Response to Producer's Letter

[Calista-DN]

9 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

FF14 got carried by its name till it became popular. The early content for the game was stinking hot garbage. Lets also not forget it originally failed on its first launch. There is no doubt they are making great content today but the reality is the game got carried. Much like ESO. If you play ESO you will realize the game runs very smilar to how bless online did yet despite this players put up with ESO but did not with bless why? Name. People who love ESO want to be in a living breathing ESO world and they do not care how it performs.

That is all that is relevant. 

Whereas the reverse is true of Aion, and the size of the game populations reflects that.

Even on the level of game performance- Aion definitely isn't better than Eso for many people, especially if PVP is considered.

.

 

[Squid]

3 hours ago, Calista-DN said:

That is all that is relevant. 

Whereas the reverse is true of Aion, and the size of the game populations reflects that.

Even on the level of game performance- Aion definitely isn't better than Eso for many people, especially if PVP is considered.

You wont find any argument from me. I been saying this for years. Once the general population get event burn out or the developer with-holds resources availability to sell it at dumb AF price later down the line in a flash sale the PvP for that game is screwed and will only decline. Aion is a prime example of such an issue occurring.

[Lapis-DN]

On 24/09/2020 at 8:36 PM, Calista-DN said:

Somewhat incorrect - FFXIV has a massive amount of content- up to the Stormblood expansion - that is free. That means up to level 60 - cap is 80.

Once you decide to pay, then you can get an incredible amount of content. If you optionally want to buy a  vanity item - let's say a mount (multiple permanent ones are easily available  in-game)- well look- it's reasonably priced, permanent- AND available to all "jobs" - where a job is a class - and you can easily play multiple classes on one character.

the "free content" you get is something pretty new, not even a month old. Also it is super limited, you cannot have friends, party and enter most dungeons if you're a total f2p player

On 25/09/2020 at 2:22 AM, HealingSquid-KT said:

FF14 got carried by its name till it became popular. The early content for the game was stinking hot garbage. Lets also not forget it originally failed on its first launch. There is no doubt they are making great content today but the reality is the game got carried. Much like ESO. If you play ESO you will realize the game runs very smilar to how bless online did yet despite this players put up with ESO but did not with bless why? Name. People who love ESO want to be in a living breathing ESO world and they do not care how it performs.

the game launch was a bomb indeed, but they managed to overcome this mess. something that NCsoft is trying with Aion since 4.x and never managed to

oh, and Aion has a name too if its the case

[Squid]

19 minutes ago, Lapis-DN said:

the game launch was a bomb indeed, but they managed to overcome this mess. something that NCsoft is trying with Aion since 4.x and never managed to

oh, and Aion has a name too if its the case

Aion does not have a name. Let me look on my playstation 1 and see if i can see Aion? Nope. How about my nintendo? Nope not there either.

You look where you can find ESO games that is what a name is. The followers of the elder scrolls was already in the high millions if not 100s of millions before the MMORPG ever came out.

Aion had a product that worked especially 4.0 pre-EB where all the content was relevant to a greater portion of the player base. They took that and tried to squeeze more $'s out of it than they could and now they are left with a carcass. You can see when they ran out of idea's for Aion because they had no other source of lore to get inspiration from. When ORB and so on were added and they kept recycling content from then on you see the decline in care for lore/living breathing world content. This was never the case for ESO because they got probably 20+ years of lore to pick from for their next set of content. It only got better and better from that regards because they could add the stuff people have always theory crafted about for years.

That is the difference between Aion and ESO in terms of names. Aion was nothing before its MMORPG while elder scrolls was already a world loved by millions.

 

I do want to say tho ESO impressed me with its plan to tackle the performance issues pre-covid. While i am sure that got put on the back burner for a bit i do plan on checking out ESO after they do the performance fixes.

[Jagblade-DN]

I'm a little late to the punch on this one, but for a "10,000 foot view of things to come" this sure fell flat. They haven't told us about anything to come or anything about their vision for this game going forward which is supposedly what this letter was supposed to actually be about? What they did was spend 2-3 paragraphs telling us how they weren't going to implement the legal botting system and how transformations transformations transformations more transformations guys! One event we already knew was coming and one that pretty irrelevant to the western market.

The feedback the community has actually given as a whole was only mentioned in passing but with no real context or substance. Again, not a peep was mentioned in regards to their "vision" or what sort of changes might be coming based on feedback. This to me smells of them just trying to placate the the player base. That may be rude and pessimistic but they have a long way to go to earn back any trust from me personally. They can talk all they want about wanting to focus on what an MMO should be (not a solo game) in the west but they sure as nyerk didn't have a problem with sprinting in the opposite direction since 5.0 and onward despite the mass exodus of players and loud feedback. They butchered this game and happily to boot. Makes me think of Smedley and SOE in how they treated Star Wars Galaxies. It's virtually the same.

I hope we receive more in depth info, communication, and maybe a Q&A event in the future if they're feeling nice. Until then though I'm not holding my breath.

[Ulti-DN]

They don't know their own product, they don't know the game and the way it works. You can't properly manage something you know nothing about, simple as that. They could be well intended but that's not enough 

[Squid]

On 10/3/2020 at 9:53 AM, Ulti-DN said:

They don't know their own product, they don't know the game and the way it works. You can't properly manage something you know nothing about, simple as that. They could be well intended but that's not enough 

What is their product? There is 2 main answers to that.

1. Developer/publisher -  A live service to print $'s continuously from.
2. Consumer - Pretty self explanatory.

It really is nothing more and nothing less than that. However I always do enjoy expanding .

• Aion - Controlled by developers and all developers want is money. Result - Only the most dedicated or addicted people stick around and consume the product.
• WoW - Controlled by Consumers and they want a quality product. Their community can collectively group up together and become one loud voice. WoW classic solidified the consumer control due it being the most money WoW has ever made in its history of releasing the game. Result - Mob mentality prevails and makes their players feel like their voice is being heard.
• Among Us - A third answer of sorts Influencer controlled and they want content. Would of never gotten big if internet influencers were not playing it. Result: A fast peak of players/sales in your game that will drop off the instant influencers stop promoting your product. Below is the among us steam chart just for reference on how good influence power is in the gaming world these days. That being said influencers are also consumers but they are consumers with power.

It comes down to Aion lacks any consumer power. It will not get any better because Aion has no one who can influence the developers with the only thing they care about, $'s since they hold the power of the product. No spending player has enough power alone and considering many of these spending players got their social status through spending they will not jeopardize that just to improve the product for the masses. This means as a collective even the spending players have 0 power over Aion's development.

 

All in all they know their product very well and they know it is developer controlled and not consumer controlled. In turn this means their consumers will continue to consume their cash shop out due to the ever growing shadow of doom which would be Aion's shut down.

[Nalariel]

Sorry but what's numbers above ? Numbers of Aion players ? It's hard to believed NA (2 servers) even + from EU will have that much of players 400k (Maybe if you included China  version then it might possible).

But if above true then it's no reason to develop this game seriously anymore.I mean you don't have to work on new skins you just add new transform maybe SS version of ultimate transform to make people pay more hell you can even make SS transform 100% cast speed without cap reuse old maps that got deleted or even reintroduce abyss.Or super ultimate stigma skills that can unlock at enchantment +20 ? New players ? Nah I don't think they will care about that anymore.They will even sell items that open a rift to sanctum from panda if they want.Common people logics don't apply to whale logics.

I doubt if whales are playing for fun,maybe they paying for godly status in game to make people worshipping them.

I believed Aion 8.0 they will reuse old maps + new tier of transform and some RNG skills + recolored or golden version of old gears with new stats.
Maybe they will even improve their bot system even more by making you auto quests everything.

I believed at this point there's no way to fix Aion,it's just easier to start a new project.

[Squid]

19 minutes ago, Nalariel-KT said:

Sorry but what's numbers above ? Numbers of Aion player?

Ohh rip it deleted a paragraph before i posted :(. It is steam charts on Among Us.

[Nalariel]

Oh sorry I reread your original post and I didn't noticed you mentioned the chart was for Among Us sorry

I guess we all cared for Aion not other games

Well if you don't mind I would like to mention about master server because it's the reason people keep saying it's why NCsoft gave up on classic aion idea.
I used information from this page https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/Master_Server
It's not exactly classic but rather a 4.x aion that limited certain features and adding some to emulating classic.

The failure of master server led me to believed pure pvp games are not the answer not even in delicate pvp gamers like Korea.
But I also don't believed in a completely safe zones either it making games like a daily routine where everything is boring.

So why pvp in 4.x successful and 1.9(master server that try to emulate) failed ?
I believed because the size of katalam/danaria and many routes and many camps to escape if someone forming a gang to hunt you.
It's almost impossible to create a group and camp people in those zones,you can escape the hot zone and do other camps your opponents can't trace you down because the map is huge and there's danaria too.

Why pvp in low level zones failed ? Because you can't escape if someone blocked your path you just need to do the quest to level you can't avoid this. Infact I think it would be fine too if theo became pvp zone with increased exp rewards as long as it offering leveling from 20-50 same as etlen/herion so gangers can't camp you.(same idea as katalam/danaria).

PVP making people actually learning how to survive and kill things faster it's ok we have partial safe zones in a map but I think the game failing bad when you forced people into events or farming instances all time.

Elten/Herion/Theo can be successful too if they have a safe zone in camps or certain area and at least have 2 spots for your level to quest that's distant from each other and there're a gate/guards between it and instead giving only exp you can giving something valuable like coins/token for both zones.

I don't like an idea that we can completely need to depend on healers without using pots. Sure having healers is nice but they should have long cd for heal. 

I don't think they going to bring anything from pre 6.0 era back, your logic doesn't apply to their logics no matter what reason is it's their IP their invest if they wanna close Aion tomorrow without compensates anything they can and they won't feel guilty about it and believe or not when they start a new IP everyone will hype and jump on it and nobody will remember Aion 

[Squid]

42 minutes ago, Nalariel-KT said:

I don't think they going to bring anything from pre 6.0 era back, your logic doesn't apply to their logics no matter what reason is it's their IP their invest if they wanna close Aion tomorrow without compensates anything they can and they won't feel guilty about it and believe or not when they start a new IP everyone will hype and jump on it and nobody will remember Aion 

This is pretty well exactly what i am getting at. Aion unlike WoW and unlike Among us is developer controlled. The consumer has no power in what happens to the product. While both WoW and Among us have backers that can influence the decisions the developers make to keep the game running.