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On Transitioning To an Asian-Style MMO, Such As Aion
A. Harvey writes "Ten Ton Hammer has an interesting article about the transition to Asian-style MMO games, specifically Aion. 'In many ways, the West is catching up to the East in terms of gaming. Per capita gaming ... and broadband proliferation is markedly higher in Asian markets.
Gaming is much more social in the East as well; many players gather together in internet cafes to spend their game time with each other. Another surprising difference in most Asian-based games is that most functions of game control are mouse based.' I think the author hit the nail on the head that Aion will be a big success in North America and will introduce a lot of players to games with an Eastern feel."
You'd need a separate account, as in, if you roll an Asmo, you can't roll an Elyos on the same server. So, it's possible, but costly just for the buff. Plus, PKing is such a huge problem in the Chinese Aion, it's ludicrous. Capped chars (45) run into lv. 20 areas all the time. They needed to do something, and I hope it works out. I don't know, as they haven't rolled out the patch with this upgrade to all the Chinese regions yet.
Have you played the Chinese game? How about the Closed Beta? I have, so I'm going to comment from actually playing the past 2 months, both in beta and on Chinese servers.
Speculation on numbers is rubbish if you don't have any reason for them other than "it happened to every WoW-clone before it". This isn't quite a WoW clone. It's familiar, but no the same.
Aion is actually very well polished compared to AoC. It's at 1.0.12 in China, and it's supposed to be at 1.5 by the NA release. That will make it much better than it already is, which is on the level of good. AoC fucking BLEW at launch. Completely.
I never played warhammer, won't comment.
You negelct to realize that every day brings WoW closer to it's death. You know how many people jsut get so damn bored of it already? Do you think eternal life is possible, even for a given product?
Granted, reinvention is usually the winner during a change between generations. But you don't need to reinvent the Corvette to sell more; you need to give it a bigger engine. Then, when that doesn't catch people atttention anymore, change the body. Then, some large number of years later, scrap it for a new kind of car.
They usually let you use the keyboard alot too. I dunno what the mouse thing is about.
There really isn't much of a difference between Western and Eastern MMO's IMO. There's the difference in raw ridiculousness of the graphics, and sometimes the quality because if you target China, the shittiest MMO will bring in some players. Sometimes there's a difference in ridiculousness of story and various mechanics, such as Aion's flying vs. WoW's only-walking. I don't know what else is really different between the two. Maybe level of grind is one thing, and wether grinding PvP or PvE is better for equip at endgame.
The biggest difference wouldn't be in the game itself, but in the players, IMO. Chinese players on Aion don't give a fuck about killstealing or anything. Ganking is ubercommon. One time, I was gathering some oysters, and a guy running up to me says stop, so I go to type "Why?" (I was in Asmo territory, in an area where Elyos were common and there was a rift open for them to get there). As I hit enter, I get back to him gathering the last oyster right there, and he sends a message going X-P. That would definitely empitomize the difference in culture when it comes to playing MMO's.
Aion will have a couple hundred thousand subscribers if it's lucky, and those will churn out in a few months, the numbers will stabilize somewhere around 80K, and NCsoft will still be scratching their heads wondering why they can't publish a GOOD MMO.
You do realise that the game has been out since November 2008 and has millions of active subscribers in Asia?
To better answer your question - online games are "gamed" for in-game currency, which is converted into real life currency, by one means or another. There are companies in poor countries that employ dozens or hundreds of people to farm MMO's for ingame currency, to be sold on the black market to wealthy gamers. It is a lucrative business for them, considering that most come from poor countries, and they can pay people a bowl of rice of two for a day's work in front of the computer.
The same guy might be logged into 4, 6, or more online games, and he has a quota of gold, or whatever, to harvest before his shift is over. He never gets to adventure, or explore - he performs rote actions, with the purpose of increasing his bank.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I started playing WoW in march 2009. I kept hearing stuff like I am "faking being a newb" that I am a "fucktard" for not knowing what to do or not to do during boss fights, I was disbelieved when saying I had no alt (shortly after they laughed at me because I did not know what an alt was or an "owl" or a "dudu"). When i reached the burning crusade floating island this went even worst so I decided to stop, and I will only flock to new MMO now. So I am pretty sure everybody is about as newb as I am.
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What a bunch of nonsense. The "West" is not exactly lagging in broadband, however the US is. The West is not synonymous with the US. Europe is doing quite well in the broadband ratings, especially Western Europe [or Northern Europe].
Furthermore Asia as a whole is not exactly leading the broadband race either. While Japan and Korea are of course very well developed, try making the same comparison with India or other large nations such as Indonesia.