I'm done with them, it's the last time I even try one, even if they're F2P.

Lineage 2 I tried, the servers were full of russians botting.

Aion I tried, the game is grindfest with Asians botting.

Silkroad Online, botting players everywhere you look.

These Korean companies obviously don't care about setting up good support, nor do their games make any sense from a gameplay perspective, on top of that, they are always full of cheaters and hackers.

Yeah thats pretty much the route most Korean MMOs have taken. Its kind of their niche, and what the players there seem to be hooked on. Most of them pretty much consist of pvp in which gear and level is all that matters, which forces people to just do nothing but nonstop grind xp and farm loot with aoes. Because of this, bots and RMTing run rampant, allowing people to just take the easy way of spending some $ to become uber rather than spending 100 hours sitting in the same spot day after day grinding/farming to get that extra level over everyone else or to get that better piece of gear.

Ive played a lot of these types of games before too, and they tend to actually be really great at launch when everyone is fairly new and still learning the game and working their way through the levels. But after a few months, more and more people start reaching toward sendgame, and reroll but dont want to spend the time to do it all over again, and PVP becomes nothing more than who has botted more or given more money to the RMT sites. Shame too cause if they would simply put a little bit of effort into keeping the bots and RMTers out, so many of them would be amazing games.

Originally posted by pepsibottle

I'm done with them, it's the last time I even try one, even if they're F2P.

Lineage 2 I tried, the servers were full of russians botting.

Aion I tried, the game is grindfest with Asians botting.

Silkroad Online, botting players everywhere you look.

 

These Korean companies obviously don't care about setting up good support, nor do their games make any sense from a gameplay perspective, on top of that, they are always full of cheaters and hackers.

 

They should rename SRO to SilkBOT online.

20-1 bot to player ratio,you will never in your life see more bots per player than in SRO.On server reboot is your only chance to get on a server and you better be fast,because they use auto login scripts and literally file into the game by the hundreds.You need 200 drops for a quest,usually means you need about 500-2500 kills,try that with a dozen bots killing everything around you before you visually see it spawn.Even using a ranged weapon it is near impossible to beat a bot to the kill.

Lineage and Aion you are looking at Gamania GM's the same Gm service that has been roaming Asian games for years.RMT is huge money,you can bet these Gm's are paid off or probably running bots in these games to make money.

Funny how these Asian games continue to use Nguard and Gamania since it has NEVER been a success in any game.That alone has to make you wonder about legitimacy of these games.You can bet your bank account that even if Aion had Nguard up,it would not change a thing ,it never has.

Korean mmo games usually cater for and are developed to suit their own player market. That means whatever goes down well at the PC bang, pay-per-play works well for massive PvP and grinding, the player just sits down for a session and plays for as long as they wish. There's nothing per say wrong in a game that requires wholesale grinding, the mobs and game objective just have to be sufficiently worthwhile for a player to fight through it all. Part of the dislike for grind by Western players probably comes from the fact that Western mmo players aren't prepared to sub for mmo grinders long-term anymore, they want an immersive story too. It's why in a few months time I think even Aion will have a niche PvP fanbase, but nothing more.

Originally posted by Illyssia

Korean mmo games usually cater for and are developed to suit their own player market. That means whatever goes down well at the PC bang, pay-per-play works well for massive PvP and grinding, the player just sits down for a session and plays for as long as they wish. There's nothing per say wrong in a game that requires wholesale grinding, the mobs and game objective just have to be sufficiently worthwhile for a player to fight through it all. Part of the dislike for grind by Western players probably comes from the fact that Western mmo players aren't prepared to sub for mmo grinders long-term anymore, they want an immersive story too. It's why in a few months time I think even Aion will have a niche PvP fanbase, but nothing more.

I don't know, but perhaps this is a chicken and the egg situation.

Is it that Westerners won't sub from grinders long term, or that there simply arent' any good grinders worth subbing to long term?

F2P games HAVE to include a huge grind. After all, that's why you buy items in the item shop, so you can make the grind easier. That's how the game is made from the beginning so they can make a profit.

If there was no huge grind, how would you pay to keep the servers open?

P2P games can use a different grind model. They want the players to stick around for a while, but they don't have to force them to buy items from a shop, so the set up can be different. you don't want average players to finish the content in 3 months, but on the other hand you don't have to make the grind so painful they're willing to buy stuff from an Item shop to make it go faster.

F2P is a mixed bag, I think there are games like Perfect World that were free-to-play from the outset and use an in-game shop and also sub games that have transitioned into free-to-play such as Dungeons & Dragons Online. DDO in theory is mainly quest-based, yet F2P. So I don't think grind and F2P have to go hand-in-hand, but yes, micro-transactions are the means by which they survive. In a way, I guess, the Western sub grinder could be viewed as online mmo FPS, though minus the rpg. Most Western sub games in development seem to be aiming to be immersive and plot driven now it seems. In a way F2P almost says not good enough for sub in Western countries, or, that it's an old game that has chosen to become F2P to compete at a lower level and survive.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Illyssia

If there was no huge grind, how would you pay to keep the servers open?

As it turns out, there are several F2P games that are experimenting with other ways of getting players to pay. Many of the more socially oriented F2P MMOs (Gaia, Freerealms, etc.) stick to selling vanity items. Other types of F2P games, like Combat Arms and BattleSwarm, rent equipment for a given number of days but still allow you to earn in game money if your a complete catass or just really cheap. Then again, games of skill can get away with this since the number of truely skilled players is always low and the renting of better equipment acts as a means of leveling the playing field so that the game is interesting for everyone and not just the "elite."

Oh! And don't forget D&D Online's model of selling content, quests and access to additional character classes. There are plenty of ways that F2P games can make money without introducing a huge grind. Hell, Aion and Lineage 2 are both subscription games so F2P doesn't even enter the equation in regards to those games.

Although I've played games like Shaiya (a sort of f2p Lineage2) and tes, loads of grind. As some point it's "licck the moster, let the automated attack take him out, take the loot, repeat". It's boring...

looking to buy a nonasianmmorpg.com haha

Im tired tof the Asian MMO F2P thing also. I played perfect world and that wa sok for a while until the grind kicked in.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH fires plungers at North Korea)

I agree with op, i am done with the Asian mmorpgs made by complete monkies that have no clue about mmorpg game play.

Originally posted by pepsibottle

I'm done with them, it's the last time I even try one, even if they're F2P.

Lineage 2 I tried, the servers were full of russians botting.

Aion I tried, the game is grindfest with Asians botting.

Silkroad Online, botting players everywhere you look.

 

These Korean companies obviously don't care about setting up good support, nor do their games make any sense from a gameplay perspective, on top of that, they are always full of cheaters and hackers.

 

If you consider Aion a grindfest, then you might as well drop mmorpgs all together because leveling isn't going to be much faster than that.

Also, you'll find bots in pretty much every successful mmorpg.

Please do not be mad about the companies who made this game. If botters exist in the game you're playing, the game developers would surely make something about it because if botters do exist on a certain game, it would be very dangerous because it could kill the game or shorten it's life span. I played Rohan online here in the Philippines. As soon as it was launched there were already bots, what happened was the developers tried their best to block this bot accounts but these bot developers are very tricky and a little bit smart. In the end, the economy was messed up and a lot of people left the game and moved to another or returned to their former games.

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by pepsibottle

I'm done with them, it's the last time I even try one, even if they're F2P.

Lineage 2 I tried, the servers were full of russians botting.

Aion I tried, the game is grindfest with Asians botting.

Silkroad Online, botting players everywhere you look.

 

These Korean companies obviously don't care about setting up good support, nor do their games make any sense from a gameplay perspective, on top of that, they are always full of cheaters and hackers.

 

 

If you consider Aion a grindfest, then you might as well drop mmorpgs all together because leveling isn't going to be much faster than that.

Also, you'll find bots in pretty much every successful mmorpg.

Aion is 10-15+ hours grinding on the same mobs over and over at 40+ to get a single level, and that's grouped EXP.

The sad thing is besides WoW and EVE the western MMOs are a big pile of crap, incomplete, broken, and wannabe copies of WoW with a different jittery skin on top, Aion has already topped up every single Western MMO sub wise so if you hate korean "grinders" that much, I imagine you must hate every single other pile of crap the western developers have fed us with.

Originally posted by caalem

Aion is 10-15+ hours grinding on the same mobs over and over at 40+ to get a single level, and that's grouped EXP.

I didn't get that high in Aion, but got to lvl 28 on a couple of characters before I just couldn't stomach the sheer boredom of it any more. I'd already cancelled my subscription very early on, but forced myself to endure the tedium to see if I was missing something.  I wasn't.

What made me sneer the most is that the quests were so simple they could be done with one eye closed, yet the game even saw fit to include a system to point you to where you had to be and what you had to do to complete them.  Players STILL asked for help, though!  That says it all.

I don't understand why people complain so much about Aion's grind. 

The grouping for xp after 40+ is quite large, but it's not undoable like Lineage 2.

It is true that the grind can be somewhat of a gigantic boredom, but that was the reason why grouping is enforced after 30+.  Of course, this wasn't meant to cater to the tastes of WoW or post WoW community of gamers either.  They focused on brining back the old EQ grouping feel to it.

In an earlier interview in the past, the actual korean developers answered that Aion will not mirror WoW, but will focus on bringing elements from various MMOs, at the same time be a separate identity.

AION IS NOT WOW, so don't play it, if you don't like it.

Honestly, today's post WoW MMOers have this mentality that endgame has to be possible within 2 weeks.  Everything has to be sugar coated to fit their desires. 

Aion isn't an innovative game, it doesn't bring anything new to the table.  The developers have said this, and everybody should already be aware of the fact that Aion is just a polished game to create its own niche.  Not cater WoW or post WoW players. 

On a personal note.  NCsoft is horrible company with horrendous reputation when it comes to handling bots and gold sellers.  This was anticipated long before the launch.  Everybody knew this, only, they hoped for a better change in the direction they take for customer service. 

In reality, that's not going to happen, nor is it happening as I type.

Not everybody prefers to instance from the beginning and reach endcap through quests by the end of week 2.  Either ways, I seen much worse grind in previous western MMOs than in Aion.  Most casual gamers will reach 50 by 2months.  But if this fact doesn't suit your personal taste of reaching endgame sooner, then don't play it.

Aion isn't a great game, it's a good game.  It's nothing new, nor is it serviced by a great company, rather horrible. 

Bots and gold spamming kills the game experience no doubt about it.  What did you expect?  It's NCsoft. 

As for the grind, if you're willing to sacrifice 2months of casual play to reach endgame, then don't play the grinder.  Just go back to WoW.

As for me, I don't play the game.  I played the game for 6months in the korean server, but NCsoft's lack of consideration pretty much killed my faith in the company. 

Originally posted by mugengaia

It is true that the grind can be somewhat of a gigantic boredom, but that was the reason why grouping is enforced after 30+...  

Aion isn't an innovative game, it doesn't bring anything new to the table.  The developers have said this...

NCsoft is horrible company with horrendous reputation when it comes to handling bots and gold sellers.  This was anticipated long before the launch. 

Aion isn't a great game...  It's nothing new, nor is it serviced by a great company, rather horrible. 

Bots and gold spamming kills the game experience no doubt about it.  What did you expect?  It's NCsoft...

That pretty much sums up the shitness of Aion. It's laughable that they expect people to pay for it, but there's a mug born every minute and so they blindly get their wallets out.

Oh, people reached 50 in two weeks, by the way, not two months - by (and I quote) "grinding elite mobs".  What a joke.  

Originally posted by mugengaia

I don't understand why people complain so much about Aion's grind. 

Because they try to play it like WoW and get mad when they run out of quests.

Originally posted by comerb

Originally posted by mugengaia

I don't understand why people complain so much about Aion's grind. 

 

Because they try to play it like WoW and get mad when they run out of quests.

The "mad part" happens when the entire game appears to be based on linear questing and then they drop the floor out from under their players. Then when the players found out that once you hit around 35, quests are basically incredibly slower than grinding, it made players realize what the game was. A grinder. 

Top that off with zerg PvP dynamics and a completely lackluster PvE tank and spank experience and you get Aion. I feel bad for people that continue the grind. They think that something is going to change. Or maybe they think endgame will get better some day. It's not going to change. You know exactly what the game is once you hit 40.

The reason why people complain about the grind is because they feel like there is nothing waiting for them at the end of the grind. And there really isn't.