I think Aion's weak spot is the lack of replay value at the lower levels.  A couple of runs through 1 - 20 and it becomes stale very fast.  Since there are only 2 starting zones (one per faction), the leveling of alts is not as appealing as it is in WoW.

This will pressure Aion to perform in endgame.  In short, the PVP will have to carry the game.

I am currently enjoying Aion, but I do wonder if it has the staying power to hold me for the long term.  That is the question:  Can Aion keep the playerbase entertained over the long haul?

Aion is already a success by release standards, but only time will tell if it has the right stuff to become a "classic MMO".

 It's a niche game and some players will love it for that. Some players do like to grind through PvE and PvP rather than have an immersive plot-driven storyline that makes them feel they are part of an original mmo world.

Originally posted by Illyssia

 It's a niche game and some players will love it for that. Some players do like to grind through PvE and PvP rather than have an immersive plot-driven storyline that makes them feel they are part of an original mmo world.

Defending a city from waves of invading players at lvl20 feels pretty immersive to me. This is a first time i did PvP in an MMO (ed: autoattack mmo) and it was freaking FUN! 

I'll try rifting myself into enemy territory today after work :)

Screw you hippies, i'm going Aion!

Originally posted by grandpagamer

Grind is something each person has to define on his/her own judgments. To me, grinding is killing mobs for reasons of xp or drops. To someone else, questing is a grind. I know i grew tired of this game half way through my third CB weekend, others seem to love it.  I said awhile back the game will have decent numbers somewhere between 200 and 500K and i stand by that, we will know better after the first 30 days or so.  I dont think the game will fail but i doubt it will do any better than lotro or eq2 numbers.

Grinding = Killing mobs repeatedly as a means of leveling up.

Killing mobs for drops is not grinding.  That would be farming.

Doing quests is not grinding.  That would be questing.

There are a few different ways to level, grinding is one.  Grinding =! Leveling.  I hate to see people making this mistake constantly.

It's not anyone's "opinion" that Aion is a grindy game.  In order to level beyond 30, you will be Grinding. (see above for definition) I have a 50 and two other chars at 30+, so believe me when I say that there is no option.  There are a few quests, but you will spend much more than half your leveling time grinding.  That's the definition of a grindy game.  But this should not come as a shock to anyone that's played a Korean game before.  I knew what I was getting into and it doesn't bother me.  I like grinding.

Second point, Aion has been reported to have 400k pre-orders.  AoC had reported 700k pre-orders, yet by the end of June, had only 70k subscribers.  Don't expect this game to be anything more than another niche game with low server pop after a couple months.  I, for one, am glad that it won't be huge like WoW.  I don't see this game having more than 100k subs ever though.

Aion is a Guild Wars clone, and like WoW clones they will fail because they end up just being poor copies of the orginal without any understanding of what made the original successes. Its just another "me too" game, I call it Guild Wars 1.5, Ill just wait for Guild Wars 2.

 Why this thread will fail and the future of forum posting...

Originally posted by bigtime102

Aion is a Guild Wars clone, and like WoW clones they will fail because they end up just being poor copies of the orginal without any understanding of what made the original successes. Its just another "me too" game, I call it Guild Wars 1.5, Ill just wait for Guild Wars 2.

One wonders how they are funding their development of Guildwars2... oh wait no, I don't wonder at all.
 

Originally posted by Toddv1

 

Grinding = Killing mobs repeatedly as a means of leveling up.

Killing mobs for drops is not grinding.  That would be farming.

Doing quests is not grinding.  That would be questing.

There are a few different ways to level, grinding is one.  Grinding =! Leveling.  I hate to see people making this mistake constantly.

It's not anyone's "opinion" that Aion is a grindy game.  In order to level beyond 30, you will be Grinding. (see above for definition) I have a 50 and two other chars at 30+, so believe me when I say that there is no option.  There are a few quests, but you will spend much more than half your leveling time grinding.  That's the definition of a grindy game.  But this should not come as a shock to anyone that's played a Korean game before.  I knew what I was getting into and it doesn't bother me.  I like grinding.

Second point, Aion has been reported to have 400k pre-orders.  AoC had reported 700k pre-orders, yet by the end of June, had only 70k subscribers.  Don't expect this game to be anything more than another niche game with low server pop after a couple months.  I, for one, am glad that it won't be huge like WoW.  I don't see this game having more than 100k subs ever though.

WRONG!

AoC only had 111,000 pre-orders but shipped 700K after launch.

Get your facts straight and stop typing your opinon on how many subs Aion will have after launch, cause you have no clue to that either.

Originally posted by haratu

Originally posted by bigtime102

Aion is a Guild Wars clone, and like WoW clones they will fail because they end up just being poor copies of the orginal without any understanding of what made the original successes. Its just another "me too" game, I call it Guild Wars 1.5, Ill just wait for Guild Wars 2.

One wonders how they are funding their development of Guildwars2... oh wait no, I don't wonder at all.
 

mm i can answer

why was there lineage2 and guildwars

same reason there will be aion and guildwars2

 Many people forget that WoW's launch was far from perfect.  There was about a 15 second "lag" whenever you would loot something.  Existed in Open Beta, and wasn't fixed until after launch.  Amongst all the other issues, WoW turned out ok.

Apparently alot of "gamers" can see the future these days.

Originally posted by Zathoral

Both games had potential from the start. What killed them both was the fact that both products were released before they were ready, and that both games were in an "infant" state so to speak.

You're half right. This is true with Age of Conan -- not so for Warhammer.

What doomed WAR from the start was their implementation of Renown Rank. Mythic instituted a rewards-based PvP system, then acted shocked when they realized players cared more about the fastest path (Keep Circle Jerking) to rewards than the idea of PvP itself. Kind of surprising coming from the company that created DAOC and considered themselves gamers.

But here's the problem: MMO gaming is a hobby. Every hobby can arguably be a grind. Put a bunch of model airplanes together, go ice skating, build a train set, go hiking. All repeated tasks with smaller variations. Single Player RPGs, at least as far back as the 8-Bit Dragon Warrior series, have had grinds.

The future of MMORPGs will have grinds. They have to.

The reason I opt only for PvP-enabled MMOs is that, so far as grinds go, PvP offers the greatest variation of experience on a daily basis. This wasn't so in WAR because Renown Rank requirements pigeonholed what people were willing to do -- and so it became boring and self-defeating and I left.

The biggest problem facing many of us is that we're in an MMO world that couldn't really care less about us. Developers don't do a good enough job of letting us truly feel like we're making some sort of impact. WAR didn't have that either.

I'm waiting on AION only because I want to hear reports from the Abyss. I want to hear how good the PvPvE really is. I'm willing to wait. I no longer have a *need* to play MMORPGs.

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Originally posted by Toddv1

 

Grinding = Killing mobs repeatedly as a means of leveling up.

Killing mobs for drops is not grinding.  That would be farming.

Doing quests is not grinding.  That would be questing.

There are a few different ways to level, grinding is one.  Grinding =! Leveling.  I hate to see people making this mistake constantly.

It's not anyone's "opinion" that Aion is a grindy game.  In order to level beyond 30, you will be Grinding. (see above for definition) I have a 50 and two other chars at 30+, so believe me when I say that there is no option.  There are a few quests, but you will spend much more than half your leveling time grinding.  That's the definition of a grindy game.  But this should not come as a shock to anyone that's played a Korean game before.  I knew what I was getting into and it doesn't bother me.  I like grinding.

Second point, Aion has been reported to have 400k pre-orders.  AoC had reported 700k pre-orders, yet by the end of June, had only 70k subscribers.  Don't expect this game to be anything more than another niche game with low server pop after a couple months.  I, for one, am glad that it won't be huge like WoW.  I don't see this game having more than 100k subs ever though.

WRONG!

AoC only had 111,000 pre-orders but shipped 700K after launch.

Get your facts straight and stop typing your opinon on how many subs Aion will have after launch, cause you have no clue to that either.

 

Ok, so they shipped 700k.  A small mistake,  They still only had 70k subs by the end of the month though, which is the more important point.  A tiny error does not invalidate an entire post in this case.
 

Originally posted by Toddv1

Ok, so they shipped 700k.  A small mistake,  They still only had 70k subs by the end of the month though, which is the more important point.  A tiny error does not invalidate an entire post in this case.
 

Only invalidated the parts that were wrong.

Originally posted by grimmbot

 But here's the problem: MMO gaming is a hobby. Every hobby can arguably be a grind. Put a bunch of model airplanes together, go ice skating, build a train set, go hiking. All repeated tasks with smaller variations. Single Player RPGs, at least as far back as the 8-Bit Dragon Warrior series, have had grinds.

The future of MMORPGs will have grinds. They have to.

The reason I opt only for PvP-enabled MMOs is that, so far as grinds go, PvP offers the greatest variation of experience on a daily basis. This wasn't so in WAR because Renown Rank requirements pigeonholed what people were willing to do -- and so it became boring and self-defeating and I left.

You're still defining "grinding" incorrectly.

Grinding = killing mobs repeatedly to gain xp.

Questing is not grinding.

If you're planning to play Aion past lvl 30, you will be spending over half your time killing mobs repeatedly with no quest rewards because that's just the type of game it is.  If you don't like the idea of that, Aion is not for you.  As I've said, I've seen this first hand on 3 different chars.  I actually prefer grinding to questing though, so I'm having a good time.  This is a Korean MMO.  Killing mobs repeatedly for hours with no quest rewards is part of the game.

P.S.  Aion is not even close to a GW clone.  It's a Lineage 2 clone.  The games are nearly exactly the same in every detail.

Is there not someone that goes around locking retarded threads like these?

I  really gotta say none of these posts are ever different, couple reasons why

1. To grindy: Um every mmo has a grind get over it I can also blame WoW for this one people are so used to having and easy girnd and reaching max level and feeling like they are gods gift to mmo.

2. Low replay value with alts: IMO this is the way it should be. Focus on 1 character for chist sake, again blame WoW, why ? Well making an alt is so easy in that game its sicking. I'm guilty of it I admit it, but it also really made me feel distant from any of my characters like it didnt matter if I was good or if I liked the class hell switch over to another class. What I think it is people are having to actually learn their class and it scares them.

3. To asian feels like a F2P: I've played f2p games this does not feel like one. I just feel like the majority of the people saying this have xenophobia.

I can keep going on but its butting into my game time with Aion.

Originally posted by Toddv1

P.S.  Aion is not even close to a GW clone.  It's a Lineage 2 clone.  The games are nearly exactly the same in every detail.

Not exactly, Aion has more quests, better PvP, PvE and more variety of weapons and armor.

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Originally posted by Toddv1

P.S.  Aion is not even close to a GW clone.  It's a Lineage 2 clone.  The games are nearly exactly the same in every detail.

 

Not exactly, Aion has more quests, better PvP, PvE and more variety of weapons and armor.

That's true.  It does have all those things, but the core systems of the game are nearly exactly the same.  The controls, the commands, the menus, the character advancement, obviously the art, the player shops... could go on.

Really, they coulda probably gotten away with calling it Lineage 3 and no one would have blinked.

Don't get me wrong though.  I loved L2.  Still do, but Aion is the new game in town and I'm having fun with it.

I'm not sure why the OP titled his post "Why Aion will fail" because no where in his post does he even make the argument that Aion is going to fail.  I'm assuming he just wanted an inflammatory title to get people to click his post.

Other than a really stupid title his post is mainly spot on.  OP, if you are going to spend all of that time writing out what I thought was a great post, you should have the title match what you are writing.  Shame on you for the troll subject line.  It pretty much ruins any valid points you make in your post.

There are, as we are finding out, or you will be finding out shortly if you are playing the game, not enough guests after level 30.  That is a FACT, not an opinion.  The OP is merely pointing out the obvious.  He even says in the body of his post that Aion will become a niche game.  Being a niche game is not the same as being a failure.  Not by a long shot.  Being a successful niche game is exactly what any game developer should be shooting for.  There may never be another game with the impact WoW had.  Times have changed.

I found the post quite interesting and well thought out.  It's too bad it was all ruined by a stupid, misleading subject line.  It's obvious most of the people replying here are replying to your subject and not your post and I really can't blame them.  Next time, try to be a little more honest with your subject and you won't start off with people assuming you are a troll.