Three Reasons Aion Killed our Legion

I never thought that Aion would kill our legion. We were the biggest guild in Warhammer on Dark Crag. Everyone worked together, and had fun in vent. So how did it turn sour so quickly?

It is still shocking that it has happened. The remaining players in Aion are just a handful compared to the active roster we had in Warhammer. They plan on sticking it out, but I have a feeling in another month or two it will be completely dead.



Reason #1:   Legion 90 Player Cap size

The legion size cap in Aion played a big part in the demise of our legion. We no longer felt like one big family. We were split up into six different legions. It seemed okay at first because everyone was still in vent together, but it changed rather quickly.

The Legion was splitting up without the legion leadership even realizing it. I pointed it out early on, but no one wanted to listen. The legion leadership decided to make every legion split up into time zones to make it easy for everyone to be on at the same time. I tried to tell them that was a failed approach from the start, but I am just an idiot and don't know what I am talking about.

You have to have all the hardcore active players together. With the separate legions it became hard to find out who was on, and what everyone was doing. Everyone in vent started going to their own channels with their own cliques so you couldn't even ask for a NTC group or whatever because people were spread out everywhere even on vent. Our 200 man vent felt like a 10 man vent.

Eventually each separate legion started acting snobby to the other legions. It soon felt as though each legion was running as if they didn't want anything to do with the other five legions.


Reason #2:   The Grind

The grind killed a bunch of players early. After the first week or two most just disappeared without a word. By the end of the free month you could tell the activity levels dropped by a huge amount, and even more players stopped playing Aion. The legions kept getting smaller, and smaller.

As each legion shrunk in size the more unmotivated the remaining players became. You started having gaming sessions with less than five people on at the same time within each legion.

The grind was driving people to quit. You can't just grind for hours and hours, and see very little progress. The grind was terribly boring even at early levels.

As the remaining players reached 30+, 35+, 40+ they really started feeling the effects of the grind even with the Grind Optimizer. Once again players were dropping like flies.

The hardcore players like myself who forced themselves to grind it out till 50 have quit too. The game is just very boring, and when you think the grind is over at 50 you are just lying to yourself. The AP grind is probably worse than the leveling grind.


Reason #3:   PvP at level 25

The biggest lie Aion told us was that you were able to pvp at 25. Pvping at 25 is a huge joke. I would like to see anyone go out, and have fun pvping at that level. With no level limits in the pvp areas a level 25 has zero chance of killing anyone because of the hidden level of the opposite faction. Maybe if you could know you were fighting another 25 it would be different, but otherwise you better be quick at looking names up on the Aion site.

With our legion unable to really pvp at early levels, and the huge grind ahead it just didn't seem worth it. Players just gave up on Aion. No one wants to spend 5000 hours leveling to find out they hate the pvp in the game. It is easier just to quit, and move on.

Warhammer PTS event on 12/1 and 12/3 at 8pm EST

Find the full article on the Herald

We will hosting two events next week, this first one starting on Tuesday, 12/1/2009, at 8:00 PM EST. This first test will be previewing and putting the WAR Report through it's paces. On Thursday, 12/3/2009, at 8:00 PM EST we'll be conducting a mass battle royale stability test, so come on out and check out the shiny (literally!) new HDR and Bloom graphic features as you storm the PTS battlefield!

I am Secretly Back to World of Warcraft

I have officially gone back to World of Warcraft as my main mmorpg.  The secret is out.  Yesterday I couldn't pass up the cheap prices for the Battlechest during Black Friday.  I really wanted to wait for Cataclysm, but the recent boredom from Aion, and Warhammer gave me no choice.

I have to start my characters from scratch.  The good part about that is I can get the feel of the game down again.  I never thought I could ever forget how to do things in World of Warcraft, but I remember almost nothing after being away for over 2 years.  I somehow forgot all the keyboard shortcuts, and stuff.

Luckily I remember most of the beginner quests, and which quests to avoid like the H1N1 virus.  I played for a few hours last night, and my Warlock is now level 10.  The xp seems to be moving at a pretty good pace, but I am tempted to do the recruit-a-friend.  How can you resist triple xp for both characters until level 60?  It is a dream come true.

The one part I forgot about, and still drives me to want to pull a No Russia Modern Warfare 2 on people is the mana regeneration.  How could I forget the necessity on food, and water in World of Warcraft?  It is the worst downtime ever.  Luckily I have lifetap as a Warlock, but it still slows down the leveling process.  It seems a little pointless to be able to almost instantly spam your spells if after four spells you are out of mana.

It feels good to be back, and playing with other friends again.  Hopefully I hit 80 fairly quick, and can see all the Lich King content before SWTOR comes out, or I get accepted into beta.

Black Friday Game Deals and Stuff

I see some pretty remarkable deals for Black Friday looking at the ads right now in my newspaper.

Wireless Sports (Wii knockoff) $19.99 at Walgreens

20% of all video games, accessories, and pc games at Fred Meyer

World of Warcraft $4.99 at Best Buy, and Fred Meyer

World of Warcraft Battle Chest $19.99 at Fred Meyer

Laptop $198 at Walmart

Rock Band $50 at Walmart

Executive desk chair $35 at Walmart

Farcry 2, Assasins Creed, Stalker, Bioshock, WoW all $4.99 at Best Buy

28 in Widescreen Monitor at New Egg for $259.99

AoC 60 day timecard $9.99 at New Egg

Onyxian Whelpling non-combat pet

Why does World of Warcraft always give you cool stuff? The new Onyxian Whelpling non-combat pet is very cool.  It is all part of the five year anniversary celebration. This is the stuff that players enjoy, and keeps them subscribing month after month.  It seems no other mmorpg has figured it out yet.

Dark Crag and Phoenix Throne closing: server transfers on 12/2

Finally some news.  I already read the writing on the wall when the EU servers did this a few days ago, and now the US servers.    There are no longer special ruleset servers in Warhammer.  Here is the official announcement from the Herald.

Here at Mythic Entertainment we have always placed a high value on our communities and the players that make them up. This is especially true when it comes to our special rule-set servers like Role-Playing and Open RvR. There are many different things that have to be taken into consideration in order to nurture these communities. At the same time, WAR is a game that thrives on player interaction; whether it’s Public Quests, fast paced Scenario action or the thrill of large-scale Open-field Realm vs. Realm battles. Both of these factors must be taken under consideration when deciding the future of our unique rule-set servers.

For the past 14 months the Dark Crag and Phoenix Throne servers have been the home of two vibrant and passionate communities. We have watched these servers with great interest as they have journeyed through some amazing accomplishments since the launch of WAR, such as the first ever king kill on a North American server.

And so, it is after careful evaluation and much discussion that we are announcing free character transfers off of the Dark Crag and Phoenix Throne servers. At this time we plan to enable these free character transfers on Wednesday, December 2nd. Below are the prospective destination servers for both Phoenix Throne and Dark Crag:

Phoenix Throne will be able to transfer to either Iron Rock OR Badlands

Dark Crag will be able to transfer to either Gorfang OR Volkmar

In order to welcome all of our players to their new homes we will be enabling a 20% bonus to experience and renown during the weeks following the open character transfers.

Have a happy holiday and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

Thank you for your continued support.

Amazing Aion Vision Trailer

This Aion vision trailer is simply amazing.  It looks like they are adding weather, swimming, mount combat, taming, guild/player housing, and so much more.  The graphics are breathtaking. Aion deserves a definite two thumbs up.



 

Aion bans 16k accounts today

Pretty amazing numbers they banned from Aion today. I can't wait for the "I got banned for no reason" posts all over the Aionsource forums in the next few hours.

It is nice to see that NCSoft is taking a stance against all the bots, and RMT. They even gave a detailed explanation this time on how they banned players, and no one is just banned because they sent 5 million kinah to their alts.

Check out the full details of the bans.

Are server mergers coming soon to the US Warhammer?

The maintenance today makes me think mergers are coming. I could just be reading more into it.  Why else would they be moving all the game servers to new hardware?  The last part of the message makes me think there must be an announcement coming too.  I guess it's the wait, and see game since all the Euro servers just merged again from Bootae's post so the US servers are probably next.

Greetings!

This morning beginning at 8AM EST all game servers will be brought offline while we migrate them to different hardware. We anticipate services to be back online by 12PM EST.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation during this downtime and stay tuned to the Herald for news and information!

7 reasons the Endless Trial in Warhammer fails

1- It gives new players a false sense of active population in Warhammer.

2- You lock yourself out in a few hours once you level up by getting pvp xp.

3- It is highly doubtful it is making players subscribe to Warhammer.

4- Making new characters every night is not fun.

5- Playing characters with limited spells, gear isn't fun.

6- It is to easy for regular Warhammer subscribers to make twinks, and destroy new players who will than hate the game.

7- It is also easy for regular Warhammer subscribers to make premades, and make all the new players ragequit.

What reasons can you add to this list of why the endless trial in Warhammer fails?

Warcraft and My Addiction to It

I did the craziest thing ever last night.  I downloaded the free trial of World of Warcraft.  Guess what?  Warcraft to me is like Life cereal to Mikey.  I couldn't stop playing.  Why does this game have so much control over me?

So many things in the game seemed so refreshing compared to all the games I have played the last two years or so.  I really want to wait for Cataclysm, but I doubt I can wait now.

I really think I am addicted to this game.  It is like an alcoholic who hasn't drank for five years, but has one drink, and the next thing you know its back to drinking.

I  admit the graphics look horrible in Warcraft.  They don't even come close to comparing to Aion, or even Warhammer.  It felt like I had my settings on the lowest possible using an on board video card.

I love the feel of the fast combat.  It could of just been my imagination, but it seems like I am able to cast spells super fast.  The cooldown on spells seem very small.  My mana goes quick, but if I am able to kill something in three seconds its better than thirty seconds like most new mmorpg's.

I enjoy being able to know my way around so easily.  I have leveled through these lower areas about twenty times now.  I know where every quest is, and mob.  It will all change when I get to the Wrath of the Lich King content.  I look forward to seeing some new content that I never have seen.

Leveling is so fast.  It is nice to see my xp bar move almost on every kill instead of every hundred.  Just seeing my bar move is motivating to keep leveling instead of logging off.

I also decided to roll on a pve server this time around instead of pvp.  I just want to be able to level quick without the distraction of wasting hours pvping.  I will pay to switch servers later to a pvp once I hit 80 if I feel the urge too.

I have almost always been a pvp person, but I think I really want to play the game for its pve content for once.  I am a little scared though.  I haven't done raid content since Molten core.

All in all I am really enjoying myself being back in Warcraft, and look forward to the days ahead.

Aion Xenophon Weapon Quest

I wanted to share a great detailed post on the Aion Xeno Weapon Quest.  Hoschi does a great job over on his Aion blog, and his posts are always full of valuable information.  Be sure to check out some of his other posts too.

Killing Innocent People in an Airport in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: No Russia

The No Russia part of the campaign seems really disturbing in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.  The thought of killing innocent people in an airport really makes you think how something like this could happen in an airport in the United States.  If you think the movie Paranormal Activity is scary, and prevents you from sleeping this part of the game may be worse.  It really does make you think.  I will never feel the same in an airport ever again.

How could the developers even make the No Russia mission in the campaign?  Do they feel guilty about it?  Are they the mafia?  Are they terrorists?

The game graphics, and artificial intelligence seem so realistic which makes it even scarier.  It is the most terrifying thing in a game I have ever seen.  If you didn't know it was a game you would be screaming in terror, and probably never step foot into an airport again.

The problem is I still can't put the game down.  I simply love playing the game.

Aion Patch 1.5.1 Hits Today

NCSoft has made an official announcement that Patch 1.5.1 for Aion is finally hitting the North American servers today.  

Dungeons and Dragons Online

I figured since Dungeons and Dragons Online is now free to download, and play I would give it a whirl.  I remember around the original release of this mmorpg I thought about buying the game so I was pretty excited about playing it.

They offer three different graphic setting downloads, and I chose the highest quality.  Even with the highest settings I have to say I was a little disappointed in the graphics of the game.  I was really expecting to see some real eye candy, but it still is pretty nice.

I created a sorcerer, and began my journey in the starter city.  I hate starting games, and not really knowing anything.  It is the worst part.  I sort of got the feel for the game, and entered a crypt instance.  You can pick five difficulty levels for each instanced dungeon depending on if you are doing it solo, or in a group.  It could be compared to doing a heroic in Warcraft on the difficult setting.

Everything in the game is auto-targeted so there is no need for clicking on the target, or tabbing.  It was pretty simple to cast spells, and attack with my weapon.  Everything dies really quick, and even yourself.  You start off with 25 health.  It just seems so strange to start with such a small number.

It took me a bit to figure out how to regenerate health.  There is no such thing as auto regeneration, or medding up.  You have to find this spirit statue thing that lets you rest up.  It will put your health and mana back to full.  I think it may be a one time deal with each instance because I was only able to do it once only.

The game basically has a Guild Wars type of feel where everything in the game except for the towns is instanced.  It does seem a little like a solo rpg than an mmorpg.  If you like playing Diablo you would probably enjoy playing this game also.

I vaguely looked at the DDO Shop.  It looked like you could buy xp boosts, potions, regeneration boosts, unlock char slots, unlock some classes etc.  The time I have been playing the game I see no real need to buy anything, but I wasn't trying to solo a dungeon on the highest difficulty setting either.

I think for a game that is free to play it was pretty impressive, and I saw no kind of gold or powerleveling spam.  I think the game could be very enjoyable for a casual gamer looking for a relaxing game to play after a hard days work at the office.  I would definitely recommend downloading Dungeons and Dragons Online, and playing it.

League of Heroes

League of Heroes is a browser based game based on Superheroes.  Initially I thought the game was going to be kind of cool, and fun.  I was able to choose three different powers which all sounded very cool.  I pick to be a villain.

I receive my first choice for missions.  Either mug someone on the street, rob a business, or rob a bank.  I choose to start by mugging someone on the street.

This is where I started laughing.  I didn't realize it was just a text based, random event game.  It comes back, and says you successfully robbed someone for $53 dollars.  I laughed some more, and closed my browser.

I guess I never knew what a browser based game was all about.  If you want a good laugh go ahead, and give League of Heroes a try.

Gates of Andaron

Gates of Andaron is a free to play MMORPG.

You are able to choose from two different factions either Valorian or Derion.

Valorian is more of a melee based faction, and Derion is a magic based faction.

Choose to either be a Human, Neved, or a Fairy. 

The class choices are Priest, Evocator, Warrior, Nightwalker, Archer, or Magician.

Instanced dungeons for parties, and guilds.

Fight against players for daily conquests.

Strategic battles for player groups.

Each class has talent trees.

Player duels.

After playing the game for over an hour I wasn't to impressed.  The overall lore of the game seems really exciting, but it just didn't live up to my expectations even though it's free to play.  I took a short video of my experiences in the Gates of Andaron in the starting area.

Star Trek Online

I noticed Gamestop is selling pre-orders to Star Trek Online.  It sounds like a pretty good deal if you buy the collectors edition.  You get:

-Limited Edition collectible box
-Exclusive Art Book
-Buddy Passes for Free Trials
-Exclusive StarFleet Comm Badge

The best part is beta access in January

and exclusively if you buy from Gamestop you get an in-game Enterprise Ship.

World of Warcraft itch

I am getting an itch to play it again. It has been a little over two years since I last played. It is the weirdest feeling.

Today was the first day I have even looked at the Warcraft website since I quit. There is something about that game that just draws you in. It is like that ex that you know you shouldn't get back with, but you do it anyways.

Should I go back now, or just wait for Cataclysm since I have to start a new account?

Aion /blogslice

This Aion video is simply amazing.  It is the best video I have ever seen made by someone. I can tell this person put in a bunch of hours to produce this with such high quality.





I also found this great post on this Aion blog.  He nails it perfectly with his illustrations, and explanation of the implications of the pve and pvp leveling curve.  It is definitely worth reading.

Warhammer Server Populations

It seems the population in Warhammer is way lower than I thought it was.   I renewed my subscription, and activity seems very low on my server Dark Crag.  Are all the servers this low?

I am able to get scenarios every 30 minutes or so during peak hours, but even the endless trial tier 1 is empty.  The open rvr seems non existent.  The only thing I see advertised in chat is duels, and TOVL.

Should they merge all the servers into one, or maybe two for Warhammer?  How about cross server scenarios? What is the best thing to keep the remaining subscribers, or get new ones to stay?

I love Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

I am so happy I bought Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 yesterday.  It put the word fun back into gaming.   I played the original Call of Duty years ago, and still have a bunch of fond memories about that game.  The question of the day is why did I stop playing FPS's in the first place?

Modern Warfare 2 gives you instant pvp gratification without the level grind like in MMORPG's.  No one is better geared than the next guy.  It is an equal playing field.  Is that why I like it so much?

The graphics are simply amazing.  It is like night and day from what I remember the original Call of Duty graphics being like years ago.   Everything seems very realistic.  I love how you can shoot someone, and they will crawl along, or still lay there almost dead shooting at you. 

There are lots of cool guns in Modern Warfare 2.   I thought the Heart Sensor gun was pretty sweet.  You get to ride in a humvee while shooting a huge gun on top of it, riding snowmobiles while shooting guns, and etc.  It is so addicting that I really had a hard time stopping to write this post.

Here is a video of me playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 last night.   I am definitely no expert, but it's still fun the whole time you play.

Welcome to WASDstomp

Welcome to my new general gaming blog.  I decided with my interest in so many new games it would be better to have a general gaming blog instead of a single game niche blog.  I look forward to talking about Aion, Warhammer, World of Warcraft, SWTOR, and other games too.