Possible reasons Aion could fail >_<( read first )

[Fleiva]

Originally Posted by Waterelfo

Ayase tell me what we wil do in end game. That's my only concern.
Is it pvp in abys pvp in abys.... got egar from points .. pvp ... got all egar...
or will it be do a raid then got this key will opent he cavern of other now need pvp items..
What we will do at max level??

Posted this on another forum

Okay, so here I come with my "once every 2 months" post reminding the endgame system :P

This game is basicaly geared towards a faction vs faction vs faction war, the whole concept involves an area called the abyss, where most of this endgame content is developed at.
In the abyss, there are many things to do at this stage (consider that they might come up with surprises for the 40-50 unrevealed content) the biggest of them all being fortress siegeing.
There are 3 layers in the abyss, 9 fortresses spread on those layers, those fortresses are owned by the NPC faction, the balaur, which won't give them up easily.

You must get your faction ready to siege a fortress, which involves fighting against a lot of balaur who will try to stop you from getting to the final boss, which you must take down in order to get the fortress, seems like it will be a "the legion doing more damage to the final boss, wins". In those sieges, the oppossite faction can always interfere against your interests.

These fortresses are a bit more than what I explained on that last paragraph, since there are anti flight shields that you must take down, gates to destroy, and more things I cant seem to recall right now. In order to kill you, your enemies must destroy your headquarters/binding stone and kill anyone capable of ressurecting, that way, they will grant they send you back to the first layer of the abyss in the faction controlled zone.

Thanks to these fortresses, legions will be able to access to certain zones in the region, and they will also be able to set taxes on the items in the vendors next to the fortress, which grants a huge income.

In the abyss, there are also artifacts which appear on the map, these artifacts cause different effects once activated (you can activate them from time to time). They are at first controlled by the balaur, but you can kill the boss controlling those and own them, you will be able to use those artifacts then. How can these artifacts affect the war? Imagine that your legion gets wiped from a siege field, and that the enemies are slaying the Balaur boss successfuly, you activate the artifact near them and the Balaurs will kick those enemies out of their fortress, giving you a change to get time to fly to the fortress and try again, it also works on raid bosses, so you must be completely sure that you own those artifacts before trying to kill a tough raid boss in the zone. There was a video from CBT3 where people was slaying this demon guy raid, and all of the sudden, the Elyos get paralized due to an artifact effect and the boss kills them all.

In the abyss there are the best leveling zones, it's an open world area with the constant risk of PvP.

Let's remind also the Abyss points system, everytime you kill a balaur, an enemy PC, an enemy NPC or with certain features within the abyss you will earn abyss points, these points can be used to purchase Abyss gear (1 of the 3 kinds of gear there are in Aion). These points might also be used for certain skills and to get hero status, which will give you the ability to wipe a party by your own. Heros are announced on the map once they enter the abyss, so people will go after you, since heros are Abyss points pinnatas :P

Then we have the stygma system, the stygma system is about getting skills from other classes, the best stygmas will be hard to get.

Also, there's a detail, most of the raid bosses in Aion are stablished in an open world area in the abyss, meaning that you don't have to just kill the raid, but you'll also have to compete for them. There were interviews stating that there would be raids with the doors being locked once a group enters and once the raid spawns, much like in L2, which leaded to the most epic pvps in that game. Encouraging.

There will be, of course, instanced dungeons, but those are aimed towards smaller clans which can't compete against the highest levels, obviously, these rewards will help getting there, but these rewards won't be the best ones.

There's a system that will allow you and your buddies to go into a breach and enter the opposite faction's world, what's the advantage in this? Basicaly, mobs are more rewarding in the opposite lands of the world, and also, you can screw your enemies by killing important NPCs, which will have to be defended once the game has progressed to that point.

One of the most attractive features for me is involved with these rifts, I can already see myself organizing my legion in order to gain abyss points there by going into a city, waiting for some organized group to put a fight, and killing everyone on sight in order to get abyss points.

There are also titles, which can be obtained after slaying certain bosses, after owning fortresses, completing quests, etc. These titles have small bonuses on stats.

Of course, there is advanced crafting (crafting might be better than in other games due to the critical success concept, which can lead to you getting 2 items out of 1 craft, or which might give extra bonuses to those items.

There's something where people can participate, in order to help the factions cause without being involved in PvP, siege weapons. These must be obtained through PvE, so if you aren't into PvP, but you'd like to help your faction, the best way is to help them with siege weapons, since they cant be arsed grinding for them while they are pvping.

There are group based quests around the main storyline also, this should keep those who are into getting the whole story under the game interested.

There's also an intricate guilds system, which means guilds evolve as players on the guild do, this will lead to certain features which are yet to be discovered.

All this stuff is what I got, some things might be outdated, some others might be missconceptions, many more features will hit the shelves, I wanted to clarify it so people don't yell at NCsoft cause a feature I stated didn't make it into the game, that being said, 90% of the things I said were already seen in these betas.

We should also consider this, from a recent interview:

"A: There is much more content to the Abyss than players can imagine, it can only be said that the content in CBT3 is just a basic testing of the Abyss."

[Waterelfo]

That is.. big.
And makes me put the rating of aion back to 10 of the 9.9999

[Calindor]

Aion will not have a lack of content, I can guarantee it....its NCSoft. My only worries have already been explained. Even if they dont give a crap about NA/EU, as long as they stop bots, exploits, rmt and ebay, I will be happy.

[0lli]

Originally Posted by Calindor

Aion will not have a lack of content, I can guarantee it....its NCSoft. My only worries have already been explained. Even if they dont give a crap about NA/EU, as long as they stop bots, exploits, rmt and ebay, I will be happy.

Easiest thing would be if people stopped RMTs/ebaying, that would take care of bots at least
and exploits are usually fixed because they unbalance gameplay and usually leads to complaints if not fixed fast

[Koroem]

Originally Posted by Ayase

Just wanted to stick my head in and let you know that I've read all the posts in this thread. The title seems a bit misleading which is unfortunate, but be that as it may...

We're all experienced and dare I say 'avid' MMO players here in the team and are aware of the many pitfalls that come with game development and publishing. We know that we have parts that need work, but are always doing what we can to improve these. I'm only speaking for myself now, but every time something happens to go wrong is a learning experience that will help me avoid similar problems in the future.

We have read this thread and are aware of your fears and hopes. We love Aion and would not for a second do anything less than we potentially can in order to make it a solid and awesome game with a smooth launch. Remember that.

That's all.

You seem like a really nice guy, and I know how your job can be at times, which is why it makes it hard to say what I'm about to say.

I really don't want to be the clown that looks like the nyerker here, but it needs to be said, because I'm tired of community managers that just put on a show while knowing they can't do jack all for the issues at hand.

Are you able to guarantee to us, the players, and fans, that NCsoft Seoul will give just as much consideration and respect to us western players as they do their local eastern players in regards to patches, support, and updates? That the west (NA/EURO) is not just some secondary market for NCsoft Seoul to siphon and bleed development revenue or profit for the sole benefit of the eastern players?

Will you be the one who comes to us, promises the world, then doesn't deliver?

I ask because, I , like many others have been down this road before, and it always ends the same way; as lies.

I will not waste my time here if that can't be promised or delivered on, and I know a lot of others won't either. Sadly you'll get the drones who don't care and will pay to be treated poorly, but I don't feel like wasting time nor money on another one of these situations.

I appologize for my harsh tone, but someone needs to ask.

[Fleiva]

90% of that post was completely unnecesary, you can ask things without being rude.

[Tareith]

Sadly in this respect, talk is cheap. The CMs can promise all they want, but we still have to just wait and see if NCSoft really does want a truly international game with big numbers (such as WoW) and wants to/can follow through with the responsibilities of it. So far, i'm hard pressed to name a single eastern company that has lived up to it. SE failed horribly at this, and 3 years in decided they wanted to try and make good on it by actually giving two bits about it's western audience...that had already left the game.

But still, I'm willing to give them a shot on Aion, cause you never know.

[Chaos_Theory]

Originally Posted by Koroem

Snip

What games have you played that weren't F2P? Normally P2P games have great support, updates, patches, and communication. Since that is what we pay for monthly.

Originally Posted by Tareith

Snip

SE as in Sony? If so that is where games go to die.

[Tareith]

Square-Enix, sorry, I forget not everyone uses that same term. Sony is SoE.

Yes, there will be a quiz later for cookies and bubbles. ^^

[Koroem]

Originally Posted by Chaos_Theory

What games have you played that weren't F2P? Normally P2P games have great support, updates, patches, and communication. Since that is what we pay for monthly.

L2, WoW, FFXI, COH/COV, RF (for the year+ before f2p, even on korean servers), AoC (wasn't impressed), SWG.

I refused to play f2p games because I hate cash shops/deepest pockets wins type games.

I play p2p because I expect a good service since I'm paying for it monthly. As I said before I'm tired of paying companies to be treated like a nobody.

The only games that have impressed so far are COH/COV. They are Ncsoft games, but with western devs. I never had any issues with the ingame gms or patches.

If NCsoft can pull off the same service with Aion, then I will be impressed and happy.

[Chaos_Theory]

Oh ok. You made it sound like you were playing games that had the support equivalent to F2P games.

Originally Posted by Tareith

Square-Enix, sorry, I forget not everyone uses that same term. Sony is SoE.

I didn't play FFXI long enough to notice anything other than the madness of the RMTers. They were the backbone of the economy which made things super expensive for a new player.

[Tareith]

It's always been expensive for new players, reguardless of RMTers, but it did get crazy bad for a while there.

The GMs in RF Online were good enough people, but man the couldn't actually do jack. Personally, of all of the MMOs, DDO had really good customer service for the several months I was there. It wasn't perfect, but it was really good and they treated you like a customer. Too bad the game itself was too short term.

[Chaos_Theory]

Originally Posted by Tareith

It's always been expensive for new players, reguardless of RMTers, but it did get crazy bad for a while there.

The GMs in RF Online were good enough people, but man the couldn't actually do jack. Personally, of all of the MMOs, DDO had really good customer service for the several months I was there. It wasn't perfect, but it was really good and they treated you like a customer. Too bad the game itself was too short term.

RF Online is everything a game shouldn't become and is a prime example the quickest and fastest way to kill a game.

[Tareith]

Aye, it's pretty bad when I don't make it past week two of my free month. I did play in OB for a few weeks before then too, but still...

[ImALittleMonKeY]

Man im outa town for 2 days and this huge thread pops up lol. And now that im done reading it im too tired to say all i wanted so ill just say Aion will fail for some and will be splendid to others. its the way of the world ><