Aion Open Beta Starts September 6th 147
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by
Soulskill
from the gives-you-wings dept.
from the gives-you-wings dept.
NCSoft announced today that the open beta for upcoming fantasy MMO Aion will begin on September 6th, extending through to the 13th. The client is available now. The game launches on September 22nd in the US, with a two-day head-start given to players who pre-order. NCSoft has also said they'll be showing off Aion in more detail at the Penny Arcade Expo, expanding on the information they provided at Gamescom (video).
Gameplay beyond level 20: Unfair ganking. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a RvR game. To avoid the problems with PoTBS:
Don't join AION, if you can't handle ganking. Ganking in Darkfall could be much more fair than in AION, the "resistences" of a high level may make imposible to kill a players that is a few levels higher than you.
Played the Closed Beta (Score:2, Interesting)
I played the closed beta. It's not terribly impressive. People have been excited about the graphics, but they're kind of outdated... maybe top of the line stuff for 2004 or so. There are a few impressive areas in the game, though.
Gameplay and questing is not terribly fun. If you've ever done a Kill 30 Wasps or Gather 10 Herbs quest, you've done them all, and AION has a lot of this kind of stuff. I guess there's a story or whatever to read, and IIRC some quests have different options, but by and large I was completely bored while leveling up my character.
While I would like someone to knock WoW off its high horse (because the game really isn't designed as well as they think it is), I doubt AION is going to be it.
Re:Rootkits for everyone! (Score:1, Interesting)
Aion 1.5 (the version that will be in the open beta and used for release) does not have GameGuard. Unless they decide to put it back in before release, that is.
Re:Who cares? (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah, pretty much. I wasn't impressed and cancelled my order. Blizzard doesn't have much to worry about here. It gets really good when you get into the forced PvP part. Once people learned that, every single person in my WoW guild who had been interested decided not to bother.
It seems that being ganked isn't exactly a feature people look for in games.
It does get really good when you get into the forced PvP part, none of that casual carebear blueshield / pveonly server bullshit in this game. I was impressed, kept my Aion preorder and cancelled my WOW subscription. Different strokes for different folks.
Re:Gameplay beyond level 20: Unfair ganking. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was really looking forward to this until I read impressions from people playing on Korean servers that say ganking is almost out of control and the recent penalties have done little to stop it.
Re:$50 + Pay 2 Play = No thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, I was really excited about Aion, but all that excitement vanished once I learnt from the official web site the game cost $50 PLUS monthly fees. Sorry, nowadays I just don't spend that much time gaming to justify paying monthly fees, no matter how awesome the game is (otherwise I'd be another WoW addict).
If you look at it in terms of entertainment per hour per dollar spent, MMORPGs are actually quite cheap. Let's say you play WoW quite casually -- you occasionally hop on for just a little bit during the weekdays and then put in a few solid hours on the weekend. Maybe 5 hours per week, total. The Battle Chest (original + BC expansion) will cost you $40, then $13 per month. You don't need the WotLK expansion right away; if you're only playing a few hours a week, the original + BC will last you for quite a while. After six months, that'll be a total of about $118 for 120 hours of entertainment, so less than a dollar per hour.
Compare that to going to see a movie, where you can expect to spend $8 - $10 for maybe an hour and a half or two hours of entertainment. Also compare it to buying non-online games, where a new game will cost you maybe $50 and last for maybe 20 hours (it varies, of course, since different games have wildly different lengths -- that's a rough estimate). You could also compare it to spending an evening barhopping, and going anywhere good will cost you way more per hour than that...
So, MMORPGs with a monthly fee are really a pretty cheap form of entertainment compared to many alternatives. The best part, though, is that the presence of a monthly fee keeps away kids who can't convince their parents to pay for their subscriptions! It doesn't keep all the kids away, of course, but it definitely makes a difference. Heck, I'd be willing to pay $20 a month for a WoW-quality game that only allowed you to play if you were over 21 and had a full-time job...
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure pvp isn't for everyone, if you want protection travel in small groups. These games aren't designed for solo play.
Re:Rootkits for everyone! (Score:4, Interesting)
Best/easiest way to disable gameguard? Load it on 64 bit windows. Patchguard won't let it patch the kernel, so while it loads - it can't do anything against cheating. So if you are a hacker or botter - get Windows X64 and have at it.
No doubt about it - it is a rootkit. On 32 bit machine I've watched it read window titles, intercept I/O - stuff like that. One of the ways around gameguard on 32 bit machine is to build a rootkit that sits below it.