by Jeff Woleslagle on Jul 13, 2009
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Discussions about Aion's endgame are filling up MMO forums around the Internet. Is Aion luring co-op PvE players into an essentially PvP endgame with a serene soloing level-up experience? While Chinese version players are saying one thing, we're still taking NCSoft at their word. Today's newsletter separates facts from rumors and tells you why co-op PvEers have nothing to worry about (yet) with Loading... Aion and Aztecs!
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You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft Aion (down 1) Age of Conan EverQuest 2 EVE Online (UP 1)Biggest Movers today :
Jumpgate Evolution (UP 9 to #19) Torchlight (UP 4 to #13) Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (UP 2 to #6) Recent MMO Releases 6/24 - Age of Conan Update 5: Gangs of Tarantia 6/25 - WAR "Land of the Dead" 6/30 - City of Heroes Issue 15: Anniversary 6/30 - Lord of the Rings Online Book 8 7/7 - Darkfall Player Housing Expansion 7/13 - Darkfall NA launchImportant Dates
7/13 - Mortal Online Preorders On Sale 7/17 - 7/19- Aion Beta Weekend 7/23 - 7/26 - San Diego Comic Con '09 Upcoming Releases Late July - FFXI "Moogle Kupo d'Etat" Addon (release date) 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) Early 2010 - APBI think most of us have had the experience I'm about to describe, if not in an MMOG than in some other kind of computer game. Let's change it up and use Civilization, just about everyone has played Civ. Here you are, happily building your little enlightened empire of peace and prosperity, you've foregone military expenditures for thousands of years to build wonders and centers of academic, cultural, and commercial excellence. It all comes to a screeching halt right around 1302 A.D. when Montezuma declares war on you. No visible buildup, no warning. You were simply easy pickens and the Aztecs noticed. Rather than see your empire swiftly reduced to rubble by Monty's super stacks of elephants and catapults, you might do what I do: realize the irreconcilable error of my ways. And quit.
That's just an example, but it probably encapsulates the fear among Aion PvEers that, at early and mid-levels, they're happily playing your friendly co-op PvE style of game only to find that in the endgame, they're really playing someone else's PvP game. It's been fueled by rumors on our boards and other forums, by gamers supposedly deeply in touch with the Chinese English version of the game strongly suggesting that Aion rapidly devolves into a PvP gankfest . While in an MMO you don't suffer the humiliation of watching your glorious cities fall into Aztec hands and can respawn relatively unscathed but nonetheless a little poorer (thanks to the soul healer), having zero skill or desire to go PvP in a PvP game is crippling enough.
At Ten Ton Hammer, we've been careful to comment only on what we can see of the NA / European version of the game. If you're playing the Chinese version of the game, keep in mind that you're getting the Chinese version of the game. As for what we've seen of the beta, there's no reason yet not to take NCSoft North America Producer Brian Knox at his word (from a Ten Ton Hammer vooncast on May 13th):
Brian: As far as end game content goes, we don’t want to force players down a certain route in our game. You’ll be receiving benefits and rewards from PvP and PvE that are pretty much the same. By doing that, we allow players to transfer back and forth a little bit easier between the two playstyles. Aion’s the type of game where, if you don’t want to participate in PvP, you don’t have to. But you very well can and enjoy capturing fortresses and pwning people as well.
It's been stated plainly enough often enough that NCSoft's localization efforts go well beyond translation. In any case, we're putting together a Q&A for NCSoft that will hopefully get at the heart of the matter.
For now, let's just say that a game should always gradually prepare and familiarize its players for the endgame, whatever that endgame might be. Classic World of Warcraft was brilliant in that it had group instances familiarizing players with group play at level 10 (arguably level five, before everything got much faster and easier). It prepared players for raiding by degrees. It was a smart design choice that went by the wayside as everything got much faster and easier, and now WoW is by all accounts really two games, the level-up solo game and the level-cap raiding game.
As for PvP, you might hate the gray ganking and the hardcore PvP of games like Darkfall and, to a lesser extent, EVE Online, but these games are pretty honest about the player-induced dangers you face right from the get-go, before your time played eclipses the number of credit-hours you've sunk into your bachelor's degree. Let's hope Aion is equally honest about what kind of game it becomes, and I personally hope I'm playing one game, not two, come September.
Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, or as always feel free to email me.
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-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team