AOC and Guild Wars both managed almost flawless releases (for MMOs anyway). The fact that WoW struggled many years ago before MMOs were made truly popular is neither here nor there.
Age of Conan and Warhammer both had terrible launches as well, particularly Warhammer, who caved into the pressure to open tons of new servers, and we all know how that worked out. There are still servers in Wow that have queues. The queue in Aion has been getting progressively better each day, and there are servers there that don’t have queues at all.
I would much rather have queues in the short term than a game that’s a ghost town in the long term.
AOC did not have a terrible launch in the slightest. It was smooth, stable, and without huge queues.
Warhammer had a busy launch, not a terrible one.
Does anyone else think that arguing in favor of hours-long queues smacks of fanboyism?
Forget WoW, that is just one example of long queues. Most other MMOs never had this problem. Can you name another MMO that had queues over 1 hour?
I had little to no problem (other than when they took servers down for short periods) playing most of the recent MMOs at launch like Warhammer, Age of Conan, Champions Online etc.
I’d rather have server merges in the future than these queues.
According to this, there were quite a few problems at launch, but they consider it a success. The only problem Aion has had with it’s launch is that it has queues.
Aion’s queues have been getting shorter as the week goes by, and there are servers with no queues at all. Once you get into the game, the performance is fine.
Again, Wow still has queues, and the very same night Aion launched, was having server stability issues of their own. Not to mention the whole “additional instances cannot be launched” crap that was plaguing the game, and several days last month where my server had 3 straight days of 8 hour maintenance.
God forbid I’m enthusiastic about a game and like to talk about it and share my opinion, on a message board even!
Well, we can just agree to disagree on that point.
Did you even read it? Most of the complaints aren’t even about the launch itself.
Think it’s fair to say that your instinctive “AOC had a terrible launch!” was pretty much nonsense. You do get pretty defensive over your favourite games… :)
I’m glad you’re enthusiastic about a game. But trying to excuse things as blatantly annoying as hours’ long queues makes you look like a raving fanboy.
Frankly, I’d like an enthusiastic player to tell me what Aion has to offer a long-time WoW player. I’d like to know more about character development later in the game. I’d like to know what it has to offer in terms of PvP combat and PvE instances and how they stack up against other MMOs. I’d like to know more about crafting and other things you can do during downtime. I’d like to more about the world itself, how interesting it is to explore, how big is it, how epic are the quests and how neat is the loot. I’d like to know more about character balance during fights.
If you’re enthusiastic about the game, I’m sure you’d like it if other folks take your advice and sign up. While you may not care that it validates your opinion, I’m sure you care that others would trust your opinion. But how can someone do that if you’re going to make excuses for things like long queues? As such, put on some more objective glasses - trying to use a launch of a MMO from 5 years ago to justify queues today is really absurd - and tell us what’s so good about this game and why you’re so enthused?
THe proble with server merges is normally they take way too long to happen and by then it’s generally too late.
Sure it’s not an easy balance to get but personally i’d prefer queues to empty servers in a PvP game.
Apparently an extra server is being launched at the weekend but not sure how much relief that will offer.
As an EU player i’ve not found it too bad however the game is offically released tomorrow here so we will see.
I had a nice long post written talking about how that article compares the headstart, and most of the complaints about Aion have also been about the headstart. The game has only been officially released for 2 days. But you know what? Fuck it. If all this thread is going to just devolve into people making snarky remarks and baiting me, I’m not going to bother anymore. I will just leave you with these.
http://www.spooncraft.com/featured-articles/the-great-debate-wow-vs-aion/
“Remember in December of 2004 when you first installed the World of Warcraft and you felt like you were looking at the most beautiful and amazing game to date? Addictive and exciting and full of mysteries you were yearning to uncover? Zones yet to explore, epic weapons and armor and vicious monsters and evil that had to be faught? It’s like that all over again. Aion feels like WoW used to.”
And you know what? to cover the flip side of the coin:
NCSoft should temporarily disable private stores so that people stop using them as a means to avoid the queues, thus exacerbating the queues themselves.
CM’s need to stop being such twitter addicts.
I have a bug that causes my system to crash in Pandaemonium unless I have my textures set to low. This is something that didn’t happen to me in beta, but popped up after release.
I wish I had more bag slots.
You know, this isn’t helping you. I asked a number of legitimate questions about your game above, but you’ve chosen to ignore them in lieu of being overly defensive and complain that you’re being “baited”.
It’s got launch issues. That’s not the end of the world. It is unacceptable to think that people should put up with queues, especially right at launch. But that could be just a minor hiccup if they fix that in the next couple of days.
I really would like to know the attraction of Aion. So far, most of the stuff I’ve read hasn’t really had any depth to explaining why or how the game will be successful short-term and long-term. Most of the previews don’t get past “oh it’s pretty”, “you can fly, but only for short stretches” and “there’s a big PvP zone at level 25”.
Count me in too Blackadar. Though honestly, I didn’t see the appeal of WoW prior to launch but several of my friends were interested because it would be for them, their first launch MMO and wanted the experience of playing from the beginning of an economy/population rather than hopping in midstream. What drew me into WoW eventually was the excellent world building which seems to have been slowly abandoned by the expansions (and well was eventaully even abandoned in the core game). One of my favorite and probably most memorable quest is the alliance rogue quest at 20 I think where you have to sneak up a tower to pick locks past guards (or was it a key) plus pick the pocket of a patrolmen outside. Today, you just get a buddy to kill them all, but at the time it was a bit frustrating but awesome too.
It’s hard to find that stuff from screenshots though, but I just don’t get what’s so neat about Aion. There’s no excusing the launch issues with queues. WoW literally had unparalleled growth. They thought they might hit 1 million users at the game’s height, not so closely to launch. Now, several MMOs have had large bursts of initial interest, so they should be prepared for lots of people trying it. If they aren’t, they are likely going to be turning people off (and for the record I never waited 2-4 hours to get into AoC at launch).
Well so far I have had 0 q times. But again im not playing at peak times right now, I work nights so when I get up I have had 0 problems loging in.
So far i think the game is great.
So is Aion better at the PvP experience than Warhammer? Warhammer is the unofficial offspring of DAoC.
Not to mention that MANY people didn’t play DAoC, so that might not be the best way to explain the appeal of Aion.
So far
Aion Pro and Cons
Pro
- it’s pretty
- you can fly(in some areas).
- Have a pvp zone after you hit lvl 25.
Con
- Everyone looks alike since everyone is the same race, you end up with every cloth/chain/plate wearers looks exactly the same.
- Story quest usually are not solo friendly, which mean you usually spent half of time grinding same repeatable quest(oh yeah they did increase amount of early repeatable quest, usually involve killing 10+ same mobs or collecting same item from mobs you kill for pitiful amount of xp).
- tons of back tracking, the lvl 20 Stigma quest is takes the medal for longest deliver quest ever.
- Elyos have one of the worst city ever(gameplay-wise), 5 minutes boat trip between parts of the cities, some of the main quest npcs is located in an area with an elevator that takes 2 minutes to get to and leave.
- Stigma is a cool idea, but nowhere as deep as a talent from WoW.
P.S
Stigma are basically skills you can equip, you have around 7 slots total, there around 13 stigma per class, as long as you have the abyssal shards and the stigma you can equip it, you gain that skills as long as the stigma is equipped.
Those are good questions, Blackadar, but unfortunately, I don’t have all of the answers yet. My Cleric is only 16, so obviously, I haven’t been to the Abyss yet, or poked my nose through any rifts. My experience is totally PvE thus far.
Mechanically, Aion is very similar to other MMORPGs. You have an action bar, you press buttons or keys to activate your abilities. Some abilities are meant to be used in chains, similar to the way this is done for some skills in LotRO. (I’m not talking about fellowship skills here; think more of minstrel skills, etc. where using one unlocks another temporarily.)
There are quests, complete with the now-traditional floating markers above quest givers. Most quest text has links that give more information about quest objectives, and where they may be found (as mentioned earlier in this thread.) Quests are not as numerous as they are in WoW, and I’ve already arrived at a village where all of the quests were too high for me to obtain. I had to grind out the last portion of my level, at which point, things started to open up again.
The grind itself is pretty easy, but keep in mind that I come from a long FFXI background, Where Grinding Is King. In Aion, at least, you have a reasonable chance of grinding things solo, for decent XP. I think it’s even better with a friend or two along, but this is not always required. In terms of grouping so far, I would say that it’s similar to LotRO in difficulty. Some quests are tricky to solo, strictly because of the numbers of mobs that you need to get past. Mobs are plentiful, and have a semi-fast respawn rate. If you take too long clearing your way through one place, you may find them popping in behind you.
The zones are a decent size so far, but not huge. Resource nodes seem varied and plentiful. Itemization is much much MUCH more restrained than WoW’s, probably closer to FFXI’s. Crafted gear is actually useful.
The flying thing is interesting, though it is odd to be allowed to fly in some zones and not others. Flight time is limited: It discharges and recharges like a battery. There is also a short cooldown time which limits how frequently you can take off. You can also glide to extend flight time, and you can glide for short distances even in no-fly zones, just by jumping up and spreading your wings.
Flight has practical uses (it makes it easier to find things on hunt and gather quests, for example, and there are even floating aether nodes to harvest). I’m looking forward to seeing what flight means for PvP combat.
The progression through the first two zones I’ve been in (Ishalgen and Altgard) has been fairly linear. I’m told that the game opens up quite a bit at 25, at which point, you can complete some qualification quests and enter the Abyss. I figure that’s still a week or two away for me yet. :)
As for the queues, I understand the annoyance. I’ve been having to wait about an hour, so I just plan to do something else in the meantime. I usually log in before I start cooking dinner, and by the time we’ve finished eating, I’m through. I hope that the wait times will decrease eventually.
Up to the point where I’m at, I can’t really say that Aion does anything new–but what it does do, it does with a certain flair. There’s room for improvement; e.g., more quests, better legion management tools. So far, though, I’m enjoying it–even if it hasn’t been breaking a lot of new ground. Maybe it’s just the change of venue that’s making everything feel fresh.
And yes, the game is very pretty, like everyone says.
There is not much new in Aion. I think most of the people gushing over Aion probably played WoW as their first MMO and haven’t played much else. If they had given EQ2 a chance then they probably would be saying the exact same things about EQ2. I think EQ2 is still a much bigger PvE game than Aion appears to be but the PvP game in Aion might make the difference. Unfortunately they made some weird design decision and left PvP out until level 25 (wtf?). Having said that, I’m still enjoying Aion a lot in the early stages (when I’m not sitting in a queue). It is yet to be determined whether the honeymoon will last. I think I’m enjoying it despite the lack of originality, the generic world, limited number of classes (only 6!) because it has that somewhat intangible element that makes for addictive MMOs. I just want to level a bit further to get some new skills, loot and see new areas. I tried Champions Online recently, and CO was missing this. It is possible that Aion will rise above it’s plainness in the post 25+ game. I’m a big PvP fan so I’m looking forward to find out for myself.
cough
Eight. Templar, Gladiator, Sorceror, Spiritmaster, Ranger, Assassin, Cleric, Chanter.
Not totally spartan, but still a far cry from FFXI’s 20 jobs, or EQ2’s 24 classes. :)