China Bans Gold Farmers…. REALLY!
Still in the middle of a rigorous class and study schedule so I cannot write up a full post on this so I will link you over to Broken Toys where it is discussed more!
I will admit that I squealed with glee when I read it.
Blogging Slow Down
For the next six weeks, I am going to be in the Air Force's Airman Leadership School so expect my blogging to slow down. 95% of my blog writing takes place at work and since I will be in class those times, the only time I have to blog is when at home and not working on homework. I will still try to get posts out (maybe just once a week or so) but do not hold me to it.
I will be back to normal early to mid-August.
The Hook That Grabs You
"I came for the beer, but stayed for the hot elven maidens."
Lately I have been watching my game playing habits and trying to figure out what exactly it is that grabs me in game. I have a good number of MMOs I have been playing lately (more on this in another post) and between World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, Runes of Magic, and now Aion, I was starting to see a trend in what I want from games.
Games need to deliver a one-two punch to me. The story of the world is the first thing that needs to be solid. I love games with epic questlines. The second punch is the community.
I can play some of the most poorly made and buggy games so long as the game has great lore and great community. The fairness of the game and the class balance really do not mean much to me. Whether the game is PvE or PvP does not matter either. I have come to realize that I play MMOs to experience stories and be part of communities.
I think this may be one of the reasons I have always picked the healer class in games. It gives me the easiest inroad to being part of a community and makes it easier to find groups to experience the story.
The lore is the hook that catches me, but it is the community that makes me stay. Once I makes friends on a server and in guilds, I hate leaving them behind. I have grown to hate playing MMOs solo. That is one of the main reasons I love that Rynala joins me for playing most games. Even if the game is buggy, broken, or imbalanced, playing along side someone makes it so I do not notice those things. I just am able to enjoy being in the company of others.
What is it for you? What hooks you? What makes you stay playing the game?
I came for the lore, but stayed for the community.
Aion CBT2 Quick Recap
Rynala and I played a LOT of Aion this weekend. We spent Friday and Saturday leveling up some Asmodians to level 10 and then the rest of Saturday and Sunday leveling up some Elyos to level 10. I am trying not to get myself too hyped up for this game but after this first weekend, but damn it is hard not to do. When the game launches, we will probably end up playing a gladiator and cleric combo. Rynala is really enjoying the ability chains in the game.
Overall, I liked the Asmodian starting areas a lot more than the areas for the Elyos although I did like the Elyos character models.
I do not have much time to write anymore today so I hope to give better writeup tomorrow.
I leave you with some links of interest:
Keen give some combat commentary, shows us Pandaemonium, and then shows us some arena style PvP.
Hudson gives some initial impressions, shows off player stores, and then questions when a beta is not a beta.
The Importance of Localization and Culturalization
For the most part, Eastern MMOs are not popular in the west and Western MMOs are not popular in the east. In the west, the most often heard complaints are "Asian MMOs are grindy and horribly translated." Aside from a few features that are generally specific to area of the world (such as player vendors in the east and auction houses in the west), gameplay is usually pretty similar between and eastern and western games. Wednesday, MMOGamer put up an interview they had with Brian Knox, one of the producers at NCSoft, about "Bridging the Culture Divide".
If Aion gains mass popularity in the West, this will be one of the main contributing factors. So many Asian MMOs are very poorly translated when brought to the west. A lot of time the spelling and grammar will be very incorrect and other times games will have references to certain elements of Asian culture that do not make sense in America and Europe. With Aion, it seems they are going over the translation with a fine tooth comb and making sure that all the cultural references are westernized.
Not only that, but they have noticed the difference in features between most eastern and western MMOs and are working to give us the best of both worlds. For example, in the interview, Brian Knox talks about how they allow you to set up a player shop in town or use the auction house. So now the players have a choice in what they wish to do. As I have talked about in the past, I love having more choices.
I really hope this game delivers because I am getting more hyped up for as we get closer to launch and hype can often be very bad.
The second official beta test is starting later today and carries through this weekend so I plan on trying out quite a bit of it. I will most likely post my thoughts on Monday and try to have a video or two up of beta next week.
Aion Beta Key Winners
The random number generator came up with the numbers 10 and 29, so congratulations to Azmaria and Goonygoon on winning the two Aion beta keys I had.
As for allegiances, 16 people aligned them selves with Elyos and 18 aligned themselves with Asmodians. Seems like a pretty nice split.
Also, it looks like the schedule for the rest of the beta has been released:
- June 19-21: Asmodian closed beta capped at level 10
- July 3-5: Asmodian level cap increases
- July 17-19: Abyss only with unrestricted flight and hopefully a lot of PvP
- August 14-17: First open beta
- August 19-23: Second open beta
It is unfortunate they are not doing more than just a couple days of open beta. While usually I would be worried about that not being enough time, I am not too concerned since the game has long since been released in Korea and China.
There was rumor of the game seeing a North American launch around the 1st of September. It looks like it is on track for that. That means only two and a half months remain. All aboard! The hype train is leaving the station!
Keeping Old Content Relevant
Tobold and Ravious today posted about WoW's old zones are of no importance to high level chartacters and how this will cause WoW to eat itself. Tobold talks about how Luminous has you go back to farm low level zones for materials you need while Ravious talks about how Turbine is constantly revamping the low level zones to better streamline them and give old players a reason to start new.
Both of them are essentially looking at the same problem from two ends of the spectrum. Tobold is coming from the viewpoint of someone who has played WoW for years upon years and has no reason to ever go back to those zones. Even if he had to go back to those zones to farm crafting materials, he would be doing it solo. Ravious is coming from a viewpoint of someone new to the game or returning after being gone since just after release. For him, those low level zones are ghost towns and the few people in them are just soloing by themselves and have no reason to group.
I cannot help but wonder if in some ways, Guild Wars got it right and maybe the style could be modified for a standard MMO. With the Factions and Nightfall campaigns in Guild Wars, it takes a player about 5-10 hours to reach the level cap of 20. From there, they have access to almost every single zone in that campaign (aside from the very final stages of the campaign unless they are grouped with someone who has access).
Instead of railroading players down one or two set leveling paths in a game with the game, why not remove levels all together and just make all zones the same level but with varying levels of difficulty? In Guild Wars, I can go to the later zones from the campaign from the start but they will just require a greater amount of focus and concentration than the earlier zones.
What I would like to see is a game have a two to three hour introduction area similar to the pre-Searing in Guild Wars Prophecies or the level 1-6 racial introduction areas from Lord of the Rings. This introduction areas would be your tutorial to teach you the basics of the game and your class and if you have already done the introduction on a previous character, you can skip it and go right into the game proper.
You could take your friend to an "end game" city siege, raid, or whatever activities are usually exclusive to people at the level cap within hours of them joining the game. Since there would be no levels, all instances and zones would remain valid.
Leveling and constant stat increases just cause mudflation so why not do away with those systems? I used to only see a goal as new purples but playing Guild Wars has shown me thousands upon thousands of people who play just to get new skins for their weapons and armor. There are many people who would go kill things for house and guild hall trophies or materials to craft an insane looking axe.
While the foundations of the RPG is a level based system, I think it is time for the genre to evolve.
Also, you still have time to get your name in to win one of the two extra Aion beta keys I have. Just make sure you get your post in before the end of the day. I am going to close the post tonight and announce the winners tomorrow.
New Theme New PC
Just bought a brand new PC today as the old one I had built was starting to fail. While I have been installing a bunch of my games, I took the time to change up the theme for the blog. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Also, if you are interested and have not already, post a comment on the previous post for a chance at an Aion beta key. I am going to probably close the post after Monday and post the two winners on Tuesday.
So You Want An Aion Beta Key…
I just happened to have acquired two extra beta keys for Aion: The Tower of Eternity. These are the same as the pre-order beta keys and give you the following rewards:
- Access to all Aion pre-launch events, and early head-start access to Aion live game.
- Access to Aion server and character pre-selection.
- Exclusive in-game items including the Dark Cloud Helmet (stat boost), Talisman of Lodas (XP boost), and the GameStop Exclusive Ancient Ring of Fire.
If you want a beta key, just post a comment on this blog post declaring your allegiance to either the Elyos or the Asmodians.
For more information on the game as well as initial impressions, check out the following websites:
- The official website.
- Aion Source, the number one community site.
- Keen's Impressions
- Kill Ten Rat's Impressions
- Ten Ton Hammer's Impressions
So post a comment if you want a key. I will randomly select two people two receive keys early next week (probably Tuesday). That should give enough time for me to get you the key and you to get the game downloaded before the next stage of the beta testing that takes place next weekend.
A Little on Aion
Aion came from completely off my radar to right in front of my face. Previously, I had heard very little about it but my first impression was to just shrug it off as another crappy Asian MMO - this time with angel wings. After reading some of the buzz on the Something Awful and Gamers with Jobs forums, I gave the game another look.
The storyline premise seems pretty interesting and apparently the game has an epic storyline with character cutscenes like Guild Wars. That aspect right there pulled Rynala and myself in immediately. The end game consists of massive groups of players (hundreds upon hundreds) participating in a PvPvE (player faction vs player faction vs npc faction) in keep and city sieges.
Another big aspect of the game is flight. You will spend a good amount of time just using your wings to fly and engaged in aerial combat.
The game was released in Korea last year and had a Chinese beta earlier this year. The US beta had initial testing last weekend and will continue testing next weekend. From everything I have read, the game plays flawlessly even when there are a hundred or more characters on the screen fighting. How they can pull this off in a game with such beautiful graphics and games like WoW and WAR cannot, I may never know.
Either way, I preordered the game this week from Gamestop and picked up two beta keys so Rynala and I can start trying it together. The Goons have had been talking a lot about the game on the forums and a lot of people are getting excited for it. If there is a large end game presence of the Goons after release, this game could end up being even more fun. I look forward to that.
Also, I may or may not have two addition beta keys coming my way. If I do, I will give them away here.