Bye bye Bless Online

[Gwin-DN]

You may be thinking. What does Bless have to do with AION?
The issue here is not the relationship between these two games and yes what happens to a game when the players is ignored.

Let's take a practical example.

It does not matter if you like transformations. The truth is that a significant number of people do not like it. The NCS should urgently create an option so that when using the transformation your character does not suffer physical changes. This is what happens with various items like Plume, Bracelet and Head, but unfortunately they do not want to do this, so ... We have consequences.

My legion had 30 active players in SIEGE and now we have only 4 people in SIEGE. Why? NCS of course.

Transformations, manastones, enchantment, reset of ranking, banishment of people who use proxy and etc.

About Bless: 

https://blessonline.net/

 

[GenericUser25154]

Aion is not far from that path tbh. Which is sad.

[Shayded-KT]

No surprise here really, predictions before launch was it would fail. To my understanding steam refunded 7,000 plus players the day after it launched. Seems Bless has failed in every region they went to.

[Vantheria-DN]

Bless's major downfall was its awful launch day. There were MULTIPLE problems. Full servers. On one server, it was bugged so you couldn't even talk or use your skills; all you could do was run around. The lag was unbearable. Bless failed due to poor management of the TECHNICAL side of things and the servers, not necessarily poor management of the GAMEPLAY/STORY itself.

[Squid]

Bless had to many major downfalls... Duping killed the game day one and they did not ban/reset the servers it was over at that point. People warned them about the duping method already and they did not fix it. It was in every other region. Imagine having 300,000 tempering solutions in 1 day. This is how much people had and they got to keep them all.

[Aly-DN]

Bless was a great game in theory. The game play and the story were fantastic. I played for months and really enjoyed the game.

Yeah. Those technical issues were a huge problem and they continued to plague the game. They tried to address them and tried to fix things quickly (things like poor translations were fixed within days), but the damage had been done. When that resulted in a hugely reduced playerbase, they had a flawless merge within weeks. (Anyone else remember mergers in Aion taking over a year? lol) The duping and the hacking and blah. When I quit, the staff had just stopped responding and it was obvious at that point that they were going to milk the game for as much cash as possible with as little effort as possible until they just took the servers down.

What I don't see is the connection between Bless and the transformation system. 

If there is any connection between what happened to Bless and where we are in Aion is that lack of communication and effort. Just like what happened with Bless, it seems that NCWest is just not putting in effort on our behalf. Does that mean that Aion is going to go down like Bless did? Maybe. We shall see, right?

[DevilNest-KT]

15 hours ago, Gwin-DN said:

Transformations, manastones, enchantment, reset of ranking, banishment of people who use proxy and etc.

About Bless: 

https://blessonline.net/

 

-Transformtions: yes they suck! and they should add a toggle to hide it or cheaper transparent scrolls in GST. But hey at least SM and SW can't remove my scrolls anymore

- Manastones & enchantment: what is wrong with that? Is in the game since forever and is a core system of like 90% of mmos.

If you mean the enchant rates are bad, well that can be true, but i played games with harder enchanting, so i grind instead of complain, maybe that is why i'm full red +15

-Ranking Reset: i didn't support it, i lost my rank that took me long time to achieve. But a big part of the community was continuosly asking for a reset, so can we really blame NCsoft for that?

-Proxy players: soon is going to be 3 years playing in NA from SA using  different Proxy, WTFast, PingZapper and Mudfish, i never had my account Banned or Locked.

And from what i know innocent players that got problems recently they got their accounts back.

Aion: Time online 10 years and still going.

Bless: Time online 10 months? And dead.

[Aieryn-DN]

1 hour ago, DevilNest-KT said:

-Transformtions: yes they suck! and they should add a toggle to hide it or cheaper transparent scrolls in GST. But hey at least SM and SW can't remove my scrolls anymore

- Manastones & enchantment: what is wrong with that? Is in the game since forever and is a core system of like 90% of mmos.

If you mean the enchant rates are bad, well that can be true, but i played games with harder enchanting, so i grind instead of complain, maybe that is why i'm full red +15

-Ranking Reset: i didn't support it, i lost my rank that took me long time to achieve. But a big part of the community was continuosly asking for a reset, so can we really blame NCsoft for that?

-Proxy players: soon is going to be 3 years playing in NA from SA using  different Proxy, WTFast, PingZapper and Mudfish, i never had my account Banned or Locked.

And from what i know innocent players that got problems recently they got their accounts back.

Aion: Time online 10 years and still going.

Bless: Time online 10 months? And dead.

I too absolutely loathe transformations and refuse to use them unless I'm leveling and need one for a campaign quest, or do group stuff. And when I do I guarantee I'll have a transparency scroll handy to combat their ridiculousness. If I don't, it puts that character on "hold" until I get paid.

As to the rest of your post I agree with you on a great many things. However, though many ppl will tell you it is the PVP but it's not. It was the ability to fly - personal flight that has kept Aion going. That and the incredibly wonderful rich story the game had. Both of which for the moment are gone now so I dunno.

What I do know and have heard is that we are going to have a new flight zone within the new area/map coming with this patch (7.0) so, as the absolute best airealist in the game (I can outfly anybody, lol) I am excited about that. I was a pilot in RL for the Govt. before mechanical failure cut my career short. I was proud of that job too because when I started in late 80's I was one of only 3 females in the entire country that had that job. So even in games that expperience gives me an advantage and not just in Aion. In RO, STO, SWTOR, any game where there is an element of flight in it. Anyhoo, back on track:

I too have played quite a few games where the enchantment rates are worse than Aion. In those games I just forgo it with the exception of my main character. She, I'll take to the limit but my alts, it will at this time cost me way too much as I get real bored real fast with farming when there is no place to explore. Aion used to have much to explore. I never got bored until 6.0, er, now so, again we'll see what this new map brings.

So far I'm still loyal to Aion despite it's current flaws and NCWest's poor management (I've been playing since release). I log in, fly around for an hour or so in the areas you can still do so, then fool around a bit in Lakrum until I get bored or fed up with the Gankfest then I log off. That's not much game time when you consider I used to play pre 6.0 for 10 to 14 hours per day.

So again we'll see what this new patch brings. As for Aion's current woes comparing to Bless? The difference in the two games was like night and day to me. Bless had a good story but it was near impossible to follow due to all the bugs, etc., er, management woes, etc., etc., etc. I quit after only 2 weeks. I did keep an eye on it's news and such. But it just took them way too long to fix what they did and many things they never fixed so, that was it's end for me. Aion I think still has a chance as long as this new patch delivers some new story content and a flight zone for those of us who enjoy such things. So, we'll see. Not holding my breath tho.

 

[Squid]

2 hours ago, DevilNest-KT said:

- Manastones & enchantment: what is wrong with that? Is in the game since forever and is a core system of like 90% of mmos.

Just how much material did you come in to 6.0 with?

[Cheesecake-DN]

In all fairness, Bless failed in all its other markets before it even released in NA.

I never joined the hype train because of that.

[DevilNest-KT]

3 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

Just how much material did you come in to 6.0 with?

Not as much as others, like 40 manastones, 200 legendary stones and 1 ultimate stone.

Anyways enchanting it's ez pz m8 take a look.

 

[Squid]

39 minutes ago, DevilNest-KT said:

Not as much as others, like 40 manastones, 200 legendary stones and 1 ultimate stone.

Anyways enchanting it's ez pz m8 take a look.

 

I guess this is my fault for not deleting the enchanting part. I personally see no issue with enchanting. Enchanting to me only is a big issue because they have no off-peak hours ways to obtain enchant stones effectively in 6.0 compared to all other patches this is a disappointing experience for me on this front. The rates tho IMO are better then they were in 3.0 from my own enchanting experience and just miles ahead of 5.X enchanting(i quit before any power up events and the 100% enchant change came in).

Manastones are only going up in price and that is not due to supply/demand it is due to lack of players farming due to how unrewarding it is. As prices rise it gets worse and worse for anyone who is not still wallowing in riches. The only ones who are effectively being able to currently socket their gear effectively are those with riches and those who are buying kinah from kinah sellers/bcm users. 

As you can see i have ample kinah from previous patches to improve my own character just fine(i am sure i am poor compared to most). Like the OP said people are having issues with manastones and that is getting worse to the increasing price of stones and the ever increasing gear check requirements for instances. How are new players ever going to get in to FM groups let alone IDD/PF groups before they quit playing?

It is about taking an outside perspective and understanding the annoyance of having to effectively farm X amount of kinah before you can even be accepted in the basic of groups. It is not about Easy it is about allowing players to play the game and obtain their goals with-in the game.

 

It makes me wonder if you have actually had a conversation with a new player that has joined since 6.0 at all. 

[DevilNest-KT]

There are plenty of stones lv 40 and 60 to reach the minimum requirements, and wtf with FM? that can be done with empty sockets.

And we have Pandora set now they can do PF with a mix of BoS, FM and pandora gear. Not enough dps? Bring an SM to dispell boss enrage.

[catsu-KT]

2 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

I guess this is my fault for not deleting the enchanting part. I personally see no issue with enchanting. Enchanting to me only is a big issue because they have no off-peak hours ways to obtain enchant stones effectively in 6.0 compared to all other patches this is a disappointing experience for me on this front. The rates tho IMO are better then they were in 3.0 from my own enchanting experience and just miles ahead of 5.X enchanting(i quit before any power up events and the 100% enchant change came in).

Manastones are only going up in price and that is not due to supply/demand it is due to lack of players farming due to how unrewarding it is. As prices rise it gets worse and worse for anyone who is not still wallowing in riches. The only ones who are effectively being able to currently socket their gear effectively are those with riches and those who are buying kinah from kinah sellers/bcm users. 

As you can see i have ample kinah from previous patches to improve my own character just fine(i am sure i am poor compared to most). Like the OP said people are having issues with manastones and that is getting worse to the increasing price of stones and the ever increasing gear check requirements for instances. How are new players ever going to get in to FM groups let alone IDD/PF groups before they quit playing?

It is about taking an outside perspective and understanding the annoyance of having to effectively farm X amount of kinah before you can even be accepted in the basic of groups. It is not about Easy it is about allowing players to play the game and obtain their goals with-in the game.

 

It makes me wonder if you have actually had a conversation with a new player that has joined since 6.0 at all. 

Getting a guild is an option, running FM/bos w/ geared people is also an option, playing better mmos is also an option. There's nothing to look foward to pve wise, FM has more interesting mechanics than IDD and PF(kill yellow guy every now and then, have gladi lure reaper and macro the wizzard&perma click it while staying glued against eachother, very hard and interesting, always a joy to rush them all by friday and only log for luna). Senekta might be interesting but I haven't been there yet, altho it looks like a fancy version of BOS. Open world farming is indeed tragic unless there's some event which gives drop baff, otherwise I see no point in bothering to go out there and farm, might as well make 24 luna alts and alt tab them daily for kinah bundles, much higher ROI.


Very few people were perma banned because of proxy, if you can't maintain 5star+ after rank reset it means you are garbage and didn't deserve it to begin w/, you can't play for years, still be bad and feel entitled about ranks(remove guard farming tho, need me my commanders and governor;<). Enchant rates are fine, supply of stones is not. Since you can clearly see devs.


Some of you forget mmos are mostly about grinding, aion's problem is the fact grinding is not rewarding, even if it'd be rewarding you'd see the same complaints, as it happened w/ shugo event, I wonder why

[Gwin-DN]

I'm not going to comment every answer because I realize we're not going to leave the place. Many are speaking for passion and many have the focus only on themselves.

If a person finds a way, everything that happens to others is irrelevant, but in terms of business this does not work that way. If one road is smooth and the other is difficult the community will be divided. My post tells you about it and it happened in the game. For this reason version 6.0 did the reverse of balance, creating Gods and flies.

The same happens with the ranking. The reset was good for those who could not climb and was bad for those who lost their post. Two weights, two measures.

After I said that, you need to understand something deeper.
Regardless of the side you are on, every change needs to be carefully considered. What happened to the AION poll? All decisions are no have checking by the majority.

AION is a business and if NCS makes decisions arbitrarily and does not please a significant group of customers ... There are consequences. 

That is exactly what is happening. So I agree that AION is a good game, but management is making a lot of mistakes.

You need to understand that AION has never been the TOP game financially speaking. The AION near the WOW is a grain of sand near a soccer ball. In the last quarter, AION earned 12 million while mobile games made more than 250 million. So do not waste time arguing with me, focus on reality, on problems. Fight for the problems to be resolved or in some time there will be no more AION.

Understand it. What keeps AION alive is the recipe. Decisions like this ... waiting 12 hours to process a purchase is a mistake. If any item sold in a MOBILE game take 12 hours to be delivered the MOBILE game will also go bankrupt.

It does not matter if you like what the NCS does. The truth is that these changes do not please many people/customers. Unsatisfied customer equals END GAME.

Answering is not going to change math, it will not bring players back. The only chance for NCS to change AION is by listening to the client. Do what the customer is asking for. Changing the workings of transformations is an example of this.

[Bradswa-DN]

I totally agree with you on this Gwin-DN, me being a returning player do not like some the changes NCsoft made to Aion.  Instead of NCsoft pleasing a small percentage they need to see why people are leaving and work on ways to get them back.  They had 10 years to establish their base but they refused to do this and started changing their gaming mechanics which included introducing stuff people generally do not want.  I think transformations, is silly, and as a returning player feel let down because my gear I worked hard to get now 2.5 years before is now useless. Instead of making advancements to your gear to progress, your forced to get newer gear with lesser stats?  They say it is more balanced, I don't know about that but its like a slap in the face.  Cutting down maps, also makes me believe NCsoft is trying to downsize the game. Getting rid of beloved zones doesn't make sense unless they are trying to cut costs on servers.

I do not like comparing games but all zones in Everquest are still up and nothing was cut out.  SOE listened to their base players on Everquest and worked on ways to keep them which is why, 18 years later I still play it. I figured Everquest would be closed long ago but it has been going strong 20 some years. I could care less for graphics I care about immersion, the mechanics that made me love the game which is why I stayed with Everquest this long. I am slowly losing love for Aion.  I come back to Aion to find out its a different game.  I can level from 1-80 in just 14 hours wtf? The abyse is gone, fun quests are gone to. PvP is fun, but too much of that becomes boring.  Transformations makes no sense, I am not sure what goals NCsoft are trying to pursue but hopefully this is not a sign of EndGame. 

[Cheesecake-DN]

6.0 was when Aion went f2p in Korea, and it looks like they were trying to draw in new players by making the game more like a mobile game than a proper MMO, hence nuking entire parts of the game.

[Sinue-DN]

Not to jump on that bandwagon, but I decided to do a little bit of digging and, well, I highly, highly doubt NCWest is going to us. I mean, one of the more interesting things I found out was that the ceo of ncwest doesn't even like playing video games. If she doesn't play, then we cannot expect for her to have reasonable understanding of how the western market works. Taking that into consideration and looking at the state of Aion, it sorta makes sense. Apparently, whatever Korea hands to them, they take and whatever small changes they do allow further reflects on their ignorance on what the players here want.

To top it off, because NCWest is so deeply tied to NCSoft (The wife is ceo of West, & the husband ceo over in Korea) the standard protocol in place is that if ncwest wants to make any changes to their region, they have to first get approval from Korea to do so. Not surprisingly, Korea is in no rush to answer to the needs of the West because we are not as profitable as their mainland. It also explains why EU and NA are so vastly different. EU has the balls to take incentives to cater to their specific regions needs, and while it is not perfect, it does show that Gameforge are more willing to step out of the box to keep their region reasonable happy. Unlike NA, where we can @Cyan everyday with our suggestions and he takes them and passes them along, but little gets done.

I mean, all of this info, again, was found online spread through out various websites, forums, etc. I don't expect all the information I read to be 100% accurate, but just sitting and reading through all if it compounded with all the issues that are clearly stated here on the forums time and time again, it does make you question.

So unless NCWest grows a pair, renegades against the established procedure, and starts implementing the changes we have suggested that are more western friendly...The path will inevitably lead right to where CoH and Wildstar ended up.

[Lapis-DN]

22 hours ago, DevilNest-KT said:

There are plenty of stones lv 40 and 60 to reach the minimum requirements, and wtf with FM? that can be done with empty sockets.

And we have Pandora set now they can do PF with a mix of BoS, FM and pandora gear. Not enough dps? Bring an SM to dispell boss enrage.

 

wich Buff a SM can dispel from frigida?
our group can do it with the initial time, we have enough dps, but I just want to know maybe to bring alts to our group hehe

[Gwin-DN]

This video is about a story that should be learned by many companies that develop an MMO. Here we have an apology from a company that understood the importance of the customer and the result was a success. I recommend watching. 

 

[Sinue-DN]

YOSHI-P !!!
He really did a lot for FFXIV, brought it back from the brink. The seasonal events are fun, the way you can do costumes is a little finicky because of the spaghetti code it is build on, but it's still good. Bards can actually play music and do little bands in the major cities, people are friendly and helpful. Game is pretty easy and it keeps the casuals happy, but with their Hard and Extreme content also cater to their hard core players.
Then there is this:

Way more people wanted to give Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn a shot than Square Enix anticipated. After the disastrous launch way back in 2010, FF14:ARR's new director/producer Naoki Yoshida - known to fans as Yoshi-P - said he assumed many Western gamers would let others test the waters first instead of flooding into servers on day one. He was humbled at the response, as he said when I got to speak with him through a translator at PAX Prime 2013. It must be frustrating to have to go through a shaky launch yet again, especially since the buzz from the beta was so strong, but Yoshida still finds himself doing damage control.

"I want to start off by thanking Western fans for keeping an open mind this whole time," Yoshida said. "We had a rocky launch [in 2010] and we lost a lot of trust. Thank you for giving us a second chance, for that we really thank you."

He's humble. He came on board, admitted their mistake and did what they could to rectify it.
And we love him for it.

But that's Square-Enix. This is NCWest. Square was established back in '86. Enix since '75. NCSoft? 1998
Square-Enix has the history and experience in knowing HOW their respective markets work because they have been at this now on a global scale for a much longer period than NCSoft, (who established NCWest 2001). Not to mention FFXIV is a pay monthly title with their own cash shop for various items, costumes and such. Like if you missed a previous year event items, they release them out for everyone in the cash shop the following year. You can buy emotes for anywhere between $3 - $7, account wide mounts for $24 and costumes range from $7 - $12, on top of paying $15 monthly.

Can't compare apples and oranges.
 

[Squid]

6 hours ago, 2s1638B2-DN said:

"I want to start off by thanking Western fans for keeping an open mind this whole time," Yoshida said. "We had a rocky launch [in 2010] and we lost a lot of trust. Thank you for giving us a second chance, for that we really thank you."
 

This to me makes me not understand why publishers/developers can not understand the western needs. Many say it is subscription based games others say it is amazing PvE games but really all they need to do is a bit of fan service. Make the players feel like they mean something other then a $ sign.

BDO in the 3 years? Probably closer to 4 years now i forget has made great strides improving their game for new/existing/hardcore players but their biggest improvement is the communication with the community. 

[Aly-DN]

5 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

This to me makes me not understand why publishers/developers can not understand the western needs. Many say it is subscription based games others say it is amazing PvE games but really all they need to do is a bit of fan service. Make the players feel like they mean something other then a $ sign.

BDO in the 3 years? Probably closer to 4 years now i forget has made great strides improving their game for new/existing/hardcore players but their biggest improvement is the communication with the community. 

I played the beta and then the launch of FFXIV. I wanted to like that game so much, but it was a mess. Plain and simple. I again played after the Reborn launch and, yes. They had listened to their players.

Apparently (according to you as I have only ever played BDO casually) so have the devs of BDO.

And that is what we lack here. We make suggestions here on the forums. Cyan has stated that he has passed those one. Somewhere from the time our suggestions leave Cyan's hands the communication breaks down. Add to that that Korea doesn't seem to care what a Western audience wants and you have a perfect recipe for frustration and anger.

[Sinue-DN]

1 hour ago, Aly-DN said:

I played the beta and then the launch of FFXIV. I wanted to like that game so much, but it was a mess. Plain and simple. I again played after the Reborn launch and, yes. They had listened to their players.

Apparently (according to you as I have only ever played BDO casually) so have the devs of BDO.

And that is what we lack here. We make suggestions here on the forums. Cyan has stated that he has passed those one. Somewhere from the time our suggestions leave Cyan's hands the communication breaks down. Add to that that Korea doesn't seem to care what a Western audience wants and you have a perfect recipe for frustration and anger.

Yea, NCWest is supposed to be publishing the games NCSoft makes for the western market, but it turns out NCWest doesn't have the ability to really ACT as a publisher when all changes they want to make HAVE to go through NCSoft first for approval, and like you stated, Korea doesn't have much interest in keeping their western markets happy. It does lead to a lot of frustration on our part, as well as those on the back end I can imagine that really actually do care and are fighting the good fight only to be stonewalled time and time again. If NCWest can't act as a publisher in their respective market, perhaps they should..ya know...Pass us along to someone that does, since communicating with them is like talking to a wall; actually, never mind, that's an insult to walls.
Though I really don't know who, every publisher has their downsides, but we do need to somehow get the attention of NCSoft so they in turn can pay attention to what NCWest is trying to tell them.

[Aieryn-DN]

15 hours ago, 2s1638B2-DN said:

Though I really don't know who, every publisher has their downsides, but we do need to somehow get the attention of NCSoft so they in turn can pay attention to what NCWest is trying to tell them.

While I hope your right and NCWest does come around, but I doubt it. 

Bottom line:

Ppl ie: gamers in Korea like their characters transforming into little silly plushies riding stupid mounts like chickens or ducks. Gamers in Korea like most of the changes made to Aion with 6x. So even though most of us here in the west and in Europe I might add, absolutely loathe the transformation system or those other changes and the butchery that happened to the storyline of Aion we're stuck with it because as so many have pointed out, yourself and myself included, Korea doesn't care about us, or what we prefer in Aion, period.

NCWest is the proverbial "Paper Tiger" when it comes to this.

In fact, I don't believe for even one minute there is a communication breakdown between Cyan and those who make decisions for the game. Cyan has always been honest with us here on the forums (as far as I can tell and I've followed them for a while now). Its the fact that those who make decisions for Aion flat out just don't care what we think here or in Europe. They only care about what ppl think in Korea, period.

So there you have it. Nuff said.