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Aion Awards: Best New Game of 2009
The editorial staff here at MMORPG.com has made their decisions, and today we continue to unveil the winners of the 2009 MMORPG.com awards by naming our Best New Game of 2009.
By Jon Wood on January 05, 2010
According to our Game List, 2009 saw the birth of somewhere around 50 new MMORPGs, a number that seems to keep growing with every passing year.
Each year, we honor one title that stands out above the rest as the cream of the crop, the top freshly launched game. This year's nominee list had a diversity that is seldom seen, with games from science fiction, fantasy and superhero, FFA PvP to very little PvP, theme park to sandbox.
One game, however, stood out among the rest as the Best New Game of 2009. The nominees were:
- Aion
- Champions Online
- Fallen Earth
- Runes of Magic
- Darkfall
The Winner: Aion
;)
This year's Best New Game has the distinction of having been released and thriving in another market before making its way to the ravenous gamers of the West. While normally games launch in the North American market, are improved and then released in other markets, this year's winner had the benefit and hindsight of having been released in the East before hitting our local Best Buys.
For those who might not have guessed, MMORPG.com's New Game of 2009 is NCsoft's Aion. On the surface, Aion is one of the most graphically impressive MMORPGs created to date, sporting visuals that are thus far unmatched in the MMO genre. In creating Aion, the game's developers took existing concepts and conventions of gameplay and added interesting aspects like the game's flight system to give it its own flavor.
While an argument can certainly be made that the game is by no means perfect or ideal, it has nonetheless earned its place at the top of this year's 50 freshly released MMOs.
Runner Up: Fallen Earth
The MMORPG.com editorial staff was impressed by what they saw from Icarus Studios' post-apocalyptic MMORPG, Fallen Earth. Not only does the game present a unique setting, but it is also the first new release in some time to truly try to offer a virtual world style experience.
The game, which was a little bit rough around the edges at launch, is already showing signs of the improvement and growth that are so important for a game of its kind. With the dedication of a strong staff and a loyal player base both committed to the virtual world experience that is Fallen Earth, we can see this game picking up steam as time goes by.
I managed to stay online for three weeks then I quit. The bots, kinah spammers and the insane grinding was the last straw.
It is a beautiful game I agree to that but it was not for me.
I think this sort of award will always go to the one with the biggest ADV budget.
lol, this site is a joke. especially since aion has gotten mediocre scores everywhere else, received most disappointing game from massively.com, and overall has a bad rep.
Nothing epitomizes the sad state of the industry better than the notion that these five pitiful offering could be considered the "best" of anything.
So strange, I have no doubt that Aion is a decnt enough game (I've not played it) but from looking at the general feedback from the people who do play their repective game it would appear Fallen Earth is a much better game, or at least has had a much better reception.
Are the reader base at mmorpg.com so jaded and out of touch or is it the people choosing the winners?
exactly
Just a friendly reminder before this gets out of hand:
If you disagree with our choice of Aion as Best New Game of 2009, that is fine. Negativity about Aion is more than welcome in this thread, but please make sure you back up your opinions with some substance and don't simply post what essentially amounts to "Aion sucks!" as this is considered trolling.
Let's keep it civil and on topic guys, I'd appreciate it!
What?
The graphics are decent in a cartooney/anime way, but certainly not unmatched in the mmo genre. Aion may have an incredible character creator but so does Champions online. In terms of general graphics AoC and LotR both blow this game out of the water, especially if you run them in dx10.
Fallen Earth really should have won this category. Innovative gameplay, non-standard fantasy setting, decent graphics, humor and an amazing crafting system. Icarus studios really went out of their way to create a great game, while NcSoft copy and pasted a half dozen other games and added timed flight.
I'd even put Darkfall ahead of Aion simply for trying something different.
How much of a kickback does mmorpg.com receive for consistently promoting Aion?
While I didn't read the massively article giving it the award, but their could be reasons why it recieved the award even though it could be a good game. They might have had more hype and higher hopes for the game, and when it came out it was just another mmo much like all the others made. This would certainly be a disapointment to someone who was a follower and looking for something truely amazing. So just because the game was disapointing doesn't mean that the game was really bad.
I do know a few people that play Aion and enjoy it very much, and I also know some that play champions online and seem to enjoy it. While I have not given any of the games released this year a try, I would probably pick Aion if I had to choose one. It just seems like it has some good potential to me, and has the biggest chance of correcting some of the problems. I am looking forward to the future more and the upcoming games instead.
I totally agree with the verdict.
It's not a ground breaking 3rd gen MMO. But it looks nice and it works. I'm enjoying it a lot (currently level 41).
I hate to be boring but the fact it actually works is a pretty important fact that some games forget in their race to release.
It's good to see Fallen Earth being mentioned as a close runner up. Fallen Earth couldn't really compete with well, millions of $ poured into Aion's marketing campaign that made it sell nearly one million copies in North America and Europe.
NCSoft spent a fortune advertising the game, and alot of it was here on mmorpg.com, so I'm guessing they win because they padded the coffers most. Makes sense with today's economy. It sure couldn't win for outstanding game play, innovation or player retention as countless posts here on these forums demonstrate :P
Its just funny reading all of these doom comments. " Asian Grinder" ... AION may not be for everyone , but the Game works , looks good and has a huge potential.
People still love to compare a lets say 1 year old Game {AION} to a 5 year old Game like WoW which is just not very smart. No matter what you wanna say but the freshly launched base AION is far superior to the freshly launched WoW from 5 years ago.
I agree 100% with the decision. Aion was the only game that came out in 2009 that i actually played more than 2 weeks (and im still playing now). The game JUST came out and it really isn't doing that bad. Give it a few years and it will be even better.
so do the fanboi's get nailed for "trolling" too ("Aion rocks, I agree with this award" posts) or are they given a free pass for agreeing with the award choice and the huge advertising revenue it's paid to this site? I'm just wondering.
It is sad to see that the biggest attack on the game winning the award is that they won because they paid the most to the website. I don't really feel that they would stop advertising if they did not win. I have also seen a lot more free to play games advertised a lot more here than I have Aion. Even Eve -Online, a game that I felt was very good is advertised a lot more and has fewer people playing it than Aion does. I am not attacking eve as it is a nich game, but just making a point that advertising on this site doesn't always lead to doing better.
These attacks and saying it won by buying the award are just silly, and a good way to get the topic closed. Try to find other reasons to say why other games are more diserving of the award. That way we have a more interesting topic, and don't have to see the same people repeating themselves over and over complaining about them buying it.
Just to give a little background on my experiences with MMO as a basis for my opinion that Aion is the best new MMO of 2009.
I played FFXI for 2 years, WoW for 4, Age of Conan for 1 week, and War for one month. I've since left WoW for the last 6 months and have no plans on returning. During the last 6 months I've tried certain MMO'S and then settled on Aion.
A lot of the bad press and "hate/flame" Aion gets is either misinformation, purely subjective, or about issues that no longer exist.
The fact remains that Aion, as a game, has very few bugs compared to other newly released MMO's. It has a smooth combat engine. I have been playing it since Sept. 22, 2009 and absolutely love it.
Though I admit the first few weeks there were rampant bots and chat spamming, those issues have been largely resolved. For example, I get a maximum of 2-3 chat spams for gold selling on a 4-5 hour stretch of gaming. That's on par with games like WoW. In areas where I would see 10 bots farming, I only see 2-3 now. Where the economy was largely regulated by the botters, it has come down to reality.
As for it being an "Asian Grinder." That's a purely subjective opinion shaped largely by people's experiences from games like WoW. In WoW, currently, you can get to max level in two weeks of play, and be completely epicced out by having friends run you through naxx or heroic grind. It's not a bad thing, that's just how WoW is currently designed. In WoW you didn't get any xp for gathering, crafting or PvPing.
In Aion, you DO get xp for gathering, crafting, and pvp. Which means, it was a design concept that people would take advantage of ALL the opportunities while leveling. It's not Aion's fault that people came in thinking they should be able to quest to 50 or grind to 50. When people ran out of quests, it's because they dueoed the quests marked as individual, thus effectively cutting their xp from quest in half. And then they complained about not enough quests.
For people, like me, who went into Aion without any expectations, without any unfair comparisons to games that are out on the market for 5+ years, YES AION WAS THE BEST NEW GAME IN 2009. I continue to play it and enjoy it immensely.
Edit: As a side note, 11 of my 47 levels came from leveling up Armorsmithing and gathering the mats for armormsmithing. My friend, on the same server used his Ranger alt purely for Alchemy to supply his 40+ Assassin. He told me went from 10 - 40 purely from crafting large amounts of high level potions on Double XP weekends. To each his own.
instead we'd have the same people repeating themselves about how aion's the only game they've personally played for more than 10 seconds that came out last year every time someone mentioned a different game. Topics don't evolve on this forum at all, they rot, fester, and flame until locked or forgotten :P
doesnt work like that boy. It's not really a free pass.
You can say I agree with MMORPG's writers for the reasons they stated
but you can't say aion suck without providing arguements.
So is Aion bad or not ? I dont care about the answer because I like the game...if you dont it's fine. Go play something else.
BTW : I dont say Aion has no flaws, It would be stupid to say that, but I think the game is good and will be even better when they fix some annoying things.
Of that list I played Aion, Champion Online and Darkfall.
While Aion bored me after a couple of months, I think it easily deserves to win this title because it was a finished and well polished product at release that delivered the game they promised.
I just can't play it because I played WoW for two years and am now bored with that style of MMO.
Conceptually the other games are more innovative and potentially far superior to Aion, but I know CO and Darkfall didn't deliver and reports about FE say it's swarming with bugs. I had one friend who tried it (an MMO veteran) who couldn't even get the game to start.
I hope the message that the industry takes from Aion's win isn't "deliver us more EQ-clones" but "please finish your product before expecting us to pay for them".
To me it's same what game realy won this one cause realy 2009 didn't have any realy good mmo-games come out. Every one o them were kind of "meh". Now I have high hopes on this year on the mmo front. There is a chance the sw:tor comes out, final fantasy 14, star trek and there could be some other. So I want to think that there gonna be realy good games this year and I can easily leave last year behind. I realy don't care if Aion wor or fallen earth... Both of them are not realy that impressive.
I'm disappointed you guys couldn't find a better game to give this award to, considering this was just grinder with wings. :(
Add Earthrise and Tera to your list.
It's not really much of a surpise that Aion won Best NEW Game of 2009.
MMORPG.COM had already given it the highest review score ever issued by this site: 8.7
Seriously? The highest review score since MMORPG.COM started reviewing MMOs goes to Aion? Yup, believe it or not.
So, it should come as little surprise that the MMO they (MMORPG.COM editors) consider to be the best MMO ever would win for it's respective year. I think quite a few of us members here at MMORPG.COM might disagree with their assessment that Aion is the best MMO ever... but then it isn't our site.
That being said... there wasn't a lot of competition this year.
I personally am regarding this award more of a "Most Polished MMO Released in 2009". That definition might be in disagreement by some as well, but that definition seems a bit more plausable than it being given a review score as the BEST MMO EVER for this site.
I also think this was a poor decision on best game of 09. If you end up loosing a chunk of your population in the first month of release then i highly doubt you deserve to be called the best MMO.
Graphics where good, gameplay was at times fun and somewhat original (flying was nice) but overall this game did not deliver for most people. The only way i could ever concieve giving this best MMO of 09 is if this site represented the Asian markets too...and this site is about as Western as they get.
QFT!
This more than anything else is what helped Aion win for 2009.
Just to prove how BAD 2009 was =p
This game started with huge issues for a game running already for 1 year in Asia, but ok, the other games tryed to be WORSE than this, wich is not that big of a surprise.
Good luck aion, and hope the "dream" trailer become true
Guild Wars 2 for 2010
Had no doubt you'll choose Aion over FE. I dont agree with this but well, this is close one. Hopefully NCSoft adds some depth and high end content to Aion soon and it becomes something more then shiny shallow
Disagree with the editorial teams choice if you wish (heck, I am not sure I agree 100%), but please understand that the argument that they spent tons of money on advertising so they won the prize is the reason.
a) The editorial team (Jon, Dana, Garrett, Mike) have zero idea what advertising I am selling. They make these decisions on their own opinions, and I can assure you that if I ever told one of them to give game xyz a great review or award because of ad sales they would likely seek employment elsewhere since I know these guys have a lot of integrity.
b) While we did sell some Aion advertising in 2009 the campaign came out to 2.2% of our 2009 advertising sales, and believe it or not - Fallen Earth did just a little bit more than that.
c) We don't need to do shady deals to sell advertising. Most of the time we sell all of our ad space and while I would never make a unethical advertising deal, I also have no motive to do so - the ad space will sell regardless - so why risk ruining the reputation of this website and staff?
I know it does not make for conspiracy theory fun, but the fact remains that ad sales do not get a game developer/publisher any favor at MMORPG.com - the way our business is structured it cannot happen.
Here is to a great 2010 and hopefully some truely groundbreaking games for this year! ;-)
Hmm only FE could have been seriously considered other than Aion. Aion though as best of 09 shows what a shitty year 09 was.
Marketing is not only related with the conspiracy theories. It is perfectly normal that these sort of awards will be usually given to games that are much more popular - in selling numbers or amount of subscribers.
Every gaming website or gaming magazine favors games that are popular among players over games that people barely know or never heared about. Giving this award to Fallen Earth that has maybe around 10-40k subscribers instead of Aion, which might be anywhere around one million, would be illogical, and in a way against the website community. In the end there is no difference between the quality of the game and the quality/amount of the marketing.
Thanks for being honest unlike Massively.com, that is probably way too afraid to give a best game title to a Korean company (the only reason I see for it to Aion gain that award instead of games like Alganon and the 40 and something other MMOs released this year). Yes, a Korean title wins it here this year, but it by no means offers you the generic 100+ multi-year cap level grind and $100+/mo item mall cost to keep competitive, it is not your generic Korean grinder, it is not forcing you to buy the stuff in the item mall to increase your leveling speed... because there's no damn item mall. Apparently it just missed the leveling speed people are used to, in the West if you don't hit the level cap and enter a gearing grind in two weeks the game is a grinder.
This game is way polished, even if you are burned out of the fantasy setting and the level-based setting it is a fact to admit. I'm not going to review the game here but there is enough to do for those that seek what to do instead of waiting to be given what to do, an interesting low amount of rails in this kind of game.
Fallen Earth looks to be also good, but it is much less polished (one of the unfortunate aspects of indy companies, a lower budget), even though it tries to dive more on the sandbox side (thus getting part of the infinite potential that is a game taking the sandbox route) and proves to feature a much more important crafting system. And this category isn't about potential, it's about what is currently on the table, day #1, year #1.
Just a thought: When I played Everquest, and then DAoC, SWG and CoH, I made long term friends to group with. In Horizons I met players I'm still friends with. We occasionally play the same online games or try them based on the opinions of other friends. We even played WoW together for a few months. We don't seem to meet those kinds of online friends anymore,
A couple of us tried Aion and agreed it was the typical Asian grindfest with too many botters, so we didn't last long. We tried it because of all the hype that the game had such a smooth release. A smooth release doesn't guarantee a good game, and otherwise good games are ruined because of botched releases with too many bugs and not enough content. Content is released later, but too late to bring back players who were soured because of the poor release.
We tend to keep hoping the next games will learn from other's past mistakes. It's rare to see developers take chances on other kinds of games besides WoW or the Korean grindfests. When they do, they usually become niche games, which is fine since many players are looking for those niches. Games talk about being next generation, but I don't see it, yet.
But back to my thought about meeting players in games who become long term friends, it doesn't happen anymore. It seems players now already have set groups or are loners preferring spontaneous groups as needed for certain quests. Are you other players experiencing this?
I have to agree with this 100%. Only game so far that has held me for more than 2 months is Aion. Haven't tried FE, but from what I heard it's decent besides some bugs. That's not surprising since it's a new game.
To the person who's complaing to the admin about why we don't have to give reason why we like the game is because we are agreeing with the post. You are disagreeing, so obviously you need your reasons why. If you want reasons for why were like the game........read what Stradden wrote. Pretty much spot on for why I like the game. Then again, that's my point of view.
Last year wasn't a great year, but not every year can be great.
Actually I believe 2009 was far better than most of the years before. Apart from Aion, which for many is a good game, we got two real independent and niche MMO's with lots of unique features and full of potential (Darkfall, Fallen Earth). Shame that for most, these games are like they never existed.
We can do better than this, even in 2009. Aion did have the best graphics and sound, but the game launched with major technically problems at the core of its major gameplay feature, the fortress system (despite being out for months overseas). It is a sad that in a year where so many new and innovative titles are released, that we try to hoist up mediocrity that copy and pastes the same worn out generic nonsense that has eroded this genre into the depths of stupidity. Hell even Gamespot gave this game a 6.5 / 10 realizing it was a bot infested grindfest being run by a company unable to police its own servers.
Wow, just wow. Amazing how often MMORPG.com has it's nose up Aion's @#$%. The game is bland at best, and horribly trite, unoriginal, uncreative, and "unfun" at worst. Sure there are some folks that might enjoy playing it (I haven't met any), but to call it the single best new game of 2009 is a travesty.
NCSOFT's advertising dept 1, MMORPG.com 0
*sigh*
I do admit Aion was probably the best pick from the nominees.
Nonetheless, 2009 was a very dissapointing year for MMOs. None of the nominees listed were even that astounding. Champions Online was an absolute flop as a game and was only a cash cow for Cryptic's Star Trek Online. Darkfall, though very hyped for by the PvP community, was littered with bugs and indecent balancing. Fallen Earth was a nice concept, but lacks in combat and a realistic "Open" world (It just seemed too empty for the little time I played). Runes of Magic was ok, but it's just the same old song and dance for the MMO industry.
Aion was at least worth a month or two of play. It was a longer enjoyment period than the others had to offer. *Sigh* Maybe 2010 won't be so much of a letdown......
from a person that has a active sub on both games.... Aion should win.. FE wasnt finished... ai sucks to bad.... but still one of the best fuking games out
-Well i played 1 week after launch....had meny issues with game but thats ok since it's new but i had a problem where Aion CTD and reboot my PC (all other games works fine) and NC did not help much....i dont want to quote what they said but lets leave it at that, so i quit it, and no i dont thing Aion deserve any rewards since it have meny issues still <_<
That's a contradiction. Fallen Earth has one of the most realistic worlds with very little scaling. While in other games, you run from jungle through snowy hills to desert all in 5 minutes beating giant frogs and dire bears on every step, In FE the world is more realistically empty, with quite distances between small towns and camps.
allow me to be blunt.
fallen earth cant win because its been done before, called tabula rasa. graphically and mechanically, pretty much the same. zero improvement, no innovation, launched with more bugs than tolerable.
darkfall is close but its also been done before maybe alittle better, nothing it offers stands out. (when i say nothing stands out i mean nothing new or at the very least no improvements to game mechanics worth mentioning.) it feels very much like wow.
aion its also been done before. the "long grind" isnt that long considering that most asian based mmos will take u more than 2 months to reach max lvl (for example, ff11 would take 4-12 months casual, lineage2 would take a year+). wow was the easist but before blizzard made it more easy it wouldve taken u a 1-2 months of casual play to hit max lvl.
bottom line is
between all the other games that went live in 2009, aion was indeed the best candidate due to the fact that it was graphically innovative. (never has an mmo looked so pretty lol) raising the bar for future mmos. aion did indeed have its own errors and bugs. in my opinion it had the least amount of faults.
based on my gaming experience overall, i hope this clears up some disputes
games i played
tabula rasa - beta +2 months
darkfall - beta
aion - chinese beta - american beta - 1 month
fallen earth - beta - 1 month
EQ - 6 months
lineage2 - 2 months
wow - 4 years
ff11 - 6 months
+others - beta
When nothing in the contest is any good the least bad wins i guess. While usually an optimist in most things I think the worm has turned for MMO games. Overhyped mainstream flash seems to be the order of the day and I really do not see anything changing in the near future. Devs have discovered that people will buy anything if promoted correctly and no matter the color of lipstick, the pig is still a pig.
Nothing shocking here, everything else was either a major dud or just really average. Aion did the same thing this year that Lotro did in 2007.
1) I've played both FE and Tabula Rasa and the two have absolutely zero in common.
2) I'm a bit puzzled that people keep making statements that Aion has super fantastic graphics that surpass any mmo to date. LotRO and AoC both have far superior graphics.
FE and TR same game mechanics
LOTR graphics = decent at best
AoC graphics = unstable
1) I've played both FE and Tabula Rasa and the two have absolutely zero in common.
2) I'm a bit puzzled that people keep making statements that Aion has super fantastic graphics that surpass any mmo to date. LotRO and AoC both have far superior graphics.
Cant speak for your 1st point as I havnt played either. I do regret missing the chance to play TR.
Your second point I do agree with LOTRO and AOC do have superior graphics and while I currently play LOTRO I have played enough of AOC to think that it has the edge in graphics. Having said that, I do think Aion has some gorgeous graphics. Different style that does not appeal to everyone but I liked them. But the graphics alone were not enough to get me to lay down the cash for the game.
Yes, and many of us feel its due to game play mechanics that are designed to keep the players so busy in game that there's no forced downtime or grouping encouragements that get players together to start socializing.
However, there are numerous threads on these thoughts and it would be really off topic to discuss it further here.
Aion is cut from the current MMO mold, and its social aspects are found wanting which is true of almost all games today.
Never the less, I play it now on a casual basis and its a pretty good game in a very mediocre year.
As someone else posted, delivering your game relatively stable (keep battles not withstanding) goes a long way and the other contenders such as FE and DF might have faired better with higher quality launches.
I find it extremely hard to believe you've played any of those 4 games.
What mechanics do FE and TR have in common?
I play AoC in dx10 and the graphics are fine. What sort of system do you have?
Sorta like saying Aion is the least-foul-smelling turd in the toilet. Picking the top new MMO of the year just became like most political elections; you don't vote for who you like, you vote for the one you despise the least. Sad.
Speak for yourself.
Success of an MMO is not defined by having 10 million subscribers. Far from it. Success of an MMO, in purely economical terms is one that brings in profit. Currently, AION has either the second or third most subscribers for MMO'S in the west and the second most in Asia (1 million+).
Aion may have it's own expectations of making bigger waves in the western market that it failed to meet. That does not mean Aion is a failure. It's like trying to become a brain surgeon only to settle for being a general practice doctor.
A lot of the naysayers like to use Xfire numbers as evidence of Aion's downfall. They neglect to mention it's the second highest MMO ranked on the list behind WoW.
Using any objective measure of success. Aion is the most successful new MMO of 2009.
The category is Best New Game, not Most Successful New Game.
my thoughts exactly tbh.recently i have been feeling let down by the mmorpg industries.there was a time not so long ago (in fact end of 2004) when the genre could boast games like WoW and EQ2 to fight it out for title of best mmorpg of the year.
Now we have aion,darkfall,CO ?!?! This is just the sad state of the industry.We need another year like 2004/05 .This year has to have had some of the poorest choices.
Don't blame mmorpg.com they had little offerings out there.
for example, how did FE and tabula rasa use its "fps" mode?
regarding aoc, memory leaking, shitty textures, terrible modeling and so much more
im not saying aoc had bad graphics, in fact if aoc was delayed 1 more year it wouldve been such a great game, but sadly it was rushed and quality control was neglected.
The category is Best New Game, not Most Successful New Game.
"Best" - subjective, opinion, personal taste, etc.
I just provided some objective factors on Aion's success and some reasons why a lot of people enjoy playing Aion. For many many people, Aion is a great, and very least a good game. For those of us that play, and there are many many of us, this award is not a surprise.
Popularity Contest: '09
The category is Best New Game, not Most Successful New Game.
how would u measure best? u dont award the smartest kid award to the kid that gets Cs. u could say he tried his best but it still isnt the best.
First of all, Aion would have been a great game, if level progression stopped at 35. But it doesn't. Only content does.
Second, did you guys, that made the decision to crown the game, actually see it? I am saying this as someone who played on chinese servers, then participated in beta, and got really disappointed by what Aion had to offer after the level cap got to 50. I am not saying that any of the other MMOs that came out last year were particularly good, but Aion - best game? Give me a freaking break! I know even Lineage veteran grinders who quit Aion after just three months. This game appeals neither to PvPers, nor to carebears, after they pass a certain point where they no longer care how pretty it is. Not to mention PvE becomes more and more boring with every level you grind your teeth on. BTW, did I mention the laugh of a support?
You should change the name of category to The best game of 2009, there is nothing new in Aion. It is the biggest copy cat of the year: a slice of WoW, two pinches of Lineage 2 and you have your best game of 2009. By chosing Aion you promote nothing except unoriginality.
Er.. uh... whaaa? Am I being Punk'd? Ashton get out here you crazy guy you.
The category is Best New Game, not Most Successful New Game.
I agree but it seems that the game that generates the most money is considered the best this year.
LOL
I'm with the same feeling. The funny thing is: read the article again. The pro about aion is graphic.And that's it. All the other features?let someone else write in the forum,because for god's sake,it must be so hard for the guy in the article to write,what,THREE OR FOUR paragraphs to justify the winner.
So,if someone says "Aion sucks" he's trolling. But to write the "best new game of 2009" and to say "Aion graphics rox.and that's it.now,for the second place...",one must be a helluva fanboy.Or a helluva writer.pick one
LOL.
I liked the Massively poll better -- where the readers AND the editors both agreed that Aion was the biggest disappointment of the year. It was fun for a while but lacked real depth. The grind is still hideous (my account has been cancelled but the time hasn't run out quite yet).
I played AION since closed beta, and was at first very vocal in how great it was. However when it went live, and the server population exploded like crazy several things became apparent which made me cancel my account.
Intermittant crashes with no real ability to determine why they happened because I couldn't replicate the decisions/actions that I may have done to cause the crash. When NCSoft was contacted they advised that I run a tool which would collect data, I didn't ever run the tool because my account time closed before I was able to and there was no way I was paying for account time again just to run the tool.
The lag in the instances of the world that were not instanced, major cities that were not instanced became an utter nightmare to traverse/deal with. This was I'm certain directly related to the large amount of players in the zone for questing, seeing their class npc(s) etc, and the unbelievable amount of spam bots with their player stores up. The whole concept of player stores ruins the major cities for me because of the amount of lag it creates, the same was true for Lineage II. I never understood putting something in place that makes lag worse when they also have an auction house in-game already. Forcing players to use the auction house system would cut down on lag and the ability for spam bots to sell their junk for huge sums of money/advertise their services. Using the report feature was just as busted and I never saw anything come out of it as I would see the same bot (s) that I reported time and time again in the same area(s) of the game. And they were usually placed where the highest concentration of mobs are in the world for questing.
To be honest I thought that AION would be different then Lineage II in regards to what players are/are not allowed to do. However once it went from beta to live status it became apparent that it would in fact be filled with the same spammers/botters that destroyed Lineage II for me.
I hate to make a generalization but it seems that if the games are not created in the U.S. and/or are created in the Asian market first that the player economies of those games are immediately destroyed, and that the amount of spammers/bots that are allowed to exist soon make the game little or no fun to play.
Yes I know they put more guards in place to help slow down/stop the spammers and bots, I even waited around awhile after they had done so, but the measures they put in place were quickly circumvented.
Simply put, I am unwilling to pay to play a game where I am continually harrassed by spammers, have questing areas ruined by bots, and major cities that make the beautiful world of AION a pain to play instead of entertaining to play like a game is supposed to be.
If I thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that I could get my money back for that game from them I certainly would do so, as right now the box the game came in is just sitting there showing the pretty artwork.
You may or may not like it, [Mod Edit] but fact is that Aion was the best MMO released in 2009. Bar none.
Out of all complaints about Aion in this thread, the only one I agree with is the lack of support (namely how long it takes for a simple ticket to be processed and answered). But I consider the support provided by the company hardly part of the game.
Other complaints on Aion that can be read in this thread:
Bots and RMT = simply squashed during the first month or two and practically on-par with other MMOs
Grindfest = name me 1 MMORPG that isn't a grindfest. Just one. Besides, what's wrong with grinding? Hundreds of thousands of people like and enjoy grinding to level up. It promotes grouping up and making friends, you know, the stuff the "MMO" part of RPGs is all about. I'd rather spend a year getting to max level but meeting awesome people on the way than solo questing to it in 2 weeks. Grinding also prevents every random mig-mug scrub to achieve everything there is to achieve. Wanna be someone and something on your server? Show some dedication.
I understand some of you may not like the game. Hell, even I don't like it. But that's all a subjective point of view, but guess what, this award is given out based on objective reasoning and objectively, Aion was the best MMORPG of 2009.
Some of you say: "Oh but it's nothing new. It was all seen before.", but I bet my filthy underwear that when Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2 get the "Best game of 2010. (or 2011. whatever)" none of you will raise the same argument.
[Mod Edit]
Given the nominees, was there really any other option? 2009 was a rather pathetic year for MMORPGs, and I think few will deny that.
Three weeks isn't even close to enough time to get into the meat of the game. The spammers are being delt with and there are periods of several days when I don't see one.
Ignored is the fact that spammers and gold bots seem to have chosen Aion as the winner to. They wouldn't waste time and resourse on a game that didn't produce a maximum profit. A decent game with no spammers, ever, simply doesn't exist.
I tried beta and then tried it a few months after release and it still does not appeal to me. The first 10 levels is has a cool story to it and introduces what your character is and how you gain your wings, but then the story just kind of drops off for awhile making it feel more like a grind.
The Good:
1) The graphics from the environment to the combat looks great! It far succeeds most mmorpgs in that area.
2) Beginning story and quests that lead you through in it both factions up to level 10 is great.
The Ugly:
1) Lacks interesting quests after beginning. (Go kill 20 of these and bring me there <insert item>)
2)Feels more like grinding in order to get to next level (Which could be overlooked if there was interesting quests)
3) Crafting is mediocre at best.
4)Only limited areas you can fly in.
5) PvP starts at level 20 but end game PvP much later.
o gee the same ppl feeding you atm dear MMORPG.COM , will piss on you tomorrrow-- just keep that in mind,its your reputation!! . Everyone , i mean everyone with a clear mind , with a free will to judge ... i take it further ...with a spark of sanity KNOWS that Aion wasnt the best of 2009 ,it doesnt even deserve to be labeled as good .Through all the tragic releases in 2009 , specialy Aion deservs to be stomped in the ground .
I do understand that a lot yummie $$ is provided to you givin them that title , but lemme tell you that even the non brainers here see through that .
Ok you need the $$ i understand that , but for how long can you bullshit the ppl ??
I beg to disagree, I played live after beta closed pst the time frame you said. AION does have more bots than other games, heck it even has more bots & spammers than some of Play NC's other games (CoH, CoV). And it definately has more bots and spammers than EQ II and WoW.
I don't care about the grinding bit, those people need to learn that some games just aren't /easymode. :)
I beg to disagree, I played live after beta closed pst the time frame you said. AION does have more bots than other games, heck it even has more bots & spammers than some of Play NC's other games (CoH, CoV). And it definately has more bots and spammers than EQ II and WoW.
I don't care about the grinding bit, those people need to learn that some games just aren't /easymode. :)
It had a fraction of the bots and spammers three weeks after release then it did at release.
This article has its merits. No one can deny that Aion's graphics are visually pleasing to the eye and are thus far unmatched in this genre. But visuals only get you so far.
Playing Aion for me was like dating an extremely attractive and well-dressed guy only to figure out three weeks into the relationship that we have nothing in common. Or walking into a gorgeous postmodern new age penthouse condo only to realize I just don't feel at home here.
Long story short, for whatever reason I couldn't make the connection to Aion. Once I reached the point where the gameplay felt like a grind, I stopped playing. Mind you, I have nothing against grinds and most of the time I can take it...but there has to be something else there keeping me interested, be it the lore or character development or what have you. Aion just felt too sterile and bland to me.
I will agree with Aion being the best new game of 2009, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its own faults. I think it just brings the best overall package to the table, and is probably the only game that came to the market in 09 that did not have severe technical issues.
Although i'd disagree its the best mmo of 2009, in all honesty any mmo that one this title for 2009 is like beating a one legged man in a kicking contest.
I would have given it to Fallen Earth. It's a unique setting, one world one server, no load screens, no instances or zoning with exception of the tutorial, and all of this from an independent company. Ofcourse it isn't without it's faults, but all the other games have faults as well.
Aion is an interesting game that kind of stalled out for me around level 20+. And while the character creation is really great, one of the main attractions, flight, is hamstrung with timers which took away some of the fun for me. Load screens are always a turn off though, and the zones while attractive felt small and claustrophobic. In some ways I think it was a WOW clone, except that WOW was much faster to level and more fun. The character creation in Aion is amazing, but somehow the characters don't look exactly the same in the game, as if the coloring was slightly off.
Champion's Online had an amazing character creator as well. It's kind of like COH with better graphics in terms of character creation. But zones and instances killed my enjoyment of the game in a big way, and I think this is the exact wrong direction mmo's should be going as creating such worlds is more of a hinderance to growing a sense of community than an the alternative model, say one world, one server, no zones/instances. This is ofcourse my personal preference.
I think to the credit of all three games, the performed relatively well on my pc and looked great, in contrast to last years offerings some of which looked good but performed way under par.
lol getting this title best of 2009 is like saying
This made of 1 ton of shit
less than the rest
in 2009 only see 2 IP's with the slightest hope to go on , that said these are my winners
Darkfall (omg i hate to admit it , but its true )
Fallen Earth (i doubt theyll be able to polish up their engine ever )
Darkfall deserves no reward but fallen earth was at least original and the closest thing to a sandbox to come out.
i would have given FE much more praise. Fallen earth shows that even in a theme park Big business dev company leading the way and the "not so great" releases in the past years it was quite a risk bring a strong sandbox element, non fantasy MMO form an indie company. And while I have never touched Aion and don't think I ever will the fact that Fallen Earth has done so well for itself and the player base still strong and healthy is a great feat.
Aion is simply a rehash of the same old MMO with pretty wings attached this time.
Darkfall deserves no reward but fallen earth was at least original and the closest thing to a sandbox to come out.
@ Frost ...the most worn out word in 2009 is sand FUCKINGbox .
i dont even care bout that anymore , i want a title that knocks me off my feet , wether themepark or sandbox (as a community we do our part with those stereotypes in havin a BS non evolving MMO worlds ) i dont give a fuck ...i played on both sides
On the surface, Aion is one of the most graphically impressive MMORPGs created to date, sporting visuals that are thus far unmatched in the MMO genre.
graphics = rpg?
and what comes to this game,please try real rpg´s
No "good" games came out in 2009. Aion wins by default, whoop de fucking doo. It sold the most copies and probably also had the lowest player retention after 30 days this year as well. FAIL.
if it had been best LOOKING game of 09 MAYBE
only tried out fallen earth and Aion this year....FE being clearly the best of the 2....personal opinion...but c´mon...when did mindless questing become the center of a MMO.
How can I put this?
HAHAHAHA.
You're funny.
well visually pleasing get some asian women to the west....the relations will always be questionable tho
I had very high hopes for Aion,but ultimately ( when you look past the fancy graphics and the marketing hype ) it IS just another Asian grinder which was hardly adjusted for western markets . From what I have seen across the various forums , Aion has the most dissapointed player-base by far so it should never have won this category . Folks are quitting the game en masse due to its huge kinah-dependency,bots, grind and lack of content . And there is no light at the end of' "the tunnel" either ,the only thing they did was produce another marketing video ( the "visions thing " ) which is extremely vague when it comes to what in that video will be implemented and when that will be the case . It's very apparent they were set on aiming at a huge # of box sales and couldn't care less for the long term .But that has always been the case for NCsoft in western hemisphere .
Just one? I'll name several. LOTRO isn't a grindfest. WWII Online isn't a grindfest. Planetside isn't a grindfest.
And if you need to 'be someone' in a game, A GAME, then grinding is the least of your problems. I wouldn't call it dedication, either. Dedication is working hard to get a medical degree. What you're doing in an MMO grinder isn't dedication, it's wasting your life. Yes, it is your life to waste. But that is what it is.
Oh, and I would have chosen Fallen Earth for top honors. More interesting gameplay, and valiant effort to roll back the stigma created by SOE regarding sandbox games.
Lets you know how dry the Genre is becoming when a game like Aion (which is 90% graphics / 10% substance) gets New Game of 2009.
I, for one, am glad that Bioware, and ZeniMax (think Bethesda) have finally jumped in to the MMO field. Since SoE has succumbed to Blizzard as second fiddle with only being able to offer Free Realms, this from a company that said they were the #1 MMO company. We needed someone with some balls to come in to the field and make some MMO's worth playing, and it seem like it'll take Bioware and ZeniMax online to do that... there is also that project from 38 Studios, but its been mum for quite some time now... not sure what it'll be or turn out to be.... Hoping for something worth the effort.
Aion is beautiful, don't get me wrong. Characters and customization are lacking compared to otehr games in the genre. End game PvP put it in Niche market, not mass market, and sustained subscribers will show that... It had a great push in the begining from the colors (art) of the world that draws people in... but once they find the true nature of this beast, they'll go back to what they were playing or something else.
I wanted to like it, but just it just didn't have enough to pull me away from other games that are a bit old but more featured-packed and compelling.
I disagree regarding Aion being the best game of 2009, yes, I found Aion fun for about a day before quickly realizing that it's just another Asian grinder with good graphics and that's also a little more polished. What killed it for me and pretty much my entire guild was the extreme linear gameplay. Now add in the mindless grind, it's no surprise none of us lasted very long.
after this ,this site is not MMORPG anymore its 100% pure MMO
this is like saying Tetris is best new car of 2013
World of Wingcraft, the number one NEW game of 2009? Yikes! I tried Aion for about a week, lured by the pretty shinies (graphics) and just couldn't see myself going through this tired fantasy grind one more time. Goodness. New?
For me, Fallen Earth has been, by far, the most fun I've had in an MMO since the demise of SWG. And it keeps getting better. Good community, great responsive development team, play-as-you-like style. This one's a keeper. And the graphics are, to my mind, in keeping with the setting. If you're a clone designed for heavy manufacturing work, you're not gonna look all anime-pretty. And if your armour is made from junk you've scavenged from trash bags and scrap heaps, it ain't gonna look very pretty either.
The engine has become a LOT more stable since release, the content is there, and the PvP revamp is just around the corner. It's a lot of fun, has NO ELVES, has a different setting, has good crafting and has a great future.
Well this was expected seeing as how nothing but crap MMOs came out in 2009. Aparently the editors here at MMORPG cream thenmselves everytime they play asian MMOs.
I have to laugh on that. Aion alone may not generate much ad sales to this site but think about the NCSoft as a client now and more importantly IN THE FUTURE. There weren't many mmorpg published last year by companies with big ad budgets. Do you think mmorpg.com will pick RoM as the best game of the year?
They have to pick somebody. A 2.2% of total ad sales may not be much but it is not all about Aion, it is the potential 5%+ from GW2 and such from NCSoft.
I have to agree with the results. Aion has kept me entertained since its release in the west. I also have played FallenEarth and find it to be entertaining but not on the same lvl as Aion. Grats NCSoft and looking forward to GuilldWars2.
I have to laugh on that. Aion alone may not generate much ad sales to this site but think about the NCSoft as a client now and more importantly IN THE FUTURE. There weren't many mmorpg published last year by companies with big ad budgets. Do you think mmorpg.com will pick RoM as the best game of the year?
They have to pick somebody. A 2.2% of total ad sales may not be much but it is not all about Aion, it is the potential 5%+ from GW2 and such from NCSoft.
Keep believing that...lol.
the only way i could see a well known mmorpg ezine picking these guys for the best of any thing other than the best disappointment in 2009, is money, so im sorry normally you guys are right on but this is BS. the only people that play aion are the gold farmers and people who don't beleive there friends that it sucks after lvl 30.
How does a game that was released in November 2008 receive best new game of 2009?
Depends on their definition of "The Year of 2009".
DDO is a "new" f2p mmorpg. "The Year of 2009" can run from "Nov 2008" to "Nov 2009".
What?
The graphics are decent in a cartooney/anime way, but certainly not unmatched in the mmo genre. Aion may have an incredible character creator but so does Champions online. In terms of general graphics AoC and LotR both blow this game out of the water, especially if you run them in dx10.
Fallen Earth really should have won this category. Innovative gameplay, non-standard fantasy setting, decent graphics, humor and an amazing crafting system. Icarus studios really went out of their way to create a great game, while NcSoft copy and pasted a half dozen other games and added timed flight.
I'd even put Darkfall ahead of Aion simply for trying something different.
How much of a kickback does mmorpg.com receive for consistently promoting Aion?
There is nothing cartoony about Aion actually. Sure it has a clear asian styled art theme on par with that of Final Fantasy, but after playing the game it is one the least cartoony i have seen to date. The asmodian faction's side can get pretty dark as well.
Aion is under rated, i hated the game at first when I bought it a few weeks ago. I am now half way through the game and its getting better, the grind can get annoying if all you want to do is reach max level asap, but there is pvp to be had, crafting, and some dungeon crawling as well. Everything in the game gives you xp, so its not like you are ever limited to grinding mobs for ever.
NCsoft will be upgrading Aion's CryEngine 1 to CryEngine 2 as seen in the Vision Trailer released back in november. The game is fun but half the enjoyment needs to come from the player's dropping of bias, especially when it comes to reading all the negativity.
Most reviewers, like myself, started hating the game at low levels... unlike them however, i played anyways till the pvp zones start... then it got fun. Aion is one of those games where it starts off sucky but gets better, rather than the other way around like other games.
Aion deserved this award.
People have very short memories. For some reason, everyone seems to have forgotten the complete and utter mess that WoW was when it launched. Especially the servers - they were down as often as they were up for that first month or so. Likewise, most of Aion's issues were resolved within the first month after it launched.
Unfortunately, this site is populated by people crushed by the fact that Aion wasn't WoW 2.0. The seething hatred these people have for the game is simply amazing to behold. I greatly enjoy the game, however. The combat is smooth, the flight is fun, the game world is vivid with plenty of character (nyerk!), the pvp is plentiful, and the servers are rock solid. I have no real complaints, honestly, save for that I wish the world was more open.
It was released in November 2008. I would hope it would be more polished than games that just launched.
Mosty hyped game - Yes
Most subscriptions - Yes
Most polished - Hm yes, not hard for a game released in '08
Best new game - Definately not
FE and DF had taken more risk in terms of innovative game design, and measured by their marketing budget they definatley top Aion.
Darkfall or Fallen Earth deserve the award.
Aion leans heavily on its visual appeal. Meanwhile it doesn't compete with other games in scale or ambitious design. Until we see the extent of "Vision" and all that it entails, Aion remains a very small world with a very simple design.
Even the combat system (arguably the most important system of an MMO) suffers at the hands of animations... where you are locked down in a singular place while completing your double tuck spin sword slash... while your enemy is conviently running away... well atleast it looked pretty. Lets not mention the horror that is flying combat and melee. How the reviewer heralds these systems as "smooth" confuses me. Truly a sad day when graphics one-up gameplay.
Apparently even the MMORPG staff regard their awards as a popularity contest, instead of a true judging. Massively got it right.
PS
Champions has better graphics in everything minus character models.
Risk isnt always a good thing, in fact, it can often be associated with a sign of stupidity if you do not know what you are doing and how the current market is reacting.
Keep in mind Aion is using the CryEngine for an mmorpg. Its own risk and innovation come on the form of art and sound playing a greater role along with the game engine and technology. The game also sought to appeal to all audiences with a mixture of western and asian design elements. Whether you can say this succeeded or not is debatable, but there was innovation and risk present and remember its not always a good thing.
For 2009, it is the best new game. Sorry, but its kind of obvious. Fallen Earth was interesting, but it was made for a small niche market and was riddled with bugs and aged graphics, partially due to its low budget. DarkFall was just a mess, badly designed and badly managed. In fact, im pretty sure you can say the people over at Aventurine are blithering idiots at this point, they had something with promise, but made all the wrong choices.
They probably should have waited just a bit longer before making this decision...
http://www.massively.com/2010/01/05/aion-money-glitch-gives-trillions-to-players/
Risk isnt always a good thing, in fact, it can often be associated with a sign of stupidity if you do not know what you are doing and how the current market is reacting.
Keep in mind Aion is using the CryEngine for an mmorpg. Its own risk and innovation come on the form of art and sound playing a greater role along with the game engine and technology. The game also sought to appeal to all audiences with a mixture of western and asian design elements. Whether you can say this succeeded or not is debatable, but there was innovation and risk present and remember its not always a good thing.
For 2009, it is the best new game. Sorry, but its kind of obvious. Fallen Earth was interesting, but it was made for a small niche market and was riddled with bugs and aged graphics, partially due to its low budget. DarkFall was just a mess, badly designed and badly managed. In fact, im pretty sure you can say the people over at Aventurine are blithering idiots at this point, they had something with promise, but made all the wrong choices.
Play Darkfall recently? It's a damn good game. I quit shortly after launch because of launch problems, and was as disappointed as anyone. Its a totally different ball-game now. That design team really deserves a pat on the back. This is the first time I've bought an extended subscription to a game up-front.
Both Fallen Earth and Darkfall are far greater in scope or scheme that Aion. Aion is a fraction of those games, and hides it with a tremendous grind, graphics, and polish.
Terrible game, nothing in this game hasn't been done before. I'm honestly debating whether or not i should even check this website daily anymore due to the enormous amount of fail it has been putting out. Aion, A Korean clone that revolutionized nothing, looks bland and empty and very dull, deserves 0 of the accolades it has received.
Ugh. If it wasn't for the giveaways this site would be laughable.
My grudge here is with "Aion as new" - it had about a year of improvement over the Korean launch! New MMOs that deserved that title were Fallen Earth or Darkfall.
EuroGamer- 7/10
Gamespot - 6.5/10
1Up - C
MMORPG.com (users) 7.85/10
MMORPG.com (staff) 8.7/10 (biggest score ever given as someone mentionned)
Massively - Biggest Disappoitment of 2009 (Both Readers and Staff agreed)
www.massively.com/2010/01/01/massively-readers-and-staff-choice-awards-results-for-2009/(full article)
I really don't agree with MMORPG's choice. There are far more superior New MMOs out there that offered much more to the MMORPG industry than the copy+paste with "ooooh shiny" graphics that Aion is.
You can polish a turd as much as you want, but let's face it, it's still a turd.
Let me quote a few things:
"Each year, we honor one title that stands out above the rest as the cream of the crop, the top freshly launched game."
1: Already launched in Asia 1 year ago, I believe this should be taken into account regardless of wether or not this is the NA market.
2: Many games stood out a lot more than Aion has this year and as mentionned in many reviews, Aion was a big disappointment.
"sporting visuals that are thus far unmatched in the MMO genre."
As someone mentionned, AoC and LotR on DX10 is just as awesome.
"In creating Aion, the game's developers took existing concepts and conventions of gameplay and added interesting aspects like the game's flight system to give it its own flavor."
Flyff (Fly For Fun), Perfect World, Dream Of Mirror Online and many more, all features flight system and and a few also features aerial combat. This idea has been around for quite a while in the MMO Industry so really, nothing new here.
Overall, Aion brought nothing new to the market. Players who grew tired of their other game went to Aion, many stayed but many also left.
Games like Fallen Earth or DarkFall would deserve the "award". Not only have both games brought back ideas, many thoughts extinct, but they did it well. Of course both games failed pretty badly at launch (especially DarkFall), but both games have an increasing player data-base, the bugs are fixed quickly, etc. Fallen Earth has an awesome storyline and setting while DarkFall brought back the PvP ex-UO players loved (there's many old shadowbane and uo guilds in DarkFall). There's just so many things these games did a lot better than Aion and while neither are remotedly close to being "polished", they offer far greater freedom and entertainment.
Edit, just realised the link was wrong (my bad). It's fixed now.
Picking Aion was just too easy for this staff. It was a poor year for MMO's to start with and the best of a poor lot is not exactly something to gloat about.
I just closed my Aion account again. The bots are still everywhere despite what some of the fan boys here say. The support is still horrible and the end game is still almost non existent. Usually I enjoy trying out alternate characters, I have no interest in that whatsoever with Aion.
I think NCSoft still does not get what it takes to do well with a MMO in the west.
First place in a race composed entirely of itself and no others. What other big budget mmos came out in 2009?
"For some reason, everyone seems to have forgotten the complete and utter mess that WoW was when it launched"
And how quickly everyone seems to forget that aion didn't actually come out in 2009 and what sort of mess 1.0 aion was. Lots of people cry about the grind and lack of end game in Aion, but the original 1.0 version was nothing but the basic zones with tons more grind and not even the poor offering of current end game content. No dredgion, no fortress instances, no dark poeta, no steal rake, no draupnir, no adma or theo labs. It was basically lineage 2:prelude with a fancy character editor and no swimming.
The reason ncsoft released aion so late here was specifically so they could put in the latest content patches. There was a cute song and dance from the CMs about custom tailoring content and translations (a huge lie) but the truth was that the original version of aion had no substance what so ever. It was a big hit in korea simply because it was the next best thing from the korean power house NCSOFT but ncsoft doesn't carry that kind of weight over here in the west. It's about as respected as the hoard of dime a dozen f2p mmo publishers which is a real shame.
Yes, aion has improved significantly since that 1.0 4 month beta period. But what game wouldn't if you magically injected over a year worth of updates in such a short period of time?
Best of the worst I guess.
Makes me think of that line in War Games: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
Wow... what a disapointment...
Champions Online - Sure Decent product really not bad a lot of niche features.
Fallen Earth - Revolutionary in the mmo business lets hope they manage to polish their game.
Runes of Magic - Yeah quite good concidering its free.
Darkfall - LOL !
As for that the reason you choice aion i rather disapointing... aion has been the boulder that has preventing other mmo's from developing. i have to admit did i not play aion with really good and old friends id never make it higher than level 20.
Aion grind is so intensive that you have to say goodbye to Sexlife Social life School life... everything other than the computer if you want to do something in that game.
seriously sitting 16 hours a day to get a single level if your lucky... thats to much for my liking.
not to mention the game doesent offer anything new... nothing at all nothing we havent seen elsewere the only feature i really loved in aion was Rifting and that a replacement for much needed world pvp (and please dont tell me abyss people dont go there unless they have a bunch of people with them)
personally i think aion is a pile of garbage.... can it be fixed ? most def and i hope they do i was looking forward to it.
And how much money did you get for all the other ncsoft titles? How much do you expect to get for all their future ones? Your statement is very misleading.
Well Mike I have to ask what was new about it?
The same old grind and goals,so many things went against it,such as the release queue's and the many problems that followed with bots and hackers.
This game brought nothing fresh or indeed anything new to improve to the mmo market,the fact this game won the new mmo of the year just went to show ..yet again what a bad year it was for mmo's.
Maybe call the award "the best mmo of the year from a very bad bunch"...though not sure Aion would win that either.
I guess you guys have to push these sort of things as from what I can see 2010 wont be much better and maybe you guys have to look out for your jobs...maybe the best flower of the year award could be something to look into for the end of this year...just an idea :)
And how much money did you get for all the other ncsoft titles? How much do you expect to get for all their future ones? Your statement is very misleading.
The real heart of this is not what % of advertising we do with NCSoft (which is really small compared to other clients) but that it would be completely stupid and foolish to risk our/my reputation by influencing the editorial team as the owner and person who books advertising. This site has been online for the better part of 8 years. We have had many different editorial staff and had we practiced policies like this you would have heard about it with facts by now. If we did this then somewhere, someplace there would be some staff member who would have leaked this about us. I would not risk letting this website go down the drain to make a few bucks on an ad deal - purely from a business perspective this would be a idiotic practice. And again, my team members have a long career to think about - getting caught up in something like this would ruin them, and they would not allow me to do it even if I were as evil as you think.
Again, if you find conspiracy theory fun, then go ahead and carry on - there is really nothing that I/we could do to convince anyone who is set on this mindset otherwise. The fact remains that there is zero proof of what is claimed other than you disagree with our editorial team so therefore the results must have been paid for. All fact and history points to this website being honest and ethical and I take pride in this fact and the way we have structured the business to prevent this.
I can in a way agree on the number one spot as that is how the new generation seems to want their MMORPG.
Overall the game looked good and played well, I had no issue's with the game as a game but it just didn't fit my playstyle in the way I like it to be for a MMORPG. I personaly want/need my freedom, I don't really like to be guided and I really felt I was guided till I hit lvl 12 which made me stop playing the game. But as said I can see why it won the first place.
For me personaly it would have been Icarus Fallen Earth, but only because it fits my playstyle aswell my wants/needs in a MMORPG, the freedom as in no direct classes, the open world where you are not guided all the way except for the tut and the extended training the rest is up to you, the crafting while everyone can get into crafting and make what ever they want you really do not have to, and most important The Community....the way we all act/react/help each other out on multi lvl's.
So my personal winner is Fallen Earth as it's the first MMORPG that has gotten me for more the several months already (playing since release and don't see myself stopping anytime soon).
Well deserved! Aion is and will continue to be one of the top pvp MMOs out if NCsoft keeps the content coming in my opition. Its understandable that some folks won't like it but for those that are hooked its an awesome experience!
I finally reached five level 30+ Asmo toons this weekend and am considering rolling an elyos toon to get to know the zones better for rifting. Keep it coming NCsoft!!
Agreed. Theres plenty of MMOs out...go play one you enjoy lol Why folks feel the need to waste their time here complaining about an MMO they don't enjoy is beyond me... Me thinks they have too much time on their hands :-)
Well, I don't think it's too far off, not much came out in 2009 worth mentioning.
It's amusing how many people are surprised / upset by this verdict. There sure was a lot of ambition in 2009, but lets face it.
it's not like Aion had much competition.
It wins the award almost by default, after the sheer number of fiascos launched in 2009. Not only does Aion deserve to be on top, but if you look at the list of runner ups, it makes sense. You can look at each and every game down the list, ignore the hype, and focus on how polished / complete each game is. If you try and put your inner fan at bay, you should come to a similar order.
I find Aion pretty damn boring, but it's by far the most complete (and best funded) out of the list. That doesn't make it any less good. It's graphics, sound, and stability are the best on that list. Runner up would indeed be Fallen Earth. What it loses in glitches / bugs, it makes up for in stability, gameplay, and originality. Keep going down the list to get to DF, which is a very ambitious idea, but (depending on who you listen to) either a giant pile of crap, or a giant pile of crap that is very fun to play.
I'd personally give that award to CO, even thought it's content light, everything else is pretty damn good.
Although i greatly disliked Aion (lvl 50 cleric) its still the best game on the list. 2009 was just a sad year for MMO's.
Fallen Earth was succesful around because no-one wasnt expecting anything from it and actually went over expectations for being only "not vaporware"...And they even made it out to be quite nicely working FPS straight from 1996. Still we're talking about best new game of 2009 and no doubt Aion actually works and feels like one. Its not uber innovative that's for sure, but its not hard to beast the titles what came out this year. Im really hoping that next year would be better.. though, seeing greatest hype of SWTOR and Star Trek i dont see much changes in the pattern.
in my view rune of magic WAS and IS a better game then aion.and its free gees .you dont like it no biggy its free
try that with aion.i just feel sorry for arenanet .having that down their troat must be bad since they have an insane game to make (gw2)wich will be better in every way even with lower graphic .i would rater have lower graphic but smoother gameplay then aion (lagfest)
If this was 2008, I'd agree with you, but in 2009, Fallen Earth and Darkfall with both vastly unique games, and well made, pushing the market forward, by indy companies nontheless.
But yes, the MMORPG market is having its last dying breaths before the new, auto matchup, hirable NPC, item shop microtransaction premium account age we're headed into.
Really? Why?
I agreed with MMORPG this year is Aion, however the reason why I agree is because this year MMORPG SUCKS !!
There are no good new MMORPG in this year at all, and Aion is the winner because they are the most polished game. This year I have no freaking reason why all the studios rush their project out too soon, (probably the economic storm hits them).
However, I did see some great moments this year for MMORPG that were developed few years, like AoC and LOTRO they kept polishing into something quite awesome!
Although I'm disappointed to MMORPG this year, but 2010 should be great because, APB, Starwars KOTOR, Global Agenda, Earthrise, etc. Many good MMORPG is coming out. I can't wait !!!
See you guys in game !!
Aion: Best Crap New Game of 2009
Aion is winning awards, people are playing it, problems have been and are still being solved with spammers/bots and the like and still the desperate Aion hating trolls still moan. Funny.
I can see why it came first here, but I wonder will the grind and pvp randomness ever be addressed? There is no mention in up coming development of this even being seen as an issue.
And i don't get it how to pay for f2p mmorpg x_X...ya it cud be only NCSoft...
Well, given the games it was up against, I can see why it won. I suppose the title should have been named "The best of the worst".
2009 was a sad year =.=. May 2010 be far better.
The real heart of this is not what % of advertising we do with NCSoft (which is really small compared to other clients) but that it would be completely stupid and foolish to risk our/my reputation by influencing the editorial team as the owner and person who books advertising. This site has been online for the better part of 8 years. We have had many different editorial staff and had we practiced policies like this you would have heard about it with facts by now. If we did this then somewhere, someplace there would be some staff member who would have leaked this about us. I would not risk letting this website go down the drain to make a few bucks on an ad deal - purely from a business perspective this would be a idiotic practice. And again, my team members have a long career to think about - getting caught up in something like this would ruin them, and they would not allow me to do it even if I were as evil as you think.
Again, if you find conspiracy theory fun, then go ahead and carry on - there is really nothing that I/we could do to convince anyone who is set on this mindset otherwise. The fact remains that there is zero proof of what is claimed other than you disagree with our editorial team so therefore the results must have been paid for. All fact and history points to this website being honest and ethical and I take pride in this fact and the way we have structured the business to prevent this.
What leads people to believe it is a conspiracy theory is not that it one best of the year but the huge coincidence that this site gave Aion the highest rating out of any mmo. It's pretty ironic that WoW( yes i went there) which has so many subscribers has attained a score lower than Aion. You can call it a conspiracy theory. I can call it a huge coincidence in the end it doesn't add up and when something doesn't add up it is not believable to anyone.
Another thiing is that sure each person has different opinions on whats awsome and whats not a good game. But people know a game's faults when they see it. When other gaming companies give an honest review and all companies give Aion a C grade level review and miraculously one company gives it a high score does that make any sense? I believe it leads to people not believing the review to be thought out in an appropriate manner.
About the game its starts off fun at the beginning but in the end the content is thin. it reminds me of when Age of conan launched and at high levels didnt have much content. We need sites to stop giving awards to whats the most popular game out there and start giving awards to the games that are polished with content and deserve it.
dissapointing choice by the staff is all i have to say...
Have not read all comments but im shocked ... how the hell they won over any of competitors ... remain mistery. Guess 95% votes got from Aion spammers that rapresent 95% of population.
The real heart of this is not what % of advertising we do with NCSoft (which is really small compared to other clients) but that it would be completely stupid and foolish to risk our/my reputation by influencing the editorial team as the owner and person who books advertising. This site has been online for the better part of 8 years. We have had many different editorial staff and had we practiced policies like this you would have heard about it with facts by now. If we did this then somewhere, someplace there would be some staff member who would have leaked this about us. I would not risk letting this website go down the drain to make a few bucks on an ad deal - purely from a business perspective this would be a idiotic practice. And again, my team members have a long career to think about - getting caught up in something like this would ruin them, and they would not allow me to do it even if I were as evil as you think.
Again, if you find conspiracy theory fun, then go ahead and carry on - there is really nothing that I/we could do to convince anyone who is set on this mindset otherwise. The fact remains that there is zero proof of what is claimed other than you disagree with our editorial team so therefore the results must have been paid for. All fact and history points to this website being honest and ethical and I take pride in this fact and the way we have structured the business to prevent this.
What leads people to believe it is a conspiracy theory is not that it one best of the year but the huge coincidence that this site gave Aion the highest rating out of any mmo. It's pretty ironic that WoW( yes i went there) which has so many subscribers has attained a score lower than Aion. You can call it a conspiracy theory. I can call it a huge coincidence in the end it doesn't add up and when something doesn't add up it is not believable to anyone.
Another thiing is that sure each person has different opinions on whats awsome and whats not a good game. But people know a game's faults when they see it. When other gaming companies give an honest review and all companies give Aion a C grade level review and miraculously one company gives it a high score does that make any sense? I believe it leads to people not believing the review to be thought out in an appropriate manner.
About the game its starts off fun at the beginning but in the end the content is thin. it reminds me of when Age of conan launched and at high levels didnt have much content. We need sites to stop giving awards to whats the most popular game out there and start giving awards to the games that are polished with content and deserve it.
The "site" does not review a game - a single writer that we assign to the article determines that score. Because they are MMOs we require that person to play the game 20-40 hours before writing. While the Editor does read over the review, the Editor did not play the game that duration and generally does not have the wisdom to second guess the writer assigned the review.
It is not uncommon that reviews might be higher or lower than the average player feels the game deserves. This happens at all major gaming sites like ours...it is just the nature of the beast and more so with MMOs I think. I think that is the great thing about looking at reviews from many sites to form an overall opinion and not just looking at a numerical score, but reading the review and listening to pros and cons.
Again, please stop to think what would be at stake if we "sold" reviews or other editorial content on this site. If this ever got out (and it would I assure you) it would ruin our reputation with our readers and with all other game companies - which would in effect destroy this website, which would be a loss 1000 times greater than any shady deal could bring us.
I have actually played Aion for what might amount to 30 or so hours since launch, I think it is an OK game and I don't think it is a far stretch to say it was the best overall game launched in 2009 (not game of the year note this is a seperate award yet to come) - but still this was not my decision to make - it was the editorial team that will decide all the site awards.
Aion definitly failed to live up to it's hype, mostly becouse people were expecting WoW 2.0 and it isn''t and thats why other site 'award' as biggest disapointment makes completly sense. But that doesn't make it bad game !
People have unrealistics expectation from new mmos, which new games cannot meet unless parent company invests crazy money into it.
Considering how little they had to chose from maybe AION was the best game of 2009, I cant think of another title that was better. I rank Aion at 5 on a 10 scale, because it really isnt very good.
An apropriate award title would be; most hyped least retention able comparatively - award of 2009 goes to AION.
Taken from the article:
The game, which was a little bit rough around the edges at launch, is already showing signs of the improvement and growth that are so important for a game of its kind.
The first months have been spend trying to improve on the Spam/RMT/botting issues which they were totally unequipt for at the start. - If you rate that as improvement and retention failure as growth, then I guess in your Alice in Wonderland world, the article is correct in this aspect.
As far as I am concerned, Aion was the biggest dissapointment of 2009, and I based my expectation on NCsoft generated hype. Another good example of how hype can kick its own ass and the companys too in the process.
Played Aion to around lvl 42 the realized how bad the grind was going to be to get 50 and quite.
I dont feel it was the time it took to get to lvl 50 it was the way they expected us to get there, ie grind with next to no enjoyable content. This may be ok in Asia but as most logical people can see from various boards and most of the Aion population not being 50, we dont like it here!
Killing the same mobs over and over is a brain dead game play what ever way you spin it.
AION LOL !!!
I might be finding myself a new MMO site to read. How a EQ clone that adds nothing new to the MMO genre can win is beyond me. Seriously.
True, and fair.
What leads people to believe it is a conspiracy theory is not that it one best of the year but the huge coincidence that this site gave Aion the highest rating out of any mmo. It's pretty ironic that WoW( yes i went there) which has so many subscribers has attained a score lower than Aion. You can call it a conspiracy theory. I can call it a huge coincidence in the end it doesn't add up and when something doesn't add up it is not believable to anyone.
Another thiing is that sure each person has different opinions on whats awsome and whats not a good game. But people know a game's faults when they see it. When other gaming companies give an honest review and all companies give Aion a C grade level review and miraculously one company gives it a high score does that make any sense? I believe it leads to people not believing the review to be thought out in an appropriate manner.
About the game its starts off fun at the beginning but in the end the content is thin. it reminds me of when Age of conan launched and at high levels didnt have much content. We need sites to stop giving awards to whats the most popular game out there and start giving awards to the games that are polished with content and deserve it.
The "site" does not review a game - a single writer that we assign to the article determines that score. Because they are MMOs we require that person to play the game 20-40 hours before writing. While the Editor does read over the review, the Editor did not play the game that duration and generally does not have the wisdom to second guess the writer assigned the review.
It is not uncommon that reviews might be higher or lower than the average player feels the game deserves. This happens at all major gaming sites like ours...it is just the nature of the beast and more so with MMOs I think. I think that is the great thing about looking at reviews from many sites to form an overall opinion and not just looking at a numerical score, but reading the review and listening to pros and cons.
Again, please stop to think what would be at stake if we "sold" reviews or other editorial content on this site. If this ever got out (and it would I assure you) it would ruin our reputation with our readers and with all other game companies - which would in effect destroy this website, which would be a loss 1000 times greater than any shady deal could bring us.
I have actually played Aion for what might amount to 30 or so hours since launch, I think it is an OK game and I don't think it is a far stretch to say it was the best overall game launched in 2009 (not game of the year note this is a seperate award yet to come) - but still this was not my decision to make - it was the editorial team that will decide all the site awards.
So editor's choice is based on reviews of ppl who are required to play a game, not necessary aion, for 20-40 hours?
If thats true, do you really think this is an objective point of view?
In my opinion, reading through forums over the year, and awarding based on this experience would be a lot more representative.
Meh, I guess it's the best of 2009 but that isn't really saying much.
NCwest had a huge advantage with the game already being out for a year in Korea. They knew the problems that would occur. They should have been hard on spammers and bots from day one. Not 3 months after launch. Everyone predicted it, NC knew full on what was going to happen. They even knew which bot programs would be used, since people had spent the last year perfecting them. They lost a massive pile of accounts due to that crap.
I actually agree with the decision, but I'm not sure that it's due to how good Aion is that it won. It's mostly because everything else wasn't that good. I mean every MMO that launched this year was no better than average, some worse than that. I think if you looked objectively at the beginning of the year, I think alot of people expected Champion's Online to be a bigger deal than it was. Heck, I'm sure alot of people expected Aion to be a bigger deal than it was.
At least 2010 has some more potential.
i agree with it being the best in 2009....
its a sad sad day though, that the bot ridden wasteland of Aion is the best thing put out.
MMORPG did keep their reasons for this limited in a very short post. I would have to say they are really just voting in the game that sucked the least, maybe. We hope as i'm sure MMORPG does also that 2010 will be a much better year for MMO's, crossing fingers.
not sure what they mean by unmatched visuals. AOC hands down runs circles around AION both art wise and graphically. Champion onlines graphics are on par also.
It's a good/fair choice, Aion is a good game dismissed all the trash comments around certain issues.
Just hope 2010 will bring the next gen MMOrpg, its time for some fresh air !
What a bunch of nonsense. Aion is a terrible game, it's a blatant rip off of WoW with nothing different but wings. Theres no trouble to tell NC soft slipped over some money to MMORPG.com for this favour . Darkfall deserves this award as it's the most innovative and fun MMORPG to be released in the past 10 years. let alone just 2009, what is wrong with you people.
Yeah, lets ignore all trash comments about issues...no issues to see here, or anywhere, lets all settle on playing pacman and drive smartcars :P
I know I have beaten this horse to death, but you guys really need to drastically change this site's system for reviewing games. This is coming from someone who loves this site and has a lot invested in it. There are radical inconsistancies with the scores given to certain games and frankly the depth of many of the reviews are severely lacking. Aion getting the highest score ever received on this site is a testament to that, and it is sad when a site like Gamespot is nailing MMO reviews better than this one because most of the time they don't know wtf they are talking about.
Playing Aion for 20-40 hours may seem like a long time, but it really is not enough time to find out the major issues the game has because the early stages of the game are well done. I find most of the people who gush over the game do so before level 37 where the content drastically dries up, and the exp curve escalates at a rate that is beyond imagination. This is the case with a lot of the modern MMOs, where the late game really shows the flaws (see AoC classic).
The reviews for this site are written by people who by far and large have almost no credibility with the members here. With the exception of Stradden and maybe one or two others, I don't think most people take them seriously. You have these reviews written by people whose MMO background is unknown, and write maybe 2 pages and slap a score on it.
People want to know what type of MMOs a writer favors, and what their views are on other games. Reviews should be written by multiple people so that readers can identify which writer they can best relate to. These games are not cut and dry and different MMO gamers have different tastes.
As far as selling reviews, I agree that accusation is complete nonsense and doesn't hold any merit here. But please consider an alternate review system for the sake of this sites credibility.
Aion.. bahahhahah.... best... bahhahahah... mmorpg of 2009 bahahahahha
omg... I can't stop laughing. Are we talking about that game that just had a major bug and players suddenly received trillions of kinah? And they had to take the server down? It's not even a matter of an exploit or item duping, a seemingly random bug just triggered that in certain accounts in just 1 server. Guess weird coincidences really happen in Aion.
And this is not from an angry WoW fanboy. I pre-ordered, closed beta tested, open beta tested, subbed 1 month in that game. It's not the worst game of the year, far from that... but it's not the best of 2009 imho, even though it was a crappy year for mmorpgs and the other candidates weren't that great it still doesn't deserve the title.
Now just between us mmorpg.com staff, how much "kinah" did NCSoft put in your christmas stocking?? ;) just kidding....
I derived no enjoyment whatsoever from Aion. It was very apparent to me that the game was made on the cheap. Low investment, a lot of marketing, sell a lot of boxes from the hype and reap the profits. I didn't like any aspect of the game and thought the graphics were very poor. And that is not just a style preference, models and landscapes were poorly done, with very little detial. I think people confuse lots and lots and lots and lots of intense color with beauty.
Yea I'll agree that Aion is unique in that the early game gives the player (reviewer) a much different look of the game than say post level 35, which I think is impossible to achieve in only 30 hours played. It is no accident that a large amount of the playerbase burned out past that level due to the way the game is designed (Aion's own website reflects this).
That being said, I don't know what game I'd put above Aion as far as the year is concerned. Champion's Online could of been that game but it wasn't.
mm 3% of player at 50 says it all .most leave before reaching it
i dont mind grind ,wow had ton and have ton of grind.but its made by different quest.no 1 quest repetable 100 time lol
im at lvl 22 and the xp curve start to rise first instance and those can literally kill you gold making and your lvl in order to progress.i ll will try to do those only one time for quest .as long as didnt touch elite it was a fine game.aside from the grind of crafting.but now the grind is starting to show up .some item are better baught at ah then farm it.kroll food anybody?
i went at it all night 1 dropped lol.
and to top it all some player would rater grind in elite area then quest.let me tell you once a week its ok .but grinding for xp all day long in elite nope no ty i d rater wallk to the end of the map in verteron and search for the elusive quest then that even if there are no fp lol
I played Aion in beta, and Fallen Earth in Beta and for 2 months after. Fallen Earth is the better new game. Aion is just another WoW clone. Pretty but boring. Fallen Earth failed to entertain me as well after a couple months leveling up to 30 or 40. But it should win for uniqeness alone. Granted that is all I played in 2009, since EVE Online is still the best MMO out there.
Aion is well done, but finally it is just not fun !
I don't think the game deserves this,
Other than that it wasn't fun whatsoever for me (which is a matter of opinion), it really doesn't innovate much at all and most importantly: it does not deliver at all on the promises that were made before release.
Hell, even pvp is mediocre at best and non-existant at worst, when the whole game is portrayed as a pvp game.
Not to speak about bugs, bots and recently: hacks.
Although I did not enjoy Fallen Earth either, I think it would have been a better winner, because tbh, there are F2P mmo's that offer a similar experience as Aion (graphics aside) .
Hmmm so out of 5 really low quality games, Aion wins an award for being less shitty than the rest. Yeah.....ermm......that really counts for a lot.
Yup..makes me wonder what game all these haters are playing....? WoW is my guess.
The world of Aion is packed with people and NCsoft continues to fix any major issues until they come out with their big update early this year. My guess is all these folks who "hate" Aion havent even tried it. Those who have are likely just trying to make themselves feel better for not playing buy bitching and whining here....its laughable lol
This one is the most rational argument about the subject.
...
Um, I played Aion for a few months, gave it a decent shot. It was too linear by far for me, and I could see no room for replayability (doing the exact same things all over (and over) again, or a reskinned version on the other side? Meh.). PvP was a zergfest, and didn't grab me. Playing on the other side, it would have been a gankfest which would be even more frustrating. If they beefed up the Balaur a bit it might fix that (if they already have, my bad).
I voted with my wallet, and have been playing FE for the past while. It's the most immersive world I've come across in a long long time, with the best crafting (bar none) and the most room for exploration and altolholism.
In terms of support and paying attention to their players Icarus beat NCWest hands-down. I couldn't even log a ticket with a GM for the first 6 weeks playing Aion (I'm in Europe), it drove me bananas.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories about ad revenues and whatnot, but immersion, crafting, exploration, replayability and support should surely be important criteria for picking a Game of the Year?
That's why I think the results should have been the other way around.
YMMV.
Reading through this I feel like I'm doing something wrong in Aion. I mean, here I am at level 50: Sonoko
The problem is that not only do I still enjoy this game, but I've not once felt the need to grind. Quite seriously, I did 1-50 doing absolutely nothing but questing. And no, not farming repeatables. At any given level there was more than enough quest content to get to the next level, so I'm a bit confused here. There's two things I can think of, either some people are utterly terrible and die so much they have to grind to make back lost exp, or they just selectively ignore large portions of the content in the game. "I want to exclusively solo, this level only has group quests, what a grind!" "I want to exclusively group, this level only has solo quests, what a grind!" "Oh, I don't like PVP so I'm not doing these spy quests/abyss quests worth millions of exp! Oh man, now there's no quests to do and I need to grind!" Yeah, newsflash, everything's intertwined and it's expected that you partake in all aspects of the game. In fact, so far the only thing I've seen resembling a grind is the Platinum Coin weapons, of which I actually own one. 2000 platinum coins, a quest can reward anywhere from 4-19 of them. What a grind, right? Oh wait, they're tradeable, and lots of people farm them, so you can just buy them on the broker and get your weapon without so much as killing a single monster related to it. And they're easily outmatched by dropped gold weapons anyway, so there's no necessity to go for one whatsoever.
As far as enjoyment of the game goes, this baffles me the most. Maybe some other classes aren't as fun to play, but Templar is a blast even while doing solo content. Unlike most other games I've played where you really do cycle one skill rotation for everything, that's not even close to what I do in Aion. Every different mob uses different skills at certain percentages, so I need to have a different rotation for practically everything in order to interrupt their skills and maximize my efficiency, and this is while taking time to weave autoattacks with split-second precision for maximum dps.
The group content is somewhat different. It starts off somewhat "meh" but grows into being really fun. The group dungeons like Mist Mane and Bakarma remind me highly of when I played EQ2 back in KoS, they have the same charm as SoS and PoA. Large areas capable of supporting tons of groups, plenty of quests taking you all throughout the zone, lots of rare monsters that can drop some nice loot, just all around group fun. The instances kind of go the same way, both Training Camp and Fire Temple are fairly lackluster, and to a lesser extent Alquimia Stronghold, but past that I've entirely fallen in love with them. Steel Rake is absolutely gorgeous and is the introduction of boss encounters that are scripted and involve a lot more than just tank and spank. Then Draupnir Cave and Adma Stronghold kick the bosses up a notch by having end bosses (Commander Bakarma and Lord Lannok) that you really have to learn and wipe to numerous times to come up with an effective strategy and execute it properly. It reminded me of pre-nerf Nizara in EQ2, essentially raid content restricted to only one group. And Dark Poeta, well, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think anybody in the West has killed the S-Rank boss yet. I can only imagine I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to down that. :O
Reading though this topic I've also noticed a lot of people mentioning issues that are virtually non-existent now, which kind of makes me laugh. Bots? I remember a time when there were hundreds of bots running all over KSing mobs from people. That was... months ago? I still see bots occasionally but in the past month I'd say I've seen maybe 6, of which some I'm pretty sure have since been banned since I stopped seeing them. Crashing? This too was resolved quite awhile ago, I've had absolutely no issues on massive sieges with hundreds of people. I *DID* use to crash a lot early on and that really gave me a sour taste, but, geez, I can't even remember the last time I've crashed now. I also remember when chat was unreadable until you blocked 6 spammers every time you logged in. Now I can go days before seeing even one, which really isn't that annoying to right click and block. The last dozen times I've went into Pandaemonium I've also been surprised at the lack of RMT advertising shops up in front of the Temple of Gold. I kind of expected that to never be dealt with due to how easy it is to get a char up to level 10 and do it, and yet they're actually dealing with it. O.o
I'm also actually kind of annoyed that NCSoft has been listening to the complainers and had three double exp weekends in a row. I think it's entirely unnecessary. =\ But wow, they actually listened to people, what a lame company, right guys?
Anyway, can somebody fill me in on what I'm doing wrong? I feel like an outcast having a completely different experience with Aion than you guys. Help me hate it too so I can be part of your cool clique!
Haha! Well done sir! Finally a man with a brain and some time to explain how foolish half the complaints I see about Aion are. Half of you people quit after your 1 month and havent seen how Aion as come along since then.
I agree with everything this man said..thank god theres finally someone who sees Aion for what it is. THE best MMO of 2009 hands down. IMO its the easily the best pvp MMO right now and will continue to be if NCsoft does it right. I don't mean to hate on you all but this year once Aion has had afew updates added with awesome content you'll all come running back like sheep. Meanwhile keep whining and bitching about Aion here...honestly the folks who enjoy Aion could care less anyway. Most of us don't bother posting here as you can see :-)
This is an interesting pick from my perspective because it's a bit harder for me to guage any game on the list as I've played none of them, and while I don't disagree with the editor's choice I would think there is some validity to this statement.
But I really don't think it's the fault of mmorpg, while you won't give "points" to a companiy that overadvertises how well known a game is almost has to come into consideration. I say this because while the percentage of folks happy with Fallen Earth could be even higher than the percentage of people happy with Aion, There are probably more satisfied Aion customers than the entire population of Fallen Earth maybe even twice over. I feel for the little guy who is going to have a hard time dealing with the advertising budgets of bigger companies but in the end I don't think Blizzard was quite the monster that it is today and that had more to do with the accesibility and joy people found in playing the game they made so that leads me to think in the end while Fallen Earth may not have disapointed as many people as Aion did they certainly didn't reach enough people for it to matter so it all works out in the end.
Haha! Well done sir! Finally a man with a brain and some time to explain how foolish half the complaints I see about Aion are. Half of you people quit after your 1 month and havent seen how Aion as come along since then.
I agree with everything this man said..thank god theres finally someone who sees Aion for what it is. THE best MMO of 2009 hands down. IMO its the easily the best pvp MMO right now and will continue to be if NCsoft does it right. I don't mean to hate on you all but this year once Aion has had afew updates added with awesome content you'll all come running back like sheep. Meanwhile keep whining and bitching about Aion here...honestly the folks who enjoy Aion could care less anyway. Most of us don't bother posting here as you can see :-)
The only complaints that are foolish are the ones from people who didn't even play the game. Everyone that played is entitled to an opinion. Hell, everyone is entitled to an opinion!
Pre-start in Europe plus 1 month sub = lvl 38. Man, if I hate the game in 38 lvls I'm going to hate in the next 12 no matter how much updates they've made since then.
To me (and I guess to a lot of people) if the game doesn't pull you in in that amount of time, then you're just wasting money. I'm not gonna keep paying for months and months just because I want to wait and see what the developers are going to do to improve the flaws I think it has.
And best PVP mmo? I'm gonna go ahead and guess this is your first NCsoft game right? L2 and GW are proof that NCsoft can do a lot better in terms of PvP than Aion. Aion's PvP is a joke when compared to L2.
You can go ahead and make a survey, it only takes two questions to prove my point
1 - "How many former WoW players are still playing Aion and liking it?" (answer is probably: a lot!)
2 - "How many former L2 players quit Aion after the first month, or didn't even give it a try?" (answer is probably: almost all of them!")
I may have to agree with MMORPG on this one. After this non-stellar year of MMO releases, Aion was the most polished on release. Of course, I think that is due to, in large part, to being already released in Asia. I guess I'm gonna have to offer my congratulations to Aion, the highest floating turd in the toilet of 2009 MMO releases.
I had to LOL at this! In a few years, MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR games like SW: TOR, WoW Cataclysm, FREE Guild Wars 2, FFXIV, etc. will be out and in a few years, Aion will have less and less players.
Then also consider other MMOs that will come out in a few years.
Exactly.
2009 was a "meh" year when it came to MMOs. Aion winning is like myself winning MVP of a local / amateur league. I still suck compare the the "big players"
I completly agree. I actually read bloggers reviews over MMORPG.com's Staff Review because I can't "identify" myself with any of their writer. And I believe this is also shown a lot in this thread, as many users call this a conspiracy while others will say the reviewers are biased, etc. We have no background information about them, they are just .....there....pops out a new review which gets featured on MMORPG.com but....who are you? what kind of games do you play? what's your background in gaming? experience in the industry? Aside from a few Writers, we barely know anything about said reviewers other than the fact that he liked Aion and gave it a 8.7 (this is just one exemple out of many, hell I don't even know who made that review).
I also agree that 20-40 hours is not enough for a game. We are talking about an MMORPG where character progression matters. In no way have you tried enough of the game at level 20 to make a decent review when everyone agrees the "PvPvE" part only exists after Level 25-27(access to the Abyss). When the reviewer has not even scratched most of the real content and posts a review, I always wandered....does said reviewer really played this or that game? Many MMORPGs have very great starts and the first few levels are awesome.....but become something completly different later on that, if not reviewed, will mislead readers and destroy the credibility of said writer.
Seriously, this thread is the best exemple you can find.
What leads people to believe it is a conspiracy theory is not that it one best of the year but the huge coincidence that this site gave Aion the highest rating out of any mmo. It's pretty ironic that WoW( yes i went there) which has so many subscribers has attained a score lower than Aion. You can call it a conspiracy theory. I can call it a huge coincidence in the end it doesn't add up and when something doesn't add up it is not believable to anyone.
Another thiing is that sure each person has different opinions on whats awsome and whats not a good game. But people know a game's faults when they see it. When other gaming companies give an honest review and all companies give Aion a C grade level review and miraculously one company gives it a high score does that make any sense? I believe it leads to people not believing the review to be thought out in an appropriate manner.
About the game its starts off fun at the beginning but in the end the content is thin. it reminds me of when Age of conan launched and at high levels didnt have much content. We need sites to stop giving awards to whats the most popular game out there and start giving awards to the games that are polished with content and deserve it.
The "site" does not review a game - a single writer that we assign to the article determines that score. Because they are MMOs we require that person to play the game 20-40 hours before writing. While the Editor does read over the review, the Editor did not play the game that duration and generally does not have the wisdom to second guess the writer assigned the review.
It is not uncommon that reviews might be higher or lower than the average player feels the game deserves. This happens at all major gaming sites like ours...it is just the nature of the beast and more so with MMOs I think. I think that is the great thing about looking at reviews from many sites to form an overall opinion and not just looking at a numerical score, but reading the review and listening to pros and cons.
Again, please stop to think what would be at stake if we "sold" reviews or other editorial content on this site. If this ever got out (and it would I assure you) it would ruin our reputation with our readers and with all other game companies - which would in effect destroy this website, which would be a loss 1000 times greater than any shady deal could bring us.
I have actually played Aion for what might amount to 30 or so hours since launch, I think it is an OK game and I don't think it is a far stretch to say it was the best overall game launched in 2009 (not game of the year note this is a seperate award yet to come) - but still this was not my decision to make - it was the editorial team that will decide all the site awards.
So editor's choice is based on reviews of ppl who are required to play a game, not necessary aion, for 20-40 hours?
If thats true, do you really think this is an objective point of view?
In my opinion, reading through forums over the year, and awarding based on this experience would be a lot more representative.
No - actually if you read through the entire quote block you will see I was answering a user who was more "concerned" about our review score done months ago not so much this award. I was explaining our review process to him.
Editor's choice is based on the editorial team (Jon Wood, Garrett Fuller, Dana Massey, Mike Bitton) coming to a decision on what game they think deserves the award. I am not 100% sure on their entire process, since that is their department - but all I can assure you is that my department (ad sales) had zero to do with the decision since those guys have no clue about advertising going on at MMORPG.com.
I have a lvl 47 Templar named Tyton on Ariel - Asmodian Side. I have had the EXACT same experience as you. Sometimes I wonder if people who complain about Aion are playing the same game. I can understand if it's not your cup of tea, but the visceral hatred for the game is really surprising.
For someone like me, who is an attorney in RL and only has 3 hours of playtime on any given weekday... I reached lvl 47 playing casually for the last 4 months. Grind my ASS! I have never once had a quest log not 30/30. 11 of my 47 levels came from crafting, gathering, and pvp.
Unlike other MMO's, i have 20+ abilities and there are fights where I USE EVERY SINGLE ABILITY. In pvp, you don't die in two shots, and there's an element of strategy and skill. The lower level instances/world zones are tank and spank, but you can't say that for Steel Rake and on.
I really feel that one of the other posters hit the nail on the head. People came into Aion thinking it was either WoW 2.0. I came into Aion having not played WoW for the previous 6 months. I came in with a fresh start, with zero expectations or preconceived notions. I let my experience in the game dictate whether or not I enjoyed it, verus EXPECTING to see or do certain things.
For those of you who complain about bots, you're 3 months behind. For those of you who complain about chat spams, you're 3 months behind. For those of you who complain about the lack of quests, you either didn't find the NPC's, or you grouped during solo quests, skipped on pvp quests, etc. For those of you complaining about lack of content, you forget the MMO'S like WoW which had UBRS/LBRS as "end game."
No one is asking you to like Aion, but I really don't see where this HATRED is coming from.
To the ADMIN:
Why in the world do you feel the need to respond to people espousing these conspiracy theories. The reason you do is because the issue is close to your heart and you care about the integrity of this website.
From my personal experience, EVERY SINGLE prominent website has its conspiracy theorists, regardless of what you say or do. Please, don't respond to their idiotic theories of reviews being "bought."
I believe this is the best website for upcomming MMO's on the web. I check out the forums and articles on a daily basis. A vast vast majority of people who come to this site know the quality of work it produces.
There's no reason to feed the trolls. You're playing right into their hands.
Any articulate well constructed post that impinges upon the integrity of their website deserves a response. Silence would be far more damning than responding to posts that, even though they are well written, are ultimately without real substance.
And on topic, I would have also given this award to Fallen Earth over Aion. As a hardcore MMORPG'er of many years I am far more interested in rewarding developers for being original and daring (and providing a level of quality in their product that shows they are talented--so no, I would not consider Darkfall a contender). The Icarus developers are a rare group who deserve much praise.
Sorry but impressive graphics and hot , scantily clad female toons do not a winner make. With the exception of the generous amount of skin that is revealed, the gameplay and concept falls dead center in the middle of a pack of games that never exceed mediocre.
I swear the more I come to this site the more dissapointed I become. What is becoming blatantly clear is that MMORPG.com is aware of who pays the bills. A bad review always has the chance of alienating the game developers from the reviewers. Therefore there is little to no chance that a game released by a big, well known gaming company will ever hear a discouraging word from this site lest they sacrifice all the little perks that are sent their way. Too bad. This used to be a pretty cool place.
I tried both Aion and Fallen Earth and even though I quit both of them I played FE for much longer and enjoyed the expierence much more with the new aspects it brang to the table. Aion is a WoW clone with wings and has a horrible grinding exp in it that I just couldn't stand after two weeks of play. I just can't believe people are so in love with this game that brings nothing at all new, hell I like bountybay online better then Aion. MMORPG.com must be getting some kind of compensation because this is an extremely bias opinion and the scores for this game have to be rigged, it really can't be this popular.
Savinakis
Games played and/or playing UO, EVE, EQ, EQ2, Shadowbane, CoH, AoC, Rohan, Guild Wars, DAoC, SWG, Bountybay, Planet Side, Vanguard, POTBS, Runes of Magic, WoW, Aion, Fallen Earth, Wurm
Not since Vanilla WoW have I been as hyped as I was for Aion, after the betas. Never have I been so saddened by the realization of how shallow a game can be after being way to overhyped...on a personal level. I know its my fault, but Aion would get my vote for the biggest disappointment of 2009.
This game just didn't have the substance that is needed to sustain multiple months/years of playability.
Not to mention my biggest disappointment of 2008 was Warhammer, who also won the award for best new game of 2008.
Ironic, don't cha think?
I think this brings home just how unexpectedly bad 2009 was in terms of MMO releases.
I want to disagree that Aion was the best game to come out in 2009 because I played it and hated it, as well as playing most of the new mmo's that came out in '09.
Unfortunately when I look at the list of the other games that came out I found nothing great in that bin either. So I guess Aion is basically the best of a group of pretty repetitive unoriginal games.
I've been really dissapointed with the genre as a whole, you started with EQ and UO which were completely new and innovative and in the 13 years since that not much has changed.. the graphics got a little better and some nifty systems were added but thats about it. I could rattle off a long list of things that would make an extremely innovative new MMO but it's been done before and no developer will take the time to work on them anyway, it's much cheaper to use the existing systems, put them in a new world and make them shinier.
Congratulations Aion for winning the best game of the year in perhaps the worst year ever for mmorpg releases. I'd have respected the staff more if they'd have chosen "nothing" and listed aion and fallen earth as 'runner up'.
You've got to be kidding me.
mm ton of player went back to other genre totally !did you check shooter on xfire.com
or real time strategy.never been so popular.mmo lost a lot of player wow included wow player number were cut by 30% in one year that a lot and all mmo have suffered similarly ,they havent gone to other mmo,oh they tried:but most went to other genre completetly.
Man, I can't wait 'til we get cubic wheels, it'll be sweet, so new and different! Won't that be fabulous?
Someone, a long time ago, probably made a stone wheel. Even more accurately, they probably found a rounded boulder that could roll. Since then we've made wooden wheels, metal wheels, and now, rubber wheels.... but we haven't really improved much on the concept of the wheel itself. Probably because it does what it does well, and reinventing it would be hard.
EQ and UO discovered the rounded boulders of Theme Park* and Sandbox, Aion is just the rubber coated equivalent of EQ, I suppose. But you can't possibly say you'd rather drive around on rounded boulders, can you? The difference between the wheel and MMORPGs is that one of them 'does' the physical effect of rolling, and the other 'does' bring in millions of users that are willing to pay per month for a video game.
Not too many First Person Shooters are bringing in $15 a month from each user - Team Fortress 2 is a one time payment that I made years ago, and I still enjoy it. If I were paying subscriptions for my FPSs and RTSs, I'd be broke from Warcraft 3/2 and Starcraft, Comand and Conquer/Tiberium Wars/3, Quake/2/3/4, Half-life 1/2, Counter-strike + Source, COD4, etc. etc. etc.
All of those don't charge money per month to play, so any new developer trying to milk players for money each month would have to really, really make a good game in that genre to make players want to pay for it. Enter: Global Agenda, which actually has the option to just buy the game without the subscription. Damn good idea.
</rant>
*It is to my understanding that EQ was generally the theme park initiator, at least when compared to UO.
Runes of Magic makes the list of nominations for Best New Game of 2009. But cant even make it to the list of nominations of best F2P game of 2009.
How is this possible?
Just pointing out that its a logical fallacy. Best New Game of 2009 category includes the F2P ones. So if a F2P game is on nominations list of overall category, it also needs to be on the f2p nominations list.
95% of the people who say "Aion sucks!!" have not even bothered putting a worthwhile investment of time into the game to experience it. That being said, there will always be trolls on forums and I've come to accept that. I agree with giving new best game to Aion, as it's definitely a great game worthy enough of winning this award regardless of it's budget.
95% of statistics are made up by Aion fanbois. this statement is just as valid as yours because it's an opinion :P
With "quality" competition like Darkfall and Champions Online on the slate, Aion winning can't really be a surprise.
Fallen Earth taking second to a game with a bigger development budget and an extra year or so of tweaking overseas isn't bad by any means. We might be talking about it this time next year in the "Best Of" or "Most Improved" categories.
Just pointing out that its a logical fallacy. Best New Game of 2009 category includes the F2P ones. So if a F2P game is on nominations list of overall category, it also needs to be on the f2p nominations list.
You do have a point.
It’s terribly clear that no matter what game was chosen a bitch fest was inevitable. Gamers are without a doubt a very self riotous group of people. Every single game site I have ever been to relating to a game I am playing contains a mountain of complaints. Hell if you remove the bitching and complaining from the WoW site I really doubt there would be a significant amount left.
Grats: to Aion – Yes I am playing it and FYI the whole game changes after level 45 so all you folks who bailed you are missing some pretty cool content
we as readers would appreciate reading articles written with at least a little common sense, that is in the end respect for readers who come here and make you site stay alive.
this is not really the case with lists like this where Fallen Earth (which i personally dislike) is missing or the pvp post where Darkfall is not even mentioned by the author: THAT is really trolling!:(
please have a look at what your writers do, you will save up much of what you call trolling and readers will respect this site much more
I really don't want to have to level to 46 before I start to find a MMO interesting, so Aion hardly wins an award there.
I do think people need to understand the difference between the Aion review, which was by one writer and this award which was an editorial choice. The review was outrageous, the over exuberance of the reviewer still not enough to justify the score. But the editors choice is more understandable, I don’t see there being many contenders in 2009.
As to taking control of their writers, I think the editors have a duty to pick writers who they think have integrity and professionalism as gaming journalists. But it is not their place to alter a staff writer’s review score, that said a review like that should make any editor wary of using that reviewer again.
I suppose I would have liked to see the staff say that no game in 2009 earned such an award - Aion may well be the best out of a bunch of 'under-performers', but has more than enough objective issues to render this award meaningless in the eyes of many.
Aion definatly deservs this award. Afterall just look at the competion.
Out of all the MMO's released in 2009, Aion is probably the only one I would consider going back to, given a few more expansions etc.
What else is there?.. Champions Online?... I couldnt stand to play that after 2 days of the BETA, let alone release.
Well from all the games that came out in year 2009, well its the only one i wanted to try out. So i did try it out. It had good graphic original story. Well it had lot of things that is needed for a good game. But i did had one other thing that made it terrible. While i was playing it, it seemed as it was a cheep chines game. By that i do not want to offend chines, but the special effects was overacted and it did killed the impression of the whole game. If we compare it with MU online (about which a lot of ppl know by now) i believe that MU is better game, because it isn't so overacted.
What i really wanted to say is that because the best game of the year is aion, we see that this year was poor year for gaming industry.
Aion deserve it more than the others titles released in 2009, so im agree with the choice, the other contendenders were just... very unpolished or flat games.
Fallen earth is my best new game in 09. Fallen earth has something for everyone, if they had more money to develop the game im sure it would have won this sites award. The game basically wasn't finished i think.
Aion only looks cool, but i'm sure the repetition would kill me.
too bad the competition didn't get to release a year earlier in the east and polish and refine the products to the crap level of evergrind....err...Aion.
yah, we've been having a crapfest of mmo releases the last couple of years.
It's not like there was really much to choose from in 2009. At least Aion is pretty! The whole experience kind of falls apart from there on.
Well, I guess this just goes to show, different strokes for different folks and all that.
I honestly struggle to understand what on earth people see in Aion, it is possibly one of the worst MMO's I've ever played. I tried to like it, heck I even got given the collectors edition and 30 days sub for free, thanks to being a Tabula Rasa sub when that died, even so it was just an aweful game experience. It kinda reminds me of my days as a kid when 'Golden Eye' came out on the N64, everyone was going on about it being the best game ever made, and I sat there looking at it wondering if everyone else in the world was playing a different game because I though it was naff.
Conversly I think I'm in love with Fallen Earth, I've been playing for months now since launch and still have not got bored of the game, I have no issues with it's graphics and if I ever need a reminder about graphics meaning nothing in an MMO, then I just remember Aion and how it tries to seduce you with it's lovely, sexy graphics but in reality it is trying to blind you from the uglyness of it's gameplay.
So yeah, for me I think Fallen Earth would have been a more deserving winner, especially when I have to wonder what state the games will be in a year from now, I wonder if Aion will even still be running if it doesn't get the number of subs NCSoft were boasting about around release time, they seem to have a track record for killing games off that don't meet expectations.
Just pointing out that its a logical fallacy. Best New Game of 2009 category includes the F2P ones. So if a F2P game is on nominations list of overall category, it also needs to be on the f2p nominations list.
Yikes... that is a big mistake!
I didn't follow Runes of Magic at all... but it would definitely appear that was a bit of an oversight on their part.
It does seem to me that there are rather too many categories; we are going to have a ‘best’ F2P game every year now. <shudder>
What next, “Best Housing System 2010”? I think the site is suffering from awarditis and needs to pull on the reins of this runaway mount.
wow Fallen earth didn't deserve the title best game of the year. It was Microsoft product, and MS know nothing about making games. The fallen earth proves it. I tried to play it. Controls was terrible. Actually to be able to move and kill and use items normally i had to zoom in to 1st person and out to 3th person regular. I played it for 3h. The story they had suck (the beginning one). It was one of the worth games in 2009, not best.
You're kidding right? Wait, it's not April yet...
But you've got to be joking... I've avoided this game like the plague. I've got several friends who played it from launch and who were complete fanboys... Until after the first month. No one that I know personally has stayed with the game for more than a month or so. The game's one really cool idea is just another skill. Flight has little effect on the gameplay.
In my mind the Best New MMO of the year has to have Champions Online. Just my opinion, mind you...
wow Fallen earth didn't deserve the title best game of the year. It was Microsoft product, and MS know nothing about making games. The fallen earth proves it. I tried to play it. Controls was terrible. Actually to be able to move and kill and use items normally i had to zoom in to 1st person and out to 3th person regular. I played it for 3h. The story they had suck (the beginning one). It was one of the worth games in 2009, not best.
Wow... I'm currently playing Fallen Earth. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's not the worst game of the year. I think you're confusing the game with WoW or some other MMO. The game states up front that it's more like an FPS than a 3rd person game. The controls aren't bad at all. They're just not the same as everything else out there. Although you could certainly make it more like other games if you want to spend the time adjusting things.
The initial story seemed to me to quite logical based on the setting. Was a master stroke of creative process? No, probably not. But did it suck? Absolutely not. The publisher, be it M$ or Blizzivision or Crytpic or whoever, really has nothing to do with the creation of the game. Fallen Earth LLC is responsible for the game and it's content.
The game is not for the "hold my hand and tell me where to go" crowd. It's not for the "I'm too impatient to learn" crowd either. It's got the most robust crafting system of any modern MMO. And it takes time and, God forbid, effort on the user's part to do stuff. So it's not WoW. It's not going to tell you "go to Ankh Morpork to find the string in said quest". When you finish workin' for whoever, you're finished workin' for whoever. Where you go next? Wherever you want.
That having been said, I think FE is worthy of being in the consideration for Best New MMO, but I still think, as I said in my previous post, that Champions Online is still the Best New MMO of 2009.
AION WAS RELEASED IN 2008 IN ASIA. NEW 2009 GAME??? WTF???
You know I agree with everything you said, I had a blast playing Aion, what killed it for me was the Cesspool Community both in game and on the forums, Ncsoft does zero moderation, WoW by comparison is diligent, Child porn links, anti-Semitism, racists, sexism homophobic remarks hate speech is not only tolerated it even seems to be encouraged by the employees of Ncsoft west, between that, the horrible account security, the gold spam and the bots just make a killer game completely unplayable by a large amount of people.
I recently had a very good friend from Seoul come visit me, he plays the KR version and was just blown away by how the American community behaved. This is shameful he said, we would never act like that, I knew he was speaking the truth because I have visited many gaming Café’s in Soule a couple years back when I was sent there on Bussiness, it is just a night and day culture compared to ours it was literally embarrassing, to show this guy what American gamers could be like.
I may go back to Aion one day but it will be the Chinese or Korean version Ncsoft west is a joke, and should not even be compared to it’s home office in the east.
Fallen Earth with it's 2000 subs against the 2nd most played MMO in the world. Seriously, there is no competition between the two.People were expecting FE to be worse then it was. Aion on the other hand has maintained a huge sub base to warrant it's place as the second best/most played MMO.
[Mod Edit]
no... just no
mmorpg.com is pretty legit compared to massively.com especially since seraphina (the writer that gave Aion the most disappointment of 2009 award) has even admitted to only playing up to lvl 14 with her gladiator when everyone at aionsource called her out on it. they've been trying to save face but it's already been proven by the aion community that her main is lvl 14.
You know I agree with everything you said, I had a blast playing Aion, what killed it for me was the Cesspool Community both in game and on the forums, Ncsoft does zero moderation, WoW by comparison is diligent, Child porn links, anti-Semitism, racists, sexism homophobic remarks hate speech is not only tolerated it even seems to be encouraged by the employees of Ncsoft west, between that, the horrible account security, the gold spam and the bots just make a killer game completely unplayable by a large amount of people.
I recently had a very good friend from Seoul come visit me, he plays the KR version and was just blown away by how the American community behaved. This is shameful he said, we would never act like that, I knew he was speaking the truth because I have visited many gaming Café’s in Soule a couple years back when I was sent there on Bussiness, it is just a night and day culture compared to ours it was literally embarrassing, to show this guy what American gamers could be like.
I may go back to Aion one day but it will be the Chinese or Korean version Ncsoft west is a joke, and should not even be compared to it’s home office in the east.
It's not just in America, there are idiots from all over. Trust me, some of the gaming community in Korea (the kids) are fcking annoying.
About NCwest, I agree. The CEO is Chris Chan, the creator of Arenanet so I don't get it when people try to differentiate the two companies. Ncsoft OWNS Arenanet, it is not just their publisher. It's their subsidiary and arenanet workers work for NCSOFT.
You know I agree with everything you said, I had a blast playing Aion, what killed it for me was the Cesspool Community both in game and on the forums, Ncsoft does zero moderation, WoW by comparison is diligent, Child porn links, anti-Semitism, racists, sexism homophobic remarks hate speech is not only tolerated it even seems to be encouraged by the employees of Ncsoft west, between that, the horrible account security, the gold spam and the bots just make a killer game completely unplayable by a large amount of people.
I recently had a very good friend from Seoul come visit me, he plays the KR version and was just blown away by how the American community behaved. This is shameful he said, we would never act like that, I knew he was speaking the truth because I have visited many gaming Café’s in Soule a couple years back when I was sent there on Bussiness, it is just a night and day culture compared to ours it was literally embarrassing, to show this guy what American gamers could be like.
I may go back to Aion one day but it will be the Chinese or Korean version Ncsoft west is a joke, and should not even be compared to it’s home office in the east.
I have to agree... The westerners are HORRIBLE. No respect for anything, unfriendly, selfish and so on.
The west community made me want to stop playing Aion.
The poster in blue should really try reading before typing.
Aion is "ok" and thats about it. After now playing for 3 months, I recently canceled my account. Graphically it is a nice looking game and the crafting is decent. However, I feel the game is unbalanced pvp wise as ranged classes (Scout-Spirit Master-Sorc) have a distinct tactical advantage over playing a melee class. If you played a Gladiator then you know what I am talking about. Also, as much as NC Soft "deals" with the gold sellers, I feel they actually support and allow them because the game feels more like a kinah grind more than anything. I f your not in some uber legion, then your going to be one poor ass mofo unless you spend many hours farming materials and having to pay millions of kinah to master a craft for profit. I tried it, it's ok...Maybe Fallen Earth or Darkfall might be more of What I'm looking for. IMO-Dark Age Of Camelot was the funnest game to play, especially the RVR-PVP aspect.
Congrats Aion!
If you like playing mmo's you should give Aion a try. It's a great game. No the graphics are not ground breaking, but they are beautifull. It's a fun place to be, isn't that what it's all about?
My prediction is the best pvp MMO of 2010 as well once these two big updates come out this year :-)
Couldn't agree more. Whats funny is how much money mythic would rake in if they actually started to develop DAOC 2
I played both fallen Earth and /Aion both from beta. Purchased both upon release. Aion is way more fun. Fallen earth is 'mediocre' at best while Aion continues to get better.
There are still issues with bots and kinah spammers, but it's not much of an issue if you are out fighting and not loitering around towns doing absolutely nothing.
I quit Aion for monetary reasons and decided to give it a couple of months and see just how much better the bot/spam situation gets since that is my personal biggest turn off.
Best New Game of 2010 > FF14 Online
Welcome to 1.9 .. things have changed..