been playing some asian MMos and the level of exploiting and cheating has disgusted me to the point where i want to go back to a western game .. love star wars .. thinking about coming back ...

how is the community nowadays ? everyone still being clean and are the mods making sure to ban any exploiters/cheaters?

dont want to join an aging game where everyone is downloading game mods to cheat in PVP

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by NeuroXl

what people dont understand about in game shops and buying in game items or ingame stats, or inv spaces or whatever is it could in fact be a slippery slope ..

 

its not a large step from selling cutsey ingame items,  to selling in game invetory slots or character remodels .. ( which in aion the size of your toon has enormous impact on PVP ) ..and from that its not a large step to selling in game pvp gear and xp buffing items and such ..

 

and when things shift to ingame selling ... and it becomes real money which will dictate the fortune of one's character instead of ingenuity and skill .. it ceases to be an RPG imho

people play MMO's to escape the unlevel playing field of real life where money beats all ..

 

except in the respect of collectors and preorder editions and of course the intial game package cost  and subscription fees, i make it a point out of personal preference to avoid MMo's which use in game shops or sell items for real money

if the MMO genre as a whole ever turned toward game shops or selling in game currency or items.. which sell things that give players a competitive edge .. thats the day id proly go back to playing street fighter 2 in some old dungeon-esque smokey arcade for competition, for my own personal reasons and principles ..

 

 

 

Well, there are already lots of games doing that and the millions of people playing them (ROM, DDO, Free Realms, maple story ...) don't seem to have a problem.

 

 

very true .. and to each their own ...

regardless if they all veer towards this trend or not i do not see mmo having a problem finding customers i guess its just a matter of personal preference

and for free to play or free mmos period i agree that this isnt a problem and should be expected .. im talking about mmo you buy retail or buy to download and then pay sub fees for

what people dont understand about in game shops and buying in game items or ingame stats, or inv spaces or whatever is it could in fact be a slippery slope ..

its not a large step from selling cutsey ingame items,  to selling in game invetory slots or character remodels .. ( which in aion the size of your toon has enormous impact on PVP ) ..and from that its not a large step to selling in game pvp gear and xp buffing items and such ..

and when things shift to ingame selling ... and it becomes real money which will dictate the fortune of one's character instead of ingenuity and skill .. it ceases to be an RPG imho

people play MMO's to escape the unlevel playing field of real life where money beats all ..

except in the respect of collectors and preorder editions and of course the intial game package cost  and subscription fees, i make it a point out of personal preference to avoid MMo's which use in game shops or sell items for real money

if the MMO genre as a whole ever turned toward game shops or selling in game currency or items.. which sell things that give players a competitive edge .. thats the day id proly go back to playing street fighter 2 in some old dungeon-esque smokey arcade for competition, for my own personal reasons and principles ..

Originally posted by Mentor73

Neuro, from your wall of text I  presume that you lack Tolkien Lore information. Especially about Old Forrest. That's why you maybe didn't find epic book story attractive, one of main parts of LOTRO pve.

Player  doesn't need to grind in Lotro all the way to lvl 65; if you define grind as killing lots of mobs to gain level. You can do quest until max level in LOTRO. You have so much quests that you can decide for several paths to level (except parts in Eregion and early parts in Moria). That alone gives LOTRO PVE replayability value.

You can find grinding in every MMORPG, but you expressed it as it was in LOTRO worst part. Which is not.

I can buy that PVP in Aion is better then in LOTRO which I agree because of AION has real PVP rewards, more areas, wings etc.. But defenately not PVE.

As for bosses atleast in LOTRO  boss encounters force players to behave different then just rush in and gang and spank.

And your comments on crafted gear, traits, deeds are biased and not completely true.

i have read the silmarillion, which is probably my favorite book of all regarding tolkien and tolkien lore, i found the dwarf's and areas in game close to what i imagined dwarven things seeming to be like from that book.. i also read the hobbit, ( thought it was cool to find the three trolls ) the lord of the rings series ( all 3 volumes) and some of chris tolkien's publications which are posthumous prints of his father's work ...

quests in lotro IMHO are grinding .. the gear rewads are stuff i dont use.. the quests are always kill X amount of mobs .. or kill all through this instance before you get to kill this boss ... or loot this item off this mob .. which is pretty much the same exact thing with aion .. both have small quests that dont involve killing as well . getting dyes and fashion clothing or you find books and learn about the lore in aion... to getting furniture in lotro ... or dyes . or talk to that NPC ...

so imho the quests systems in both are identical .. *EXCEPT*  in aion you have this new type of quest system called spy quests .. which make you sneak into enemy territory and pull off quests .. granted its not for players without skill ... they are very hard to complete but VERY rewarding and fun ...nothing in lotro is similar

now the difference between lotro and aion .. which i think is what throws people off is .. in aion you have to reconfigure yourself constantly within its world to find the quests for yur level ... you go from ishalgen to altgard, to morheim to brusthonin, back to morheim to beluslan back to brusthnonin .. ect.. for your quests .. but so far i have level to 38 entirely with quests ..

some people are used to the easymode nature of lord of the rings where npc camps are easily found you walk into them by accident nine out of ten times .. npc camps most of the time ( cept maybe for garth forthnir ) are set nicely and neatly for you all across the main roads ..not to mention you now have a QUEST locator in lotro which actually has a radar and directional indicator leading you to your quest point of interest ..

 .. in aion you have to find these NPC camps, they are not out in the open .. and they are usually found after venturing through very dangerous areas ...

there has been cliche arguments made for korean games .. but people start to use these arguments without really thinking ...

yes the games are different but its not the grind that makes them different .. or the questing systems ..

its the environment, its the AI, the pvp .. the character models ...and most notably the UI

all mmo's  are "grindy".. and believe me when i say lotro is just as grindy as most .. i played for two years, since beta .. i know

not saying lotro wasnt a good game it was.. but nothing too extraordinary .. EXCEPT the updates which in lotro were always plentiful compared to other MMO's.. which imho is lotros main claim to fame ... they update and add areas all the time and the lotro world has become HUGE

another thing about lotro ... is as long as you learn to put buttheads on ignore ... and do not post in the pvp forums ... it truely has a great community

and although people may come and go.. a lot of them always seem to come back to lotro and hang out for a while before the next big game launch ... could be the lifetime sub thing turbine gave out ... could also be the game's IP which is tolkien .. and which has very loyal fans

although lotro may never be explosive in sub numbers ( although it will have a large influx when the new movie comes out ) ... i also know it will never have lack of or too few players either 

Originally posted by areb

Let me first say that I like the game and will miss it but for various reasons I am leaving.  I had a glad that made it to lvl 41.

What I loved about the game is the abyss from lvl 25+.  I did mostly solo and small group ganking and repeatable questing.  I really spent most of my time out there, enough that I was usually in the top 10 for weekly AP gains.  The nice thing about a soloer is that it's pretty easy to ignore zergs.  Also with the size of the abyss, you can pick and choose your battles.  The actually combat had enough strategy and skill involved to keep me interested.  Flying combat for melee is not as bad as they say.  It is difficult, but doable.  I warn you though, if you want to kill stuff, you must be a sin, ranger, gladiator, sorc, or SM.  Cleric and templars are great at staying alive but not killing.  Chanters are not exceptional at anything.

As far as fortress batttles go, they were a mixed bag.  Some were trivial, but every once in while there were epic battles.  That is, if your PC can handle it.  My PC was pretty borderline.

The PvE in this game is not very good.  As a gladiator, DPSing is extremely simple.  Other classes are a bit more engaging, but a common complaint is how little thought goes into DPSing in this game.

Group PvE is slow and mind-numbing.  There is typically litle variety, simply elite mob after elite mob.  They take a long time to kill.  They have annoying skills like bubbles and heals to slow down how you kill them.

Finally the community.  Overall, it is not very good.  I made friends to be sure, but the game is filled with unhappy people, ready to start fights, or QQ, or grief in some way.  I honestly think the amount of grinding in this game sucks some of the happiness out of you...

The game is just a bit too hardcore.  I saw enough of the game to have a glimpse of how endgame PvP will work.  THe best players will rely on high priced life crystals, high priced AP pots, and high priced DP food, along with moderately priced scrolls, foods, and regular pots.  If you don't play enough to keep supplied with these, you won't be able to keep up.

Up next for me for me possibly is the Lotro expansion.  A lot less hardcore, a lot more friendly, and with superior PvE.

the money spent in aion on consumables and soul healing and such does end up being a lot, but with the next update they are increasing monetary quest rewards and loot drops so .. hopefully well see some of the time sink in farming kinah relieved ..

as far as the grind .. NOTHING is as long as lotro that i have ever played ...you grind to 65 ( Som update ) then you have to max all of your traits THEN max out legendary items and gear as well as MAX the relics inside them .. and THEN farm the same dungeon or two for months for the end game gear... and unlike aion there is no alternative .. the crafted gear isnt great for 1v1 .. and the pvp gear is nonexistent .. and with updates creating emphasis on different traits like what MOM did for SOA build guardians and champions you have to grind all of your traits out to be safe

although im mid 30's in AION and have not yet seen end game PVE .. mid level pve in aion seems a lot more meaningful gear wise and making money wise than lotro .. and since people seem to be engaging pvp in this game mid level .. it makes farming gear more important and fun for pvp ... not to mention so far i have genuinely had much more fun in mid level pve in aion than lotro

lotro i can say the only real fun pve i had was end game raids .. which .. on the smaller servers it seems only a select few guilds get to enjoy.. the crafting in lotro always seemed dumbed down to me as well

the  end game pve in lotro does require some nice group effort ( which to be honest is the ONLY thing i really liked about lotro PVE ) the fact each member in the group or raid has specific duties to perform and people had to pull together as one in places like the rift. watcher and dn .. but again i found a lackluster nature to the bosses ( none of them ever impressed me with graphics or intensity )

if there werent landmarks from the books/movies in lotro i think more people would have agreed, but to be honest this is more a personal taste matter... to me the lotro world seemed muddy and drab and slow , at times depressing ( garth agarwen, the lost forest ( or whatever south of bree ) and places like that actually made me feel ill

i dont like the pet master classes in either game, lotro they are lackluster boring pets, and in aion they look like stupid pokemon ... they never for me hit the fun level i had with a conjurer in eq2 and my golem

the legendary system was cool at first untill you realize it itself is a grind , and to compete in 1v1 you really need particular legacies, ( and character traits for that matter) slotted and leveled.. this created a clone atmosphere were you didnt have leeway to experiement since anything but the popular build for its class was inefficient

what i like about aion is .. unlike lotro is has several layers to its pvp .. there are rifts where nine out of ten times you will face lowbies such as yourself ( until the people you gank or kill whine loud enough to convince high leveled people to go down there and protect them ) and although you will get ganked sometimes, the abyss itself indirectly directs higher level players into its upper layers .. and really only the gankers hang out in the lower levels .. whom can be negated by putting a group together to wipe em...

in lotro you need to be max level or close to max level in order to survive  before you pvp since you most of the time cannot evade the zergs and they make it a RULE OF THUMB to go after lower level players first .. but most go out max level or only one or two levels under .. in fact most wont go out  to pvp in lotro untill MAX geared AND max leveled  .. and in lotro you cannot escape the zerg unless you are a stealth class... which is not to say i dont love zerg vs zerg crazyness but, its refreshing in aion to have such a larger pvp field that the battles on one side of the map can be completely different than the zerg vs zerg battle on the other side ...

in lotro you alwaysget sucked into the zerg fighting eventually

lotro's pvp community is mostly carebear min/maxer types not quick thinking seat of your pants pvp'ers, they tend to take the sides of whiners who cry about getting ganked, have rules set up to banish anyone who disrupts 1v1's and silly conformist rules like that which really slow down pvp and take any and all quick thinking survival skills out of the game .. they want to sit facing each other .. breaking each others LOS spamming 2 or 3 attacks and cry when someone tries to knock them into high gear survival mode

pvp in lotro CAN be  fun though.. especially leading raids and pitting your mind against another raid leader ( which is where i found my niche in lotro )..but after a while the limited nature of the ettenmoores map might bore some people ( i played for two years so i was able to deal with the small map better than most ) not to mention the fights always seem to center around TA , and the lack of static factions in lotro make it so the pvp is not as meaningful ..

 i consider pvp in lotro to be inferior not only because of the limited nature of monsters but because the UI seemed slow and the character animations/skill effects lackluster, playing melee in lotro partcularly is very lackluster , towards the end of my playtime it wasnt uncommon for me to be leading almost entirely tactical based pvp raids ( RK, Loremaster, minstrels )

for me in aion pvp and 1v1 has been a blast .. i enjoy the flashy animations and spell effects and the streamlined quick pace of its UI, and melee although having the same inherent difficulties in pvp as lotro and other games is quick paced and flashy enough to be a blast and they really pushed the bar with their sick melee classes.. .. in AION players can actually pull enemy players to them with their tank pulls ( like IJ ) making tanks imperative for pvp groups, making lotros stance of leaving all aggro and tanking skills useless in the moors kind of obsolete and old fashioned

lotro might have kept me as a player IF they introduced rewards for pvping other than rank ( which some of the high ranked players farm with dual accounts or farm friends making it meaningless ) and introduced new maps for pvp and even more importantly decent gear in pvp.. but they didnt , or somehow spiced up their PVE to really put you in awe over skills used and the power of enemy bosses ..

things ( like even the rift bosses ) always seemed forced guys like zurm and barz and just enlarged versions of smaller trolls seen all throughout Carn dum and angmar .. the only  two original looking bosses were thorog and thaurlach ... and the dragon in Phantasy star online imho was more impressive and and awe inspiring presence than thorog ...

the lotro pvp game is not for hardcore fly by the seat of you pants pvp players, but more for patient end game gear loving min/maxers...which is fine to each their own, but i like the intensity aion brings

all this being said regarding the lotro and aion comparison there are things i dont like about aion as well ( well one thing in particular .. the "gambling" system as i call it regarding enchantment stones and manastones ... you shouldnt have to buy items only to have a % chance of them working ... and with sucess buffing yoour armor and weapons .. this gives too much power to the guy buyers who can afford to spend millions trying to enchant their weapons to +10 but other than that .. so far aion is fun ... yes the bots worry me .. and yes i have heard rumours of hacks but im hoping NCsoft takes care of those buttheads
 

 double post

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

There are four stages of cognitive development:

* 1.1 Sensorimotor period
* 1.2 Preoperational Period
* 1.3 Concrete operational stage
* 1.4 Formal operational stage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development#Formal_operational_stage

 

If you are a reasonably functioning person, you'll make it to Concrete, and you have some Formal operational thinking.

However, it's been posited that many people tend live their lives in the Concrete stage, and never make it fully into the Formal Operational stage.

The Formal Operational stage is where you begin abstract reasoning. This stage of development can continue throughout adult hood.I think that many gamers in MMORPGs fall into categories of being either in the Concrete operational stage, or the Formal operational stage. This has nothing to do with intelligence. you can be a brilliant person, successful business person, etc., and not fully develop the Formal operational stage. Or, you can be dumb as a rock, and fully develop the formal operational stage.

In any case, the person with the fully developed Formal Operational stage will understand and enjoy more areas of a game that have to do with abstract things like role playing. They will be  morel likely to play the game as a character, not just their real selves interacting with other real people while they play a game.

The person still in the concrete operational stage, will interact with the game like they are playing solitaire, and chatting with other people. They will not fully appreciate or understand playing a role, or playing for example a different gender. They will consider these things odd, or come up with the idea that is must be because someone is gay, and they will consistently be unable to relate in a meaningful way to those that function in the Formal Operational stage of development.

most will probably find this thread boring, I know. I dont' study psychology, didnt' major in it or anything like that. Just my thoughts on the subject.

this post is kind of funny ..

first off .. id say that 90% if not more of the people who play MMo's are within this formal mindset you speak of ..

afterall how many MMO'ers do you know who admit to being fat, unemployed, living in mom's basement, or a high school dropout?

secondly, i know we are supposed to have "open minds" and all .. and respect everyone's right to pursue pleasure and happiness in whichever way they deem necessary .. which i agree with, so dont take this the wrong way but ...

roleplaying a women .. for some reason that still gets me .. i can understand making a female toon, and then fantasizing her as your girlfriend or something.. and i can understand females playing male toons in what that they may feel, at times,  is a male dominated society and they may want to lead or be taken seriously or ..may want to  be left alone and not hit on 24/7 by lonely geeky men/boys

but when a male makes a female character and roleplays being female .. which includes flirting with other male players .. theres something there i think which needs to be addressed .. not that the action itself is abhorred, to each his own .. .. but .. maybe that person has to question their own identity .. and maybe question why they choose to live life through a video game ..

in fact the more i think about this post .. maybe.. perhaps .. these cognitive developmental steps you list .. and psuedo-intellectual psychobable .. is really just justification .. for your mind ..to give reason to why you feel it neccessary to live or "roleplay" through a pixelated world .. as a pretty pettite little sweetie, within a sea of bulked up, large bodied, monster killing men

either way ..happy mmo'ing :)

im not worries about the bots .. and no GG wouldnt have stopped the bots ...

but it would have stopped some of the other exploits and hack ive seen people use ...

umm this is not an aion npc or character toon ....

the aion cloaks do not look like this and surface shaders of this character are not of aion

neither is the style ...

what game is this pic REALLY from?

also .. umm ..  there are some MOBS which are named the same as wow BUT .. those mobs have greek names which ,, were actually creatures from old greek mythology so i can understand that

well i wanted to read the forums of matrix online .. see if some old hardcore buddies still played and saw the game was closed

so then i wanted to read about people reactions to the game closing and not ONE thread in mmorpg devoted to it? yea it wasnt the greatest game, SOE could have done a lot more for it but .. dang , the matrix movies were cool as hell and it DID serve the very very small SCI FI MMO market ..

being a sci fi fan at heart and secretly despising the fantasy worlds most MMO's are set in i was sad to see this fold

and sadder to see no one posted about it folding :P

although i was not and am not a subb'er to wow ...

i told myself that if aion adopts the gameshop im quitting on the spot

the collectors edition and pre order crap i can deal with ... ive learned to accept those

even though yes its selling digital crack to kids ..

but in-game stores??  nah ... i already pay a monthly fee AS WELL AS bought the game if developers are too cheap to give me a pet or two or armor or a plastic surgery ticket .. or heck pvp stuff ... ill go find myself another game .. in reality .. all these gmes play the same anyway .. no biggie to find a new one

lies

unfortunately ive never tried tabula rasa ...

i played planetside though which i thought was great

sorry to flood these boards with questions .. i applied for a beta key how much of a chance do I ( or anyone at this time) have for getting into the beta?

im a huge sci fi fan .. i have played phantasy star online, star wars galaxies, everquest 2,  city of villains, city of heros, lord of the rings, the matrix online, as well as other games ...

getting awefully tired of the old fantasy, elves, dwarves.. ect... genre and looking for a home for the next two years to satisfy my gaming needs ...

I LOVE what i see so far .. keep up the great work!

cheers from New York

will this game support voice chat?

huge stargate movie and sci fi fan in general ..

ROBOTECH/MACROSS

this would be an amazing MMO ... the city inside the battleship .. customizing your valkyrie .. ect..

BLADERUNNER - hunting nexus 6 models across a urban sprawl,  or evading hunters while being a replicant ... you could be a genetic crafter ...crafting in this game could be amazing ...

VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE  or UNDERWORLD MMO .. i have heard this is in development ... this would still be sick

if you are looking to try out the game .. let me first say ... with lotro its best to get yourself into a guild ..

makes the game a lot more enjoyable and helps you grind out tedius traits and such to maximize your toons strength ...

On gladden we have this really great and active guild, which helps its lowbies, has great grouping options for lowbies to play amongst their peer in terms of level ...

and for end game we are one of the most active kinships in PVP .. and enjoy PVE raiding almost every night 

we have hardcore players ... but we also have laid back casual players ...

come look us up

yep these numbers have nothing to do with server populations ...

i have seen hard numbers on server pop .. and i know for a fact gladden was lowest as per registered users ...

Originally posted by Sanjoslayer

    Originally posted by PolearmDK

    Well from what beta testers have told me its amazing and gets better and better every patch.

From what I have seen of beta I am unimpressed, and the general opinions seems to be the same. I know it is hard to accept negative critisim for something you want to like, but sometimes the truth is the best. I say this even though I actually like AoC and even though I will be playing Warhammer online.


AoC had a fairly good release, though there are huge problems. A lot of feats are broken, itemization is virtualally non-existant, and at lot of end game is not ready yet. But after after all that I am still playing and enjoying the game. Pvp is fine, the storyline is pretty damn good, and I see potential.


War has a lot of heat under itself, AoC is getting time to polish. Do I think WAR will do better? Yes, actually, I do. Well, to be more correct, I think it has a better chance. Whatever you may say about WAR the simple truth is it has a -lot- of WoW appeal and that will garner it many fans who might not know the world or story.


The ultimate truth? WAR is just another mmorpg from another company.. they all promise things. None of you know if WAR will do better than AoC. The simple fact is it can fall flat on it's face. MMORPG's are a huge undertaking, even for a company that has done it before and is a bit more prepared. The simple fact will be WAR's release, if the game is not instantly fun and if there are more than a few minor problems, the game will very likely sink. One thing that helps other mmorpg is that most of it's fan base are previous mmorpg players. WAR will get a lot of players whose first mmorpg was WoW during it's prime, and they have a very strong vocal influence that will destroy the game if it is not top notch at release.

Us experienced players know most mmoprgs do not release top notch...so we will see how it turns out.


Oh, and even though EA is their publisher they can still have financial problems. I have heard the same rumors and though unlikely it is possible. Even companies like EA are extremely stingy with their money and either give "allowances" per milestone or feel the game can not be completed and save themselves whatever amount that can.

i disagree 100% with your statement regarding WAR that it " might fall flat on its face"

the truth is ... regardless if the game sucks or not .. it will have the biggest release $$$ numbers out of any MMO to date .. yes even wow ...

it already has close to 1 million poised to buy the pre-release ...

will it eventually match wow in sub numbers? that i do not know .. wow has gotten to be huge ..

the real question with WAR is .. will it be able to HOLD its  HUGE release subscription base?

double post