CBT3 to start in late June/early July

[Celebrity]

Some nice news, i just still waiting to see if the classes will be balanced or not... Rangers allways pwn everything will be anoying. I still doubt a 5700 can run it in all in best performance, can see it on low settings but best? Maybe with the guy alone somewhere with low things moving around.

[Endrance]

Originally Posted by Otium

I've always been an apologist to what concerns moderated grind. People are relying too much on quests. I tend to find silly the idea of getting all the exp you need through quests. The main purpose of making a quest is, in my perspective, getting a certain item that you cannot obtain by killing common mobs. As long as people party together and explore some dungeons it will be fun for sure. Do you guys prefer to lvl up by reading story lines and interacting with a lot of NPCs instead of grabbing 6 clan mates, getting yourselves into an hard field, and cooperate in the killing, everything with ventrilo communication and stuff?

The purpose of quests is (good one's, with cutscenes, interesting plot and characters and stuff) to actually fill the RPG part of MMOs. Just the grind doesn't build up any atmosphere. In fact, I'm totally fine if a game asks me to grind to get a certain level for missions or quests. The game itself should be the plot and quests just as much as the grinding/item gaining/PvPing aspect. If it's not like that, this game isn't a RPG, but just a MMO.
Also, I like Partying together with friends for EXP or farm or w/e, but I love to beat the next Bahamut-like story boss which I partly got my level and gear for together with friends. If I just grinded for the purpose of PvP or something like that, I could just go and play any kind of Arcade game without wasting time for a obviously senseless grind.

People here are asking us why we are so much against grinding... yet I'm totally surprised how they're 100% for just grind as RPG liking gamers. I mean, someone who's played any kind of RPG offline game knows how cool that stuff is and in fact, MMORPGs are supposed to go for that, too. There is simply no bad aspect about a movie-like storyline, but the developers having to do more work, which surely doesn't have anything to do with you guys at all. So why not ask for more and better plots, if the current genre just offers monotonous and repetitive **** at most, which we can just get in any kind of other game anyway?

I mean, if I feel like that a game wasn't a worthy experience at all I have just wasted my time. I know that MMORPGs don't have to be like that, cause I played FFXI (no discussions about this now - I know FFXI had it's weaknesses but it sure as hell had fantastic storylines for a MMORPG), so what's with that "give us more grind and less quests" attitude? I mean, you must be crazy if you know that you could be a soccer star, but you refuse to cause of field work. Wtf?

[Otium]

Originally Posted by Endrance

The purpose of quests is (good one's, with cutscenes, interesting plot and characters and stuff) to actually fill the RPG part of MMOs. Just the grind doesn't build up any atmosphere. In fact, I'm totally fine if a game asks me to grind to get a certain level for missions or quests. The game itself should be the plot and quests just as much as the grinding/item gaining/PvPing aspect. If it's not like that, this game isn't a RPG, but just a MMO.

I totally agree with you but that wasn't my point. I also like to make some quests, to get something else than the usual farming, but such quest should be optional and not permanently available. Making a system like, grind until level 10, get new quests that would level you up to 12/13 and make you earn some equips, then grind until 20, get new quests and all over again. What some people in this thread are emo-stating is that they won't be able to reach max level only through quests, and that's quite normal to me.

[Yame]

Originally Posted by Otium

Making a system like, grind until level 10, get new quests that would level you up to 12/13 and make you earn some equips, then grind until 20, get new quests and all over again.

God, no. That sounds extremely boring.

[Endrance]

I guess most people here are just referring too much to their personal experiences. If the quests are movie-like (like in FFXI), there's nothing wrong with it. The system you've explained is extremely simple and I know many MMOs do it like that. However, there are other ways of designing this, just as a grind can be exciting, but also only if you don't JUST grind. Add many features and other stuff you can do. Make people have to do certain quests. Variety and quality folks... variety and quality.
Just expect a MMORPG to have half the quality of FFVII plots and you won't ever be *****ing about quest-based character-growth again.

[Otium]

And that's why i'm defending the grind+quest exp system, while others are asking only for a quest exp one.

About the quests, they need to be attractive and not "run to this point - kill X mob - deliver the item to Y NPC - back to initial point". I'm quite curious to check those quests that can be done with a party...

[Blazze889]

Right now it is my hope to get a surprise US/EU beta alongside with the CBT 3

[cmykspliff]

doubt it, but would be nice

[Ergot]

Originally Posted by Blazze889

Right now it is my hope to get a surprise US/EU beta alongside with the CBT 3

hell ye. cough up the EU beta
life can be cruell for us non koreans ..


halp!

[Zanny]

us beta wts soul and souls of about 10000 aion source registrees.

Hey look theres plenty of ppl 2 beta test ;\

[Ayase]

Originally Posted by lyankyj

WTF??

Thats exactly the opposite they were telling us...

God knows it's been a some time since this was all posted. I've been away for a couple of days, for the Nordic Game conference, and have thus been unable to comment it earlier.

We've gone to the bottom of this, just to find out about the events that lead to this particular sentence. What was really meant. I know that some people in the thread already touch on it, and a more developed answer would probably go something like this:

"The focus of Aion is not questing, it's PvPvE."

While there are plenty of quests (I'm sure you have followed the beta progress well enough to have heard a thing or two), this is not the part of the game that the developers want to emphasize. The Abyss, the warfare between the factions - the PvP - that's it.

[Otium]

Originally Posted by Ayase

"The focus of Aion is not questing, it's PvPvE."

The Abyss, the warfare between the factions - the PvP - that's it.

Some people are just too stubborn to understand it. Thanks for clarifying all this Ayase.

[lyankyj]

Originally Posted by Ayase

While there are plenty of quests (I'm sure you have followed the beta progress well enough to have heard a thing or two), this is not the part of the game that the developers want to emphasize. The Abyss, the warfare between the factions - the PvP - that's it.

Thank your for answering, I read Amboss' clarification on german site, the chinese translation was misleading which led to a false interpretation in the english trans.

[Riku]

Nordic Game conference, I don't recall recieving my invite. We always miss out in all the fun.

[Haubix]

I wonder how the official website is doing? (I think) Amboss said, that it will be up in spring. Well... soon it's summer