The Daily Grind: What did you think of Asmodae?

After playing the beta, I am convinced this game will have a large following from basement-dwelling weeaboos

I dont understand all the hate for this game. It's a fantastic game. I'm pretty positive it will get much larger subscription numbers than AoC or WAR and be able to retain them.

it feels like every other generic MMO out there, but my character gets wings. Not really impressed. The graphics are nice, but I don't know if it'll pull me away from my current MMOs. As for the factions, so far the quest lines are the same, nothing new on either side. I'll continue beta and hope I see something new.

Gameguard keeps me fromplaying it. It's a lousy program that doesn't do anything. The last time I actually got a Gameguard protected title to run was Gunbound back in 2004. It didn't do anything as that game was lousy with cheaters. Gameguard is also keeping me from playing Huxley. They really need to scrap it, as big and old as WoW is, I never once heard of a major server hack. Using something as porous as Gameguard makes NCSoft look very, very bad.

played the beta for the first time last night. it IS a visually stunning game, however graphics alone will not make a good game.

as soon as I started playing i instantly thought Lineage II. right down to the groups of people sitting in the middle of town, in merchant mode, looing like homeless bums.

the quests are a nice change from the mindless gring that most asian mmo's boil down to. so far its the standard "kill 10 of these" type quests.

the interface is relatively easy to navigate, but not having played to higher lvls I cant really make a decision either way. below lvl 10 it seems that the combat system is so-so. there are of course the combos that can be done once you get the correct attacks/skills, but unless combat drastically changes later on, I dont see this game breaking any boundries and becoming anything but a pretty Lineage II that tried its best to woo a western audience.

ill reserve my decision for now, and give this game a proper chance. hoping to get into the Champions online beta to help make my decision.

If you don't have a beta key, just preorder it on Amazon and they will e-mail you the beta keys a few days before (or on) the day of the event. If you decide you don't like it, just cancel the preorder. Thats my plan.

I did play this weekend as an Elyos and enjoyed it, but again nothing special that grabbed at me. I enjoyed combat and the flying was nice, decent quests, but nothing I haven't seen before. I'm not sure if I'm willing to fork our for a subscription, but I probably would give it a play as a microtransaction based MMO. I do think it made a good mix of WOW and GuildWars.

I had trouble with Gameguard not letting me run in (Windows 7 64-bit) but a brief search on google provided a gameguard that would work on Win7 and that did the trick.

I like this game alot, it is pretty fun. There are definitely some improvements to be made, but that will come as we will be launching as version 1.1 or higher, the game that we tested was 1.0.

I think it is a gorgeous game, and it runs remarkably well on all types of systems, while retaining its good visuals.

All of the coverage of this game has not sparked even an ounce of interest. Lineage II? Korean-MMO's? My goodness, all I hear is boring grind. Saying "kill 10 of these" is a nice change from the grind is kind of silly: It is still a grind.

As far as comparing it to "WoW and Guild Wars" that makes me even more worried. Guild Wars had pretty graphics. The game got boring quickly. WoW had nice instances and end-game, but it lacked "character" as far as the vanilla zones are concerned (I quit playing WoW in burning crusade). Overall, that comparison makes me think this game is pretty, but lacks anything to make it different from any other MMO on the market.

Saying it will have a subscription base higher than AoC and WAR is also very silly. It is an Asian MMO coming to NA. As such, it already has an established player base over there. Let's compare NA numbers a year from now and see how well it retains its player base. I have a feeling it will not be very competitive with WAR, possibly AoC too.

Basically, this game is receiving way too much praise. Why? The simple fact of the matter is, what other MMO's are so close to release? Nothing. The MMO community needs a big title to latch on to, try for the first month or so, and then abandon. This game will be no different.

The hate this game is generating is unfounded, heres a nice review

http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Aion/index.html

It states, like many have said, that intially the game does feel like a prettier version of WoW, but as you get deeper into it, more and more elements come out that makes it feel like a whole different game.

Also, this game has been out in asia for a while now, I've heard that there are over 3.5m subs already in that region and are on their second content pack with a third on its way.

Can anyone tell me the differences between this and Runes of Magic? I just played RoM this weekend and it feels like a boxed game but it is free (micro-tranaction). Since they are both WoW-like clones which one is worth investing in? Both seem to be quite polished and have good PvE story lines and decent quests.

Now how is the PvP? Is there real team based PvP activities or is it just a free for all PK gank fest?

Aion is a PvP focused game. At 25 You open the Abyss a PvPvE area that allows you to fight against the other side. There are territories to control there and specific Abyss Ranks and items. Runes of Magic is a WoW clone much moreso than Aion. Aion has an absolutely huge following in China and Korea, Japan not as much. The game will be around for a long time and I view as the more stable one.

The beta was to 10 so you couldn't do real PvP. There were duels and the like. Last night the Coliseum was open which was similar to Gurubashi Arena in WoW. FFA combat on same side, so what happened was two major alliances fought against each other (Raids) and it was good fun.

If you want to know more just lemme know.

Loved it. Pretty much all of it. I am 99% sure I'll be playing Aion when it releases. Both sides are really great. Like Lesley, I am sure I am going to go Elyos, but playing through Asmodae has truly made me consider rolling an Asmodian, or keeping an Asmodian alt on another server.

I really like both starting zones. One thing I will say about them, and this is especially true about Asmodae, is that the diversity and range of colors and the variety in the landscape, along with how beautifully rendered the world is, was excellent and really stood out to me. I think this deserves mentioning.

I saw Smasheij mention that the game felt like a mixture of WoW and Guild Wars to them. Both are fun games, and I can definitely see that. However, I'd also like to add that my experience with Aion definitely gave me the impression that there were hints of Final Fantasy XI, a dash of LOTRO, and a healthy bit of Lineage II. It really does seem like they tried to grab the best pieces of the best games.

Can't wait to see the changes that are coming along with further localization. Looking forward to seeing the cutscenes and hearing the voice acting. I hope the english voice overs come out well. Judging from the sound work that has been done already, I am fairly confident that the result will be satisfying to say the least. I'm anticipating the effect this will have on the story and I think it's going to be very cool.

If I could ask for one small thing here, it would be to use left click and drag to rotate the camera, as opposed to middle click- or at least an option to do so. Just in case any Aion staff is tuning in =)

It's great to see such a high quality game coming out. I'm very pleased with how well the game ran, how good it looks, feels, sounds, and plays. For me, Aion is just FUN.

On a side note, I've really grown tired of seeing so many jaded MMORPG gamers inundate comments sections and forums with talk of innovation, complaints about fantasy settings, fear and doubt about necessary system specs, gameplay mechanics, and comparisons to WoW. In general, just a whole lot of negativity. An abundance of hate. It's almost as if it's become cool to bash games the minute they're announced. Not me, though. I actualIy LIKE video games and MMORPGs especially. I understand a bit of healthy skepticism, but at the end of the day, all that a game needs to do for me is be fun. Aion is. To me anyways. So, for anyone worried about how well this game will run on your system, or how fun it is, or how similar or different it is compared to your favorite/least favorite other MMO, my advice is simply this: Just give it a try. You may be surprised. And whether your surprise is pleasant or unpleasant, always remember- it's not the end of the world, just a chance to experience another one.

I thought it was an extremely polished game. It runs well on decent hardware and looks fantastic. The localization work was superb. Sure there were errors (thus the reason behind the closed beta), but I was impressed with how much work must have went in to translating all the quests.

I don't have any real complaints about it being generic. The world seems well fleshed out and consistant. Sure, a lot of the quests were similar to ones you've seen in other games, but by no means were they as bad as some of the repetative quests in WoW (keep in mind that I only played WoW for a few months after launch).

I did feel like the two ascendence quests were fairly linear (after all, they're for the introductory levels). I did all of the side quests that I could find for both. I thought the Elyos one was less interesting, but maybe it was just a personal preference (I thought intially I'd be more attracted to Elyos).

What I really would have liked to see is four different quest lines for each of the four initial classes (Warrior, Scout, Mage, Priest). It would be a lot of work, but it would mean less rehash when trying out other classes.

I don't care if it kills WoW (I doubt it). I do think it will be successful.

Oh yeah random but Voice Overs will be in at launch. There are VOs for the Korean/Chinese/Japanese versions, and NC said that they couldn't get the English ones in for the beta. They hope to have them in at launch.