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Comments: 256 +- Games: On Transitioning To an Asian-Style MMO, Such As Aion on Thursday August 13 2009, @10:09PM
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Soulskill
on Thursday August 13 2009, @10:09PM
from the mixing-real-culture-with-virtual-culture dept.
from the mixing-real-culture-with-virtual-culture dept.
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A. Harvey writes "Ten Ton Hammer has an interesting article about the transition to Asian-style MMO games, specifically Aion. 'In many ways, the West is catching up to the East in terms of gaming. Per capita gaming ... and broadband proliferation is markedly higher in Asian markets.
Gaming is much more social in the East as well; many players gather together in internet cafes to spend their game time with each other. Another surprising difference in most Asian-based games is that most functions of game control are mouse based.' I think the author hit the nail on the head that Aion will be a big success in North America and will introduce a lot of players to games with an Eastern feel."
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Aion Shaping Up For US Launch 212 comments
Submission: Transitioning to an Asian-based mmo such as Aion by Anonymous Coward
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Asian style gaming (Score:5, Funny)
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...who will be hungry again in an hour.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Aion will Flop (Score:5, Interesting)
Aion will have a couple hundred thousand subscribers if it's lucky, and those will churn out in a few months, the numbers will stabilize somewhere around 80K, and NCsoft will still be scratching their heads wondering why they can't publish a GOOD MMO.
Age of Conan had BOOBIES and awesome graphics and some new game mechanics, but it was poorly balanced and the highly polished tutorial was just a facade. Once you went to the mainland the game got dull and boring with a quickness. Plus, low-level male characters looked like gay pirates and the sexiest female clothes you'd see were the ones a character started with. And Age of Conan flopped.
Warhammer Online was accessible, with graphics comparable to WoW's; it had fun gameplay comparable to some of WoW's more recent additions, and it still flopped. Why? Because it was TOO MUCH of a WoW clone on the surface, and many of its systems were not polished or balanced and relied too much on social interactions where "alone together" is king.
For what it's worth, I think Bioware's KOTOR Online thing will have huge box sales and big initial numbers, and it will be a great Bioware RPG, but static content does not make for MMO subscriber retention. They'll have huge initial numbers and huge churn. But they at least have a little bit of a chance, if only because it's not more cookie-cutter mythical fantasy; It's STAR WARS.
The MMOs that are succeeding these days are not MMORPGs. They are MMO-strategy like lighter-fare Web/social network games. To make a new MMORPG be massively successful, it's going to take a re-invention of the genre. EVE Online has carved out a nice niche for itself and is clearly a shining star. The current MMORPG monoculture sucks and it's time for more experimental and different kinds of MMO games.
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Informative)
Have you played the Chinese game? How about the Closed Beta? I have, so I'm going to comment from actually playing the past 2 months, both in beta and on Chinese servers.
Speculation on numbers is rubbish if you don't have any reason for them other than "it happened to every WoW-clone before it". This isn't quite a WoW clone. It's familiar, but no the same.
Aion is actually very well polished compared to AoC. It's at 1.0.12 in China, and it's supposed to be at 1.5 by the NA release. That will make it much better than it already is, which is on the level of good. AoC fucking BLEW at launch. Completely.
I never played warhammer, won't comment.
You negelct to realize that every day brings WoW closer to it's death. You know how many people jsut get so damn bored of it already? Do you think eternal life is possible, even for a given product?
Granted, reinvention is usually the winner during a change between generations. But you don't need to reinvent the Corvette to sell more; you need to give it a bigger engine. Then, when that doesn't catch people atttention anymore, change the body. Then, some large number of years later, scrap it for a new kind of car.
Parent
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Do you think anyone would play an MMO if it were single player?
I thought that was 80% of the population in WoW.
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Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Interesting)
I never played. I watched my son try for a few weeks. He ended up canceling because nobody wanted anything to do with somebody who didn't already know all the proper etiquette on how to do multiplayer raids or whatnot. He was accused of pretending to be new; one guy said something like "You just started playing Warcraft NOW? You're lying."
And without the promised extensive social interaction, Warcraft looked like a pretty mediocre RPG. I'm sure he could have stuck it out, eventually wormed his way into some guild or another, but why would he WANT to? That sounded about as thrilling as repeating your freshman year of high school. The startup of a new MMORPG would be far more attractive.
Parent
I concur, i ahd the same experience (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Thanks for proving his point.
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:4, Insightful)
"Oh, and one thing Aion has far above and beyond WoW: it forces you to meet people within 15 hours of starting"
Forces you? Who want to play a game that forces you to do something if you don't want to do it?
If a MMORPG can't be soloed it will fail.
A percentage of people like to quest alone and maybe instance in groups, so Aion would piss them off.
But, more importantly, after some months a new player will find hard to be accepted in groups by more experienced players ("Hey, you're such a noob").
The reason for WoW success is that it allows a large number of play styles (questing, raiding, pvp...)
Games not so balanced will only satisfy a niche of population, so maybe people will start to play, see they don't really enjoy the game and leave.
When many players leave, others will follow as the servers will start to look empty. Empty servers must be merged.
Server merges helps the playing population to continue to enjoy the game but from outside it's seen as "ok, another failed MMORPG, I won't even try it"
And I'm being optimistic, regarding Aion, as in all my reasonings above I assumed it won't be bug filled or with huge imbalances...
Parent
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If a MMORPG can't be soloed it will fail.
Explain to me why I should pay 15 bucks a month to play a solo game? I can do that for free (after paying the initial price for the game, which I'd have to play for an MMO as well as for a "normal" game).
The "solo-able" appeal of MMOs has always puzzled me. I'm all for games offering some sort of solo activity, so you can remain busy and active even when your friends aren't around or your class is currently not in demand, but making it a sensible way to spend your ga
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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That's why I kinda like AOs approach to the problem: There is something to do for you (you can run solo missions from the mission term), but you level faster and get better stuff if you find a group to play with. At any level.
With WoW, there's currently zero reason to get a group for anything but endgame raids. Leveling in a group? Forget it. You will spend those first 2 weeks/2 months (depending on whether you have a high level friend or not) alone, solo, without anyone near you (that is, you hope nobody i
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Explain to me why I should pay 15 bucks a month to play a solo game... snip... I'm all for games offering some sort of solo activity, so you can remain busy and active even when your friends aren't around or your class is currently not in demand,
You answered your own question. I played Everquest for years, and it was excruciating to solo, so you sat around for extended periods of time begging for a group. WoW gives you the option to play the way YOU want to play... in a group to taking on tougher encounters, or solo if you can't find a group, or just don't feel like being social.
One of the many strengths of WoW is that it does NOT "force" you to play any particular way. You love to explore on your own? No problem. Like to pvp? Check. Want to
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Wait. So you stop getting the ability to advance yourself without grouping?
Yeah, this game is screwed. That model was popular in the past, not anymore. Nobody wants to log in, then discover they can't do anything in game without first spending 45 minutes trying to find a tank and healer. The whole appeal of WoW is that you didn't need to team up with a bunch of random asshats and wait around all day before being able to play.
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Every MMO has been the same old shit, including before WoW. I'd attribute it's success more to being contagious and being able to attract a large crowd at the start due to known IP that I would nearly anything else. The contagious factor can be brought into any game, and so can the crowd. It's just a matter of marketing, and getting word out to every last person possible about the awesomeness of the game before launch.
If "the same old shit" is all a game has, it is not surprising if it fails in competing against WOW. Because in terms of large crowds and buddies already playing the game, nothing beats WOW.
IMHO a new MMO should have something that makes it different. It could
-have strategic components to gameplay
-require more and different player skills in combat (twitch based?). Mere button mashing gets boring fast. Tactically clever use of skill combos is better but also done to death by now.
-be focused on empire buildin
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Like I said in another post, MMO's are about community.
Not any more.
I played DAoC, then switched to WoW at launch and watched my guild fall apart because they could solo in WoW.
People's preferences are clearly and absolutely:
1: Group with a small number of very good friends
2: Solo
3: Group with guild mates (or people they know a bit and trust a bit)
(and way down there)
457657465674: Group with strangers
For some people, 1 and 2 are interchangeable. I know people who play WoW daily and have *never* grouped to quest, only to pug instances.
I think that part of WoW's huge success is because you can solo effectively in it, and that suits a lot of people just fine. I don't think any MMO that forces you to group up will get anywhere near WoW's numbers.
It's sad, because my best memories are of times spent grouped up and laughing in either game.
On the other hand my worst memories from either game are from other people too. I can understand not wanting to risk the bad stuff to possibly get the good stuff.
Parent
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) Why should anyone who sunk 4+ years into WoW abandon it, there's no need. The game is still offering what it always offered, the people are still around, they managed to avoid pretty much everything that fu..ed up other MMOs in the past, why switch?
Because they're bored.. because the game has changed significantly in the last few years - it's now heavily PvP based whereas that was barely a factor 4 years ago. Because the graphics engine is a good 5 years out of date and performs like crap on a modern gra
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Insightful)
"To make a new MMORPG be massively successful, it's going to take a re-invention of the genre..."
I'd like the see the MMO genre die, single player RPG's have all but been abandoned in an attempt at a cash grab for monthly fee's from MMO's.
The real problem is RPG's can't evolve within an MMO framework since the gameplay is ALWAYS the same in every god damn mmo, it's ALWAYS auto controlled and non-action (twitch/full control ala God of war) based.
That's one of the things I can't stand about MMO's is the focus is on a single character and yet everything is automated out the ying yang and there is barely any skill involved. Not only that, the lag prevents certain kinds of design in terms of action and effects from happening due to latency.
I hope all MMO's start to fade away as players get sick and tired of their monthly fee's. IMHO I've hated the MMO trend since the beginning how gamers can stand to get dinged $15 a month on top of full price for a game is pure insanity.
Parent
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Informative)
Aion will have a couple hundred thousand subscribers if it's lucky, and those will churn out in a few months, the numbers will stabilize somewhere around 80K, and NCsoft will still be scratching their heads wondering why they can't publish a GOOD MMO.
You do realise that the game has been out since November 2008 and has millions of active subscribers in Asia?
Parent
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There are plenty of Asian MMOs that have plenty of players in the Asian market that just can't compete in the West. Oh, and WoW kicks ass for player numbers over there as well as here, but no Asian MMORPG has yet to achieve the same kind of crossover success.
Since The9 and Blizzard became entangled in a web of legal disputes, China doesn't even HAVE official WoW servers anymore. Some chinese have flocked to the Taiwanese servers, but judging by the amount of players chinese Aion has managed to gather all out of nowhere, a lot of them didn't.
Western vs Eastern RPG's - W vs E MMORPGS (Score:5, Insightful)
Aion looks like a solid eastern MMORPG, but nothing compelling enough to dethrone WoW. It's artwork also feels distinctly Eastern, which means it will flop in the West. Lots of people in the West love anime, love Kurosawa, love Chan-wook Park, but they're still a very small minority. The majority of people will not go for something that feels too Eastern, just as Eastern audiences flocked to Lineage but not to western MMOs. Cultural barriers definitely do exist between the East and the West and Aion doesn't look like a MMO that transcends them. It really is extraordinary that WoW has somehow managed to appeal to both the East and West, and I'm not sure even Blizzard knows how they managed it.
So, what's going to dethrone WoW? Slap me silly with a mackerel if I have a clue. Probably WoW2. It's not really a terribly interesting question. What is an interesting question is when we're going to see hugely popular MMO's on the scale of WoW in genres other than fantasy. There are a lot of people out there who love sci-fi and not fantasy, or who love historical settings and not sci-fi or fantasy. These are largely untapped markets. There is probably room for several big MMO's to do well at the same time, provided they target different genres. (another reason why Aion is probably doomed.)
Bioware's KOTOR MMO looks promising. It's sci-fi, which hasn't really been done well in a MMO sense except possibly for Eve Online, but the space-sim market is arguably a different genre from what KOTOR targets. Bioware has a long track record of excellent single player RPG's, but it remains to be seen if they have what it takes to put out a MMO, especially now that they have their own sort of "imperial entanglement" predicament now that they're under EA's umbrella. (You can bet there will be pressure to release early coming from EA, no matter how much Bioware claims they are the master of their own domain!) A lot of single player RPG fans are up in arms over KOTOR being turned into a MMO, since KOTOR's strength was it's compelling stories, which are remarkably hard to do in a MMO that is more about player dynamics. Bioware claims they've found the holy grail of MMO's though, a way to bring single player plots to massive online environments. That's a bold claim, if ever there was one. I wish them luck.
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Regarding SW:TOR. It is a fully realized MMO, not just a RPG. Bioware's first. LucasArts is fully behind the project. The graphics look gorgeous, and they're claiming that it will be "fully voiced". They have a really deep background universe to draw on including the movies, novels and prior games (MMO and RPG and action and FPS and flight sims, etc.) Plus they have probably the (most, second most, top 3 most) rabid group of fans in the sci-fi world, and probably the largest.
If Bioware/LucasArts can p
Re:Aion will Flop (Score:5, Funny)
I'm seeing a paradigm shit here
A paradigm shit? I didn't even know they had anuses, or could even eat or drink for that matter. Do you have a camera? Could you take a picture? Or tell me where it is shitting?
Parent
Unintended consequence? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Article, concerning killing a PKing player (a "slayer"):
6. If you or someone else kills a slayer, 12 nearby players of the dead body will receive buffs.
Is the buff substantial? It sounds like it may be possible for players to use an alternate char to PK deliberately for the purpose of getting themselves killed, to buff their main characters. This might have the unintended consequences.
Re:Unintended consequence? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
This is reverse corniness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is reverse corniness (Score:5, Interesting)
As in many other things relating to computers, Japan already has the lead in sexless, marginally employed men who live with their parents and play on the internet. They call them "herbivores."
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56Q0C220090727?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10522 [reuters.com]
Parent
"Asian Style"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ultima Online isn't (or wasn't, anyways) (Score:3, Informative)
Of course when UO came out, it was raw, untamed, and breaking new ground in gaming. There was a lot more risk involved and a lot less rules enforcing any kind of social behavior; looking back, I miss watching the enforcement of social order by the players and not the
Re:"Asian Style"? (Score:5, Informative)
They usually let you use the keyboard alot too. I dunno what the mouse thing is about.
There really isn't much of a difference between Western and Eastern MMO's IMO. There's the difference in raw ridiculousness of the graphics, and sometimes the quality because if you target China, the shittiest MMO will bring in some players. Sometimes there's a difference in ridiculousness of story and various mechanics, such as Aion's flying vs. WoW's only-walking. I don't know what else is really different between the two. Maybe level of grind is one thing, and wether grinding PvP or PvE is better for equip at endgame.
The biggest difference wouldn't be in the game itself, but in the players, IMO. Chinese players on Aion don't give a fuck about killstealing or anything. Ganking is ubercommon. One time, I was gathering some oysters, and a guy running up to me says stop, so I go to type "Why?" (I was in Asmo territory, in an area where Elyos were common and there was a rift open for them to get there). As I hit enter, I get back to him gathering the last oyster right there, and he sends a message going X-P. That would definitely empitomize the difference in culture when it comes to playing MMO's.
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Subscribtion kills it (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the Guild Wars model is much better: you pay for the game, you play for free. If you decide to stop for a few months, and pick it up later - no problem. If you decide you like the game and want access to more content, you buy the expansion packs.
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What I want to know is (Score:5, Funny)
Try the Asian model for free for first-hand info (Score:4, Insightful)
Most Americans (at least judging by American MMO bloggers' postings) don't really like the concept of MMOs running on RMTs, but if you want a preview of the Asian style of MMO, try Runes of Magic [runesofmagic.com]. You'll notice that most Asian games come with a lot more convenience features than you'd find in e.g. WoW, where basic things turn into a chore. In RoM you have auto-walk, auto-find-NPC, your quest journal's important words are linked directly to an auto-walk path to the monster/person you need to find, there are many methods of instant or fast transport, free player housing from level 1, permanent mount available for purchase from level 1 etc.
If you can for one second swallow your hate of mouse-based walking (there's WASD too, for chrissakes) and RMTs, you'll see that a game doesn't become stupidly easy just because it is convenient to play.
You can find some of that in Perfect World and Jade Dynasty [perfectworld.com] or any of the Aeria games [aeriagames.com] as well, but I wouldn't recommend those. Runes of Magic is very well-adapted to the Western audience. Many other Asian MMOs are endless grindfests, because it seems that people there don't mind grinding to achieve things in a game. Radiant Arcana (as the original Runes of Magic is called in China/Taiwan/Japan/Korea) is a much more grindy game than Runes, since Frogster figured that Western players don't have the patience for a grindfest. I think they may be right.
So before someone writes an article about Eastern vs. Western-style MMOs, they should perhaps look at deeper game design elements rather than just imply "oh wow, mouse control is so you can smoke with your other hand". Also, I think the author of TFA didn't even notice that Aion's Western version had a lot of grind removed and is faster to play than the original. If he thinks the leveling curve is bad here, he should play the Korean one.
Someone get a Taiwanese, a Korean, a Japanese, a British and an American game journalist to work on an article, that way they'd talk to each other and debunk some of the myths :P
Re:Try the Asian model for free for first-hand inf (Score:3, Insightful)
B) I don't like grinding--period. The only time I ever grind in wow is on the very rare chance I am bored and have nothing better to do. My grinding last
West vs Asia? (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore Asia as a whole is not exactly leading the broadband race either. While Japan and Korea are of course very well developed, try making the same comparison with India or other large nations such as Indonesia.
What transition? (Score:4, Informative)
I've played in a couple of these beta events. Far as I've seen, no transition is required. It's the same game.
- Combat: You stand there pushing buttons to activate abilities, same as every other MMO on the planet. Some skills can chain into other skills, but the UI puts the next skill in the chain on the same button as the first skill, so you can really just mash that button and make it work. If you're playing the healing class (Cleric), the number of offensive skills you get is pretty small and they're boring as shit (primary nuke with a 2 second cooldown, yay autoattack?).
- Flight: Flying around is neat. But for some reason, you can't use it in Sanctum (one of the capital cities). You can't use it in the zone immediately after the one where you are first allowed to use it. Flying as a part of combat is mostly... floating stationary so you can cast spells. It probably becomes more important in the Abyss, but from as far as I got it was a gimmick.
- Quests: Kill 10 of these, go collect this, go talk to this guy and report back. Nothing you haven't done in every other game. In the beta there's no particular etiquette regarding gathering, people will run up and try to take nodes that you're already working on. Gathering itself actually uses some weird random system with two bars (pass/fail) dueling that takes far too long and is like watching paint dry. They could have added something interactive here to improve it considerably over WoW, but they didn't.
- Grouping: Remember "LF1M, need healer"? It's back. Only two classes can heal, and only one of those is "the primary healer". That class is incredibly boring if you're not healing, which is great since you can't heal mobs to death in the soloable areas. Is it some kind of design law that healing classes in MMOs must be designed to be mind numbing to play when grinding? There's no option for dual spec like WoW has to turn yourself into a DPSer and make the suck stop.
- Graphics: It looks really nice, if you have the hardware. High end performance is better then WoW, considerably. Low end performance is non existant on a lot of hardware that will play WoW. Which isn't surprising since WoW is optimized at the low end and totally CPU bound at the high end.
I cancelled my pre-order this week. May pick it up in a few months if I'm bored, but right now I'm not bored of WoW, and Aion pretty much plays like the same game.
One word, GameGuard (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameGuard [wikipedia.org]
nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating software
Because of the way that GameGuard hooks into core system DLLs and interrupts[6], it is impossible (without hacking GameGuard and violating the TOS) to run games protected by GameGuard under Windows API Emulators, such as Wine under Unix-based operating systems[7]. The key issue being that GameGuard bypasses the OS safeguards in order to:
* Hide the game application process.
* Monitor the entire memory range.
* Terminate specific applications without the user consent (sometimes tries to disable Kernel hooks).
* Block specific calls to DirectX or the Windows API.
Don't try and compare this to Blizzard's Warden, which no longer scans out of game memory, doesn't kill process as it wishes, doesn't actively block API calls, nor does it imbed its self into your OS only to be removed via a reformat and reinstall.
Re:Gaming is a very personal social activity in As (Score:4, Informative)
their popular culture lends itself to the cartoonish graphical descriptions of games.
Yeah, you'd definitely know this game is Asian based just on the style of all the armor and weapons past about 25. The equip for Templars/Gladiators looks straight out of RFO. Everything else looks totally unnecessary, highly colorful, and actually really cool.
Parent
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Re:sweat shops (Score:5, Informative)
To better answer your question - online games are "gamed" for in-game currency, which is converted into real life currency, by one means or another. There are companies in poor countries that employ dozens or hundreds of people to farm MMO's for ingame currency, to be sold on the black market to wealthy gamers. It is a lucrative business for them, considering that most come from poor countries, and they can pay people a bowl of rice of two for a day's work in front of the computer.
The same guy might be logged into 4, 6, or more online games, and he has a quota of gold, or whatever, to harvest before his shift is over. He never gets to adventure, or explore - he performs rote actions, with the purpose of increasing his bank.
Parent
Re:sweat shops (Score:4, Funny)
he performs rote actions, with the purpose of increasing his bank.
Boy that was just like my year of playing WoW. You mean I could get paid for that?
Parent
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To better answer your question - online games are "gamed" for in-game currency, which is converted into real life currency, by one means or another.
All I can say to that is: demand and supply. In a game where not every raptor drops a raptor head for a quest, what did you expect?
WoW is specifically designed to rob people of their time with all the farming required. The very existence of the term "farming" is telling, too. Now, if some people decide their time is worth more than $5, who are we to judge if they outsource the boring parts?
I think this should be a feature of the game, not a form of cheating. That way they could put a cap on it, while remain
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Asian women look like little girls--with the flat nose bridge.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
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