was an interesting expansion of BG's but by itself wouldn't be enough to keep me interested.

Re:Aion.

[Fozzyuw]

For an asian game, it's definitely raising the bar on visual and gameplay quality.

Hmm... the graphics look a lot like every other Korean MMO. This photo-realistic anime-esque like art style, akin to Final Fantasy art. I personally think that's "good thing"(tm) since I like that art style, and it's certainly a good thing because it's semi-fresh to the "western" market. Though, Sword of the New World and other MMO's that have penetrated the Western market have just as beautiful and similar art styles and very good animation to boot. It's not all just beautiful backgrounds, like LotRO is.

Gameplay? I've not heard anything about the gameplay yet. I'm still waiting for the next beta, since I just missed the last one. But I'm going to be very skeptical about it being anything close to WoW's gameplay. Regardless of how "cool" it looks and seems, how it plays is an entirely different ballgame. I would like to hear how "casual" friend it is compared to WoW. Korean MMO's are notorious for grind-mills and micro-transactions. This one claims to be more "western" friendly with tons of quests and such, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

Regardless, I'm looking forward too it. But I also scoff at the system requirements. The summary makes is sounds like it's as requirement friendly as WoW, but that's hardly the case when you look at the system requirements. I looks like my rig will be making the near minimum. Admittedly, my computer is a couple years old, but pure gaming machine.

Re:Aion.

[poetmatt]

I was a wow player (hardcore on us dark iron before I swapped servers and later quit), tried aion, tried warhammer, playing eve, tried almost every mmo under the sun including free asian ones, sco (not the company), flyff, shattered galaxy, planetside, lineage, atlantica, a wide gamut of styles. The only major mmo ones I skipped were D&D online and hardcore EQ1.

I agree that wow is heading to burnout. With that to say, the word I intend to add is "thankfully". The game was a game-changer at first, but now it's just gimmick. I wonder how much activision had to do with that.

Re:Aion.

[Anonymous Coward]

as a long time WoW player and mostly casual player at that...WoW is going to go quietly into the night. Not from this or any other game, but from itself. It probably has 1 maybe 2 more expansions left before it's all pretty much done.

Once the top levels reach 100, we're going to have > +500 stat bonuses for plain blue items! Just starts to border on ridiculousness to me.

unless Blizz can find some way to resolve the inherent inflation in game stats with every expansion, some things will be interesting but more and more it will be just a rehash of past instances and game play. Wintergrasp was an interesting expansion of BG's but by itself wouldn't be enough to keep me interested.

Pixelpusher, you EXACTLY read my mind regarding WoW. The silly amount of stat bonuses that Blizzard has been adding to items only showed that they had NO plan for the future of the franchise, hence the need to keep adding 10 levels to every expansion. Dark Age of Camelot was out for years without ever needing to increase the max level (in addition to other MMO's)

Re:Aion.

[0xdeadbeef]

WoW is going to go quietly into the night.

No, it will have two more expansions (80-90, 90-100), and end with the death of Sargeras.

The marketing for their new MMORPG will begin in earnest right around the time the raiding guilds can kill him.

Blizz loves milking their cash cows, but they also understand how to keep their audience clamoring for more.

Re:Aion.

[Anonymous Coward]

My (admittedly very limited) experience is that it's about where WoW was at release, in terms of gameplay. That is, there are a lot of quests where you have to kill mob X, say a Fluffy Bunny. Fluffy Bunnies spawn amidst Scruffy Bunnies and Floppy Bunnies, but only the fluffy ones count. Once you run back to the quest giver to turn it in, you'll get a second quest to go back and kill the scruffy ones. Rinse and repeat for the floppy bunnies.

WoW's been pretty good about eliminating this kind of needless tedium in newer content and having quests that guide the player through the content sanely, instead of having you run back and forth like a madman. My impression of Aion is that they haven't learned anything from improvements in MMO design over the past 5 or so years. I don't see it having much appeal outside of the initial newness and shiny graphics, but YMMV.

Re:Aion.

[poetmatt]

I really only meant with PVP as far as gameplay, sorry I definitely didn't make that clear. Outside of that, it's basically lineage with newer graphics. Many people have indeed said the animations are impressive but I didn't pay much attention.

Re:Aion.

[Knara]

Korean MMO's are notorious for grind-mills and micro-transactions. This one claims to be more "western" friendly with tons of quests and such, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

I have been told by little birds that it is still pretty damn grindy, in spite of the claims to the contrary.

Re:Aion.

[pixelpusher220]

um, I specifically said 1-2 more expansions in the rest of that paragraph ;-) and quoted level 100 lol

What part were you disagreeing with again?

Re:Aion.

[k_187]

I agree that wow is heading to burnout. With that to say, the word I intend to add is "thankfully". The game was a game-changer at first, but now it's just gimmick. I wonder how much activision had to do with that.

Nothing, since WotLK was announced and probably half done before the merger occured?

Re:Aion.

[Blakey Rat]

I gave up when I logged in after the last expansion and saw Tauren riding around in motorcycles. Ugh. (And it doesn't help that, as mentioned in many of the posts here, WOW is *really* starting to look like ass. Actually it was released looking bad, but now it's simply ridiculous.)

Re:Aion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.
Overall, the graphics seem very bland. Poorly integrated environment models, low-rez textures stretched over huge structures, a very unconvincing paint-by-numbers look instead of the usual layer-upon-layer of textures, and so on and so forth. It doesn't even look like they're using shaders or even, hell, bump mapping.

It looks like they licenced the CryEngine and then forgot to use it for anything more complex than what FPS engines were doing 5+ years ago. Hell, Far Cry was much better looking than that, and it was basically a tech demo for the previous generation of engines.

Re:Aion.

[vix86]

I've thought the same thing about WoW as well. In the current expansion you can see it already happening. Items from Ulduar already have >+100 stats. In BC this didn't happen until Sunwell or so.

My theory is that blizz will rework the game mechanics again, possibly for the next expansion. So far the track record has held that Blizz likes to introduce something new in each expansion that will cause people to have to regear. In Vanilla -> BC they introduced the rating system and emphasized things like +hit, which caused people to have to regear completely. In BC -> Wrath we've seen, or at least initially we saw, an emphasis placed on the need for +spirit in casters (I'm sure melee had some stat they emphasized as well). Resillence also became an important part of PvP, compared to BC (You need resil or you die in PvP 9 times out of 10, no ifs ands or buts about it.) So I wouldn't be surprised to see Blizz rework the mechanics once more so that there isn't stat inflation.

For the rest of your post I concur. Blizz is falling into the rehash mentality. Each new expansion will provide a burst of new content but the rest of the lifetime of the expansion will pretty much be populated with reuses of other content (look at armour, weapons, and mounts, its all the SAME but with a few minor changes). I don't think Blizz really cares though. In fact, I think Blizz is banking on WoW dieing out here in the future and then having all the player base move to their new MMO they are making so they can restart the cycle all over again. They're even hoping that all those that have quited will return to the new MMO. I'm sure they only need a few million people to sign up and play for a few months in order to recoup production costs.

Re:Aion.

[brkello]

Eve and WoW are not even in the same category. Putting them together like that is probably causing kittens to explode somewhere.

Re:Aion.

[Ihmhi]

If World of Warcraft ever fizzles out, they probably have a backup plan already in place.

I'm guessing that they're working on a World of Warcraft 2. A bigger, better engine that looks better and can do more. If 1 ever fizzles out, they'll wait a little while and bring out 2.

Re:Aion.

[Cimexus]

I am a Aion beta-tester and have also played retail Lineage II (Hindemith/Phoenix) for the last five years. Whether your little birdies are correct or not depends on your definition of grindy and your past MMOs, I guess.

Aion's grind is nowhere, nowhere near that of Lineage IIs or other similar Korean MMOs. In Lineage II, if you don't cheat/bot and you play, say a couple of hours a day, it will take you a couple of years to reach level 80+ (especially if you choose to subclass) and you probably will never reach the actual level cap of 85. At levels of 79 and higher in L2, you'd be lucky to get one quarter of one percent (0.25%) of a level per hour, in a good party. Often much less (notwithstanding the vitality system that is pretty meaningless at those levels anyway).

On the other hand, you can reach the current level cap in Aion (which is an admittedly low 45) in a few of weeks of casual play. Now of course one would expect future expansions to raise the cap, but the point is, you certainly couldn't reach the level cap that L2 had at its launch (75) in a few weeks. In fact, it was almost a year before the first level 75s started appearing (not counting bots).

Having said all that, Aion IS certainly considerably more grindy than WoW (but then again, WoW's grind is much easier than most/all other MMOs). It's a comfortable middle ground between say Lineage and WoW, but closer to WoW than Lineage still I'd say.

Aion is NC's big attempt at bridging the gap between eastern MMOs (grindy, not very story-focused, hard to get gear but rewarding when you do, tough death and PvP penalties) and western MMOs (easier to level up and gain gear, but generally a much richer story and a greater variety of quests and other 'side' content outside of actually killing monsters). I think they've hit upon a pretty good mix and will further tweak it as beta testing continues. It has amazingly detailed character artwork ... it's simply wonderful and you can customise exactly how your character looks which should stop the cookie-cutter look of characters that has plagued other NC games like Lineage. The environments are not as spectacular as you might expect for the CryEngine, but one has to consider that it's an MMO, and besides I'd rather spend polygons on NPCs and characters than on environment (plus the environment still looks pretty good to me). Animations are also very well done ... the Koreans really know how to get the art and design aspects of things done well.

It's well worth a look if you think WoW is too easy or you think Lineage is too hard. Aion attempts to take the best of both. Its big shortcoming at the moment is lack of end-game content, but that's normal for the launch release of NCSoft titles (they tend to make sure the low level stuff is in there, launch, and 'finish' the rest of with updates and patches a few months later. For instance, L2 launched without its main feature, castle seiges, even existing yet ... it was added in the first main update ... but this was OK since there's no point in adding the end game content until there are enough players of a high enough level to use it.

Re:Aion.

[sortius_nod]

I don't know about that one. WoW's graphics are so dated that I was running WoW maxed out and it didn't skip a beat.

Meanwhile, other games such as LOTRO and even AoC look great. I'd say Aion is closer to these games as far as graphical quality. I've been following the development of this game for some time, and the videos don't really seem to do it justice. Check out some screenshots and you'll change your mind.

Also, your opinion isn't humble, it's more of a forceful opinion. You're stating that a game that hasn't been released and you've only seen a low quality video of is of lesser quality than an already established MMO. Nothing humble about that.

Re:Aion.

[GuyWithLag]

Current speculative thinking is that all the lead designers from WoW have been pulled to work on their next MMO, hence the changing of the game by the current lead developers.

Remember, even Blizzard was surprised at the success WoW had, and they certainly didn't expect to keep working on it for so long.

Re:Aion.

[Fozzyuw]

I really only meant with PVP as far as gameplay, sorry I definitely didn't make that clear.

All good. But I would have to ask what's interesting about the PvP? It sounds pretty much like DAoC to me, PvPvE. I think the graphics (beautiful) and flying are the big ticket gimmicks to play this game. I guess I could say the lore/world is fairly cool too. How cool is an "apple core" world? hehe.

Watched the video

[Anonymous Coward]

First it made me yawn... then it made me almost throw up. Throw up, because it looked like World of Warcraft and everything was dark and gloomy like most of Wrath of the Lich King.

Just for that reason alone, I wouldn't touch that game even if *they* paid me $1000 per month.

What were they thinking? Just copy WoW and we'll have a cash cow?

Re:Watched the video

[gubers33]

Honestly, doesn't really look too much like WoW. It is a fantasty MMORPG so you can draw comparisons quiet easily, but in terms of the graphics and what they they aren't overwhelmingly a like. And there is a light and a dark gloomy side of the the game depending on which you choose to be a part of, read the synopsis, so you can at least post semi educated. I'll agree that the inventory and health gauges and windows are nearly mirror images, but so many other MMORPGs have the same dashboard making it hard to criticize. I don't play WoW anymore and have no intention to purchase or play this game, but any Fantasy MMORPG is going to draw comparison with WoW, but none will be able to beat it. Someone needs to find a new niche market to exploit in MMORPGs.

Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the presence of a rootkit that makes SecuRom look like unicorn dander and faery farts, I'll pass, thanks.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Selfbain]

This is what he's referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameGuard

After reading that, there's no way I'd install Aion.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[mail2345]

*Looks at the wikipedia entry*:
Hides the process, monitors the memory for stuff, blocks calls to Direct X and the Windows API, places hooks into dlls , sometimes breaks in Win7, breaks Google Chrome, SpeedFan, Eclispe, various drivers, Steam, anti-rootkits(but that was expected). Oh, and a security problem to top it all off.
The bright side is that Aion works on Win7.
And I expected something this bad to come from EA first.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... it's a great game except that it's NCsoft. Gameguard is in all NCsoft games... and that isn't the only bad thing about NCsoft heh.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Tei]

I have AION, and none of these problems.

Also, Botting is a social problem, not a tecnical one, so sould be stoped by Game Masters, not by a rootkit program. So I think this gameguard is stupid. But again... I have AION, and nothing has stoped to w|

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[electrosoccertux]

*Looks at the wikipedia entry*:

Hides the process, monitors the memory for stuff, blocks calls to Direct X and the Windows API, places hooks into dlls , sometimes breaks in Win7, breaks Google Chrome, SpeedFan, Eclispe, various drivers, Steam, anti-rootkits(but that was expected). Oh, and a security problem to top it all off.

The bright side is that Aion works on Win7.

And I expected something this bad to come from EA first.

Confused-- why would they need DRM for an online subscription game?

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[S77IM]

Holy crap, that shit should be illegal.

I was going to try out Exteel and now I am glad I didn't. Slashvertisement Fail.

    -- 77IM

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Fozzyuw]

Huh, nProtect will terminate applications IT determines IT doesn't want to run on MY computer? WTF? I don't mind it blocking DirectX calls, I want things to go back to OpenGL. =P But seriously, this give me pause, and I'll have to reconsider playing this game.

I hope that SWTOR doesn't do things this drastic, because I'm really looking forward to that game.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[S77IM]

It's not DRM -- it's anti-cheating software. So if you are running some sort of scripting or bot program, this thing scans your memory, identifies that program, and kills it. It periodically downloads new identifications for new types of cheat programs.

I understand their goals (nobody likes cheaters), but I don't see how this differs in substance from giving full control of your computer over to INCA Internet. I guess that's no different than handing over the keys to Microsoft, and to Nod32 or AVG or whoever does your antivirus -- except that an operating system and antivirus software are supposed to benefit you, while this thing...?

  -- 77IM

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Endo13]

Great. And I just recently downloaded and installed Chronicles of Spellborn. Wish I'd seen this a few weeks ago.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Endo13]

No it's not. Neither CoH/V nor Guild Wars uses it.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[mhauer]

Thanks to GameGuard I struggled for almost a week trying to beta test Huxley, without success. Several people were having the same problem and we got no help from the official forums. I uninstalled the whole mess and never looked back.

Knowing that Aion will use the same PoS makes me file it under "Don't waste your time".

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Chris Burke]

Given the presence of a rootkit that makes SecuRom look like unicorn dander and faery farts, I'll pass, thanks.

Okay but I'm allergic to both those things (and many other fey creature emnations).

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[WarlockD]

Yea GameGuard is crap. I am using Windows RC x64 and it HATES it. I had to download some cracked gamegard files so it could run update itself properly THEN it works. I am not agents anti-cheat measures, but if its not even working right on a clean install then how the heck are you going to keep up with the cheaters?

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[54mc]

It's not DRM -- it's anti-cheating software. So if you are running some sort of scripting or bot program, this thing scans your memory, identifies that program, and kills it. It periodically downloads new identifications for new types of cheat programs.

-- 77IM

Ya, but look at the other things it's blocking, including things that range of useful (xpadder) to downright necessary (the driver for my Razer)

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Kingrames]

Well, it's kinda like putting on some padding, arming yourself with a paintball gun, and heading to a paintball-oriented indoor environment, and expecting the security there to not allow real firearms into the building.

I mean sure, it's kinda risky trusting those guys with all your security concerns, but you have to take some measures to protect the game from hostile outside influence.

That being said, Gameguard does suck. It wont run at all in win xp pro x64 edition, and that's prevented me from participating and contributing to the Huxley beta, which also uses it. How crazy is it that unsupported versions of windows are so bad they can't even run rootkits?

Rumors also persist that games that run Gameguard are more vulnerable to cheaters than other anti-cheating software like punkbuster. Take from that what you will.

But saying that this software is innately bad is a fallacy. Sometimes the only solution to a problem is a temporary, though inefficient and 'bad' one.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[VoltageX]

Then use fucking Punkbuster. Or sleep with Valve and use VAC. Don't crap on my machine just because you can't work out how to prevent cheating.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[MWoody]

Well, thank you sir. That quite nicely explains why installing Aion brought my brothers' computer to its knees a week ago, forcing a reformat. We'd thought it an unrelated issue, but more research reveals the culprit is that shitty WoW clone, which he'd only installed to placate an online friend.

If you can't handle botting or cheating on the server end - be it via technical or design means - then you fail. Don't shovel a watchdog off on the client because your design team are too lazy to plug holes.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[ifrag]

Um no, Punkbuster is shit. Just take a look at the support forums for Quake Live. In my experience, Quake Live lasted no longer than 15 seconds per session without PB exploding. Maybe (*maybe*) use VAC, as I have not had nearly as many issues with it.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[xemit]

I've played a couple of games that utilized Gameguard. My favorite thing it did was disabling my keyboard because it was a usb. There's a huge community dedicated to bypassing it so that exploits can be run in the games it's supposed to detect.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Anonymous Coward]

You would expect so, since EA is the most anti-customer American game company. But this game comes from NCSoft, a Korean (South? probably) company, same one that runs City of Heroes and a few other games. The Asians with their attitude toward authority (trust and obey it unquestioningly) have Americans beat hands down on this score. The companies there can implement uber-draconian DRM and the populace will not even make a peep of protest, because they are used to compliance. Heck, the government in South Korea doesn't have to control the people; the people control and report each other out of fear.

So all that to say, this is very normal for Asian games, and you can expect to see this issue come up again and again as games go global.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, hi, people. World of Warcraft? Warden? More or less the same thing. I don't see you guys shitting yourselves over that.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are probably all cheaters, and I wouldn't want you to play Aion anyways.

back in my day...

[Em Emalb]

Back in my day, we didn't even have days. We just had nights, we were too poor to afford days. Heck, sometimes we could barely afford to pay attention.

What was I saying? Oh yeah. Back in my day, we had nights. Not days. But we liked it that way. And we didn't have no fancy-schmanzy graphics for our video games. In fact, we didn't even have screens. We had dirt and sticks and used our imagination. But it was damned hard to do, sonny-Jim, cause it was always night...cause we couldn't afford to pay for daylight. Well, I do remember we got daylight twice back in Naught three, but that's cause Al Gore's dad, you might remember him, built a name for himself in the Lincoln Log industry, anyway, ole Pappy Gore felt bad about all us kids playin in the dark all the time, so he traded some Lincoln Logs for daylight from Johnie Rockefeller and we got to actually SEE the dirt we was drawin in. That was a great couple of days. I set two high scores those two days.

*sighs wistfully*

Go get your Grandpa his teeth, will ya sonny-Jim?

Re:back in my day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean in ought three, not "naught".

Re:back in my day...

[Em Emalb]

0 = naught=nothing.

And some mod has no sense of humor.

Re:back in my day...

[hoooocheymomma]

Quit it, it's ought. Ought means zero as well as naught, but to abbreviate a year, you would say ought, not naught. Gawd look what you made me write.

Re:back in my day...

[Em Emalb]

You win.

I concede.

The day is yours, Trebec.

Re:back in my day...

[Quothz]

Quit it, it's ought. Ought means zero as well as naught, but to abbreviate a year, you would say ought, not naught. Gawd look what you made me write.

"Aught" and "naught" both mean zero, and either are acceptable in any context. "Ought" implies an obligation. Using "ought" as a variant of "aught" is archaic.

Re:back in my day...

[c4miles]

Actually, according to the link you posted, 'Aught' (or 'owt' in Northern English dialects) should really mean 'Anything' or 'All'. 'Aught' meaning zero is a false division of 'A naught' that has gained common use, like a napron or a nadder (snake).

Re:back in my day...

[Quothz]

Actually, according to the link you posted, 'Aught' (or 'owt' in Northern English dialects) should really mean 'Anything' or 'All'.

Huh. When I read it (the noun form, natch), it says "1: zero, cipher" underneath the etymology, at which you appear to have stopped.

Re:back in my day...

[maglor_83]

You ought to be modded up.

I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW will hold the MMORPG throne for Aions.

Re:I doubt it

[hoooocheymomma]

What kind of world are we living in where a comment like this doesn't get modded 5 funny? Or at least -1 troll?

Re:I doubt it

[SalaSSin]

A world where a lot of people have their threshold set to 1, instead of raw & uncut.

Alternate Universe?

[Tyler Eaves]

Since when is EVE a shining example of a MMO UI? EVO works (for some people) very much *despite* the cluttered, poorly laid out, typographically flawed UI.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[sporkmonger]

I couldn't agree more. Eve is my MMO of choice, but I would kill to be able to extend/improve the UI.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[cthulu_mt]

I stare at a spreadsheet all day. Then I go home, boot up EVE and stare at a spreadsheet.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know this evil kings, who get a kick out of being abusive and repressive?

That's God-King Eve the I for you.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[DMUTPeregrine]

Exactly. EVE is a good game, but not because of the UI.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Rennt]

The EVE UI might not be to your taste, but you can't say it isn't complete.

Considering the nature of the corporation-based gameplay, desktop metaphor works really well. It is actually configured very much the same way as I have my fluxbox install, so the whole thing is pretty seamless and feels very natural.

Sure, it takes a month (or three) of use before you get the most out of it, but it really is user-friendly. (in the vi sense, not the notepad sense)

Having said that, an open-source client would rock!

Re:Alternate Universe?

[vertinox]

I stare at a spreadsheet all day. Then I go home, boot up EVE and stare at a spreadsheet.

(In his best melodramatic voice)

Spreadsheets in SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Re:Alternate Universe?

[vertinox]

Since when is EVE a shining example of a MMO UI? EVO works (for some people) very much *despite* the cluttered, poorly laid out, typographically flawed UI.

You need a wide screen monitor with a resolution of 1650x1080 to really not feel cramped in EVE.

But if you got one of those then its not too shabby.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[east coast]

You need a wide screen monitor with a resolution of 1650x1080 to really not feel cramped in EVE.

In some ways you're right but in other ways it really doesn't matter.

The vast majority of what happens on "the screen" in EVE is simply eye candy.

The concept of actually flying your ship over selecting targets on the objects list and being auto piloted there is pointless. The flight sim aspect of EVE is a waste. Sadly this is what made the space sim genre great in the first place (I recall nearly pissing myself the first time playing Elite on the C=64)

Beyond that all you have is a bunch of text boxes. Seriously, what do you miss in the game outside of those boxes? The game is beautiful in terms of graphics but I've never seen a game with a GUI that uses it less. Once you step outside of the HUD data there's nothing to do but look around and admire some graphical artists work.

And that's the suck thing about the patch that was done in the last month or two. I used to play on an old tablet but their new client made it unplayable because the graphics chipset didn't support pixel shader 2.0 (I believe it was 2.0). But why not? Why not leave a stripped down HUD version of the game? I know that maintaining multiple clients has to be a pain for them but come on... I can play the game just as well from nothing but the HUD data and not miss out on anything as far as the true core of the game play.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[rgviza]

LOL or stare at rocks getting shot with laser beams. Now THAT'S exciting.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, funny stuff

Re:Alternate Universe?

[drinkypoo]

My dream is that vega strike gets functional economies. It already has persistent servers. It's not "massive", but ~32 players would be dandy. Plus, it's free, Free, and highly moddable.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[daveime]

"Completeness" by most definitions would include the ability to map keys to commonly used functions ... you know, shortcuts and all that.

The most irritating thing for me (after playing the 21 day free trial), is the fact *everything* useful needs to be clicked with the mouse.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Rennt]

hmm, point there. This used to frustrate me, but I'd just stopped noticing. There are shortcuts for most combat-related tasks though.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Rennt]

"The concept of actually flying your ship over selecting targets on the objects list and being auto piloted there is pointless."

Good pilots won't do this, it lowers your transversal velocity and makes you easier to hit.

"The flight sim aspect of EVE is a waste."

It is not supposed to be a flight sim, it is a corporate/tycoon type sim. The "pew-pew" is just a game mechanic, conflict drives the economy. Sounds like you are just after a different game.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[daveime]

As I saw, it was more for generic window control and settings. True there's the F*, CTRL-F*, ALT-F* for activating the High, Med and Lot slot items, but where are the shortcuts for say :-

Lock Target
Unlock Target
Select A Target (from your already locked ones)
Fire All Guns

Even those four would make the game so much more playable ... there's so much action happening with 20 odd rats flying around you that the ability to click a rat, press L (for lock), press F (for fire all guns) would improve the battle handling immensely.

You will note I'm a little bit jaded right now, as I just got the skills to buy a Ferox last night, and lost it exactly two hours later on a tough level 2 mission ;-) C'est la vie.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Rennt]

Getting sidetracked here, but are you aware you can group your modules so they can be activated with a single shortcut?

I normally have my guns configured in two banks of three, so I can split my fire for smaller ships, but bring all of them to bear quickly on larger ones.

That doesn't help with targeting, but I normally fight zoomed out so all ships are visible at once. At this viewing range often you have to rely on the HUD, as ships are not actually visible with the naked eye, but it makes selecting targets with the mouse trivial, and gives you better situational awareness

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Grr]

Or stare at a session change dialog wondering if you'll get a chance to see your battleship explode. The suspense is killing!

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Jedi Alec]

The EVE UI might not be to your taste, but you can't say it isn't complete.

Considering the nature of the corporation-based gameplay, desktop metaphor works really well. It is actually configured very much the same way as I have my fluxbox install, so the whole thing is pretty seamless and feels very natural.

Sure, it takes a month (or three) of use before you get the most out of it, but it really is user-friendly. (in the vi sense, not the notepad sense)

Having said that, an open-source client would rock!

Considering I had to look up how to have my corp apply for an alliance on a wiki this morning...I'd say the UI still has a few things left to be desired.

For those who are curious, you can't look it up in people and places and then right click it for a list of logical actions, like most other things in EVE. You have to go to the interface for managing your corporations, then go to alliances(makes sense so far, right?), and then call up a list of every alliance in the game, find the one you're looking for and in there you're allowed to right-click and apply. Yaaaaaaay...

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Jedi Alec]

The concept of actually flying your ship over selecting targets on the objects list and being auto piloted there is pointless.

I'm a full-time pvp pilot, and the position of my ship in the bigger picture is one of the most important aspects for me to manage. Dodging turret fire is best done at close range, but staying out of neut range of that damn domi AND maintaining enough speed at the same time to not take too much damage from that drake...far from pointless.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Jedi Alec]

Lock Target -> ctrl-click on overview or in space.

And if you think those would come in handy fighting a level 2 mission....imagine yourself fighting 5 human pilots on your own ;-)

As for firing all guns, see the other reply about grouping weapons. Grouping also allows you to reload/switch ammo with a single click(extremely useful on ships with 7/8 guns/launchers of the same type).

Re:Alternate Universe?

[east coast]

No, I have a very firm understanding of what the game is and how it works but I was pointing out that the eye candy of the UI is mostly a waste of resources instead of a valuable tool to game play. Perhaps more advanced pilots in PvP actually use the flight sim factor a bit but for the most part I can run 95% of the games offerings off the HUD with no loss. That was my only point.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and not miss out on anything as far as the true core of the game play.

There's your problem, you are assuming that EvE Online is a game, which it clearly is not.

eve meets wow?

[nitehawk214]

Blah, I mean can we at least pretend to come up with some original ideas?

I guess original ideas don't make money these days.

Re:eve meets wow?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because EVE and WoW were just SOOOO original :rolleyes:.

Re:eve meets wow?

[pinkj]

how about a Katamari Damacy themed MMORPG? "Dzie Dobry, loser Prince! Roll up that person's cat for me and I'll give you a scarf!"

A Waste of Developer Time

[WeekendKruzr]

Most of these companies have the wrong idea. When I place an MMO, I'm usually using a visual angle that has me looking at a downward angle toward my character from above. Generally speaking, I miss all of the impressive scenic stuff. Occasionally yes, I do stop and admire the visuals or I may stop and look up if I'm searching for something. However I think most of these companies are wasting most of their talent on impressive visuals when in fact I would prefer these two things much more:
1)A game that looks good on something less than a top of line GPU - I would prefer graphic efficiency to graphic splendor. When you have 10-15 guys running around a raid inside of a huge environment with 50 monsters and lots of trees and other stuff my FPS grind to a halt. This then leads me to turn down the detail defeating all the effort these guys put in to their product. My system is a dual core with a ATI 4870 GPU, it still stutters unless I turn down the details.
2)Easy guild management tools for Guild Leaders - How about giving me some tools to manage my guild more effectively especially when I'm not online? Being able to assign a guild quest to somebody so they will go gather some resources fore the bank even when I'm not online would be nice. A lot of players will only do this when I'm online cajoling them in to it. How about using the quest journal like a PDA or a digital organizer?

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[pance]

#2 seems like it would be a good idea for a WoW addon.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, stunning visuals place immense technical limits on a game that can severely limit play - anyone remember Iron Forge 2-3 months after WoW opened up? FPS grinded to a halt for the most beastly of machines. Whereas I can participate in Guild vs Guild action in other MMOs (Ragnarok Online for example) with 200-300+ characters on my screen fighting and not lag a bit.

Gameplay should always come before graphics, sadly, that rarely happens with new games.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[nschubach]

That's why I'd kill for another well done first person MMO like EQ was (originally.) It was a pleasure to go to a new dungeon and they weren't afraid to make small passages because the camera would have a hard time seeing... I don't care if you couldn't see behind you all the time, a flick of the mouse and you could look around.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[hoooocheymomma]

If you're a guild leader then you're probably so hardcore into the game that you're already hooked to the game and you're willing to fumble through horrible management UIs.

Game developers don't need to get your attention. They need to get the attention of a bunch of half-witted 12-year-olds and a bunch of 28-year-old guys' girlfriends in order to build up a big enough subscription base in order to earn the first 'M' in MMO.

I think you're making the mistake of assuming that what is right for a minority such as yourself is what will save a fledgeling MMO. I would bet good bones or clams that you're wrong.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[AP31R0N]

Check out PlanetSide, an MFPS. Your machine should find it very easy.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[aafiske]

Actually Aion looks pretty impressive even on modest gpus, and that's with dozens and dozens of people running around. So I hear. :-"

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[east coast]

Being able to assign a guild quest to somebody so they will go gather some resources fore the bank even when I'm not online would be nice. A lot of players will only do this when I'm online cajoling them in to it.

So basically you want bots to do the dirty work that your guildies are unwilling to do? Seriously, how do you expect this to work in a real game environment?

I guess this is a reason I was never into the who guild scene. I belonged to a very loose organization in EQ2 that was really nothing but a gang of friends who helped each other from time to time. I know that if I were being outright forced to do a task when the guild leader couldn't be bothered to show up I wouldn't have a long career with that guild.

And I think that's part of the game too. It's an aspect of what some consider fun and what some don't. Some people like to manage and pull the strings. Some people don't mind helping a friend but don't want to be beholden to showing up at a certain time of day to do the bidding of others. Some people like just going out there and beating something up with no strings attached. Maybe you're going for the wrong form of play for the kind of person you are? If leading a group of unwilling people to do undesirable work doesn't get your blood pumping my guess is that being the leader of a guild and expecting people to do real work with little payback won't be all that rewarding. Maybe you need to either leave the guild concept behind you or find a guild that's more an association of friends who like to joke around and be goofs above being the first group to raid some new zone the second an expansion goes live.

Guild mastering should be fun. It's a game. Once games stop being fun it's time to let it go for at least a little while.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Vohar]

Yeah, the thing that impressed me most from the beta has been how smoothly the game runs, even with large numbers of players in a small area. When the first beta event opened, there were literally 8 or more players for every enemy in the starting area. The first town had over a dozen people standing at every class trainer and vendor. And I still didn't lag up.

The rest of the game didn't really grab me, but I was very impressed at the engine itself.

And it was very purty too.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Opportunist]

A web game interface for "off-game" use. Like, say, to browse the auctions, to hand info to guildies or read up important information (like, say, some guild did something in the world)... yes, would be nice.

Didn't AO have something like that? I dimly remember a web based auction house.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Opportunist]

I think he wants some web interface to yell "Hey, Bob, get off your lazy ass and gather the stuff for the potions we need tonight, pronto!" at a guildie pissing away time in the AH.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[donatzsky]

In case you haven't heard of it: http://www.mortalonline.com/
Mind you, it's going to be a hardcore sandbox MMO (think Ultima Online), so it's certainly not for everyone.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Cimexus]

Yeah Aion has a pretty nice feature called 'fixed FPS' which dynamically adjusts your graphics settings up and down to maintain at least a minimum level of smoothness. It works pretty good and was sorely lacking in other NCSoft games like Lineage II in which you COULD make it run well on slow machines, but you had to be constantly going into the settings and fiddling around everytime you went to a place with lots of people/detail.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Hubbell]

MO has trouble handling 15 people in the same area, just standing around, let alone them fighting. You can't call it a PVP sandbox game when you're essentially limited to groups of 7v7 unless you have a supercomputer gaming rig. Unreal 3 engine for an MMO is the most lulzy thing I've ever heard of

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mortalonline.com/

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[donatzsky]

Uhm, this guy here seems to not quite agree with you:

The game handles large amounts of players honorably, capable of displaying some 20-30 characters on screen all wearing different custom made armor and weapons without the slightest notice of slowdown.

Source: http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/14366-combat-beta-review-2-a.html

That's not to say that there aren't (and won't be) any performance problems, but you have to remember that they only just started the beta phase, so things are bound to change.

Re:A Waste of Developer Time

[Hubbell]

20-30 is not large by any means, that's a small skirmish in an ffa PVP mmo. Large is 100+ players

Aion fever

[cAllison]

Every once in a while a game comes along that gets my heart racing. Last game: Age of Conan... what a let down... Now Aion, I'm hopefull for this game even more because I was a huge Lineage 2 fan. Games like WoW don't appeal to me (only) because of their fanbase, fortunately there stuck in WoW. Hopefully Aion's community will be full of winners *crossfinger*. Plus for some reason endurance mob-grinding is fun for me.

Re:Aion fever

[Shads]

If the beta was any indication, I'd move along. It was at best describable as "the worst of the barrens" most of the times with rampant kill stealing and other lovely fun behavior.

Re:Aion fever

[pwfffff]

Millions upon millions of players in WoW and you couldn't find ANY you liked?

Yeah, good luck in Aion. I'm sure their players are from Mars, or somewhere else where they might be up to your standards.

Re:Aion fever

[cAllison]

Beta won't actually be any indication, as cramming the entire player base into a couple of zones, as in this beta or first couple months of any MMO launch, will have this effect. Once the WoW fanboys don't renew their sub and go back to WoW, is when we'll see how the game is gona end up. I'm hopeful despite any nay-sayer.

Re:Aion fever

[cAllison]

I didnt say that, actually, but yes. It's easier to find core friends amongst 10,000 then 10,000,000. Plus it'll be the one's who reject the "fashionable" MMO for one they like despite the critics, who I'll game with. What I can't figure out is why you care so much about my befriending algorithm.

Re:Aion fever

[pwfffff]

"Plus it'll be the one's who reject the 'fashionable' MMO for one they like despite the critics, who I'll game with."

You shop at Hot Topic too, don't you?

Re:Aion fever

[HasselhoffThePaladin]

And drinks Clamato juice...

Re:Aion fever

[Cimexus]

It was like that in the L2 beta too. The beautiful thing about a completely open PvP game like L2 though, is you can just kill the bastards who are doing it ;)

meh

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing unique or wonderful about this game, it's "yet another rehash" of any of the dozen other games out there.

I'm not saying its a bad game, it just offers nothing worthwhile other than a change of scenery and backstory.

I think they need to start developing evolving worlds and quit developing games. Quests should be a one time occurrence.

Goblins start raiding supply caravans from one city to the next. In the city over there is a shortage of x, y, z now... players can be recruited to make up that difference via tradeskills. In the mean time in the first city the merchants are losing merchandise and are interested in getting any of it that is salvageable back, players can do that, so can mercenary npcs. They go kill off a large portion of the goblins, recover the goods, but the goods are already replaced in the second city so the price on goods goes way down, and now there are excessive mercenaries in the city with nothing to do so they over throw the local government/become drunken louts in the bars/etc so on and so forth. Make every person, place, and thing in the world respond to the events around it... a player murders a npc or pc, they should suffer the consequences if they get caught, warrants go out on their head, make a death system that makes some sense (legends of kesmai had a cool one compared to any current mmo), make a rebirth and reincarnation system (ala batmud)... there is so much more mmo's could be doing and they seem to all get stuck in the mud with "lets be a clone of wow (or previously eq) that won't take 1% of their population." It's completely absurd at this point.

Innovate, not duplicate.

There is room for polish, a lot of room, but to make it effective you need to be at least reasonably accessible and you need to be innovative in at least a few areas. EVE does a lot of things right (but I'm not interested in space sims), and I'm looking forward to World of Darkness just for that reason... hopefully they don't screw the pooch.

Re:meh

[Shads]

meh, my post forgot to login.

WoW is far from original

[SilverJets]

Don't kid yourself. WoW isn't original at all. It is a copy of every previous MMO (all the way back through MUDs) and even pencil and paper D&D.

Re:WoW is far from original

[Shads]

Nothing is original it can all be floated back to 7 basic stories (or is it 9? shrug) using that theory. *rolls eyes*

WoW wasn't tremendously innovative, however it did implement some innovative ideas (at its release). What it really did was show a level of polish at release most game releases lacked. It had an interesting game world that a lot of people were familiar with and loved and easily recognisable class functions that weren't tremendously complex to play (unlike say eq1, uo, ac, or daoc by comparison) that increased its playability considerably.

WoW and EVE both innovated at least some degree, especially when compared to the MMOs that followed them.

Re:WoW is far from original

[LandDolphin]

I seem to remember issues, downtime, and unfinished content at WoW's release. I beleive what has made WoW work so well was not the release as much as having a large following (Millions of people owned Blizzard titles) and that they have allways been evolving the game to include more (New content, battlegrounds, arena's, etc). Sure, its far more complicated that that, but I beleive those two things have far more to do with their success then a smooth release.

Re:WoW is far from original

[bughunter]

WoW's innovation was to eliminate risk to the character as a requirement for level gain. This made it more accessible to mainstream players.

I mean, I've played hardcore on past MMOs and MUDs where risks were greater - XP loss, equipment loss, even permadeath. But the average Joe Sixorc who has invested twelve months of game play collecting uber gear doesn't want to risk it being destroyed or stolen by a mob or another PC -- even if that kind of "danger" is what makes the game most exhilarating and rewarding.

No, Joe Sixorc wants a treadmill with guaranteed advancement, an escape from the real world -- where he can work his ass off and still not achieve anything -- into a world where all he has to do is follow a script and get a guaranteed "Ding!" without the risk of driving the entire character off a cliff, or losing his precious +9 knife of ogre slaying.

I'm not complaining, just observing. If what they were going for was a formula to break MMORPGs into the mainstream, then Blizzard got it right, intentionally or not.

Re:WoW is far from original

[Opportunist]

WoW wasn't "polished", but it was way more stable and "finished" than many MMOs at release. There were downtimes, there were broken quests, there were balance issues, all like in many other MMOs. The difference was the degree, and Blizzard's reaction to it. Downtimes were compensated without lengthy battles with billing, and they didn't last for days. Quest bugs were rather rare (again, compared to many other MMOs), they weren't crippling, at least they tested the important ones (Warriors should look another way for now please, I know how your key quest lines bugged) and they resolved any ticket concerning broken quests speedily. And while balance needed some tweaks, even that was mostly ok, there wasn't the usual "insanely overly strong" class with another class being useless for anything but a punching bag for PvP practice.

Most of all, they worked the kinks out fairly quickly, and that's what the "win" was. People are willing to live with a bug for a while, they can accept being an underdog class for a month. They don't accept it for half a year, and they get quite pissy when they find the same bug with their second character after maxing out their first.

Re:WoW is far from original

[Opportunist]

...and at the same time, it ruined every single MMO out there for "hardcore" players, because every MMO maker and their dog is trying to copy the success of WoW by dumbing down their game as well. It can best be observed in EQ2.

At release, EQ2 was hard. Really, really, REALLY hard. You didn't lose your equipment at death (ok, it wasn't as unforgiving as EQ was, granted), but not dying in the first place was a feat. Mobs your level were nearly unbeatable. Mobs below your level gave little, if any, xp. Leveling was like pulling teeth, not only in the lofty top levels but from level 1. A "ding" was an achivement, I was genuinely proud, albeit a wee bit frustrated, when I finally got to level 15 (or was it 20? When you chose your final profession?). Grouping was almost mandatory from day one, and it was a maker or breaker depending on how good your group was and whether they could pull off a "wheel" combo successfully (those features actually sold me originally).

Now EQ2 is a joke. It was dumbed down further and further until we ended up with the WoW clone we see today. The "wheel group combo" battle tool, pretty much the only original thing in EQ2, was dumbed down as well and, to balance this, the boons it gave were crippled into uselessness so nobody really uses it anymore. And, well, with the only distinguishing feature gone, the game lost any and all appeal. At least for me. Yet another fantasy MMO.

Re:WoW is far from original

[RedK]

And you wonder why EQ2 never got popular ? The problem with catering to hardcore players that love to suffer through leveling and even have the time to do such a thing is that they are very few and far between. That's if they can even afford to play at all, as a college education and a job get in the way of that thing called "playtime". No one is in the business of MMOs to please a few players, they are in it to make money.

Re:WoW is far from original

[Opportunist]

Certainly, but do you think you could convince any WoW players to come play EQ2 by catering to them? They already have their EZ-mode game, why should they quit just to play yet another one?

Re:WoW is far from original

[bughunter]

The answer to that question is "Because all their friends are there," which is why the only thing that will kill WoW is WoW2.

Re:WoW is far from original

[Opportunist]

Like EQ2, which was the only thing able to kill EQ?

MMOs don't follow the same logic as other games, e.g. FPS. When $fps_1 was a success, $fps_2 will probably be so, too. It follows the same logic and goals with better graphics and additional twists, so players of $fps_1 will buy and play it. This is not necessarily the case with MMOs. Unless there is a way to transport their character to the new MMO, people playing the old one will generally stay. They will certainly try the successor, but it has just as hard a time as any other MMO. Simply because it has to compete with a game they spent literally months of play time in, which would go to waste entirely.

What... money not good enough for you?

[Petersko]

"Just for that reason alone, I wouldn't touch that game even if *they* paid me $1000 per month"

Are you really that wealthy? If not, what the hell's wrong with you?

I make a pretty good living, and not only would I touch it for $1000 per month, I'd play it for an hour even if I disliked it.

I know, I know. Figure of speech (sort of). It's just a particularly asinine one.

Zone free open world ?

[aepervius]

The developper kind of disagree, as per the article on spirit master : Spirits persist, rather than being short-term and useful for only one fight. Once your character summons a spirit, it stays with your character until it dies, the spirit dies, you log out, or your character crosses into a new zone. It sound it will be as much zone free as other MMO are. Visually you can go from one place to the next seemlessly, but there are still zones.

Re:Zone free open world ?

[jandrese]

I've never understood why MMO developers love to build pet classes, but then can't figure out how to make the pets persist when you switch to a different server (cross zones). This can't be that hard of a problem.

Re:Zone free open world ?

[Cimexus]

Yeah I was surprised to find out that Aion wasn't seamless, considering the last major fantasy MMO from NCSoft (Lineage II) IS, in fact, truly seamless. You can summon a pet and walk across the whole world without it vanishing, no problems (with the exception of the new instanced zones obviously, but they weren't around for 4 out of Lineage II's 5 year history).

Must be something to do with the engines? Aion uses CryEngine and L2 used the Unreal engine...

GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Archfeld]

Not that I am installing it either, but how is GameGuard really any different from PunkBuster, which sets itself up as a service and continues to run in auto mode even after a restart ? Granted there was an click to install window for punkbuster and it seems gameguard may go in the back door so to speak, but they both auto-update silently, and accomplish...or try to accomplish the same thing.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Shads]

PunkBuster works... sometimes.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[donaggie03]

Because every game I've ever bought that had PunkBuster included gave me the OPTION of installing it.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Opportunist]

Because Punkbuster is still under your control, mostly. At least if you're not completely clueless. You can turn it off and on as you please (of course, programs using it require it).

This thing installs itself not unlike the classic rootkit and getting rid of it is near impossible, not even talking about turning the processes off and on (or finding out whether or not they're running in the first place).

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Because every game I've ever bought that had PunkBuster included gave me the OPTION of installing it.

...not to mention removing it afterwards.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Cimexus]

Er...try playing, say, QuakeLive without installing PunkBuster and see how far you get. You'll get kicked from the server within 5 seconds of joining.

Also, GameGuard doesn't run as a service. It runs alongside Aion (or whatever other game uses it). When you quit that game, GameGuard also quits. I sorta prefer it that way than the PunkBuster method of loading on startup as a system service, whether you're intending on playing a game or not.

It also means that there IS no need to install/uninstall GameGuard ... it's BUILT INTO the game itself. Uninstall the game, and GameGuard is also gone.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Cimexus]

Replying to myself here just to note that apparently more recent versions of GameGuard do in fact leave bits behind when the game is uninstalled, so I apologise for saying that. My experience with GG is mostly via Lineage II, which is uses an older build of GG not subject to this nastiness :)

Bleh, I guess this is another good reason to have my gaming computer separate from my 'regular use' computer.

Played the Chinese and Korean versions...

[Anonymous Coward]

The graphics are decent but it's a really boring game until you get a high level character for PVP. The leveling process is a long linear grind with quests that are even more monotonous than those found in WoW. If you play for PVE, World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, LOTRO and a variety of other MMORPGs are vastly superior in terms of quality and quantity of content.

The PVP available at level 25+ is quite fun, but your performance is primarily determined by your level and equipment. If I could start a PVP character at a reasonably high level with half decent gear I'd probably buy it. Unfortunately, to get to the fun part of the game, you have to spend hundreds of hours doing tedious PVE quests and/or grinding mobs.

Re:Played the Chinese and Korean versions...

[toolie]

The PVP available at level 25+ is quite fun, but your performance is primarily determined by your level and equipment. If I could start a PVP character at a reasonably high level with half decent gear I'd probably buy it. Unfortunately, to get to the fun part of the game, you have to spend hundreds of hours doing tedious PVE quests and/or grinding mobs.

It took me less than 20 hours played to go from installation, reconfiguration, learning the world and the quest system to level 20. Not quite sure how it could take hundreds of hours to get to 25.

A what?

[Hurricane78]

One of the most promising MMORPGs in development these days is NCSoft's Aion, a fantasy-based...

That's where I stopped reading TFS. Why does it always have to be fantasy?

I have the feeling, that religion, fantasy and being dumb go hand in hand somehow, and that this is, why there is so much fantasy stuff popping up in the last years.

Where are all the sci-fi MMOs? Are there really so few people who prefer things that could actually really happen or that a bit of make sense in the basic physical way?

I wish those games would have two views (think database views). One where you play in a sci-fi world, maybe others, and one for the retards, with fairies, magic and all. (There. I said it. It's retarded. Go ahead, mod me troll. It's still true, and your non-logical reaction proves it even more.) The analogies are so strong, it would probably pose no problem at all. ^^

Re:A what?

[Anonymous Coward]

except for Eve, they all either tanked or were cancelled before release, because nobody wants to play stupid sci-fi games.

Re:A what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sci-fi? Hell, I'd kill for a steampunk MMO.

Re:A what?

[The Moof]

The Old Republic is what you'd be looking for (some time in the future). There's plenty of sci-fi MMO's out there. Even NCSoft had Tabula Rasa for a while. The quality of sci-fi MMO's is usually not too good. I have hope for the Old Republic.

Re:A what?

[julesh]

You mean like this one?

Re:A what?

[Opportunist]

Ok, I'm nobody. I go back to AO every now and then despite graphics that looked dated a decade ago and the fact that it's group based and my group long since dissolved.

I'd sub instantly to something like AO with nice graphics, a few quests (let's be frank here, AO has none to speak of), less tedium and a halfway decent playerbase.

Re:A what?

[Hurricane78]

Sci-Fi at least has a relation to the physics of the freaking real world.
Not some superstitious retard crap from some idiots who still believe that there could be unicorns and pots of gold and Tinkerbell and a god and miracles, etc.

Of course the very point of that crap is that they do not think. Which makes any arguing pointless, and all they want is to stone one.

People finally have to realize that it's a gave disease. A total loss of any acceptance of causality an reality, where they base all and everything on some bullshit that makes them accept their shitty lives, jobs, etc.

It's a form of schizophrenia. That's all that it is. And it has to be handled like it. People with schizophrenia also do not want one to help them. They really think that the world is that way and everything is good. Even when they constantly get ripped of, made do idiotic things to help others gain power over them, etc. They just say they wanted it that way.
And religious people say god wanted it, and blame it on themselves. Which works eves better.

And nobody dare to attack their bullshit stories with any "logic". No. That would be "discriminatory". But they can of course force their sick disgusting twisted reality on everyone and not be discriminatory. Nooo, you not letting them is discriminatory too. *Of* *fuckin* *course*!!! How could I have doubted that.

Either heal 'em, or throw 'em out of society, because everything they touch becomes one disgusting piece of sick shit with perverse "values" and total madness.

Re:A what?

[Jaysyn]

That looks like a gnome / goblin based expansion for WoW.

Due to it's DRM I literally can't play.

[harl]

In some issues Windows XP users may have problems with GameGuard due to the fact that the same "Windows Product Key" is installed on two computers and on the same router.

Both my machines have the same product key. Both are 100% fully legal. Both are on the same router.

I am doing nothing wrong yet their DRM will prevent me from playing the game.

Eastern fantasy theme

[rpillala]

I've wondered for a long time why none of these MMO games from Asia (Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Granado Espada, etc) have an art direction from mythology and fantasy of the region. It's all a baroque looking western fantasy setting. Finely decorated plate armors, massive double bladed swords and axes etc. Personally, I think samurai look great, katanas, japanese armor, martial arts inspired magic ala Avatar (I know, it's not magic, it's bending). I know that the east Asia has more cultural diversity than I'm describing.

The only games I can remember that tried an art direction like that were Jade Empire, Throne of Darkness and, oddly, Summoner. I think Jade Empire did pretty well, but no word on a sequel from the company that gave us Neverwinter Nights 2, KOTOR 2, and is giving us Mass Effect 2.

TOD and Summoner are both relatively old games, and even though Throne of Darkness was made by a lot of Blizzard vets, it didn't do that well at the store I don't think. Certainly not well enough for Click Entertainment to make more games or even exist anymore. Summoner got a sequel, but I don't know if they kept the art direction. I guess Red Alert 3 has some anime influence in one faction.

If we expand into console games while we're on the subject of Summoner, there was Shenmue and I guess any fighting game.

This is all just from memory so I'm happy to be shown as wrong and learn about some good games I might have missed or forgotten.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect World and Silkroad Online are notable examples of Asia-themed games, if you want to look into those.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[blahplusplus]

"I've wondered for a long time why none of these MMO games from Asia (Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Granado Espada, etc) have an art direction from mythology and fantasy of the region"

Because western aesthetic is more universal, game companies research this kind of thing they want the WIDEST market possible. Also over half of World of warcraft subscribes are asian, so it's obvious that certain aesthetics have universal appeal.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest patch includes gear based on Japanese kimonos, Chinese and Taiwanese dress, both male and female.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think because it is exotic to them. Knights in shining armour and broadswords and axes are part of our history and thus boring to us. Samurai/eastern martial artists/eastern mythology is boring to them because it's part of thier everyday thing. It isn't new or exciting.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Vohar]

I saw a video a while back for Blade and Soul, another one being put out by NCSoft. It had more of an Eastern theme to the art and sound designs. Pretty entertaining video, too.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Knara]

http://9dragons.acclaim.com/

Tried it, it was decent, but that was a couple years ago.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also 12Sky, but it's awful.

Probably lots and lots more, too.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[rpillala]

Thanks for pointing this one out to me. After watching the video, I am reminded that a lot of games containing martial arts turn into a series of juggles, basically stunlock but over and over again. I think the success or failure of the combat systems in the video depends on how much control you really have over abilities. I didn't see any user interface in the video so it's hard to say whether you can interrupt all the long strings of face owning. Even Jade Empire was easily cheesed by using Storm Dragon + whatever other style. Introduce latency of any kind, whether it's control latency or network latency or even just computer performance, and it will only be fun for a small number of players.

It does have a great look and cool animations, though. And I never thought I'd say this about a computer game but I hope they tone some of those breasts down. Geesh.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[rpillala]

Is there an article or study you can point me to? I'm not trying to be snarky I'm just interested in these kinds of things.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[rpillala]

It seems that I really wasn't looking hard enough since a number of people have been able to suggest games. These are also free to play so it's easy to try them out :)

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

It looked like the game is still in -very- early stages of development, so it'll probably be a while before the gameplay can really be judged. This was mostly showing off the intent. There was an interrupted combo in the video, who knows if that'll be an active deal or what though.

I'm looking forward to seeing more as the game develops. It's not elves and orcs, so I'm interested.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Knara]

There's also some variations on the "Western fantasy" theme you may enjoy:

• "Sword of the New World" which is a Guild-Wars like alternate-universe takeoff on the early age of exploration of the Americas.
• I'm not sure if it took off very much, but Pirates of the Burning Seas had a great premise at least

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[allenw]

This is one of the things that I think the Atlantica team really did well on. Because they have an "alternate Earth" as a background, they were allowed to present different cultures with different art styles.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

You want Silk Road. Free play, reasonably high quality, Eastern theme, gorgeous change from the western fantasy bore.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[palemantle]

I think Jade Empire did pretty well, but no word on a sequel from the company that gave us Neverwinter Nights 2, KOTOR 2, and is giving us Mass Effect 2.

NWN 2 (don't get me started on that steaming pile of so and so) and KotOR 2 (can you say ... incomplete?) were both developed by Obsidian, not by Bioware. Terrible follow-ups both. You would do well to pray that Obsidian isn't contracted to develop a sequel to Jade Empire.

I'm not disputing your basic point though.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Theres a shit game i played a while back called Gekkeiju Online http://gekkeijuonline.com it had an Oriental theme, but overall the game was poor and lacked content.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[Anonymous Coward]

Phantasy Star Universe takes on an eastern theme, albeit pseudo-futuristic

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[rpillala]

This is true and even Mass Effect itself was developed by Demiurge, not Bioware. If you're interested in KOTOR 2 completion, there are a few mods you can get that add in some of the removed areas. There's a mod that takes one of the prerendered cutscenes and puts back the in-engine cutscene that used to be there. There is also a putatively massive The Sith Lords Restoration Project going on at team-gizka.org, but their reports of progress have slowed to a trickle, if that. It's too bad really.

What you say about Obsidian is true and has always been a huge disappointment to me. Obsidian is made up of the old Black Isle folks, who made Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and the greatest computer RPG of all time Planescape: Torment. To see that they can't turn out a finished product anymore is very disheartening.

Re:Eastern fantasy theme

[stilz2]

Don't know if it's still alive or not, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkroad_Online is very much based on Chinese art style and mythology.

More like WoW meets WoW

[Pinky's Brain]

What sets Eve apart is the single shard server and player made factions ... neither of these is in the game.

It's more like WoW minus battlegrounds&arenas and a larger Lake Wintergrasp and less focus on end game raiding (although in the end they will put in PvE end game raiding anyway, just like Warhammer). I don't see anything Eve like in it.

Re:More like WoW meets WoW

[Knara]

I get the feeling its most like "Lineage, except you can fly."

Re:More like WoW meets WoW

[Opportunist]

What sets EvE apart is the metagame. This isn't an MMO. It's an experiment in group dynamics and a social engineering practice ground.

Re:More like WoW meets WoW

[Cimexus]

Yep, in terms of visual style and feel, that's about right.

Aion is a buttload easier than Lineage though. You can hit max level in weeks rather than years, and it's borrowed some other stuff from other 'easier' MMOs like the fact that most high end equipment is bind on equip/soulbound.

So it should appeal to both those that like Lineage for its style, but like WoW for its friendliness towards casual players. What worries me about it though is yeah, it won't have the metagame of EvE, and it won't have the awesome player-driven economy of Lineage (since soulbinding items tends to kill that, and Aion's crafting system isn't as hardcore). I'll miss those aspects.

i'm in the beta

[AP31R0N]

So far i can say, like Guild Wars (also by NC Soft)... it is gorgeous. It makes WoW look like a cat turd vomited by the dog. i didn't get far enough in to play with flight, but it's pretty fun. i'm looking forward to the next round.

However comma it's still just like all the other fantasy MRPGs. Grinding, twinking, gold farming, inane quests for golden rat spleens that change nothing. WoW - Warhammer look + Guild Wars look + Flying. Adding flight and gorgeous graphics isn't enough to make it truly different than all the other life drains for me. i prolly wouldn't play it for more than a few hours a week for a month or two.

i'm waiting for a replacement to PlanetSide. Something that involves... skill, teamwork, strategy, tactics, etc.

GW used instancing beautifully to move your character *through* the story. In other games, no matter how many golden rats you kill, there are always more. The NPCs don't seem to notice, neither does the story.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Anonymous Coward]

So far i can say, like Guild Wars (also by NC Soft)... it is gorgeous. It makes WoW look like a cat turd vomited by the dog. i didn't get far enough in to play with flight, but it's pretty fun. i'm looking forward to the next round.

However comma it's still just like all the other fantasy MRPGs. Grinding, twinking, gold farming, inane quests for golden rat spleens that change nothing. WoW - Warhammer look + Guild Wars look + Flying. Adding flight and gorgeous graphics isn't enough to make it truly different than all the other life drains for me. i prolly wouldn't play it for more than a few hours a week for a month or two.

i'm waiting for a replacement to PlanetSide. Something that involves... skill, teamwork, strategy, tactics, etc.

GW used instancing beautifully to move your character *through* the story. In other games, no matter how many golden rats you kill, there are always more. The NPCs don't seem to notice, neither does the story.

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all

Re:i'm in the beta

[aafiske]

This metallic ape speaks the truth. It looks beautiful, and does so even on non-top-end machines. (So no AoC ridiculousness.) It has a few neat gimmicks (wings, somewhat less stupid pvp, amazing customization.)

But it is, at root, the same game as WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, etc. It's a very polished, fun version, but don't expect it to change the game, shake up the boxes, or think outside any paradigmotrons.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Knara]

Jumpgate: Evolution will hopefully be in that sort of class.

I'm hoping at least.

Re:i'm in the beta

[AP31R0N]

i'm trying to get in that beta too!

Re:i'm in the beta

[AP31R0N]

*sniff*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron_(cosmology)

Also, building characters is a blast, esp the females.

i'd love to see a truly revolutionary MRPG. But it seems unlikely now that the formula for a cash machine is so clear.

1) Draw in the obsessive by pushing back the upper limits, having one more thing to do
2) Draw in the insecure by having a power curve that can make some characters many times more powerful than others.
3) Make the game reward time in game more than skill/understanding.
4) Allow player trade to encourage gold farming, twinking and mom's buying WoW gold for their spoiled brats.

PlanetSide is still my game of choice for most of these reasons.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Knara]

Everyone is. They have probably over a million beta signups for that game.

Have you seen some of the custom-built enclosures people have made for that game? It hasn't even released yet and people are nuts over it.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Mex]

i'm waiting for a replacement to PlanetSide. Something that involves... skill, teamwork, strategy, tactics, etc.

Team Fortress 2 is the closest thing to that, if you can find a good server (not the average pubbie ones). Try the http://stansloungetf2.com/ TF2 ones!

Re:i'm in the beta

[Opportunist]

Making an MMO skill-reliant is not easy without turning it basically in a FPS game (like, say, PlanetSide).

But not impossible. Though I would really love to see a game not resort to twitch 'skills' yet manage to make the player's ability to play well make a difference. It's not as impossible to do and it's been done, in various ways, despite those games being "classic" MMOs.

First, and easiest to do, it's been done many times before, is to make the player's ability to plan ahead and have a good awareness of the whole battle count. Knowing when an enemy gets out of stun/mez and knowing which one to tag or peel off a caster was critical to many MMOs, the same applies to a player's ability to avoid adds, despite having to deal with range and position changes.

Some games tried, with varying degree and success, to incorporate the idea of "cover", especially games set in modern settings with ranged weapons being the norm. Since they're not so numerous it's not as easily explained, but the idea should be obvious.

Group tactics can play a role. Group combos were a really interesting idea when they made a debut in EQ2, sadly the approach was all but canned in that game. Anyone know of another one that makes use of something like this?

So yes, it is possible to make skill/understanding/practice count in MMOs. Sadly, it doesn't seem like this is the wish of the majority of players.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Anonymous Coward]

The 25-50 game in Aion is increasingly PVP heavy until it reaches a DAOC-ish endgame. Since you mentioned you're looking for PVP teamwork, it might be more up your alley than you're thinking. In my opinion it wasn't a great decision by the developers to hide PVP complely until after level 20 since it's the entire endgame, but there you are.

Otherwise spot on. Since I missed DAOC the first time around I'll be checking this out.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Bigjeff5]

Fable II's combat system was, I think, the perfect mix. The skill complexity was a bit shallow for a good, deep MMO, but it required "twitch" skills that were easy enough that you didn't have to have the reflexes of a 12 year old FPS prodigy to be very good. Leveling up your skills also significantly increased your combat ability, as well as allowed you to use new combinations that increased your combat potential even further. The result was that combat was not hard, but it was very immersive and FUN.

For example, someone with maxed out range abilities and a decent pistol could kill most any mob in the game without too much trouble. However, if you learned how to do the pistol combo attacks, that same skillset would let you clean the clocks of very large groups of the same mobs. This was a good thing, because while most areas you'd be fine in, there were some where a number of powerful mobs would come at you at once, and being able to take them on requires some skill.

Well, does it run linux?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

No? Well, then i'll pass, thanks :)

Re:Well, does it run linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be missed. Thanks. :D

Played for two days (in the beta)

[lbbros]

To be frank, I found Aion incredibly boring. Most quests are "collect X amounts of Y" or "kill Y enemies" and they are just text to read at, and even the "story" quests present cutscenes that are bland to say the least (this is an area where FFXI, with all its faults and limits, is still strong). Also, literally zero interactions with the other players: for the time I looked it at, Aion just seemed like an online version of Diablo (style of play wise), and for sure I'm not even thinking about paying a subscription for this type of play style.

Off Topic Sig Correction

[AP31R0N]

- Atheism is not a religion, it is the absence of religion.

No. It's the absence of belief in god(s), nothing more or less.

- Agnosticism is the absence of decisiveness.

No. It's the absence of KNOWLEDGE of god(s), nothing more or less.

One concerns belief, the other is about knowledge. Knowledge and belief are different.

A Venn Diagram of atheists and agnostics would look like two discs stacked almost exactly on top of each other. The idea that agnostic is some sort of halfway position is a pop culture myth. It's also a myth that atheists believe there are no gods.

Don't be fooled by dictionaries either. Dictionaries record how words are USED (rightly or wrongly), not just what they mean. If people used 'bagel' to mean "stuff a cabbage in your ear on Tuesday", Webster would create an entry for it. Fucking descriptivists.

All living people are agnostic. They might believe there are gods, they might even belief they KNOW there are gods, but they don't actually know. Some people are honest enough to admit it, so aren't.

Here is the test:
Do you KNOW god(s) exist(s)?

If the answer is no, you're agnostic.

Do you HOLD a belief that god(s) exist(s)?

If the answer is no, you're atheist.

Most people who say no to one would say no to the other. It's hard to imagine someone saying they know gods exist but don't believe they do. Virtually all atheists are agnostic and vice versa.

Why does it matter?

Whenever we use words incorrectly we reinforce that mistake and encourage spreading it. We lose meaning and distinction as we make words less and less meaningful. We non-believers have a hard enough time dealing with zealots who misuse words that we shouldn't make it worse. If we get people to understand what these words actually mean (and what they DON'T mean) we can maybe get them to understand rather than assume. Many theists think that atheism means denial of god(s), when that's just not the case. Some people mistakenly think that agnostic is some sort of safe/golden mean... it isn't. It's just an adjective that names the state on not knowing there are gods.

 

Re:Off Topic Sig Correction

[cloudkiller]

Don't be fooled by dictionaries either. Dictionaries record how words are USED (rightly or wrongly), not just what they mean. If people used 'bagel' to mean "stuff a cabbage in your ear on Tuesday", Webster would create an entry for it. Fucking descriptivists.

Let me get this straight... We should not believe a dictionary because their definitions are derived from the commonly believed meaning of the word. However we should believe you, some random /. clod who carries around a soapbox and an affinity for standing on it with no more credibility than your typical AC.

I'll assume the answer is yes.

So then, wouldn't it be safe to assume that the same idiots you are trying to win over to your side are the same idiots who got you up on the soapbox in the first place? If so, it is probably also safe to assume that those same idiots will follow the next wild-eyed slashdotter with a soapbox and a point who comes along.

Again, I'll assume the answer is yes.

In conclusion, I think you should just shut the hell up and go back to looking for porn. No one cares unless you have boobies, and even then, no one cares unless you are showing off those boobies. When you do finally show off those boobies, no one will be actually listening.

NCSoft?

[freedan]

Aka the developer that releases like 2 new and utterly generic MMOs every single year? Forgive me for not getting too excited.

Re:NCSoft?

[Opportunist]

...and when they try to be genuinely inventive (like with, say, Tabula Rasa) they botch it so badly that they hold, afaik, the record for the fastest shutdown after release (about a year).

What sets it apart?

[MindlessAutomata]

OK, ignoring the bullshit rootkit, what sets Aion apart from other MMOs?

Re:What sets it apart?

[Endo13]

It has FLYING!! And PvPvE!!... ...or something like that. I swear I read it on the internets so I know it must be true.

*Yawn*

Re:What sets it apart?

[Opportunist]

Nothing. It's basically a blend of a standard fantasy MMO with standard JRPG graphics.

Re:What sets it apart?

[MindlessAutomata]

*yawn* back to waiting for the KOTOR MMO, which I know WILL be innovative (Bioware usually doesn't let us down).

Re:What sets it apart?

[Cimexus]

Not much ... it's not revolutionary. But it does try to take the best parts of Asian and Western MMOs and put them together. So if you liked the artwork of Lineage and the questing and easy levelling of WoW, it might be a goer.

Re:What sets it apart?

[Jaysyn]

I haven't played Sonic Chronicles or Shattered Steel, & I am patiently awaiting Dragon Age, but going by this list I can honestly say that Bioware has *never* let me down.

http://www.bioware.com/games/

inaccurate summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey 'Soulskill,'

Have you even bothered to play the beta? An expansive open world world? Really? I don't call one-path linear progression (with cliff walls and forests that prevent you from straying off the path) open and expansive.

And it makes heavy use of flight? No, no it doesn't, as you can't fly in approximately 3/4 of the game world, including capital cities, starting zones, and almost everywhere except the smallish pvp area known as the abyss.

Flight is also on a timer that rarely exceeds 3 minutes.

Do some research you fucking shill.

Usability Kings?

[Thaelon]

he genre's usability kings, EVE Online and World of Warcraft

You've got to be shitting me. Surely you mean World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a bigger fan of EVE than World of Warcraft. But the EVE GUI has been shit since inception. And Customer UI suggestions go completely ignored for literally years , and that's just one thread that was alive for years with no sign of improvement.

EVE is wonderfully good at many things (nowhere else will you hear the term "pvp shakes"), and I've been in battles of over 1000 players with the game completely playable, but the UI?! That's their biggest failing.

Re:Usability Kings?

[brkello]

Thank you. I was going to say the same thing. As far as usability goes, Eve is probably the worst MMO out there. The GUI is overly complex and (for the most part) that is why the game has such a high learning curve. At least with WoW, you can alter your GUI in a billion ways so that it can fit even the most picky person's needs.

Re:Usability Kings?

[Bigjeff5]

Why is this Flamebait? It's an opinion in a thread of opinions; it's just as valid as the others.

Re:Usability Kings?

[Anonymous Coward]

EVE is wonderfully good at many things (nowhere else will you hear the term "pvp shakes"), and I've been in battles of over 1000 players with the game completely playable, but the UI?! That's their biggest failing

No, the biggest failing is EvE portraying itself as a game, which it clearly is not.

Re:Usability Kings?

[brkello]

I think a mod might be an Eve fan. Hopefully a meta-moderator will catch it. Not really a big deal though.

I have played Eve, quit, and tried it again. I have played many other MMOs as well. So I figure my opinion is at least informed. Eve is a game that you really want to like, but is ruined by the interface and the community.

Why I don't like Aion, having tested it

[Oyjord]

I've tried the past week fews in beta to like this game, but it's just not happening. Here's why:

-the graphics are too "cutesy." Everything has a soft glow to it, from the login screen to the actual environments. Even the Asmodean (sp?) lands feel too Hello Kitty-ish.

-the mobs are also "cutesy." Wheres the menace? Killing cute little bunny-bear hybrids isn't very viscerally exciting.

-the combat animations are apocalyptic. My dagger hits a mob and things EXPLODE! Wow, what happen when I'm level 20 and I hit a mob with my dagger? The nearby village detonates?

-the sounds effects are "cutsey." When you click on damn near anything, you hear a little "twinkle" effect. From NPC givers to loot, I constantly hear Mario gathering stars. (Oh, not to mention the choral music in the beginning which is simply dreadful and music I think I heard 10 years ago in a Final Fantasy game).

-the battle/combat sounds are hilariously bad. Every time my female scout take damage, I hear a 5 yr old child scrape her knee. Again, where's the grit, the menace, where's the fact that I'M FIGHTING, not picking flowers?

Sorry, but these are all deal-breakers. You can add a good story onto this (which btw, I didn't see), you can add flying onto this (nothing new here, AO let you do this, what, almost 10 years ago?), you can add PvP on top of this (what, to hear LOTS of 5 yr old girls scraping their knees)...but the game will still look and sound the same.

There is almost NOTHING I liked about UO, EQ, DAOC, AO, AC, WoW, you name it, there is almost NOTHING aesthetically in common in Aion with those great games of the past

No thanks, Aion, I outgrew Link and Mario and Princess Peach's cuteness 20 years ago.

Re:Why I don't like Aion, having tested it

[Cimexus]

Hmm, guess this shows you can only please some of the people some of the time.

I'm the opposite. Can't stand the cartoony look and feel of games like WoW. Much prefer the stylised look of Aion (and other Korean MMOs like Lineage II). I love that the effects are 'over done'. I don't want menace. Western games are always like that it seems, dark and menacing and using a colour palette consisting of 47 million shades of grey, brown and dark green.

Oh well, luckily there are many games out there to suit all kinds of players :)

PS. And yeah I still play new Mario and Zelda games :(

No

[dvh.tosomja]

No

(In case that somebody is asking if it runs in linux)

NcSoft is a Microsoft Shill

[fwr]

Ever since I saw the ads in the technical trade rags that NcSoft did for Microsoft and their "truth" campaign I de-installed the three games I purchased from them and haven't reinstalled them yet. I'll stick with other game vendors, thank you.

Re:NcSoft is a Microsoft Shill

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were playing their games, you were using Windows already... so you will hate Microsoft, but still use their OS, but blame third party developers?

ps City of Heroes has a Mac client

Re:NcSoft is a Microsoft Shill

[Holi]

Actually it doesn't, if you look at the contents of the CoH app it is actually the windows client running in transgaming's wine.

Wishing I was in the Beta

[Doxy66]

I must admit, this game looks very pretty. Far prettier than WoW. It'll be interesting to see how it runs and more importantly, plays. Sadly, even if it is as playable as a game like WoW, I doubt it'll be half as popular. Some interesting backstory in this interview with the NCSoft Community Manager in this video: http://www.elecplay.com/watch/19/167/3/16

Re:Well, does it run linux?

[Cimexus]

You can get Lineage II running in WINE, so Aion should be able to as well with a bit of fiddling around.

I played the closed beta - you aren't missing much

[Skuld-Chan]

There's really nothing all that spectacular about the game in my opinion. So far from all the closed betas all comments about how the client works, how the controls work etc have been ignored (it doesn't have any camera options for example, and it will not let you map any mouse buttons). It really seems the game is fully in Korea's control, and the US distributor (NCSoft WEST) has little to no control over the actual game system.

Every single quest - every single one was an incomprehensible request to collect x amount of rare drop, or y amount of monsters - no variety what-so-ever - and none of the quests actually have anything to do with lore until you reach level 10 and start working on your sub class quest, and even then the writing is atrocious.

The combat system borrows from FFO where you have skill chain combo's, and who gets to loot the monster is purely based on who damages it more - prepare to be griefed a lot by DPS classes anyone who dares play a healer or a tank.

Flight is incredibly lame. Not only is it on a timer (which means when you're "tired" you'll either glide down or fall to your death), but there are visblocks in places that you can't fly - not even WoW has this in places you are allowed to fly. The other thing - one of the core materials to collect Aether is only in the sky - one forum post commented it was "the mmo equivalent of cutting yourself".

You'd think in 20 years of multiplayer rpg games there would be something more revolutionary come along, but no Aion isn't it.

fwr is a Linux Shill

[Anonymous Coward]

See? Stupid accusations are easy.

Played the beta:

[Anonymous Coward]

Played the beta, I can sum this up in a replacement title.

"World of Guild Wars"

The only thing that title doesn't tell you about is the fact that the wings they are all up in arms about are annoying to use... not fluid at all with movement, on a strict timer, and only usable in like 1 out of 5 zones. You get excited to get them, than they say you can't use them for a few levels till you find the next wing friendly zone. Total crap.

Other than that though, World of Guild Wars sums the game up.