I’ve been incredibly busy lately. I’m in 2 Alpha’s and 3 betas (not all MMO’s either) at the moment. This is a first for me to be in this many pre-release tests at one time and it is killing me not to be able to fill you all in. It’s also killing what I have to say around here lately, although once I can speak up then I’ll have an enormous pool from which to draw upon in discussions about design and what is good and bad about the direction games are taking.
Since I can’t recall off the top of my head which, if any, of these NDA’s allow me to disclose that I am testing their product by name, I won’t be able to give you guys much more than that. It’s probably not even allowed for me to say “You have a lot to look forward to and a few things to avoid”… so until I figure it all out I won’t. 😉
To avoid a really short entry, let me add on here that I am really looking forward to Aion now that I know something about the NA release. I was afraid it would be a Korean grinder or a low quality thrown together title. From the videos linked to me here, it actually looks neat. The explanation about the game here also leads me to believe that it has real pvp potential.
Okay, that’s all for now. Back to testing.
Oh, expect something from me later today about Darkfall.
Darkfall updates…. NOW!
I can see it now…the new street cred for us bloggers is to admit that you may or may not be in a BETA.
Which I am. Or am not. Ish.
Beau
I figured you were too busy paying taxes in DF to post:)
I certainly do not pay Taxes. 😛
All of Keen’s taxes are belong to me.
Heh, I knew you’d get on the Aion train. It just seems like your ideal MMO, though it is likely going to be much more theme-park than sandbox. I guess we’ll find out if Darkfall spoiled you on all other MMOs soon enough. 😛
Yeah I also have gotten into several closed betas and even an alpha…some really cool things out there.
Ugh,I just can’t stand those Angel wings. The real question is, how is the overall gameplay different than WoW? Seems like LoTRO.. raid focused with a PvP area (Ettermoors). Is that accurate?
If the angel wings don’t do me in then I might be able to handle it. I don’t mind theme-park styles, but they have to have some wiggle room. If Aion has fortresses for guilds to own and attack then that could be all I need.
Hey werit =)
The info from this wiki – http://www.aionsource.com/wiki/The_Abyss – makes Aion sound like the end-game will be most similar to DaoC rather then WoW or LoTRO.
The Abyss is a large area, and contains lots of PvE stuff including quests, crafting resources, and good places to level. But also includes 9 Keeps to siege, 31 artifacts to capture and many raid bosses to defeat.
A large PvP area with keeps, artifacts and good pve content reminds me most of old frontiers in DaoC, which I liked, so I’m hoping this will be fun =)
totally agree with you Keen
Abyss Points sound like Pre-BC WoW PvP ranks.
It really does sound like LoTRO’s version, but bigger. They had 5 keeps to siege, a PvP dungeon with raid bosses, resources to harvest and money to gain. That’s not a bad thing, I enjoyed the ettermoors a great deal.
Ya know, Aion actually looks pretty cool. But, still no word if it’s a hardcore Korean mmo grinder is there?
From what I’m hearing they are trying to westernize is to make sure there isn’t any of that korean grinder in it.
I’ve been doing some reading on Aion. Looks like a pretty cool game. I’ll have to check it out if there’s an English Beta.
Is it just me, or is anyone else kinda looking for an MMO that is NOT a fantasty based sword/magic.
I mean a MechWarrior style MMO would be perfect…heck really anything. I don’t see why SOME company doesn’t try something a different.
Which is why I’m looking forward to playing Jumpgate, and then much later on, SW:TOR.
@Howdy Doody
Yeah, I would love a sci-fi based MMO. I played Anarchy Online for years before I finally moved on to WoW and I miss the setting very much. Hate elves and magic.
My only hope in the future for a good sci-fi MMO is SWTOR as it looks right now.
Man, I used to love the MechWarrior based MUSEs back in the day. Capturing towers, salvaging mechs, picking up ejected pilots and ransoming them back. Good times.
You can guarantee that anyone who did a ‘mech based MMO these days would mess it up though; the mech would move like a WoW character and you wouldn’t be able to leave it 😉 Pretty much like Keen observed about Jumpgate.
I’ve been pushing Aion for well over a year now. The one thing you can immediately tell from the videos is that they got the animation/timing/engine/”feel” (whatever it is!) right in a way that I think nobody other than WoW has.
And as far as I understand the vast majority of the endgame is guild-level, territory-control PVP, although there are also raid targets. Hard to tell because they didn’t patch the level 45+ content in until way after release in Korea.