Originally posted by Quizzical

That's an honest question.  I've dug through the game's official site and read some on this forum and on aionsource.  I don't see a clear answer.  Much of what I see screams "WoW-clone", which from a business perspective might be it, I guess, but doesn't explain the player-driven hype.

What is there that makes it so that someone who doesn't like WoW could like Aion? Or that gives someone who does like WoW a reason to quit that game for Aion?

The graphics are stunning, of course.  While that's not a bad thing, the history of video games is littered with awful games that had graphics that were quite impressive in their time.

Much has been said about flying, but to say that a game involves flying could mean so many different things that it means basically nothing without elaboration.  EVE involves flying.  Microsoft Flight Simulator involves flying.  Super Mario World involves flying.  Civilization 2 involves flying.  But no two of those mean anything remotely similar by flying.

The PvPvE system could mean a lot of different things, too.  As best I can tell, it might mean nothing more than a pve area where you can get attacked by other players.  That's hardly an innovation.  Is there some stronger reason for NCsoft to coin a new term, apart from hype?

Is there something else I've missed?  Other threads to ask about the same question have been shouted down in such an absurd manner that one could easily be left to conclude there isn't a point to the game.  It's as if Aion fanboy idiots are trying to outdo Darkfall fanboy idiots; the latter may be completely nuts, too, but can at least point to a number of attempted innovations in Darkfall.

 

As several other posters have said, you just can expect subjective answers. Not only because most of us haven’t played the game but because what is appealing some people and give them fun, could be boring and pointless for others.

In my case I’m going to try Aion just for three reasons:
High fantasy game with some Asian style in the art design and good graphics. Then I know I’ll like the environment. It’s just a plus not a main reason.
It’s a game made by NCSoft. Have some guaranty to me about being well done and polished to some extend. Also that give me some concerns about RMT and bots but in the worse case I learned to live with this in Lineage II.
And the key point to me. Apparently an important part of the “end game” in Aion is about group conflict and power (Abyss/factions), will be better to me if it was more free than just factions (I’m a fan of Lineage II conflict system) but anyway.
Combat mechanics, level system, skill system and other things that I know are important to other people aren’t to me, but all in all Aion looks as a good package able to give me fun for some time.
Anyway I cross the fingers, my last experiences in MMORPGs haven’t been a big success.
As you can see very subjective.
 

Quiz, you're straight up trolling at this point.  The PvPvE system has been well explained, multiple times, on how it will fix population imbalance.  Stating that it's a hypothetical situation when it is actually working in a released game is being a troll.

Originally posted by Quizzical

<snip> 

But now I think I've got my answer:  the game is meant to be a Shiny New Thing for people who are perpetually moving from one game to another, always pursuing the Next Big Thing.  And Aion will have the budget and the polish to do that very well, probably selling impressive numbers of boxes early on.  Of course, no game can remain the Shiny New Thing for long, so most of those players will move on pretty quickly, when the next big blockbuster comes out.

That doesn't mean that Aion will die or be a commercial failure.  It will probably retain a sizeable playerbase, especially in Korea, relying largely on attracting players who haven't played the various games that it borrows heavily from, much the way that WoW does.

But a game where the point of the game doesn't involve game mechanics is not for me.

Anyway, thanks for the replies.

That is exactly it, I think.

It's the shiny new thing. And if Aion manages to do that better than all the other ones who are still in development, or recently released, then that is reason enough to choose this game instead of the others. This is the answer to your question why one should choose this game.

If you are really looking for a game that adds a new game mechanic, then this may indeed not be for you.

All I want is L2 style world PvP, where I can gank and form my clan up to fight over something of value (not +pvp points, ie: a castle or raid boss), rather than have to fight in arena's, scenarios and fight alongside random, uncoordinated people like in most RvR battles.

What is the point of life? 

What is the point of sex?

HMMMM IM THINKING HARD.

I have an idea for a new ground-breaking game.

The game is called groundbreaker.

You break ground, and then you dig holes and make underground cities to defend by using this ground breaking theme.

Originally posted by Sharajat

Quiz, you're straight up trolling at this point.  The PvPvE system has been well explained, multiple times, on how it will fix population imbalance.  Stating that it's a hypothetical situation when it is actually working in a released game is being a troll.

Where exactly is the explanation?  It's certainly not on this thread.  It's not on the official site, or at least not on the English language one.  It's not on any of the wikis I found, though all of those were pretty sparse, so Google might have mistakenly ranked the "main" one rather low or something.  I've dug through some fan sites and not found a coherent explanation, though with over 200k posts on aionsource, I didn't read them all and am not going to.

I know that there is a third faction, the Balaur, that is strictly NPCs and not players.  From what I've read, they can temporarily be the de facto allies of either the Asmodians or the Elyos, at least locally.  Going from there to "population balance issues fixed" is an enormous jump that absolutely requires more explanation.  Ephimero took a stab at it (post #57 on this thread), saying that they could tend to ally with whichever side is losing.

A couple sources I found seemed to state that they could also ally with whichever side is winning, thus making a mockery of population balance.  What happens if the sides are pretty close to evenly matched?  If the Balaur ally with either, that side has a huge advantage; rather than fixing population balance issues, the Balaur would thus break them.

If there is a detailed explanation of the PvPvE system on some external site somewhere, a link would be appreciated.

-----

As for subjective, were my descriptions of Guild Wars and Puzzle Pirates (in post #9 in this thread) subjective?  The claim wasn't that the games were vaguely better, but rather, here's how they're different.  Some people would think that makes the game better, and some would think it makes the game worse.

the 3rd faction may be opposed to both player factions too

Interview with Ju-hyun Jang, Producer

www.aionsource.com/forum/cmps_index.php

The Balaur are a server-controlled NPC faction, so players cannot choose to play them.

However, just because they are controlled by the server doesn't mean they are stupid; they can make choices, and players will never quite know what they are going to do.

For example, imagine a castle siege-style scenario, where one of the player factions, the Asmodians, is attacking the Elyos faction's castle. In the middle of this siege, the Balaur may appear.

When they arrive, no-one will know what they are going to do. They may have previously helped the Asmodians, but that doesn't matter; in the siege, they might betray them and help the Elyos. Or they might help the Ma to siege the Elyos's castle.

Or... they might try and take the castle for themselves, fighting against both the Elyos and the Asmodians.

The important thing to realize is that the Balaur are not typical NPCs. They are the third faction in the game, and they have free will, which makes them very unpredictable.

Come on Quizz, your being stright up silly now. What do you think pvpve means? Its a way to explain the enviroment that any gamer can understand.

PVP + PVE = PVPVE at the same time.......How can that be so hard for you to understand.

Mr. OP...  to pick up ephi's question again.... what do you WANT in a game? What is it your looking for? What games have you played that you enjoyed? Why did you enjoy them?  It would be so much easier for us to give you less "vague" answers.

Originally posted by stayontarget

Come on Quizz, your being stright up silly now. What do you think pvpve means? Its a way to explain the enviroment that any gamer can understand.

PVP + PVE = PVPVE at the same time.......How can that be so hard for you to understand.

 

No, PvP + PvE at the same time is just a PvP game, like L2, AoC or EVE, where the focus of the game is on open world PvP, people will attack you wherever you are, for whatever reasons, opposed to a game like WoW which is mainly PvE based (even the PvP servers aren't trulely PvP since the addition of inter-server BG's), and PvP is something you do at an arena or in a specific spot, and that the game's focus for PvP is in arena's and scnearios away from everything else.

PvPvE means nothing more than the Balaur act as a player faction, but can't be controlled by players. They will show up for castle sieges, raids, portals and randomly just for PvP style fights....nothing else.

Lineage 2 is based and thrives off of PvP and PvE at the same time...you are killing a raid boss, well some enemy clan wants the raid boss, they attack you in the middle of the raid and try take it for themselves...or for an Epic raid you fight to control the spawn of the boss, so that when it does spawn you get to go in and kill it. Or even something as simple as while PvEing, you're in the spot someone else wants, so they attack you for it. Thats just a PvP based game, and has nothing to do with PvPvE.

Originally posted by Calind0r

Originally posted by stayontarget

Come on Quizz, your being stright up silly now. What do you think pvpve means? Its a way to explain the enviroment that any gamer can understand.

PVP + PVE = PVPVE at the same time.......How can that be so hard for you to understand.

 

 

No, PvP + PvE at the same time is just a PvP game, like L2, AoC or EVE, where the focus of the game is on open world PvP, people will attack you wherever you are, for whatever reasons, opposed to a game like WoW which is mainly PvE based (even the PvP servers aren't trulely PvP since the addition of inter-server BG's), and PvP is something you do at an arena or in a specific spot, and that the game's focus for PvP is in arena's and scnearios away from everything else.

PvPvE means nothing more than the Balaur act as a player faction, but can't be controlled by players. They will show up for castle sieges, raids, portals and randomly just for PvP style fights....nothing else.

Lineage 2 is based and thrives off of PvP and PvE at the same time...you are killing a raid boss, well some enemy clan wants the raid boss, they attack you in the middle of the raid and try take it for themselves...or for an Epic raid you fight to control the spawn of the boss, so that when it does spawn you get to go in and kill it. Or even something as simple as while PvEing, you're in the spot someone else wants, so they attack you for it. Thats just a PvP based game, and has nothing to do with PvPvE.

From the main website. Saying its the Balaur is a reach at best. The fights with them is few and far between (mass encounters and not the solo balaur mobs you grind on in the abyss). I prefer the the first part in this paragraph below. But whatever, There just using a phrase (coined the word) to explain there environment in the game, Yes its nothing new to a mmo except for the Balaur (mass) encounters. In the end who gives a rats azz.

What is PvPvE?

PvPvE is an acronym that stands for Player versus Player versus Environment. PvPvE symbolises the constant and dynamic war that rages in the Abyss between both player factions and the Balaur, a non-playable race of brutal creatures.
 

to kill monsters and raise levels. have relaxation ouside real life.

Well done Aion community. I have heard mention of this game on other forums and thought I'd pop over and have a look, see what the game waas about, see what people thought about it. When I spotted this thread I was pleased to find somene so obviously looking for the same things as myself, namely, some highlights i could fix on that would attract me to cancelling any other subscription I may have and take up playing Aion instead for a nice change.

So well done Aion community. I have to admit to only reading the first 4 pages of replies to this thread, and marvelling at the vague, evasive, at time almost esoteric answers "What's the use of playing any game?" (WTF! are you even capable of reading a question and understanding the purpose of it?)

I am left the with the abiding feeling that none who i read have even the slightest idea what sets Aion apart from the rest of the MMO games of the genre. I am completely as in the dark as i was when i clicked the thread link.

Actually that isn't so, i have deduced that if the preumed fans who frequent these boards can't come up with one unique hook to attract me to the game, there isn't one. Thank you for your information. Thanks, bye bye.

Originally posted by Redleicester

Well done Aion community. I have heard mention of this game on other forums and thought I'd pop over and have a look, see what the game waas about, see what people thought about it. When I spotted this thread I was pleased to find somene so obviously looking for the same things as myself, namely, some highlights i could fix on that would attract me to cancelling any other subscription I may have and take up playing Aion instead for a nice change.

So well done Aion community. I have to admit to only reading the first 4 pages of replies to this thread, and marvelling at the vague, evasive, at time almost esoteric answers "What's the use of playing any game?" (WTF! are you even capable of reading a question and understanding the purpose of it?)

I am left the with the abiding feeling that none who i read have even the slightest idea what sets Aion apart from the rest of the MMO games of the genre. I am completely as in the dark as i was when i clicked the thread link.

Actually that isn't so, i have deduced that if the preumed fans who frequent these boards can't come up with one unique hook to attract me to the game, there isn't one. Thank you for your information. Thanks, bye bye.

Beautiful! :)

Does it have to be set apart from any other MMORPG?  I mean think about some other forms of entertainment, like watching movies or reading books.  You may read a fantastic novel and love every page.  Then you read it again, and maybe even a third time.  Or a sequel (a-la expansion) comes out and you read that too.  Does that mean you can't read and enjoy some other novel which might not be nearly as good as the first, but still gives you entertainment?  Maybe you're tired of reading the super-duper novel and just want something similar (fantasy novels for instance) yet new.

Are MMORPG's any different in that regard?

---

Originally posted by Redleicester
Well done Aion community. I have heard mention of this game on other forums and thought I'd pop over and have a look, see what the game waas about, see what people thought about it. When I spotted this thread I was pleased to find somene so obviously looking for the same things as myself, namely, some highlights i could fix on that would attract me to cancelling any other subscription I may have and take up playing Aion instead for a nice change.
So well done Aion community. I have to admit to only reading the first 4 pages of replies to this thread, and marvelling at the vague, evasive, at time almost esoteric answers "What's the use of playing any game?" (WTF! are you even capable of reading a question and understanding the purpose of it?)
I am left the with the abiding feeling that none who i read have even the slightest idea what sets Aion apart from the rest of the MMO games of the genre. I am completely as in the dark as i was when i clicked the thread link.
Actually that isn't so, i have deduced that if the preumed fans who frequent these boards can't come up with one unique hook to attract me to the game, there isn't one. Thank you for your information. Thanks, bye bye.

---

Don't worry about ex-brokenhearted Warhammer fans like Redleicester. They spent 4 months defending and hyping a game with leaders without a clue and a endgame without a purpose, which they followed blindly. They played it, got all ripped up inside, then went back to Wow, Darkfall forums or God knows where else. Now they are looking for something else to play with. It was only a matter of time before they found this quiet little spot. *sigh*

You'll see him in AION at release date like everyone else. Below is his confession:

---

Originally posted by Redleicester: I didn't think it was just me, but i did feel bad about going back to WoW, especially since i'd been slating it so much for motorcycles and aerial combat and so on. I really wanted to love playing war, was really excited about playing it.
Problem is it isn't that interesting outside of scenarios, which is where most everyone seems to be, and when the scenario is over there's nothing much to do that is interesting for me personally. A bit like LOTRO, which is a clever, magnificently crafted deep game, but lacked some zing to keep me playing, war has the zing but lacks the depth.
I fully intend to be back when the game has developed some more, when i started playing it really grabbed me, but it didn't hold onto me i'm afraid.

Like the OP said, when i logged back into wow i was immediately swamped by the bustle and action going on around me.

---

Anyways, expect more posts like this from refugees who want "convincing" in the coming months as it gets closer to Aion's release date. Mythic continues to fiddle while Rome burns and these people will come here looking around and need YOU to convince them 100% to before they run and hype it to the world. They've just been lied to so many times before and their hearts can't take it anymore. They want to be loyal to something... but can't find a company or game to declare it to anymore.

When they come in, perhaps we should give out free hugs?

Originally posted by Redleicester

Well done Aion community. I have heard mention of this game on other forums and thought I'd pop over and have a look, see what the game waas about, see what people thought about it. When I spotted this thread I was pleased to find somene so obviously looking for the same things as myself, namely, some highlights i could fix on that would attract me to cancelling any other subscription I may have and take up playing Aion instead for a nice change.

So well done Aion community. I have to admit to only reading the first 4 pages of replies to this thread, and marvelling at the vague, evasive, at time almost esoteric answers "What's the use of playing any game?" (WTF! are you even capable of reading a question and understanding the purpose of it?)

I am left the with the abiding feeling that none who i read have even the slightest idea what sets Aion apart from the rest of the MMO games of the genre. I am completely as in the dark as i was when i clicked the thread link.

Actually that isn't so, i have deduced that if the preumed fans who frequent these boards can't come up with one unique hook to attract me to the game, there isn't one. Thank you for your information. Thanks, bye bye.

The Aion community resides on Aionsource, not here. Flight and flying combat integrated into ground combat, the Balaur (a NPC faction controlled by the devs/GM's to participate in server balancing events and politics, a completely original and unique storyline, rather than going with orcs, elves, dwarves, etc...a PvP system that rewards open world PvP rather than arenas and scenarios, a castle/fort system that rewards the guild owners with special bonuses, aswell as their entire faction, so it will keep the hardcore guilds all about PvP interested, as well as the casual people who are looking for some random PvP they can partake in, interested, Stigma system allowing you to customize your character with other skills of your choosing. I could go on, but I think those are enough. World of Warcraft did nothing new or innovating that wasn't in games before, yet it has 11 million active players. Good bye, troll.

Originally posted by Redleicester

Well done Aion community. I have heard mention of this game on other forums and thought I'd pop over and have a look, see what the game waas about, see what people thought about it. When I spotted this thread I was pleased to find somene so obviously looking for the same things as myself, namely, some highlights i could fix on that would attract me to cancelling any other subscription I may have and take up playing Aion instead for a nice change.

So well done Aion community. I have to admit to only reading the first 4 pages of replies to this thread, and marvelling at the vague, evasive, at time almost esoteric answers "What's the use of playing any game?" (WTF! are you even capable of reading a question and understanding the purpose of it?)

I am left the with the abiding feeling that none who i read have even the slightest idea what sets Aion apart from the rest of the MMO games of the genre. I am completely as in the dark as i was when i clicked the thread link.

Actually that isn't so, i have deduced that if the preumed fans who frequent these boards can't come up with one unique hook to attract me to the game, there isn't one. Thank you for your information. Thanks, bye bye.

I'm sorry but if your looking for a "hook" you will not find some magic pill here in these post. Games are made and played to have fun and party with friends. What type of game that is, is up to you to find and not up to the community to find for you.

Good luck in your Journey.

Some have asked what sort of games I like, as though that would give much information on whether I'd like Aion.  I'd avoided answering that on the basis that it would be pretty useless.  To prove a point, my list of the best games ever made:

1.  Guild Wars (minus Eye of the North)

2.  Tecmo Super Bowl

3.  Infantry (as it was in 2001, not the empty shell of a cheat-ridden game it is today) 

4.  Europa Universalis II

5.  Super Mario World

And what's that tell you about whether I'd like Aion?  Well, it doesn't tell me much, so probably nothing.  Well, it might tell you that I don't think that newer games are automatically better than older games, which is something, at least.

It would be closer to the topic at hand to say what I want in an MMORPG.

1.  Time of day independence.  A game that I have to schedule my life around in order to play is a non-starter.

2.  An engaging combat system.  This can be fast-paced, with reflexes mattering and battles ending quickly.  It can be slow-paced provided that the slow pace allows time for thinking or maneuvering (e.g., Chain of Command, Pirates of the Burning Sea ship combat) rather than just time for waiting.  But it should not be a system of start auto-attack, leave the room, and come back a minute later to loot.

3.  The option to play short gaming sessions.  Having to be online for three hours straight to go raiding is out.

4.  If there is pvp, the means to either balance or avoid it.  As a definition, pvp is balanced if a player knowledgeable about the game does not find it obvious which side will win just from looking at levels, gear, and numbers.  A game based entirely around pve is fine.

5.  Minimal grinding.  Different people have radically different ideas of how much grinding is too much, so this is something I'd have to gauge for myself.  Minimal grinding doesn't mean fast leveling; it means that players are rarely or never pushed to do stupid things that they wouldn't consider diong other than to level.

6.  If grouping is required, then grouping should be possible.  There are two ways to make this happen.  One is to make soloing possible.  The other is to make it easy to get a group.  A system in which players have to group to do anything, but it takes half an hour to get a group together is a bad thing.

7.  Alt-friendliness.  If there are different classes, then I will want to play them all.  If that means they all level slowly, I don't care.  If game mechanics make it so that I can't play the alts I want, then I won't like the game.

8.  A game I haven't played before.  I don't want to play an ostensibly new game that is nothing more than a different skin on a game I've already played.  For example, about 20 years ago, Capcom made a bunch of side-scrolling platform games with Disney characters.  Each was a reasonably good game in its own right, but they were all so similar that there was no point in having more than one of them.  Capcom did about the same thing with Mega Man games.  EA did something similar with sports games a few years later, except that they didn't start with a decent quality game before they started cloning it.

Some of those points really can't be determined before a game is released.  Some are easy to detect by reading the instruction manual.

The point of this thread was to ask about #8.  I don't expect a game to be radically different from everything else on the market.  I do expect to find a few things that I can point to and say, well that's what makes the game different.  Whether the game has a chance to be good or not will depend on whether those few key points are interesting.  I say only a chance to be good, because many games never fulfill their potential, whether due to bugs, bad servers, company indifference about cheating, insufficient funding, or a variety of factors.

After doing my usual due diligence research on the game, I couldn't come up with anything for #8. That's fairly unusual for reasonably hyped games. As recent releases go, I had no problem finding an answer to #8 for Pirates of the Burning Sea, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan, WAR, or Atlantica. As for upcoming releases, it hasn't been hard to find an answer to #8 for Darkfall, The Chronicles of Spellborn, or Stargate Worlds. (I don't look much into games where launch intuitively looks far away.)  But for Aion, I was stuck with saying, if that's what people want so much, why don't they just go play WoW? The theoretical differences struck me as splitting hairs.

Unless someone else posts as I type this, this will be post #80 on this thread.  And in all that time, still not much of an answer to #8.  There are some inconsequential things that could be stripped out of the game with scarcely anyone noticing.  There are some things that smell an awful lot like buzzwords, sticking a new name on an old concept.  There is, I suppose, flying combat, which has a chance to be something cool, but would more likely end up a stupid graphical gimmick.

And then, I guess, there is the one thing that is unusual about Aion.  It has a lot of hype and a lot of people convinced that it's going to be the best game ever because, well, they haven't the slightest clue as to why.  But they insist on it with a cult-like fervor, dismissing anyone who asks questions as trolling or worse.

Oh well, after Ron Paul, Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin all in just the last election cycle, I guess this is the season for cult-like fervor.