Eastern vs Western MMO's

[Blog Monster]

Let's all try and make a list of the good the bad, the pros and cons, the do's and don'ts out of the east and west. For example I think western MMO game mechanics are pretty superior to eastern MMO mechanics, however aesthetically eastern MMOs seem to have a nice shiny "ooooh look at me!" kind of feel to them, a really nice sense of "appeal" to the GFX unlike overclocked AoC graphics with 20 different shaders piled on for added awesome sauce.

I have yet to tangle with stigmas, but I thought even WARs mastery system was as close as it got to "simplifying" class customization. Or does NCsoft plan to raise the level cap so high they're going to turn stigmas into trees o.o!

Also to top things off, if you're feeling a little daring: what would you add to an MMO to make it more original/fun?

[Noiry]

Originally Posted by Blog Monster

Let's all try and make a list of the good the bad, the pros and cons, the do's and don'ts out of the east and west.

I think "Western MMOs" and "Eastern MMOs" are just stereotypes, over-simplified labels used to categorize a wide variety of different games. It's like talking about the differences between Asian and American people. Sure, there are some cultural differences, but there is also a wide variety within the two groups, and focusing on the stereotypical differences could be very misleading.

Let's see the two stereotypes you have presented:

For example I think western MMO game mechanics are pretty superior to eastern MMO mechanics, however aesthetically eastern MMOs seem to have a nice shiny "ooooh look at me!" kind of feel to them.

Age of Conan is more beautiful than many Eastern MMOs, and Guild Wars has superior PVP mechanincs to many Western games.

Aion suffers a lot from this stereotyping. Many of its features closely resemble to those we typically associate with Western MMOs, yet it is stereotyped by many westerners as an "Asian grinder", "Chinese bot-fest", or "pretty Japanese anime game with no lore at all".

[bit]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with Noiry on this one. Why should a game be labeled just because it was developed in that certain region?

[Blog Monster]

Originally Posted by bit

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with Noiry on this one. Why should a game be labeled just because it was developed in that certain region?

Most Asian MMO's go with the idea of point click, where as the western ones tend to give you more options over the control of your character. Aion seems to be going in the middle atm

Noiry the reason I used such terms because it is what the majority of either side do in fact coincide to such stereotypes, you also rule out the notion that even NCwest promote the fact that there are large differences; quoting liv on this: "taking the beauty of korean MMO's and the lore and story telling of western MMOs".

I was going for of an approach like in Lineage 2 for example, I remember they had medal events where you could get all kinds of crazy stuff and purely items to just show off, I like having cool items you show off, they have no stats just brags; "yeah you see this it took 2 weeks to get it and I look awesome with it on".

You could always tell apart the hardcores from the casuals with these kind of items, the challenge ended up being too daunting for casual players yet the majority of the content was doable so they'd still have fun in the game : )

Another thing in eastern MMOs is losing exp when you die!

I think you guys grabbed the wrong end of the stick on this one

[Dazzler]

Aion was designed from day one to be an mmo that would appeal to both Western and Eastern audiences. It was never designed to be a 'Korean mmo'.