General Discussion

Kenneth Tarre, our new Aion Correspondent, has written this introductory article about the upcoming NCsoft MMORPG.

Try to imagine a world where the MMO-gamers were divided between people thinking Lineage 2 ought to be considered the world's 8th wonder, and those that wouldn't touch such a game with an eleven-foot (yes, let's be original) wooden pole. Luckily the world isn't that black and white, but there's no doubt that there are a lot of mixed feelings about Asian-made MMOs here in the west. Pessimists often argue that most of the Asian MMOs are mindless grinders, which is indeed a fair argument, as this has been the reality for a long time now. There's no wonder that people choose to be wary, however I believe we're approaching a season where this reality is about to change, as our global world is closing in on us.

Check out the article here.

cool. thanks

Curious: how do you be a correspondent for a game that is not even released yet?

Originally posted by Zorvan

Curious: how do you be a correspondent for a game that is not even released yet?

You have to go off what the developers say (that's what I did for my article).

@article:  A very good read, I found it a very good article.  I look forward to reading more.

Very good article which perfectly describe the orientation they are taking with the game.

Great article. More!!!

Actually I find the asian pvp to be gank anonymous play.  I would hardly call their brand of pvp to be anything to crow about.

Guess we will just have to wait and see, but I do not have high hopes for this game, blending two different playstyles just does not seem to me to be a good idea.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Actually I find the asian pvp to be gank anonymous play.  I would hardly call their brand of pvp to be anything to crow about.

Guess we will just have to wait and see, but I do not have high hopes for this game, blending two different playstyles just does not seem to me to be a good idea.

I love that pvp, I like nothing more then to walk up to a random player and kill him or her. Open pvp with clan / alliance wars is what I love most about lineage 2 if AION offers that along with truly allowing a player to level through pvp alone then it will be a huge success.

very nice article
i hope in future installments we get some more hands on info from the beta phase tough ;)

as veteran of lineage 2 playing it for 4 years im really exited about aion
i agree very much with your viewpoint  about grinding and the market

i disagree tough that the asian market expects grinding per se. i rather think if any person is confronted with the choice of beating a stone with a stick for 10h or reading his favourite book/manga/comic series hed choose the later.

so the evolution towards more content driven leveling is really a thing id expect for any AAA title wether this content is based on pvp (like war) or leans more towards pve (like aoc) i hope the days where we hit spawning mobs in the same zone for 40h/weekl are behind us. more complex quests in contrast to spawnkill also should reduce the usage of bots a bit wich is (at least for me) one of the biggest downsides of lineage2 today.

Aion could probably best be described as a blend between eastern games such as Lineage 2 and western games such as World of Warcraft. You have the intricate and stunning clothing and armour designs of eastern high-fantasy (not to mention the most in-depth character creation I've seen in years), combined with the extensive questing and story-building we have come to expect from the western AAA-titles.

So basicly there will be lots of repetitive gameplay and all the players will be "beautiful". I might want to look ordinary, ugly or somewhere in between! Maybe I dont want to look angelic along with everyone else. This repetitive gameplay will be covered up by story-telling such as in WoW will it? Thats hardly a selling point ya know. I'm sure the stories are just as deep in the Power Rangers! Read any good kids books lately? WoW fans would be mesmerised by them I'm sure.

Another way to take away the sense of grinding is to make sure that the game consistently offers rewards as you progress, never leaving you with the bitter taste of feeling stuck in a monotone process for too long.

Ahh the mythical golden carrot. The false sense of achievement as a mesage pops up on your screen saying "Congratulations! You are the 5765th person to reach this point! Here have a c