What will Aion do that vill make it successful in the Western market? In your opinion, of course. As far as I can tell, there is nothing new going on in this game, despite many here hailing it as the next big thing ( kind've like Warhammer, AoC, DnL, Darkfall... the list goes on ).

I'd like to see some justification for it being a big seller in the Western world.

its a lot of fun?  I don't think it really needs to be anything else to be successful.

All MMOs are fun when they are first out. Give me a REAL reason.

Originally posted by Majinash

its a lot of fun?  I don't think it really needs to be anything else to be successful.

I'll second that. I play with my wife and a friend. I really enjoy the group play and the way the classes are setup. I feel the classes do a really good job of sticking to their role. Unlike other games, where everone and their uncle are dps powerhouses.

Originally posted by The_Pathos

What will Aion do that vill make it successful in the Western market? In your opinion, of course. As far as I can tell, there is nothing new going on in this game, despite many here hailing it as the next big thing ( kind've like Warhammer, AoC, DnL, Darkfall... the list goes on ).

I'd like to see some justification for it being a big seller in the Western world.

I think that depends on what you think successful is. I think it will be successful because of its interesting world, flight during game play and its incorportion in pvp, that it is polished, the characters are fun, the crafting seems accessible, the use of cut scenes for the larger story.

It is also familiar. Its gameplay goes along, to a certain point, like LOTRO or WoW. However, it is not LOTRO or Wow. I find myslef drawn to its world far more than those other games. Well, I am very drawn to LOTRO but some of the quests and stories they tell don't feel very "Lord of the Rings" i.e. the whole contamination in the mines sort of thing. Some of the mines stuff seems a bit science fiction. But I digress.

As far as big seller? I think because it is new, it will sell well. I am guessing it will have about 500-800k subs in the U.S. as the world is esoteric, there are some things I think players won't like such as the incorporation of pvp, the idea that one might have to pay attention to money, xp loss at death (which of course can be returned for a fee... many money sinks n the game).

I think straight pve players will be turned off. I think hardcore pvp players will be turned off.

first: not all MMOs are fun when they come out.

second: real reason? fun is the real reason.  thats why I play games, thats why most people play games, because they are FUN.  Aion is a fun game to play, many people agree.

if you want other reasons, you could look them up.  decent flight mechanic, being feature complete at launch (now that hasn't happened in awhile), fun PvP, nice graphics, no over-the-top system requirements, not buggy, a decent crafting system ect.

but you're here to troll.  we've seen this topic time and time again, the old "whats so special about Aion".  You'll nitpick or ignore points, its happened before.  the truth is nothing needs to be special about Aion.  its just a fun game.

Your right. Aion doesnt do anything new.

Personally i stopped looking for something new. All the announced future MMOs are pretty much the same things what we have seen already and i dont think that is going to change anytime soon.

Truth be told i prefer the Asian theme in MMOs and after spending many years in WoW, i have grown tired of PvE content such as raids and instances. I am itching to play a slightly more hardcore game with a bigger focus on PvP. While Aion wont bring anything new to the MMO scene, it will bring something new to me. That is why Aion is appealing to me. Many people will find Aion appealing for different reasons, and as long as its fun for them they will play it.

From what i can tell Aion offers the same things but presents them in its own way. I dont think Aion is trying for world domination, it seems its just a "Love it or hate it" type of game.

To sum it up: There is no REAL reason to what makes Aion successful. Same thing applies to every past, present and future MMO.

Originally posted by Serulith

...and after spending many years in WoW, i have grown tired of PvE content such as raids and instances. I am itching to play a slightly more hardcore game with a bigger focus on PvP.

I have a feeling there are a lot of people out there like this. A lot of people "play" WoW, but they really don't want to be. Aion will give them a familiar home.

Originally posted by Serulith

Your right. Aion doesnt do anything new.

Personally i stopped looking for something new. All the announced future MMOs are pretty much the same things what we have seen already and i dont think that is going to change anytime soon.

Truth be told i prefer the Asian theme in MMOs and after spending many years in WoW, i have grown tired of PvE content such as raids and instances. I am itching to play a slightly more hardcore game with a bigger focus on PvP. While Aion wont bring anything new to the MMO scene, it will bring something new to me. That is why Aion is appealing to me. Many people will find Aion appealing for different reasons, and as long as its fun for them they will play it.

From what i can tell Aion offers the same things but presents them in its own way. I dont think Aion is trying for world domination, it seems its just a "Love it or hate it" type of game.

To sum it up: There is no REAL reason to what makes Aion successful. Same thing applies to every past, present and future MMO.

Excellent post and I think you have the right of it. I highlighted the parts that I very much agree with.

I see people say "it's a wow clone". Well, A, it's not and B, if it was a WoW clone then I would already be playing WoW. My highest character in WoW is somewhere in the early 30's and was made at launch. I never had the desire to play the game for more than a bit here and there.

Aion has the right mix of ingredients for me and I am ready to throw myself fully into the game.

I hope I dont sound like much of a troll here, because I had really high hopes for Aion.  I wanted it to be a great game, but I dont think it did that.  It got some of the best graphics, fairly typical questing system(a good thing) and the flight can be exciting, but after that their are too many things I dont like:

1.  Combat is NOT exciting.  Im sorry, but for all those that think otherwise, I'd really like a valid explanation.  It takes wayyy too long to kill one mob.  The chain features seem to have forced the combat into a stale and generic repetion of 1 cycle.  Of course their are some skills that are only active(for a short time) when you do certain things, but they happen once, maybe twice during a fight and since the fights are so long, it diminishes the excitement and randomness of these skills.  With all this, the combat is not fast paced or even that great looking since, in between each skill used, you'll sit for another 10 seconds watching your char laboriously swing at the enemy with the same animation until the next skill is ready....rinse and repeat.

2.  The world of Aion is VERY claustrophobic.  The areas seem very determined to set you on a straight path and even if you do go to explore, you won't find anything notable.  Exploration is key to any MMORPG and this game completely lacks it. 

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

I could probably think of some more things, but dont want to get the natives too angry....this game will not do well...period.

Seems like it will be pretty fun and runs better than games that have released recently.  If you are looking for something revolutionary, you definitely won't find it in Aion (at least as far as I know). 

IMO it will be successful in the west because it will run better than other games at launch.  NC Soft has spent about a year working out all the problems in Korea, so we won't see many (maybe even any) major bugs/flaws on release.  This was the problem with VG, WAR, AoC, etc. 

We won't know until it releases anyway.  I knew WAR would be similar to every other MMO in many ways, but I liked their concepts.  Too bad they failed to execute it properly.  I think people's expectations of the next big game are a lot lower than previously (at least mine are).  Too many people have been disappointed by those other titles.  People do want something revolutionary to come out, but at this point I think they just want a solid game.

Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

I could probably think of some more things, but dont want to get the natives too angry....this game will not do well...period.

I never played DAoC, but from what I understand that game is a PvP game. People are still playing it, so I guess it's living to tell the story.

Oh, and Jay & Silent Bob are the shit!  Their movie wasn't incredible, but I thought it was pretty damn funny.  Then again, I like many things most people don't like. 

Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

Not to be contrary, but... Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer are built to be PvP. I would venture that most do not play it for the PvE... though the PvE is not badly done. And I know... it's really RvR, but you know what I mean.

The Asian infuence makes the game "feel" different and the art is very nice. But i doubt these things in and of themselves will be enough to make this game a WOW killing blockbuster. I think it will do very well at launch but when the "newness" wears off i look for sub numbers to fall somewhere in the area of Warhammer, AOC or LOTRO. Im speaking of numbers i feel the game will maintain in NA.

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Originally posted by turkwhip

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Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

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Not to be contrary, but... Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer are built to be PvP. I would venture that most do not play it for the PvE... though the PvE is not badly done. And I know... it's really RvR, but you know what I mean.

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Also considering all of the problems WAR had (and it still holds 300k subs) I think that Aion can certainly carve out a place in the market. Both AoC and WAR had a high number of initial subs and most people left due to them both being buggy/incomplete games. I don't think it's a matter of PvP won't work, people obviously want a more PvP focused MMO, it's just the fact that not many games that touted PvP as a main feature have been all that feature complete.

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Combat is NOT exciting. Im sorry, but for all those that think otherwise, I'd really like a valid explanation. It takes wayyy too long to kill one mob. The chain features seem to have forced the combat into a stale and generic repetion of 1 cycle. Of course their are some skills that are only active(for a short time) when you do certain things, but they happen once, maybe twice during a fight and since the fights are so long, it diminishes the excitement and randomness of these skills. With all this, the combat is not fast paced or even that great looking since, in between each skill used, you'll sit for another 10 seconds watching your char laboriously swing at the enemy with the same animation until the next skill is ready....rinse and repeat.

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I really, really, really do not want to sound like the typical fanboy when I'm saying this... but what level/class did you play? Even at level 13 in Aion I found myself rarely auto attacking on my chanter. Certainly I found my self using the infamous auto attack much less than leveling in other MMOs (WoW springs to mind quite quickly, at least I remember having to level my warrior up and what a pain in the ass low leveling was).

Point is that I'm assuming you just played during a beta event (that's all my experience too, I'll be honest) but if you look at the chains listing there is a lot more to get into later on, especially to where you probably won't have much of a chance to even bother auto attacking.

I can't say what specifically what makes Aion special, all I know is its super addictive and fun. I wish I didn't play beta cause now Im dying for the luanch thats 2 months away.

Although I really liked AOC up until max level, then I quickly got bored. So we'll see.

Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

Eve?

Which PvE game other than world of warcraft surpass eve's success in the west?

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

 

Eve?

Which PvE game other than world of warcraft surpass eve's success in the west?

Guild wars

Originally posted by Leucrotta

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by chaod1984

3.  The game is built for PVP...maybe that flies in the Eastern part of the world, but it will NEVER fly over in the Western hemisphere.  Of course you'll have those that will contest this all day til they are blue in the face, but tell me what game geared toward a more PVP end-game has lived to tell the story?  PVP is like a great co-star in a movie(think Jay and Silent Bob or something similar), they are great to have in a movie, but when making a movie about them, you get a little more than anyone can handle, causing a bad reaction.  This is PVP.  It is a snack, not a full course meal.

 

Eve?

Which PvE game other than world of warcraft surpass eve's success in the west?

 

Guild wars

I thought GW was a PvP game.

Originally posted by The_Pathos

What will Aion do that vill make it successful in the Western market? In your opinion, of course. As far as I can tell, there is nothing new going on in this game, despite many here hailing it as the next big thing ( kind've like Warhammer, AoC, DnL, Darkfall... the list goes on ).

I'd like to see some justification for it being a big seller in the Western world.

WoW is the big seller. Enough said.