NCSoft: Aion Will Be Second Only to World of Warcraft
Posted 08/12/09 at 11:40:36 PM by Nathan Grayson
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Every MMO-maker wishes their game could cast its net as wide as WoW, but these days, most are content to eek out a modest living in the shadow of Blizzard’s behemoth. Over at NCSoft, though, things are… well, they’re just like that. But, if WoW’s coming in at the head of the pack, NCSoft’s hoping its upcoming fantasy MMO Aion can at least be the neck.
"I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. ... We are guessing that Aion will be -- could be -- the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft,” NCSoft CFO Jaeho Lee said during a recent conference call.
When Aion and the recently deceased Tabula Rasa were mentioned in the same sentence together, however, Lee wasn’t so kind.
"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," he said. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance. We did a very poor job with Tabula Rasa, and we disappointed our retailers in US markets and also European markets.”
So, for those who’ve tried Aion, do you think it has a shot at taking off on our side of the pond? Or do you think NCSoft should drop its expectations down a notch or two?
Ha ha! Oh wow!
Submitted by foamcup on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 1:37pm
Ha ha! Oh wow!
Submitted by kanzy on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 1:27pm
Guys, this game has been running in Asia for awhile now, and it is horrible, tons of bugs and people cheat all the time, even worse than a regular online game.
Submitted by philippecote3 on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 1:23pm
I played WoW on and off for about three years and when I finally to got to the highest level it wasn't even fun. Everbody just seemed stressed and they only played "together" for a couple of hours a week. I'm ready for a new MMO that's different from WoW, yet hopefully it will be just as successful.
Submitted by VaMage on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 8:39am
Back in the 90's Computer Associates had a product called Aion that was used to build expert systems. I wonder if someone still owns the name, if so it might be a whole new lawsuit, something I'm sure we all would just love to see.
BTW: We used Aion to build a pretty cool app that defeated the attempts by Doctor's offices to "fragment medical reporting codes into their component parts for the purpose of gaining a greater payout from the health insurer." In other words, say you had a broken leg, the insurer pays a set fee for repairing a broken leg, BUT it may pay more if you report each step in repairing a broken leg seperatly!
The fun part was that we built a system to stop this, but then someone else built an expert system for the Doctors offices that could fool our expert system, so we updated to defeat that. It was a fun little code war for awhile, but I got bored and moved on to an even newer thing called "OOP, object oriented programming". Gawd I am SO OLD. <LOL>
VaMage
American by Birth, But Southern by the Grace of God.
Submitted by Kaldor on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 7:33am
I just want a game that isnt /faceroll to hi level or /mashkeyboard to hi rank.
I played DAOC for 7 years. One of the best MMOs ever from a PvP difficulty stance. It took skill to excel in that game. If you were nothing but a timer dumping scrub it showed and you got rolled time after time.
I play WAR now. Its not even close to what DAOC was 3-4 years ago. Poeple are hitting max rank in less than a year. The PvE system is horrible. The entire game is about to unravel in front of Mythics eyes.
I dont think Aion will do it honestly. NC Soft doesnt have the best track record with Lineage 1 and 2 which were both big time grind and grief games as well as Tabula Rasa. Their biggest success has been City of Heros/Villians and Guild Wars to a lesser extent. I have a few guildies in the beta and they will probably make up my mind for me.
All this being said, I want some fast PvP action that requires skill. Im tired of "I win" buttons like AE disable/knockdown in WAR. Real interupts so unhealed casters arent killing melee DPS who are in melee range. Unkillable healers that out DPS a MDPS class. Hmm, looks like Ill be going back to DAOC once my WAR account runs out.
DAOC is still one of the best MMOs out there. Its not noob friendly like WoW, WAR, or any of the other dozen WoW clones out there. To compete you need to run 2 accounts or have a friend with a buffer. Leveling is not painless, as questing thru the game like WoW/WAR isnt going to happen. All Mythic really had to do to make a top notch game was add collision detection and update DAOCs quest system and they would have had a great game.
I hope Aion pans out. People are getting tired of easy mode. Even alot of the WOW players I know who loved WOW are tired of skilless games with no real end game other than raid dungeon X 50 times.
/rant off
Submitted by davey062 on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 8:47am
Even if wow is easy mode now.. There are still people who can't even /faceroll properly.. it saddens me.
I honestly can't wait for the Old Republic, i hope that lives up to the Hype, But i am not holding my breath.
Aion looks promising,
Submitted by DBsantos77 on Wed, 08/12/2009 - 9:12pm
Aion looks promising, graphics look amazing, I think it was built with CryTek? Or some Crysis engine of some sort. Wow is starting to look a bit outdated anyways.
Submitted by Ogdin on Wed, 08/12/2009 - 9:03pm
I think they should drop there expectations down a notch or ten. Wasn't all that impressed with what i saw in the beta.It'll sell a bunch od copies at launch than dwindle down shortly after like AoC and Warhammer did.
I think it's going to come
Submitted by Aviar on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 6:03am
I think it's going to come down to end game content. With Aion shipping in the US and EU a year after Korea and China, it will be released with the 1.5 patch which has additional content and fixes. Right now in the US beta you are limited to leveling to level 30, so until players can reach max level and spend some time there, it will be hard to state how good this game will do.
I have played in several of the closed beta's already and I can say that I have cancelled my WAR account already in preparing to play Aion full time.
Remember, don't take life too seriously. You won't make it out alive anyways.
Content's going to be the
Submitted by jcollins on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:43am
Content's going to be the key. Different quests, different things to do. I'm not talking about kill X monsters and hope you get Y random drop gizzards some time before 2012, then go to the other side of the world to cash in type quests either.
Dungeons and Dragons had some cool quests with different things to do, but you ran through it way too quick (and it turned into a grindfest where you ran the same thing over and over).
i think they could aim for
Submitted by nekollx on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 9:16am
i think they could aim for the shoulder blades...or the bustline
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