how casual can a Korean MMO be???

[KnightPT]

i dont like to have to rely on other people as evidence that i went through all the guild wars campains with the hench and heros (henchway ftw) but if everything can be soloed then it would be too easy i just hope we can get to max lvl by soloing and then the good equip are from party play

[dagan]

Originally Posted by Fleiva

Why would they split their players base? In korea, L2 is pretty alive still, making another grind-a-thon they would attract the players that are already paying them monthly instead of acquiring new ones.

NC has developed 2 games only, setting that as prejudice leads nowhere good since Aion isnt part of the Lineage franchise.

2008 many L2 player will change to one of the nextgen MMOs...
why loose em to WAR, Spellborn or AOC...

u cant expect ppl to play L2 till L3 comes out in 2010...
AION will have to do the job and catch the ex L2 players...
and there will be many ...
u cant give those ppl a WoW copy... they will burn ur office :P

its just L2 players want AION to be there new MMO since they need one baldy after 4yrs of L2... NC knows that very good... dont think they can afford to loose em to another company ...
just look at the forums here... almost everyone here comes from L2... most of the 1day players will be Lineagers

AION is our game ... u WoWlers wait for ur next carebear blizzard game (just kidding )

[Birdman]

I have a feeling that it's going to feel like a grind to most of us. I don't really have too much confidence in this being a huge success on release day. But I'll give it a few months of patching to see if the devs really intended to make it more casual than the standard korean MMO or if they were just blowing some smoke up our butts to generate some buzz.

[Celebrity]

Originally Posted by dagan

hi all,

so iam L2 player like most of u and i love it and ye after 3years now iam bored...

i was looking forward to aion and hoping it could be my lineage3...
but the info yet indicates to the wrong direction... i see a carebear game with wowlike xping and equipping... and ppl really seem to be happy about it...
whats the fun about ppl running around in maxlvl and topgrade equip after 1 month???

but thats not the topic:

i think AION = NC = Korea and that lets me hope...
so how casual can a Korean MMO be? those ppl play MMORPGs all day... wowlike xp would lead to maxlvls and topequip after weeks... how u wanna keep those players in game for years like it is in L2...

iam sure that grind will be less than l2 and xping will be faster but it still will be worlds away from WoW standards (at least i hope it)...
i cant imagine that the koreans would be happy with that... and 1 thing i learned in my years with NC now, they give a sh1t about american and eurpean customers but they listen carefully to their koreans players


Or is NC making this game only for western carebears who complain when they dont get 3 lvlups in 1 hour and 1 epicdrop too...

There are some concepts on your topic that shows me you think a game for hardcore players only gives profit, let's check some numbers, Lineage 2 has around 200k-300k subscribers, it's obviously a game for hardcore guys that have not much to do (i know that i've played taht a lot when i had nothing to do) and can play like 15+ hours per day.

Let's face some facts more then 70% of the gaming comunity don't have all this time, they do other things and usually have a life. So the concept of games like Lineage 2 is dieing, you can see this just looking in the so called carebear game wow (go into a pvp server there and after get raped by lvl 70 guy with you 20 toon you don't think it's that much carebear). The carebear game has more then 8 million subscribers, and that is a market everyone whants to steal a part, even NC. And the game they choosed for this is Aion.

But the fact of the game is being designed to also favor the casual player don't makes it a carebear game in any way, there will be pvp and the only way to get the best things of the game is TROUGHT the pvp, so you ca already see the korean influence here, the game will just not need 1 billion hours of grinding to you get the max lvl and then start to enjoy it.

[Fleiva]

Originally Posted by dagan

2008 many L2 player will change to one of the nextgen MMOs...
why loose em to WAR, Spellborn or AOC...

Thats on US/EU, I said korean L2, they wont loose players base there due to those new games.

Originally Posted by dagan

u cant expect ppl to play L2 till L3 comes out in 2010...
AION will have to do the job and catch the ex L2 players...
and there will be many ...
u cant give those ppl a WoW copy... they will burn ur office :P

L2 players dont like the grind, L2 walker, gold selling companies and private server with boosted rates had an incredible success due to the excesive mindless double clicking. L2 has an awesome pvp system, and it's a pretty well designed game nowadays, excepting the pve. Nobody likes to sit in a room rightclicking on your party's assister name 24/7, that being the most effective way of leveling.

Originally Posted by dagan

its just L2 players want AION to be there new MMO since they need one baldy after 4yrs of L2... NC knows that very good... dont think they can afford to loose em to another company ...
just look at the forums here... almost everyone here comes from L2... most of the 1day players will be Lineagers

I come from L2 aswell, and I left retail due to the impossibility to make something unless you get ride of your real life, or unless you want to break their EULA. L2 Is a great game, but it isnt destinated for western players at all.

Originally Posted by dagan

AION is our game ... u WoWlers wait for ur next carebear blizzard game (just kidding )

The minority of players who leveled legitly in L2 cant be a factor. Carebear has nothing to do with hardcore, people who prefer crafting over pvp wont find their home in aion probably.

[dagan]

Originally Posted by Celebrity

Let's face some facts more then 70% of the gaming comunity don't have all this time, they do other things and usually have a life. So the concept of games like Lineage 2 is dieing, you can see this just looking in the so called carebear game wow (go into a pvp server there and after get raped by lvl 70 guy with you 20 toon you don't think it's that much carebear). The carebear game has more then 8 million subscribers, and that is a market everyone whants to steal a part, even NC. And the game they choosed for this is Aion.

ye all Lineage2 players have no life... thats just cheap to say

what differs a L2 player from a WoW player is that we want a long time experience we want to play a game for years not just hit max lvl on all classes then quit...

if i achieve something in L2 iam proud of it... games like WoW will never give u the same fealing... thats why i dont like WoW and are willing to grind my stuff than just getting it ina present box...

and most of all dont get blended by the numbers of WoW subscribers this was 1 unique wonder and will never happen again...
many other casual games are around now... u see any other of em having 9mio subs. NO... WoWs success had to do with so many other thing it just isnt the fact that it was for casuals... its pure name and the huge PR had to do much more with it...

u ever seen any PR for L2 no... there are still ppl around not knowing that there is a game called Lineage2 but even my grandma knows WoW

[Cynthe]

Originally Posted by dagan

ye all Lineage2 players have no life... thats just cheap to say

what differs a L2 player from a WoW player is that we want a long time experience we want to play a game for years not just hit max lvl on all classes then quit...

So agree, I was reading a blog about an L2 player and he was very casual, he loved L2 because he likes exploring and taking his time, it really depends on your point of view and how you enjoy a game. There's tons of people who play grindy games who don't actually grind, they enjoy the experience and the social aspect and it doesn't matter if they never reach end game or max level or if takes them years. ^^
Again this is I really like Ryzom, no pressure you just log in chat, go dig or participate in one of the player run events ect... I hope someone good finally buys that game..

[Hope]

Actually, I would love it if Aion was more casual than L2 and more hardcore than WoW. L2 broke my spirit whereas WoW bored me.

If Aion could reach a nice balance between the two, I could see a lot of people flocking to it for the combination of PvP, PvE, endgame sieging/raiding and beautiful visuals.

[Amergin]

I played L2 and Wow and well however i liked them both, however in wow i never lvled very fast as i always spent 80% of my time ganking people or doing BG's rather than questing... Both of them have their good points but wow was too easy for sure..

[Calindor]

Since when did the amount of subscribers determine how good a game is? Yes of course companies want the most sales, but is the best music the highest selling? are the best cars the highest selling?

Theres more to selling a product than just how good it is.

You're subscription stats are wrong, L2 is subscriptions are broken into Asia and NA. NA peaked at 1million subscribers and worldwide was just over 4 million, I think the total is down to about 1 million now, but I wouldnt be suprised if 5 million + people are still playing l2 on priv servers, there so many of them its not even funny.


And saying the L2 grind style is dead is just stupid, L2 is dead because its been out for so long, there havnt been any other popular grind style games since L2...but NCSoft did now realize there is a bigger market for MMORPG's in the Western World since people are introduced to WoW...so now their goal is to make games that are a lot easier, smaller learning curves and take less involvment to play (look how EQ evolved over the years)...Thats not to say a new L2 style grind game with some different aspects and new originality that promised the same end-game content and open pvp wars based on actual experience with other players rather than kill this guy because your team has a green name and his has a red, wouldnt have the same success L2 did...but why shoot for that success when a different style game can get you maybe double the subscribers.

[Kap]

aion will need to reward those players who can sink a ton of time into the game.
no matter how much you hated the guy who played L2 for 15 hours a day and used walker to lvl his toons, that guy motivated you to lvl if for the only reason that every so often you would drop him.
i think that aion will offer a few different ways to play the game with the end game being much much harder than mid game. ppl thought they were bad *** in B grade in L2 and that was attainable by the casual player in a reasonable amount of time. aion could employ plateaus where the casual player can still have a good time and feel accomplished but where the HC player can blow past and get to the higher end of the game.
my point of view is .. if i play 7 hours a night and you play 3 hours we should not be the same lvl and have the same gear.
AND I HOPE THEY DONT HAVE THAT GOD AWFUL EXTRA XP FOR NOT PLAYING AT ALL!!!!! thats the worst idea ever employed in a game ....xp for sleeping...CRAP!!!!!!!!!

[DragonOX]

I think the main problem you guys are having is generalizing everything. Saying L2 is for hardcore and WoW is for "carebears" (I HATE THAT TERM!) is a really dumb way of looking at it. Considering I've played both and done lots of things in both I can tell you for sure that no game is better than the other. Games appeal to different people yes, but it's not so cut and dry that it's hardcore on one and casual on another. Yes WoW's grind paled in comparison to Lineage II but there were also lots of things to do along the way. Yes Lineage II is a crazy grind where you gotta put in the time to get to the top, believe me I know, but there wasn't a lot to do on the way there. Both games had their ups and downs but both games have their mix of playtypes. Just because you enjoy WoW doesn't make you a "carebear", and just because you enjoy L2 doesn't make you the best gamer ever. You can't just criticize one or the other, especially when anyone can play whatever the hell they want. Wouldn't you be happier if the community supporting an MMO was big compared to small? More people to play with and talk to and potentially PvP and level with?

You guys need to understand that the casual gaming market is huge compared to the hardcore market. Nintendo Wii anyone? Game developers and companies need to appeal to the casual players to expand the market, that's where the new money is. Yes they still make games for the hardcore players, but casual people can play them too. What you and I define as hardcore and casual is completely different from person to person.

You can't just say that all koreans love to play grinders. I believe in one of those Q and A's with Ken he mentions that Korea had never really been exposed to RPG and storytelling elements within a game and grinders were all they really knew. He mentions how that is shifting because of new games that bring those elements into focus. I think he has a better idea of the gaming market in Korea than any of us trolling the forums. World of Warcraft's success is because it appeals to a WIDE VARIETY of people. Casuals and hardcore gamers play that game. Koreans do too! They're damn good at it! There are a lot of crazy korean PvP videos I've seen for WoW so don't even bother telling me they don't play.

You need to get off the bland ideas that games are for only one type of person, because everyone is different. Telling casual players to play something else for a game you don't even know much about is not the brightest idea, especially considering we all want Aion to succeed and be a great game that lasts for some time. It won't if only a handful of hardcore grinders play it. There is no denying that.

I agree with the latest post too. Reward a player for the time they put in to it, but don't tell a player who can't invest the time that they can never achieve anything within the game or be a "factor". (Another term I hated from L2). It may take longer yes, but the options should be there for them also. If you get to a certain point in 20 hours spent over 3 days, they should be roughly at the same place in 20 hours spent over 3 weeks.

[Amergin]

I didn't see anything wrong with the rested exp idea in wow, it was no where near enough for the people offline to catch up unless you're really that sad of a lvler.. and if you play for 7 hours and someone else plays for 3 hours and has the same lvl/gear, i'm going to guess he had help or you just suck..

[DragonOX]

Originally Posted by Amergin

I didn't see anything wrong with the rested exp idea in wow, it was no where near enough for the people offline to catch up unless you're really that sad of a lvler.. and if you play for 7 hours and someone else plays for 3 hours and has the same lvl/gear, i'm going to guess he had help or you just suck..

lol too true
Depends on how the time was spent more or less.

[Calindor]

What they were saying in the interview that this will be a hardcore game, they just have all the main quests involved in levelling up broken into 1-3 hour sections, so a casual gamer can log on for an hour or 2 an actually accomplish something and get a reward...the hardcore gamer can do the same thing, but will do more in 1 session. I still think end-game is going to take longer than WoW to reach, and once you get there, getting better gear will take even longer...its just that the casual gamer can have a sense of accomplishing something...

Not like L2 where you spend 2 hours playing at lvl 70 and your exp bar goes from 20.80% to 21.50%, or the third prof quests that take 1+ week with full help from a clan to do...even 2-3 weeks trying to do it on your own.


IMO the l2 levelling isnt that bad for the first class...but then you gotta make a subclass and get it from lvl 40-75 to get noblesse buff/teleports and compete for hero/olympiad...Subclassing was a really cool idea, ive never heard of another rpg with subclasses in it, and it makes for interesting pvps when you see an elf in robes, you think its a healer, but it turns out to be an orc buffer or something

L2 should have come up with something else end game rather than grinding a subclass up to lvl 75 aswell...I mean how rediculous are the Kamael, you make a Kamael char, after levelling the main and 2 kamael subclasses up to 75, you unlock a special class only obtainable this way.....4 chars up to lvl 75 :O...i would never even try that.