This is what comes of sitting on our lazy backsides and letting net neutrality slip through our fingers.  There are now cable monopolies across our nation where deals have been struck so that no competitor is allowed in.  They are not made public and slowly over time the bandwidth allowance per account is being restructured.  

Other countries pay more they reason so we may soon as well.  I doubt if the big ISP companies are concerned for the gaming industry.  

Looking at the female  of the 4 pics I have to say [ again ] wth is with the deformed jaw bone on the females shown in screen shots of SWTOR!

Is every female character in the game going to have that weird face deformity?

You know you guys are right.   Take all the vanity out of the game and make it only about stats.

This is what happens when you morph a game over the years into catering to the grief fest types.  They wont even make a donation to charity for a vanity pet.  

Spoiled much?

People lie on forums all the time to get nerfs that swing things in their favor.   IMO there should never be a nerf with out testing anything that is supposed to be OP.   That takes time from a devs other duties though and that means spending extra money that the company wont want to spend.

Originally posted by Emeraq

How'd this game get on the hype meter again.... I thought it was dead?

I would like to know that too.   There has not been an update on their official web site for over a year.   IMO they canned the project a long time ago and kept it just alive enough to promote the  Hero Engine.    I camped it for a long time too but srsly people its vapor ware.  Unless Simutronics wants to come forth with evidence of a pulse we need to let it go.  They did have some great ideas though.

This may have been mentioned but to the OP you do know that China is far behind on game updates to Korea and the now western version I hope.   A lot of content between those.   Also I have legion leaders who have been playing on China servers for a while before game launch and they tell a much different story.   Currently my self at lvl 29 almost 30 and I see no end in sight of content to play. 

There are plenty of stereotypes  that have no basis in fact other than some people try to act them out after they have been created.   A lot of what I have been reading in this thread is based on feminine fiction that a lot of boys and men who do not interact enough with women believe.  You simply can not learn what women are really like from other boys and men.  

As for gaming we have been here longer than you think, in more numbers than you think, longer than many of you have been playing.  Aion will attract many women because entire guilds , clans and legions are jumping to Aion and they are going with them.  It will attract some women who make the choice of what game to play for the family (like my self).   The graphic quality of Aion's characters both male and female is simply superior to any other MMO being offered.   The NA developers have blown off request for graphic improvements for years and now it has come back to haunt them.  That being said many people are being drawn to Aion and many of those people are women.

Those gamer grrls in your raid flirting it up and stinking at PVP? ... likely not real women IRL. 

"Originally posted by Mrbluray

There is no such thing as "griefing" or "ganking".   They are simply excuses made up for one reason or another. It's all in your head.

Think of it this way, when you kill NPCs, are you "griefing" them?  Are you "ganking" them?  Of course not.   There is no such thing as "ganking" or "griefing".   Learn not to make excuses and grind harder."

 

This is basically the gaming version of just lie back and enjoy it cause I'm going to rape you anyway and there is nothing you can do about it.

Ok jr here is the deal [pay attention] NPC's are AI controlled characters, they are not in fact real.   PCs are actual real humans who are controlling avatars.   Lets try this another way , I can see your not getting the concept of other people who have real feelings.   If you  hit the old lady down the street and take her social security check that is real life ganking.   If you pee in your neighbors garden that is real life griefing.   Now here is the jump from the real world to cyberspace.   Other real people are also paying money for this game and they are sacrificing their own personal  time to get things done in game .... just like you.  ( amazing I know ).     Now that being said you are actually stealing some of their subscription money and messing up the time they have put into their character progression if you exploit the game ( or the lack of imagination or follow up on the part of the dev team) and basically waste or mess up what they have been working for.   Yes I know there is more in it for you than that but with respect to the forum rules I thought I wouldn't mention that.   In a game where the field of play is set up to pit players against one another combat is fair in situations where the game leads to it , true.  Taking advantage of a situation the devs didn't think of ( sometimes they really do miss things ) is not fair.   That being said a 2 second gank where the lower lvl player didn't even get the chance to see your name is not pvp combat because combat requires your foe to fight back (or be able to), and if you spend a lot of time doing that your not only griefing but your a coward. 

Also it is not up to you as to whether or not you are causing another real person grief.  If your in their personal space ( real or cyber space ) then how you effect them is where the judgment call comes from. 

Now to qualify this that does not mean there are not some fair and intended versions  of pvp combat that are called griefing by some but are not.   It stands to reason that one can not go into a known pvp area and expect to just do nothing but pve quest and grind.     I is my understanding that the slayer system was created to work against the mindless griefing crowd and I have the feeling when more exploits are found and if they become wide spread tweaks will be made to it. 

 

 

Even with the high prices you guys are claiming to be willing to pay it would not be enough because most of the player community would not pay that much.   The kind of money that it takes to support and build on an MMO takes great numbers of subscriptions not a few at a higher price.  That being said the best way to keep an MMO going is to think of the fun factor with regard to the masses, rather than the exclusive types.

Well closed beta is over and I can tell you what being the target of rifters with out the slayer system is like.

There is this blur of red and if you look really fast you will see ??? for the levels [rarely traveling in one so its usually a pack].  Its fast , very very fast.  You basically get one shotted then they move on.  The good thing is you don't get the nasty death penalty from getting killed by a mob.  However if your not bound in the area your gonna be loosing some serious cash as transport to teir 3 isnt cheap.

There is no combat involved in pking lowbies.   Only a moron would  even call it pvp.    There is still plenty of room in teir 3 Aion zones for exploits , griefing and such so yes do expect more restrictions or creative punishments.   Its all going to come down to how fare the majority of the rifters play.   Push the envelope and things happen.   That's a life lesson , in game and out.

I saw rifters camping quest NPCs , binding stones, flight points, and passage ways that every one had to go though.  The last imo is actually a viable tactic though and eventually results in some real pvp fun with potential wins for both sides.   If some cant enjoy pvp with out killing players who can not defend them selves then they are not a pvper , their just a nyerk.   So relax and enjoy fighting with some challenge.  Many might find they even like it.  

There are games out there that are almost purely open pvp.  No reason not to play them if that's what some like.

Originally posted by Ragnaven

I still blame wow for the state of current mmo's, to often in games I see the run and die then have someone fd and rez us as an option cause of the nill penalty death. It's an amaturish move that promotes bad playing, I miss the old days when players were players.

Wow is very much like the original Everquest except that they removed a lot of restrictions and consequences.  To me its very much like old EQ on some kind of antidepressant meds until you get to the point where you need to compete for end game and then its ultra frustrating due to limited class balancing for raids.  Don't even get me started on the  mosh pit PVP wow is so famous for.

A lot of sacred cows in mmorpg gaming are things that have never been tested to be true.  The theory of must have end game, the theory of nobody will play without tricked out open PVP, the theory of necessity of open, uncontrolled markets [even though they are a  part of the methodology of modern gold farmers], the theory of necessary tweakism, and of course the theory of relevant game tension brought about by players annoying the hell out of other players [how to accelerate emotion in a game with out actually adding new content]. 

I would like to see a game that hires a full time permanent content dev team so that real new content was added on an evolving basis without playing all the standard complicated head games to give players the idea that a game is dynamic because we are all fighting over something.

Crazy I know ...

There is only one game that I know of that has really given this idea a go.  Myst online or Uru.   It failed though with a huge fan base still but I think Myst Online's problem was the character models and the UI.  They were just too off the norm of the MMORPG standard and it made the game feel sticky and difficult to control.   The character models were rather plane looking and had horrible hair and customizing was limited.   Then Cyan Worlds ran into money problems and as far as I know still can not afford to bring the game back though they did manage to regain the rights out of a pretty bad deal.   Right now I think the company is living off its phone game versions of its older games.   I really loved the Myst story, its too bad it did not work out.

It is a good idea [the article]  but to pull it off its going to have to be a really polished piece of work.   Just look at all these comments and you see you have to convince people that the way things are is not how they have to be.   Typical humans.

This was a very good article but it told me a lot about why devs are sometimes clueless with regards to what the majority of the loyal player base of any game is thinking. There is one thing that you need to understand about all of these forms of feedback mentioned in the article. A lot of the people who regularly give feedback though these methods lie though their teeth about content that is not popular with them. Why? because they don't want you to listen to those who don't agree with them. This is true with rule sets, content, and probably most of all in existing games class balance.

I've been playing MMORPG from early 02 with pre Luclin EQ, beta tested a huge list of games [still do] spent years in WoW and EQ2 going back and forth between them. I'm prolly an odd person but I talk to people in game about what they like. I don't work for anyone, I just do it to figure out if my thinking about some of the game content is as way off in left field as forum behavior would seem to indicate. Turns out most of the time it isn't and the forum intell is often skewed way off from what a lot of actual players feel. I think what set me off on this kind of investigating was what I call the great horse nerf of early EQ2. There was a big stink with regards to the cheap crusader horse that had a moderate run speed [less than SoW]. I recall one individual who was very vicious about it and she insisted that ALL the paladins in her guild wanted it nerfed because it would prevent newbies from rolling paladins, then had her friends [and maybe other accounts] back her up, and even reposted the same demand every time the thread died down. She also resorted to threats and a lot of profanity when anyone had another view. Yes it sounds stupid now but she was fairly successful in her efforts. In the end the run speed of the noble steed got nerfed so bad you could get run down and killed while on it but the dev team [I suspect in resentment of the issue] also nerfed every other horse in the game as well. I didnt really have a position on the nerf but it was rather interesting to watch. Beta test forums can sometimes be even worse as some of the people there never pay to play but tend to just camp beta test and play free games. Forums get very political , yes they do.

At any rate that was what set me off wondering and I have been asking in game questions of people and making comparisons ever since. People are sometimes not honest on forums and in study groups. They defend the status quo or what the mentality of their group is. This is how words like "care bear", or "the grind" came about. Its just like real life politics , you take what your trying to undermine and then assign it a name you can call it then use it in negative ways. Never mind that thousands of people logged in daily and dutifully paid monthly fees to participate in "the grind" when in the early days of EQ the company didn't even expect them to. At some point end gamers made their way in later down the line and began to pay others to do "the grind" for them so they could just skip to the end and then of course set about establishing that nobody else wanted it ether. One of the trade marks of this particular type is that they like to speak as though everyone else had the same views as they do.
The main point is when she said silent majority, she hit the nail right on the head. Personally I think the only way to really get a chance at regular player opinion is to have polls in the game it self. Honestly most people I talk to in games don't even read the forums and are often shocked if I ask them about a discussion that is leaning in one direction or another. The great search for player opinion. This could be an epic quest.

if your not into PVP dont bother.   While the PVE aspect of this game is good and the character models are wonderful, as soon as you hit 25 you will be subjected to PVP whether you like it or not.   Its sad too cause its a really beautiful game.

I never feel heroic doing the kind of hoops the game has in place for me to jump though.   More often than not I feel like crap while somebody using an exploit or who bands together with a regular group freight trains over me.   Then there are the guilds who have people who take advantage of players in order for them to get on the A list for grouping.  Its all rather depressing.  

Back in the earlier days of mmorpgs I felt more heroic because then there was a tendency for players to really be a hero helping out other players.   Now days it seems its all about selfishness, not much heroics in that.  

Welcome to the evolution of the newer sacred cows.  Happens about once every 10 years or so and MMO as social space is still part of society.  Prolly more than ever before.   Also guilds as families have their effect on individuals perspectives and there is this idea floating around that the PVE player base cross games has become really tired of being pushed around by the more aggressive gamer types who tent to be as confrontational in their ooc  type chat as they are in their game play [prolly outside the game too].  To exasperate this the current dev community seems to favor the previously mentioned aggressive types and in most of the current mmo's make the rule sets more comfortable to them

what does this have to do with ooc tolerance?  Consider the new surge in lack there of as a collateral by product.  

Originally posted by Wingma

Need to preorder to get into beta.

Need to get into beta to decide whether you want to preorder.

*sigh*

There will be an open beta at the end of the closed one so just hang tight.

There are beta events as far as into August but they are in short 3 day periods so far.  The game is beautiful.  I didnt intend to buy it till I was in beta and now we have a preorder.

First off its not a game that will be released this year so its too early to complain about lack of content info.   As far as I know the current demo has only been shown to a few at E3 and they are not showing it to us yet.    The story telling methodology is probably different enough to draw a lot of angst from forum trolls who complain about no difference in MMO game play between games, but will argue aggressively on a new game forum about how it has to be just like older games.   That being said the lack of info may be on purpose but I honestly think they are waiting for the rest of the large conventions.    Pretty sure they will be at PAX for instance.

I kind of think OP is just hoping to taunt Bioware into giving him a beta slot to prove him wrong LOL.

Originally posted by comerb

Originally posted by menowhite

Lol everyone here seems to forget there is a good part pve, with dungeons and raids. I haven't played, but how did you guys get the idea of only pvp end game? ;s

 

the only game that does pve right is Wow.  No other game even comes close.  And even WoW, with all the time, money, and polish... ends up being a boring wait between content patches.

Maybe Aion will come in a distance 2nd.  I dunno... I hope so.  But if your not participating in and enjoying the PvP aspect of the game, I have no doubt you should just stick w/ WoW and enjoy a more polished and complete product.

I can pretty much guarentee you that Aion won't compete w/ WoW on PvE alone though.

EQ2 is also PVE and and even better method that WoW.   Its called PVP and PVE servers that actually are what they say they are.   You want open PVP you roll there , you dont you get your relaxing PVE game.    Its old and proven to be popular even back to EQ1 [which is still alive partly due to this] 

As for those who point out that complaining about PVP on a PVP game is silly, well your right but as I pointed out earler NONE of the new games are PVE models anymore so a lot of players are being pushed out of game.  You may not care but notice the failures of resent new MMO games.   It takes lots and lots of accounts to support and get new stuff put into a game and if you bully people out of them the company wont get their cash.  

The problem with Aion is it was not apparent to a lot of the potential western buyers viewing the web site and info the company displayed that this was indeed a PVP centric game.   It looked like the PVP would be restricted to arena, dueling and the Abyss.  It even says in the FAQ that the battle rages in the Abyss where it describes what the PVPVE model means.     That left room for the asumption that one could enjoy PVE and engage in the PVP aspect by one's own choosing[or not] and still enjoy the beauty of the game and its models.    Aion has leaned heavily in its advertising on beauty not PVP.  

So this is not an argument on the validity of PVP or PVE but a complaint that this game did not seem to be up front what it is proving it self to be.   Due to this though you can expect more arguments on the PVE vs PVP issue from players who will be quite surprised the first time a rain of pvp comes though one of those rifts at them.