AION Revisited: Population Balance

When Aion first launched, I predicted that Asmodians would attract power gamers and pre-established clans, and Elyos would attract a larger population but larger number of casual gamers. Whether or not that prediction was accurate, one year into the game it is clear that Asmodians have lost a much larger amount of their original population. The ramifications of this loss are colossal for the remaining players.

Earning PvP items takes a great deal of time because they are purchased with Abyss Points earned from fort sieges, killing players of the opposite faction and killing NPC monsters in the Abyss. With the Elyos holding a serious and consistent advantage in both numbers and the quality of their PvP gear, they are free to hunt in the Abyss at all times, amassing points and widening their lead. Those few Asmodians remaining on the merged Zikel server do not venture there due to the overwhelming presence of Elyos and this puts them at a severe disadvantage.

In the new zones, the Elyos have already conquered their two forts from the Balaur, which enables them free passage into the Asmodian zones, where even small groups are able to cause great disturbances. In the early days of the game, the Asmodian population was dense enough to immediately muster forces and push back any advances made by the enemy. These surprise attacks and counter attacks provided great enjoyment and added an unpredictable aspect to the experience grind. On the new merged Zikel, however, the population is so horrendously imbalanced that I almost never see any other Asmodians hunting and harvesting in our own lands. This makes it impossible to survive, as I am constantly encountering and being killed by Elyos players roaming in the Asmodian zone to hunt and torment us.

It's really a shame - the new areas and content added in Assault on Balaurea are fantastic, and the game would be terrific fun if the population were only balanced. During the times that the Elyos were barred from our zone (thanks to the NPC faction conquering one of the Elyos frontier forts) I had a fantastic time exploring our area and completing quests. Though frustrating, I did enjoy my return to Aion, if only to see how they expanded the content before my final exit.

AION Revisited - Goal Status

Here are the unfinished goals I had in January when I quit Aion:

• Done! Acquire 2,000 coins and purchase Shadetouched Staff
• Done! Reach 449 Handicrafting Skill
• Done! Obtain Fenris Shoulders
• Done! Complete Advanced Stigma Quest

Here are some more advanced goals I might be able to achieve before I permanently retire:

• Done! Reach level 55
• Failed Twice! Obtain Fenris Pants
• Failed! Obtain Fenris Chest
• Failed! Obtain Fenris Weapon
• Failed! Collect Anuheart Chanter Armor Set
• Failed! Reach 549 Handicrafting Skill
• Failed! Become Alchemy Master

Aion Revisited - Launch of Assault on Balaurea

The new content has launched quicker than I expected, so I am dealing with frustrating patching errors that are keeping me from accessing the game. I am excited to explore again, and have been sorely missing having an MMO time sink, but I am sad that I was not able to polish off any of my goals before the new content released. They’ll have to take the backseat while I level up and explore the new areas and lore!

The new character selection screen looks awesome, but the art has always been the greatest feature of the game so I am hardly surprised. I’m really looking forward to digging into the new Asmodian zone, since I was only able to play as Elyos at PAX. After many attempts, I've finally managed to finish patching and I am ready to explore. The new Asmodian zone looks like the Elyos zone - since they are both part of the same area, Balaurea, there is no longer a large disparity in the vitality and beauty of the terrain. The new zone is really nice looking, and so are the NPCs - the old models look a lot more defined, and the new models are nice. Lots of different types of critters, and even some decaying statues that remind me of the Weeping Angles from Doctor Who.

My first reactions are positive. There are lots of quests to be had, even a good selection of repeatable quests with a low threshold - only 10 or 20 repetitions for an extra reward. The experience offered for the quests is good, and the money is excellent for many of them. The new coin quest is quick and convenient to repeat and offers affordable armor options. I'm looking forward to exploring the new zone in greater depth in the coming weeks. I also bought a vanity pet because the "white dag" looks just like my own puppy, Oliver. Now I have a cute little digital pup to accompany me on my trip through Balaurea.


A lot has changed since I quit but the general game mechanics are the same so I haven't had any problems playing my own character. In the months my account was inactive, the dozen or so servers were condensed and Azphel became a part of the combined Zikel. This is unfortunate as the combined servers all had active, high powered Elyos guilds who dominate the PvP on the new combined server. The Asmodians are outgeared, outnumbered, and severely disorganized. It's a completely uneven political situation that makes the game much less fun to play. The Asmodian players I've met thus far are poor players, too lazy to do any of the fights properly even though they are relatively simple. I expected mostly serious players to be left at this point, but it's still a lot of unskilled people. This is especially painful for me, since support classes are largely at the mercy of their group's capabilities. I definitely miss my friends, and our smooth groups. I joined a legion of Azphel players and had high hopes that they might be skilled enough to run painless dungeons and small scale PvP encounters, but my experiences thus far do not leave me with much hope. I'm enjoying the solo play, though, so I will be able to get my Chanter to 55 without much effort. I'm looking forward to finishing up the expansion lore and then calling it quits in a more conclusive manner.

Aion Revisited - Account Reactivation

Following PAX, I made what is likely a poor decision - reactivating my Aion account. I deactivated the account in January, only 6 months after the game’s launch, and it was an unexpectedly sudden end that left my character in limbo. I’ve wanted ever since to return, at least briefly enough to finish several projects I had been working on with her. In an attempt to find a bit of closure for my character and to feel as though I was ready to leave the game, I am revisiting it for one or two months.

Firstly, I had been farming religiously to earn 2,000 Platinum Coins. Coin quests are a carryover from Lineage 2, where you could kill certain NPCs for a low chance to earn specific types of coins which could then be redeemed in combination for different rewards. It was a way to earn added benefit from killing NPCs to gain experience. In Aion, each subsequent tier of coin requires significantly more coins to earn a reward. The early tiers provide a random reward within one “school” of item type, so that you might wind up with an item you can’t use or a duplicate. This is often frustrating, but can still provide a reasonable amount of profit.

Once you reach the higher tiers, such as the Platinum Coins I was farming, you are able to chose much more specifically. My 2,000 coin quest was to earn an attack speed staff for my Chanter, and when I suddenly quit the game I had personally farmed over 1,400 coins - quite an achievement as they were awarded in small denominations for repeatable quests. At that time, buying the coins was cost prohibitive (roughly 25,000 adena each) so I kept soldiering forward on the repeatable quests. However, I discovered on my return that the price had dropped significantly, and I was able to snap up several bulk lots for 10,000 per coin. This, combined with a heavy night of farming was able to put me at my goal. The difference with the new weapon is unbelievable!

I am hoping to finish up two additional goals, though I am not sure I will make the deadline before the new content goes in. I would like to earn my Fenris Shoulders - I am just over halfway done and now I am able to complete the quest much quicker now. I also need to complete 2 more runs through the Dark Poeta instance in order to gain access to my advanced stigmas, since I frequently sat out for a friend. This is key for my character, and I really want to complete this so that I can feel she’s “done” before I quit for good. It’s a lot more difficult to complete group instances though, since everyone I know has quit the game. I’ll be at the mercy of strangers for the next month as I attempt to finish these goals while exploring the new zones and content.I’d also love to finish out my crafting - I was three points shy of the cap when I cancelled my account, and this has been raised slightly so there is additional incentive to finish.

PAX!

This is my third year @ PAX, and I am still finding each year more impressive than the last. This year in particular was surprising - the addition of several new floors and satellite theaters at Benaroya Hall, local hotels, and even the expansion to GameWorks really helped thin out the crowds making it easy to navigate in the expo hall. It also allowed for more of everything! More handheld lounge space, more expo space, more console and PC freeplay, and several new rooms like Jamspace. All in all it was amazing, and I didn't explore much beyond the expo hall!

I was impressed by a lot of the console titles, even though they were not exactly my preferred genres. The new Infamous and Fallout titles look awesome, as does Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I hadn't even heard of the Epic Mickey project, but it looks brilliant - a really clever use of Mickey as a hero, with the magic brush as his weapon. It's very classic Mickey meets the Sorcerer's Apprentice crossed with Scribblenauts and an action RPG style gameplay. Their booth was one of my favorites - playing several videos on a constant loop and displaying large scale artistic renderings of game scenes. I love the idea, it's such a great homage to Disney as an animation studio that it actually works, whereas most "franchise" games (movie tie ins and the like) are poorly imagined and executed.

I was surprised to see some interesting FPS and RPG shooter titles that actually interested me. I tend to shy away from violent games because I dislike gore and have poor reflexes. However, these new types of FPS games that don't necessarily prize headshots intrigue me.

I spent a lot of time at the Aion booth playing their stacked (level 55, with lots of stigmas) Elyos Chanter. The expansion looks beautiful, of course, and I had forgotten just how much I adore the Chanter class and how it plays. I may even reactivate my account just to fool around and farm, something my twisted mind misses greatly. The new attacks look awesome, and apparently I can upgrade to the expansion for free. The features I was hoping would be implemented have not, though. There are vanity and practical pets - different pets offer unique bonuses such as extra storage or combat warnings. However, nothing about the dynamic seasons or player housing.

I also spent a lot of time at the Tera booth, watching the cinematic and gameplay. I nabbed a console for a while on Saturday afternoon, and explored the caster class and also played one of the melee classes a little bit. The combat system is brilliant, forcing players to actually aim their skills and position their character in real time in order to launch effective attacks. It does take a bit of getting used to, though. It plays a bit like Diablo 2, in the sense that they had one skill stuck to left and right click, allowing you to easily control the basic combat by maneuvering with your left hand (W A S D) and launching attacks with the mouse (left and right click). The Alt key allows you to toggle combat and passive modes, which remove the "aiming" function of the mouse and allows you to mouse over skills and navigate menus. The mage's skills were neat - a good variety that allowed for different combat styles. There were single direct damage spells that I aimed at single targets, and "wave" attacks like the old school "flame wave" from Diablo 2, that allowed me to sweep through multiple mobs when I got swarmed.

The booth guys were chatting people up, helping them figure out the controls and answering general questions. I am excited about the "no faction" aspect, but wary that the PvP system won't be fully open like Lineage 2. They hinted at a built in political system that is still under development, and assured me that PvP servers will offer "nearly" free-pvp that is still being tweaked. The gameplay was seamless - my main concern with the "no targeting" system - the most radical difference from previous MMOs - was server lag. One of the most frustrating experiences, especially in large scale pvp, is trying to target players who are not where you think they are. The game ran without any positioning issues due to lag at the demo booth, but that will be one of the things I need to test for myself on my own PC before I register a real opinion.

Aion Wrap-up

I've been working very hard these past weeks to develop my character in Aion, and even though it is horrendously slow going I am enjoying the process. Unfortunately for Harmonia, my little chanter character, I have decided to cancel my account. I am still enjoying the game, and the changes that NCSoft is looking to implement interest me greatly - I ADORE a game with player housing, and many of the other soon to be added features. Unfortunately, most of my friends have quit playing and I feel I should move on now since I have just begun the process of purchasing my own home.

So it's farewell to the world of Daevas and hello to the world of boxes and packing tape.

Future Visions

Wow. NCSoft has a history of releasing beautiful and action packed CGI videos in advance of expansion content for their MMORPG games, but they have shocked the AION community by unexpectedly releasing an incredible preview of the Aion of the future. It's important to recognize that this is a concept video, and it illustrates where the developers and artists hope to see the game. There is no telling which features are actually in production and which are still, literally, on the drawing board.

Much of the discussion following the video's release hinged upon unbridled excitement - how this or that feature/update looks amazing, is unexpected, is exactly what a player was hoping for. Much of the discussion also focused on pragmatic analysis (or cynical doubt) of what features were most likely to actually reach the game, and which were unlikely to ever be delivered. Regardless, the sheer volume of excitement generated by this one video is, in my experience, unprecedented. People who were stuck in the endless cycle of the slow XP grind have come alive again with a passion for the game.

The general impression from most people is that if NCSoft is able to deliver even half of these upgrades and updates, the game will be completely reinvigorated. I am personally ecstatic about the inclusion of player housing, as it allows for a player to truly become a part of the world, to shape its landscape and become a part of the structure. I am shocked at the aparent inclusion of world defense PvP of these housing zones - this is unprecendented in my experience, and has me really excited. The idea of defending my own home, in addition to my homeland, from invasion and destruction, is fascinating and exciting.

From my own personal experience with NCSoft and their occasional underdelivering, I was able to identify a few points in the video that seem a bit far-fetched, but then again - it's possible that they've learned from their past mistakes and are looking to remedy unfulfilled promises from Linaege II in Aion.

Aion Launch Rewind

As is usually the case when something major happens in an MMORPG, most players have been using sick days, vacation time, and pushing themselves to the edge of their sanity in the rush to conquer, and in this case - to level. As a general rule I love new releases - the idea of a fresh world to explore, a level playing field, and a race to the finish line all combine to put a sparkle in (and huge bags under) my eyes. It also seriously damages my ability to sit down and write even the smallest of blog posts. Now that the release has had some time to settle down and the push to stay ahead of the masses has somewhat subsided, I can take some time to reflect on the game launch and the game itself.

The Aion release went largely as expected. Server overload, population caps, log in queues that were no joke (they legitimately restricted the number on the servers at any time to minimize lag issues for those lucky enough to be in the game) and occasional crashes and downtimes. And of course, lots and lots of whining that it was "the worst MMO launch ever" from kids who clearly weren't around for the launch of WoW to see how poorly managed that was, even with its massive number of servers. The queue times sucked, but once you were in you were in, and it was (for the most part) playable.

For the first time ever I had very few problems with a new title - I had the game installed from the beta, and was able to play for a couple days without even needing to pick up my game. No technical issues until I attempted to upgrade my account to the Collector's Edition - that took about an hour's time during which it appeared my code had and had not been accepted simultaneously. Apart from that my only complaint was missing the first two nights of prime levelling time to go to a(n insanely awesome) Pearl Jam concert. Talk about bad timing!

It didn't take long for most of our predictions about Aion to come true. People started quitting the game in their late teens before ever hitting the PvP zones, or the early 20s before earning even half of their skills and equipping stigmas. The general complaints were that the game was "too hard" or the characters "didn't have enough skills" at level 20. It's not until the mid 30s that most characters really come into their own with a nice variety of skills.

It's a shame to see people forming bad opinions of the game (which they then spread) that are based on such a small portion of the gameplay. The first 20-25 levels are meant to serve as a tutorial in how to play your character, what the world is and why it is that way, and what your individual role is in the drama that's unfolding. All roads lead to level 25 and the abyss - the PvPvE zone that exists between the two worlds that comprise Atria. Though it's sad to see many people quit before ever seeing this zone and the future of the gameplay, it's not entirely unexpected, and the weak hearted will not be missed. After the first few weeks the server queues died down and now the servers appear to be well and evenly populated, thanks to NCSoft's careful control of character creation.

Thanks to the gameplay design, people are well entertained as they level. Characters are begining to peek over the level 40 mark, and explore exciting new areas. Forts are regularly conquered and lost, as are the artifacts surrounding them. Owning the forts allows each faction additional instances to be run once daily, which is excellent for experience and also for rewards. The first instance in the game is even structured like a fort, populated with Balaur, the game's third (NPC) faction. By taking each player through this dungeon with good xp and loot for rewards, the game also trains the players to know what to expect during a siege.

Aion Closed Beta 4: Wrap-up Coming Soon

Wow, what a weekend! Real Life intervened to keep me away from my PC for a good portion of this last closed beta, but I did get to spend a nice chunk of time on Friday playing around a bit more with the crafting system, Saturday night exploring Elyos lands in a small group, and Sunday rounded out with a failed attempt to polish off the last half of lvl 29 (there was just too much random stuff to do and see!).

I'll be writing up some comments, observations, and concerns for the live release this week, as well as posting some amusing screenshots. Right now I'm still feeling the withdrawal, and not really looking forward to tonight's WoW raid.

Ownership in MMORPGs

As I think more critically about the differences between the different MMORPGs I have played in the last ten years (DAoC/Lineage II/WoW/Aion) I am struck by one facet that has a strong impact on gameplay: the concept of ownership. This is something that has been unfortunately lacking in WoW, though it abounds in the other titles I have experienced firsthand. I firmly believe that it's an important part of drawing people into a deep involvement and dedication to the game - plus, I really want player housing in Aion :)

DAoC:
Dark Age of Camelot was my first MMORPG, and it will always hold a special elevated place in my heart for this. The art was nothing special - vast expanses of flat green or brown, planar trees, and a complete lack of interractable objects made for a static and uninteresting world. The gameplay was focused heavily on PvP combat - though players could level peacefully in their own lands for the majority of their advancement, "the frontier" was also available. In the frontier of each land you might encounter enemys from the other factions (there were 3 total, a brilliant though simplistic move meant to minimize the effect of population imbalance). There you also had strategic locations to defend - keeps. Each realm had several, perhaps 6 or so. Retaining these was imperative for the defense of the larger and heavily guarded relic keep. If enemy factions breached this keep and conquered your relics, you suffered penalties (and shame). For each relic held beyond one's own relic, there was a bonus granted. The posession of relics was meant to keep the PvP combat alive and flourishing, encouraging people to constantly conquer, defend, and recapture their keeps and those of their enemies.

A feature that Mythic added to the game relatively early on was the ability for a guild to "claim" a keep as their own. Once a guild claimed a keep, they were able to use their talents and resources to upgrade the fortifications, increase the guard patrols, and they also recieved custom messages whenever a patrolling guard was attacked. This ownership placed responsibility on the guild and its members, and also gave them respect if they were able to maintain control of their keep for lengthy periods of time. I still remember the pride I felt when my guild claimed one of the keeps the day this was implemented. It gave us a purpose, and created a hub of guild activity. We'd keep a few people in the area "just in case" as a quick response network, and we'd communicate with the keep owners nearby as a sort of "early warning" system whenever we were attacked. This ownership drew each player into the combat and defense system and allowed us to feel as though we were a part of the story of the world.

The second type of ownership that Mythic added to the game was player housing. To date I don't think I have ever anticipated any addition to an MMO as desperately as I anticpated this particular content patch. A player housing zone was added near each capital city, in which players could purchase a piece of land (10 or so lots per village, with clusters of villages in several zones) and then purchase several tiers of housing. Individual players tended to opt for the cottages (costing 1 platinum) or the house (5 platinum). The third and fourth tiers (villas and mansions) were very expensive (10 and 25 platinum), and generally limited to guilds or other groups of people. Each tier had certain ammenities, allowing for added convenience. You could purchase additional chests to store items in (and easily swap between characters, previously quite the hassle without in game mail), teleport or vendor NPCs, and crafting items such as a forge or a loom, so you could turn your home into a workshop. You were able to customize access to your home, restricting to self only, guild only, friend only, or enabling specific individuals. You could allow your entire guild in your home, but deny permission to use the NPCs, or allow some people to view but not deposit or withdraw from your bank.

I owned a home on each of my servers, and my home quickly became the focal point of my MMO universe. On my Hibernian server we had a strong alliance that held for many years, and the level of friendship between members in different guilds was quite high. Rather than populating villages by guild, we were mixed together a few from each guild in each village - friends and aquaintences alike living as neighbors and mixed guild banners flying side by side. I never particularly enjoyed the architectural style of the cottages, but I did love decorating my home and garden. My home on my Midgard server was another affair entirely - though I'm not much for the rugged viking style either I absolutely adored my large home. It was in the style of a hunting lodge, wooden and spacious inside. I decorated the interior with taxedermied animals I had hunted myself (kinda gross, but the trophy function was also a fun way to document your achievements). The purchase of a porch allowed each player to place an NPC outside the home that could sell crafted or aquired wares (searchable by a community bulletin board, much like the auction house function in WoW). This was a huge advancement from working purely on commission for all crafters. The cost of owning a small home was not prohibitive, and the rent could be paid either in money or in points earned through PvP, so all players had an option to cover their payments.

Lineage II:
Ownership in Lineage II was one of the primary PvP purposes of the game, implemented through castle sieges and battles over clan halls. It was also heavily leveraged in PvE, as all the raid bosses in the game were "world spawn", causing the entire server to fight in order to earn the right to kill and loot it. Not only did clans fight over the limited supply of clan halls (far fewer halls were available than needed to support the server population at the height of the game's popularity), but they fought over a limited number of castles as well. Castle ownership was more than a bragging point and display of power - owning a castle allowed players to control commerce in their region, levy taxes, and control a complicated manor system of harvesting materials that could quickly make the clan wealthy beyond belief. The wealth generated by some castles was indeed so great that the castle owner would buy the allegience of clans to fight in the castle's defense, or to avoid the sieges altogether.

Ownership in Lineage was not the private affair it was in DAoC - the clan halls were shared property as were the castles, and were meant as status symbols. The limited supply generated conflict and kept the politics of each server alive with treachery and backstabbing as each clan fought for a chance at the prize. This was not surprising since Lineage aimed to reward clans, rather than individuals. Until the hero system arrived, the only real means of gaining individual recognition was by becoming a respected crafter, notorious ganker, or the king of a castle (clan leader of the clan conquering a castle).

WoW:
Ownership in WoW does not extend to actual property or strategic points. Wintergrasp, the only PvP location that can be claimed by one faction over another, simply changes hands every few hours on a rotation - each side gets its turn. This makes the wait very short to gain access to the short PvE instance inside the zone, so there is no real incentive to hold onto ownership through zealous defense. Ownership exists also in the form of vanity items such as titles, tabards, and mounts that demonstrate particular achievements and are worn like a badge of pride, but these trinkets are not pieces of the world or tied into the flow of world events, and though some are very rare indeed, they do not have the same effect in my eyes. WoW has its little competitions and rare bonus prizes, but they are not necessary for success in the game. They are just trinkets and novelties - they are enjoyable but serve no real purpose.

I would argue that the implementation of battlegrounds killed what little sense of ownership did exist in WoW. Before BGs there was a good measure of world PvP, which was fun and fit with the world story. After BGs, however, world PvP shrunk to occasional ganking over world resources. People just queue up for BGs when they want to PvP, and world defense became a thing of the distant past. There is no "ownership" of your faction's towns, they just lie desolate and undefended from attack. This is a topic I will touch on extensively later - the way that instanced/rinse and repeat PvP killed WoW as a dynamic game. The world just became a vehicle for the PvE instances, arenas, and PvP battlegrounds. A place to farm and run the same dailies endlessly to make money.

Aion:
For Aion it's too soon to really tell, but it appears they have carried over the idea of castle ownership from Lineage II/DAoC as an incentive to particiate in the structured PvP. Collective ownership by your faction offers definite advantages for PvE content, making additional bosses and dungeons available.

World defense also becomes necessary in order for players to be able to level and farm in peace. Since a number of quests send you to the opposing faction's zones to complete objectives and harvest materials, there is likely to be a constant stream of people invading. This helps keep the game interesting - even while grinding out quests and farming to craft you might run into a few enemies or an entire raid. This forces everyone to pitch in to defend their territory, reinforcing the idea of territory ownership.

As for the rest, well time will tell if we get player housing (which would be awesome, but all the same is probably unlikely) or other things aimed at reinforcing the current game dynamic.

Aion Closed Beta 4 Announced

Levels 1-30 supported, which means that I am still lagging behind a bit and will have to stack on an additional 5 levels to stay competitive. I think NCSoft is trying to kill me.

Missing the second CB meant I started out at a 20 level deficit that I have been unable to eradicate. That's ok though. I'm not intent on busting through the levels and burning myself out before the game releases - I plan on finishing my current zone, checking out the desert zone a little, and playing a child sized Elyos to experience their content a bit. Hopefully it will help me chose which faction to play.

I can't wait for next weekend!

The World vs. The Character: Meta and Micro Story in MMORPGs

One of the fundamental problems with storytelling in an MMORPG is that the game provides two basic types of experience: gaming and social. There needs to be a well defined balance between the game's story (meta) and the character's story (micro), but also some consideration must be given to the player as well, and the fact that their interraction with the world is but one facet of the game.

The World of Warcraft approach to questing and game story has been to focus on the meta story - the world in peril, pushing back the never ending assault of the burning legion on the world of Azeroth. The micro story of each character suffers as a result. Though each character grows in strength and level, there is not much in terms of "character" development. You never "mature" from one class into another, and though you may attain titles and honors, there are no real "ceremonies" or acklowledgement within the game, aside from the odd congratulatory mail from NPCs. In this regard, WoW plays emphasizes the MMO aspect while minimizing the RPG - it sacrifices the small scale narrative and character growth of an RPG for the meta story and social gameplay. The real accomplishments of the game are collective: success in the PvP arena or Battleground system, or success with the 10-20-25-40 player raiding content.

There are small nods to a micro story - opening the dungeon Ahn Quiraj required the completion of a massive quest chain, at the end of which one character on each realm was able to finally break the seal and open the instance. In this instance, individual players were able to impact the world and interract on a "personal" level with the meta story. Other such quests have been since added in small quantity, most notably the zone-wide quest chain in Dragonblight for the Horde (there's some sort of Alliance counterpart, I'm sure) that culminates in the death of an Alliance and Horde Hero, the overthow of Sylvannas Windrunner, and the retaking of the Undercity. Even so, these quests that attempt to draw the player into the meta storyline do little beyond make the player feel like a witness to great events - not a participant. The gameplay video was a nice touch, as with the short one you encounter before Brutallus in the Sunwell. These small moments help to draw the character, and the player, into the world. Ultimately they fall flat due, in my opinion, to their infrequency - they tell little stories but ones that are largely unrelated and don't build on any sort of narrative or momentum.

It's no secret to anyone who has heard me talk at length about my feelings about WoW that I believe Blizzard blew a golden opportunity. Before the release of Burning Crusade, the game did make small efforts to develop characters. They were simplistic, but they did exist: class quests as you leveled, or epic weapon quests for some classes allowed the player to participate in a narrative that was specifically for them. With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, a move was made back in this direction for the Death Knight class. NPCs treat Death Knights with disgust, as does the general population before each individual character is accepted as a member of their faction. In this sense, the DK earns its place as a fighter of the Alliance or Horde. This type of character accomplishment has a strong role playing aspect to it, and manages to draw the character into the story. The starter DK quests are also well designed, taking the character through a number of linked objectives to prove their worth, though they ultimately reject domination by the Lich King and defect to their faction instead.

This type of interraction and questing could have made WoW into a truly phenomenal game. Unfortunately, the choice was made to bog the game down under hundreds and hundreds of quests unrelated to any greater objectives or to develop the feel of the world. "Go fetch" and "go kill" quests are just vehicles for free money and experiencem not storytelling. Players were resigned to grinding out these quests for miscelaneous rewards to gain wealth, rather than move a story point forward. The balance between narrative and practical advancement was lost. WotLK seems to attempt to right this imbalance, but the formula was already set. The excellent quest lines and the ability for quest completion to literally redesign the world (absolutely brilliant) become burried under all the bloated extra quests that simply exist to grant xp and useless items, guide players through each zone from quest hub to quest hub, and occupy player time. Every thing the game does right is countered by something the game does wrong, leaving it at a net standstill.

It's because of this "overburdening" of quests in WoW that I was nervous to hear that NCSoft had implemented a large number of quests in their forthcoming "Aion: The Tower of Eternity" MMORPG. Having experienced NCSoft's idea of quests in Lineage II, I was greatly alarmed. Quests in Lineage II were generally not story telling devices - instead, they were ways to maximize your use of time. Since you were going out to hunt anyway to regain experience you'd lost, or build up some materials and wealth to craft some new gear, you simply accepted a quest that would take you days or weeks to complete that you could inch forward on simultaneously.

There were also "character narrative" quest lines at level 20, 35, 37, and 39 that allowed you to develop your character into a more advanced and specialized class. At level 75 you completed an even more complex and complicated quest line to gain access to a new set of abilities. Beyond that there were additional complex questlines for becoming a noble character, a ranking that came with numerous privledges and special qualities. These types of quests were frustrating but made the player the agent of their character's development. They also punctuated the character's lifespan well, giving the players a feeling that their character was truly advancing periodically. The game did not have many quests, but still managed to draw the player/character into the world by the development of the character through the levels and - most notably - through server reputation. Being a game that focused almost entirely on world pvp and wars between individual players, each person was deeply tied to the other players through social and political actions.


The open pvp system forced players to constantly watch their backs, protect their friends, and build the strength of their clans, alliances, and relationships with other individual players and groups. This social/political structure was incredibly immersive and addictive, drawing players into server drama and making each person an integral part of the server. The "meta story" of Lineage 2 was not a world of NPCs in peril - it was a world entirely populated by players. The void of content actually served to increase the immersive qualities of the game. Player choices - alliances, wars, castle sieges - these drove the story of the world forward and each server was unique and told a different "story". There were servers on which people generally cooperated and worked together, sharing castles and collaborating to defeat the most difficult world spawn raid bosses. Then there were servers like mine (Kain) where massive wars were formed on a server-wide scale with kill zones, territorial lockdowns, and constant raids of the "enemy" territory. As a casual virtual social anthropologist it was an incredibly fascinating experiment in human nature. Given a blank slate, people responded with a terrific breadth of actions, from incredibly collaborative and supportive to aggressive, violent, or manipulative.

Aion Closed Beta 3: Asmodian 1-20

This past Fourth of July/Canada Day weekend was the third Aion Closed Beta. I'm sad to have missed the second one, particularly because it meant I had to start from scratch to catch up to my friends, and by the end of the weekend I had only managed level 18 and 1/4, largely due to my insistence on making one of EVERYTHING. No, really. My character selection screen looks like a harem.

I played most extensively as a Chanter, a competent fighter with moderate damage output, supportive heals and buffs. I was pleased with the class - it's got great longevity for soloing, and will be a nice class to start out with when the game goes live. The damage output wasn't that extraordinary, which is appropriate. I found that Gladiators, Scouts, and Assasins all killed faster than me, but with greater downtime due to their lack of heals and mana regeneration skills. I seemed to kill at the same rate as a tank, which seems reasonable. So it seems relatively balanced for now - I sacrifice power for my hybrid status.

Long ago I played a Warden in DAoC. It was one of my all time favorite classes, even though it was extraordinarily underpowered. My heals were so small they might as well be non existent (not to mention my mana pool could not support them as my buffs were chants that constantly pulsed, drawing mana) and my attacks were ridiculously weak (a few low damage physical attacks, but reliant on auto attacking), but I supported a group and I loved the class type. I was pleased to see that NCSoft has created a buffing class that can participate in fighting, too. After years as a prophet - a real player prophet and not a second box - I am glad to get back into the action. No more sitting to regen mana and buffing the entire party, one buff and player at a time, EVERY TWENTY MINUTES. Just thinking about it makes me want to cut myself.

I had a wonderful time exploring the Asmodian starting zones. The Elyos starting zone, of which I saw less (I only created characters and played until level 5 in the first beta), is beautiful and tropical. Lush and vibrant, with bright colors and burning sun. I was concerned the Asmodian zones might be homogeneous barren terrain since they are dark and cold places, but I was quite wrong. The frozen parts were gorgeous and shimmery, and there was a fantastic diversity of terrain, ranging from partially frozen lakes to farmland and forested mountains. I should have looked around more and taken terrain screenshots - I found myself amazed at the variation in plant life and even in critters. I was having so much fun just running around the world that I didn't take too many shots, unfortunately.

Compare (click for larger image):
Left: Elyos starting zone. Intact buildings, warm colors, lots of trees and flowers.
Right: Asmodian starting zone. Shattered buildings (same as the intact ones for Elyos) and tents, cool colors, different types of foliage.









As for the hunting - at first I was underwhelmed by the variety of mobs to hunt. The models they do have are pretty nice - birds, beasts, and some humanoids. But as I flew over the world from one town to another (a very fast endeavor compared to WoW - the flight points were short and flight speed was very quick) I realized how small the world actually is, compared to World of Warcraft. Rather than a flight point on a mount, you are given beautiful magic wings and you zoom over the terrain. I began to evaluate the size and structure of the world and made a couple of awesome discoveries about how the world's structure impacts the gameplay.

Firstly, the number of quests for the first 20 levels is perfect and is part of what kept me from realizing how small the actual world was. You don't out level a place with half the quests left, and you don't really run out of quests before are done with an area. Since there aren't a ton of quests, there isn't the need for a lot of different types and camps of monsters. The quests keep you moving through the world at the correct pace, so for the most part you don't spend a lot of time hoofing it from one quest hub to the next just for new tasks, or backtracking a ton just to polish off old quests. This gives the starting zones a good feel in terms of size - since you don't spend tons of time in transit the world doesn't feel frustratingly large, but instead "just right" even without the luxury of flight or increased run speed. As an aside note - these quests provide you primarily with money and consumables rather than gear which I love. The longer quests and those in the "story progression" tab tend to give occasional item upgrades, which is perfect. With WoW you get random green quality quest rewards from everything, and there's a real feeling of "lets just finish up this quest to get my free loot so I can move onto the next" that cheapens the questing and turns it into mindless repetetive behavior.

A brilliant new idea is the use of "channels". Each server is a world, but within this world there exist 10 channels which, for WoW players, function like a limitless instance. It's essentially 10 layers of the same world stacked ontop of one another. If you find yourself unable to kill an overcamped quest mob, change to a less populated channel. If you find that you're unable to clear through an area fast enough as a healer or other squishy class and actually prefer a crowded channel for the security, search one out. There are also two different "map" modes. One functions like a traditional map - it's small and displays an old style parchment map with towns, roads, and NPCs marked. The other is an overlay of your area and is quite useful for finding your way around confusing locations such as the massive capital cities.

Also visible in this shot of the overlay map: the campaign quest log (left) and inventory (right). The Character portrait displays my health (red), mana (blue), and DP (orange/yellow) - daeva points. The DP are what cause my character to glow, and are used in special skills and some types of crafting (level 3 glow is very neat). The inventory is annoyingly small, but as per Lineage II, items have unlimited stacking (or so I currently assume, I got well over 100 for some materials).

This allows for the second quality: a fluidly designed world that is both small and large simultaneously. In WoW, flying from one corner of a continent to another can take quite a lot of time, as can navigating through a zone (especially at the lower levels). Aion is smaller, and uses the channels instead of vast expanses of wasted space to give people room to exist. An additional benefit is that the smaller size of the world allows for it to feel more dynamic and detailed. For the most part MMO's trade in flat spaces in their effort to balance the realism of a dynamic physical world and a practical maneuverable one. Aion, with instant flight and the ability to glide even in "flight free" zones gets around this general rule. The world that I have seen thus far has been incredibly detailed, but also varried in terrain which gives it a nice realistic sense.

The NPCs are also detailed. See below for a number of images.

Left: NPC tending a fire

Right:NPC painting

Series 1: My character discovers that it's snowing and reacts accordingly. For Elyos, I found that characters responded to the rain. Both races also splash around in water :)

Series 2: Here are a few emotes up close: (left to right) Laughing, Pondering, Disapproval. The full list of emotes is extensive, and a number of them are lengthy as well. Some are a bit silly, such as "comfort" that attempts to console a player lying on the ground. This is due to the fact that one of the dejected emotes involves a player throwing themself down onto the ground. I just can't imagine two players managing to time and position it so that the two emotes properly coincide...

Series 3: Striking a pose - interracting with the terrain. I was really surprised to see that I was able to stand like this. Normally, my character would just be standing with one foot on the higher terrain and the other "hanging off" in mid-air. The fact that I was able to interract like this with a normal object in the world without any sort of specific command to do so (such as chairs in WoW) was unexpected. I had just logged in to check my mail and was surprised to see myself standing like this.

Agency and Choice in MMORPGs

So I have a few interesting ideas about the quests in Aion. Firstly, I'm overjoyed to see that NCsoft has fleshed out this title with a decent number of real quests. Lineage quests....well, they weren't really quests. They were more like "since you are going to go hunting for 10 hours to earn a miniscule bit of experience, why not collect me five hundred tokens while you're at it. Did I mention that only one person in your party can get a token off each mob? Oh, and don't expect a 100% drop rate." So far, these are more WoW type quests - "help, I can't find my xxx", "help, I can't defend my farm please kill x number of xxxxxx" etc. There are also "story progression" quest arcs. The thought of these gives me shivers, but they don't seem even remotely close to the class quests in Lineage.

Class change, subclass, noblesse, and other "mandatory" quest lines in Lineage II were, in a word, arduous. Part of me misses that, the concept of working so hard for something, because that so greatly magnifies the elation you feel upon completion. In fact, for some reason I am recalling my very first level 20 class change quest, and the line up in the hallway as all the players who needed to complete a certain step waited for the one quest monster to respawn. We all sat there, waiting in queue, behind a little line of adena (money) on the ground. As each player succeeded, there was a miniature celebration, and then we all moved along to the next phase. If we'd only known what was in store for us at 35, 37 and 39 for those quest lines!

The level 10 "getting your wings" questlines seems pretty simple and straightforward, which is probably an indicator of the game's decreased difficulty (a mixed blessing). I like that they distinguish between these two types of quest so clearly - I think it paves the way for a very rich quest system, which is further enhanced by actual cutscenes even for early, low level quests. WoW drops the player in the world with a small video, and then ushers you through 80 levels of rinse and repeat quests for rewards, with a bit of storytelling mixed in - the long quest lines are more explicative than interractive, done for rewards rather than exploring the world. It's not until WoTLK that you actually begin to feel a part of the "grand history" told in the Warcraft cannon.

Not only are there "cut scenes" in which your character (not your faction, but your actual individual self) is "placed" into the global conflict and explained, but it appears as though the developers might be setting the game up for actual choices. From the progression of the quest dialogues, it's possible that players might be able to chose from multiple responses while progressing through a questline. I wish I had proper screenshots to demonstrate, but the window in which the NPC converses with your character doesn't contain a "next" or "complete quest" button. Instead, you click on a "link" of text that is a response. It triggers reactions - more dialogue, emotes, cutscenes. Even if there is but one option for the quest to progress forward, the player still "incites" the event that follows.

This leads me to the previously advertised interesting topic: agency and decision making in games. This system feels as though it posesses the room to grow into a decision tree system, where players may actually make choices at certain points along a quest line. Don't like an NPC's request? Instead of not taking the quest, deny him. Does this change your reputation? Do other quests become available to you for refusing him? There was a bit of discussion raised when WoTLK had quests that involved torture (yet stealing babies for other quests is ok. in fact it's so ok that it's a daily!) - what if they offered you the choice to take a moral stand against it rather than use it to get information? Lineage II had one step in that direction with class change quests, allowing players to turn their "generally skilled" character into one of several types of "specifically skilled" classes, with no ability to change. Instead of popping into the world "fully formed" and following one possible path, you had options - paths that diverged and never reconnected, and affected every second of gameplay. Your decision made all the difference.

Speaking strictly as an enthusiast and not as a scholar, role playing games always follow a set course. The character and plot develop, typically following a traditional narrative framework that builds towards a final conflict of some sort, usually with an epilogue, There are occasionally small choices made by the player in an RPG that may have small impacts on the story (I think of the Final Fantasy VII example, where how you respond to the female characters throughout the game leads directly to which goes on a date with the protagonist, and also to the player's ability to "skip" encountering optional characters that are available to join the party). These nearly always fall under the category of "sidequests" and do not actively influence the game's progression and are completed out of a desire for "complete" or "perfect" games.

MMOs break from this lack of agency by allowing players to craft their own social experience of the game. While the "global plot" is contrived by the game developers, players drive the daily in-game experience. In World of Warcraft, for example, the quests progress from A to B to C along a linear path, as do the raid instances - kill boss A to access boss B, kill boss B to access boss C. There is often some wiggle room, but chosing to complete one wing of a dungeon before another, or which quest to complete first when one does not hinge on the other has no impact on the content of the game, merely its experienced order. The few and far between instances of actual choices impacting gameplay in WoW tend to come in the form of faction allignment - in the Burning Crusade players chose to ally with either the Scryer or Aldor faction and thus became hated by the other. But these factions were essentially "equivalents" so the choice was just window dressing. The same can be said for the choice between Frenzyheart and Oracle factions in Wrath of the Lich King - there is no real difference between them except that each faction offers different vanity items. And as with the Scryer and Aldor factions, a player is free to switch at any time (though the process of "leveing up" the reputation is time consuming) so it does not constitute a serious "life" decision that cannot be altered. In Lineage II players could chose which to fight for the forces of Dawn or Dusk every time the new cycle came up (it was bi-weekly or so, one week to compete, one week to benefit from victory).

In tabletop RPGs, which I admit to never playing, the direction of the game is at the mercy of the dungeon master, but the individual actions and decisions are up to each player. That type of responsibility requires players to be creative (as it's open ended) and engaged with the game and its content. RPGs and MMORPGs lack this quality - they are so caught up in mechanics and repetition that players have virtually no capacity to influence the story of the game, they are simply along for the ride. Lineage II managed to avoid this by turning the PvE (player vs enemy -- monster slaying) into a boring, repetetive device that was simply a tool for the actual content of the game -- the PvP (player vs player) combat and server politics. There was no "end game" content for Lineage. You didn't progress through one dungeon after the next as you do in WoW, replacing your tier 5 with tier 6, your tier 6 with tier 7 - linear, predictable progression. Instead, there were places to level, resources to collect, wealth to amass, and a world to dominate. The conflict between players was perpetual, and drove everything forward like a real world in miniature. The alliances and wars drove the economy and politics forward in an endless and unpredictable cycle. I hope that this possibly open quest system (fingers crossed!) might instill some of the same chaos and unpredictablilty to Aion that made Lineage so exciting to play. But there's a reason games shy away from that type of model -- it's definitely somewhere between difficult to impossible to pull off, so we'll see if Aion tries to make that leap into the abyss.

Aion Closed Beta 1: First Thoughts

Very first reaction: Yep, I'm preordering.

I thought I would finally sit down and write up a little bit about the first Aion Closed Beta event in NA since I was a jackass and missed the second one that apparently everyone was playing together *grumble*.

For starters (and not surprisingly at all after seeing screenshots and playing at PAX) I spent a very large portion of time creating characters. This was also my chief form of entertainment when I stalked out a place (repeatedly) at the NCSoft booth at Pax 2008. I just can't get enough of the excellent graphics and level of customization. The first closed beta event opened up the first zone and 10 levels for the Elyos faction, who closely resemble humans and light elves from Lineage II. The girls are, of course, absolutely adorable. The male characters aren't that bad either. I was torn between making a cutie with freckles and messy hair or a hottie with a more polished look. In the end I settled for a girl who closely resembled a black haired Ashe from FFXII. My humorous aside note on this point is that in the second closed beta Jake managed to create an Asmodian Spiritmaster who looked quite like my Elyos Priest. What were the odds!

There's been quite a lot of discussion regarding the character creation so I'm not going to go into it very deeply, especially since the screenshots I thought I took of my harem of characters are missing. All that really needs to be said is that the characters you can create are unbelievably diverse and lifelike. As an extension to this, character emotes and idle animations are also unbelievably, well, animated. Facial expressions, reaction to weather and environment, and even "hawking your wares" as a personal shop (no more sitting on the ground, you get a stool now!).

I spent Friday night installing the beta and was only able to play for a few hours on Saturday, and I was still blown away by the level of detail in the environment and the obvious attention to each character action, whether it's talking to an NPC, setting up shop, or exploring the world.
It was most interesting to me to see how the game fused NCSoft's artistic style and gameplay with elements adopted from World of Warcraft. I have always and will always believe that Lineage II is a superior game to WoW (but that's a topic for another day) but there are many clever elements WoW introduced to make the game accessible and enjoyable to play. I was pleased to see Aion encorporates many of them.

Primary among the new features: a quest log (it looks better than the WoW quest log at first glance, with 2 seperate tabs to keep "questline" and "random" quests apart), an actual graphic interface (more minimal and aesthetically pleasing than WoW's and reminiscent of Diablo II, at least to me), in game mail, and the ability to jump and move fluidly with the keyboard. The NCSoft style is still heavy though (and it's mostly a good thing from what little I saw): point and click motion remains, everything costs money (even "binding" yourself to a location), and you train by buying books. As different as it looks from Lineage (the colors, oh my god...everything is just so detailed and colorful! Lineage had a fantasy mixed with realism art style, this is pure fantasy) I could immediately feel myself back in an NCSoft game. As dorky as it sounds, it felt like a homecoming.

I'll post some thoughts about questing later. For now I'm just going to smile and watch more gameplay vids and wait for closed beta 3.

Aion Beta!

Yay, signing up at last year's PAX finally delivered. I got my beta invite today for the first closed US beta :) It's only running from the 5th-7th of June, which is weird, but whatever!

I'm a little excited. And jittery. Now I regret skipping lunch...

Aion Aion Aion!

Spring UI Cleaning: Mission Complete!

I finally managed to get my UI back to a simple, condensed view similar to what I used when I raided pre-Burning Crusade as a dirty, dirty Alliance Night Elf Hunter. I've been holding off on a large number of add-on downloads out of lazyness and my deep mistrust of curse gaming's addons.

But, now that I have finally sat down and fixed everything up (except for my damn minimap, which has resisted all the addons I threw at it) I am much happier. I even went one step further than I have ever gone before in customizing my interface - I moved my self and pet portraits down to the bottom of the screen, directly above my chat box. Now I can monitor my health and chat without moving my eyes, YAY. Not sure if this bit will stick or not. I'm having a hard enough time getting used to having my target and target of target boxes at the bottom of the screen. It's convenient in that I can monitor whatever I'm healing or killing without looking away from my skill bars or too far from my own character, but it's inconvenient in that I keep SHOOTING SHEEP because I can't see my target as well when i'm selecting targets without assisting someone off a main tank list...

Ideally, all these changes will begin to feel normal soon and I will stop fumbling around trying to find everything. I'm pleased that I managed to fit nearly every hunter skill neatly on the screen (minus a few melee skills - lawl raptor strike - and unused aspects) as well as a small variety of mounts and vanity pets!

A streamlined but informative UI is one of the most important parts of an MMO. Lineage II managed to master the art of the minimal interface, forcing all users to make due with the same skeleton interface. It was awful, but equally awful for everyone. Unless you used mods (banable offense) that told you the hp/mana/level/location of players every player had the exact same amount of information on every other - even if you were in the same party. There was a small sliver of extra information available to "trusted players" such as the clan listing a character's level. Otherwise, every interface provided the exact same information - there was nothing extra to be squeezed out of the game and displayed to players so there was no need for things like recount. Fortunately, the interface for Aion seems to have taken some much needed cues from WoW's in terms of layout and design - whether customization will follow or not remains to be seen (aside note: I want my beta key now).

I'll definitely be revisiting the topic of interfaces when I finally manage to weasel my way into Aion. I might even have to dig up some old footage/screenshots of older games to really make a broad analysis of the differences. After all, my ultimate passion will always be semantics and semiotics. MMO's are virtual worlds where every pixel is created for a reason. Every symbol and sign communicates buckets of knowledge to those who can interpret it, making each gamer into an unknowing semiotician. My last treatise on the topic ran a whopping 64 pages (hey, there were pictures too) and was for a research methods course for my master's degree. Hopefully I'll be able to speak more succinctly on the topic when speaking for an initiated audience (nothing like having to explain what a "mana bar" is to a bunch of professors...).

Finally, Finally....

Via Joystiq - At long last - Starcraft 2 beta.........

/swoon!

I'm so there...I just hope I get a response. I signed up for Aion testing almost a year ago and have yet to hear anything back yet. I haven't been in any beta testing since Lineage II's Taiwanese beta (quite illegally) and WoW's later stages of beta.

I can't wait for a shiny new time-sink. Protoss for LIFE!