Tol Barad’s potential unrealized

  • Post author:
  • Post category:MMORPG

What do you see in these images below?

I see areas designated for PvP.  I see several keeps and landmarks that appear to be capturable.  When I look at these two islands off the cost of Eastern Kingdoms I’m immediately reminded of Frontiers from Dark Age of Camelot.  These areas, Tol Barad and Tol Barad Penninsula, would make the perfect open-world PvP zones for World of Warcraft.  The keeps could be captured and held and remain vulnerable at all times.  When one of the factions takes a keep it is available for guilds to lay claim.  When owned the guilds can upgrade the doors, walls, defenses, and prepare them for being resieged.  This is how it worked in DAOC and how I can imagine it working in WoW.  Just looking at those pictures long enough I can see the battles playing out in my mind.

Unfortunately, Tol Barad will operate similar to Wintergrasp.  The battles will last a specific amount of time and there will be queues.  It’s simplified to nothing more than a king of the hills/own all 3 at a time to win the glorified battleground, then it resets in an hour.  That is a lost opportunity.  Instead of finally having a real open-world experience, it’s more of the same.  Blizzard themselves stated that Wintergrasp did not live up to their vision.

Open-world PvP has not been done right by Blizzard ever.  There was a time when it happened naturally due to the natural questing landscape in areas like Hillsbrad, but now it seems like Blizzard does everything in their power to alleviate players feeling like they’re at war with the other faction.  Even on PvP servers, it remains taboo.  I’m anxious to see what happens with areas like Southern Barrens, but even more so with Tol Barad and the missed opportunity they’re taking in favor of more of the same.

Whoever owns the area get access to the Penninsula, aka the questing hub.  That’s great.  It can act like Darkness Falls did for DAOC.  Why not allow the PvP area to remain under constant contention, though?  Why not allow for it to change hands regularly and have the location be a real battlefield?  I suppose they’re worried that it will turned into a cluster of lag and mass chaos fueled by population imbalances.  There are ways around this.  Why not limit the number of players able to enter much in the same way that players are limited by a queue when trying to join a full server?  If it’s bad enough, let them enter a queue for the flight master/teleport/whatever to take them over to the island.

Blizzard chooses not to do open-world PvP , for whatever reason.  I want to say they’re incapable or don’t understand, but they’re too in control of their own destiny for that to be the case.  I’m still holding out for a day when WoW embraces its nature and becomes a real PvP game.  Warcraft -is- a PvP property.  The very foundation of the game was Alliance and Horde killing each other.  One day they’ll realize this and make the greatest PvP game we’ve ever seen.

  • PvP doesnt have any real oomph to it. The expansions contribute to this due to the lack of Horde vs Alliance setup. Burning Crusade? Horde/Alliance vs Ilidan. Wrath? Horde/Alliance vs Arthas. Cataclysm? Horde/Alliance vs Deathwing. What is it with all these world ending bosses vs everyone? Remember pre BC? It was Horde vs Alliance, and a bunch of bosses to knock over for fun.

  • I’ve noticed this “let’s team up for the good of all” mentality too. I don’t understand it. It should be “You are Alliance. We kill you. *grunt*”.

  • While that might be nice in theory, that doesn’t exactly work with Warcraft Lore. While the two factions are at war, there has always been an ever looming dark presence that threatened everyone. Even in the early RTS games. Warcraft Lore is riddled with big bads who are trying to destroy everyone. If these factions were able to side with those big bads in some way then it might make a little more sense. However, Warcraft is like any other war scenario. You may not like each other, but when the fate of both worlds are at stake you can’t continue the meaningless killing. Otherwise, you’re dooming yourselves.

  • Shadrah – Thats a pretty lame excuse. Blizzard could just as easily have made an expansion that gets back to Alliance v. Horde as they could have brought back Deathwing, its fiction, you can CHOOSE where it goes.

  • Blizzard just doesn’t know how to do PvP right. They start off doing it wrong with skills that are both PvE and PvP balanced, rather than separately balanced, and then go on with uninspired battlegrounds, unbalanced PvP, and exploits.

  • “Why not limit the number of players able to enter much in the same way that players are limited by a queue when trying to join a full server? If it’s bad enough, let them enter a queue for the flight master/teleport/whatever to take them over to the island.”

    Umm, wouldn’t that run counter to the idea of it being “open world” if you have to queue for it anyway? How is that different to what Blizz is suggesting?

    A couple of points to consider;
    1) Balanced teams are more fun than uneven ones (Hence auto-team balance via queues)

    2) Not everyone PVP’s nor cares too (Nothing you can do about how people choose to play the game).

    3) PVP without suitable rewards quickly becomes pointless in a game that’s all about progression. (As seen from the complete lack of outpost raiding currently in WoW)

    4) Make the PVP rewards too great and people just jump ship to the winning side to reap the benefits (Because most people like being on the ‘Winning’ Team)

    5) Make the difficulty of taking back a PVP target too great and people will just ignore it all together. (See point 1).

    I think the only games where world PVP can work fully are games that are purpose built for it. Make the world *all* about PVP from the onset and you’ll make sure you’re population base is really up for it.

    Blending PVE and PVP will never really work. Blizzard appears to build these battle grounds for the casual PVP crowd.. people who’d rather treat PVP as a ‘mini-game’ to toy with while they’re working on the PVE content.

    Nothing wrong with that, but I understand how it’d disappointing to people who are looking for more open world PVP centric game play. I just don’t think WoW was ever really cut out to be that game.

  • Mala: Except that this is World of WARCRAFT. Not World of Lets-Make-It-Up-As-We-Go-Along. This is a game derived from deep lore that’s been around for years. You don’t just up and one day say “Hey! We’re going to throw out the lore so you can mindlessly kill each other. Sounds good, right? K.”

  • Heh, you sure about that Shadrah? Should look into the entire Burning Crusade expansion. That was one big “Hey! We’re going to throw out the lore so we can…”

    Example? One word: Draenei.

    Metzen really does make this stuff up as he goes.

  • “Blending PVE and PVP will never really work.”

    WoW does have PvP servers, and it doesn’t make the PvE any less enjoyable. And WoW is not balanced around 1v1 PvP, but you can’t tell me the constant rogue re-balancing has nothing to do with how they perform in PvP. And open PvP areas are in the game already, with tower ownership mechanics. Plus with current players accustomed to Wintergrasp, providing an open PvP area with similar keep siege gameplay seems to be the next step. All thats needed is a fair way to provide rewards for taking keeps/defending/killing other players in a 24/7 ongoing format.

  • Glad im not playing anymore; I would probably smash my head against the keyboard from frustration over the stuff you just mentioned above.

  • I think it’s more ot do with server performance.

    You see what happened in WG when it was full? the server bombed. I don’t think the engine is up to world pvp on a massive scale.

  • @Shadrah

    There is plenty of lore they could’ve chosen to emphasize if they wanted to bring back Horde v. Alliance as a main gameplay feature. Obviously there is lore in any series/ongoing fiction, but how the author uses it, introduces new lore/story, and weaves it all together is what gives you the final product, nothing is preordained.

    Also, like Keen said, Blizzard seems totally willing to make stuff up whole sale when it suits their needs.

  • Funny you write this. I’ve been venturing into PvMP in LotRO and finding I love it. I hate battlegrounds and such in WoW though and I think you hit on why.

    In LotRO, although it is confined to one area, you just show up and if there are enough people, the fighting begins (if there aren’t enough people, there are quests to do for your “faction” that can keep you preoccupied). I think WoW is trying to make sure its battlegrounds are almost always full and that’s why they regulate the PVP.

    There is no surprise that someone has taken Wintergrasp because at a certain time of day most people are either queing up or asking the outcome. So I guess I like the spontanaeity available in LotRO.

    And as other people have stated, the lore definitely comes into it. As a person who started playing WoW during BC, I don’t really understand why I’m supposed to “hate” the horde. In LotRO, when I play my creep, I know I’m the enemy. I know why I’m hated.

  • They’ve danced around the DAOC model for a while now. Halaa was open world 24/7 but it was minor and there was no real “capture this, then be able to do this”. Come Wrath they went the other direction but they throttled the amount of players able to participate. Back in the day I’d argue that it would be unfair to horde players as alliance WAY outnumbered Horde but I’m not so sure that population gap exists anymore. At least not as bad as it used to be, however, I haven’t looked at numbers recently. I could be wrong.

  • The baffling thing about this, for me, is that it seems much easier to make interesting, sandbox PvP content then it is to maintain and create PvE treadmill content.
    They could make interesting and wonderful open world PvP content fairly easily.

    They could open/create 5 little zones. Not full size zones here, but 5 smallish zones. They could do this either by carving an existing zone up into small pieces of doing their mechanic or inventing an island of some type. This place would not be instanced and would be real world.

    They could use existing castle and capturing mechanics similar to Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin. Populate it with guards and NPC’s. Enable guilds to capture the keeps themselves, put their name on the door and earn special achievements/titles for holding it.

    Toss a few worth while vendors in the keeps and quest givers with great rewards/reputation gains. Put an instance in the middle of the map for the side that controls a majority of the keeps. Enable a special, uber heroic mode of that instance if you can control all 5 keeps. Also, honorable kills in this are would give many more points than in BGs.

    Ta-dah. This took me 5 mins and it uses existing mechanics that WoW has been sitting on for years. This would require no upkeep and its something players could propagate all by themselves. With the small, capturable zones, instances with great gear, reputation and vendors with more great gear, mounts and rewards, and the e-peen of your clan dominating the area, it would run itself.

    People outgrow PvE treadmills because they grind the same little instances over and over and over. An open world frontier like this could be viable and interesting forever as long as they don’t destroy the carrots with their vertical design.

  • Can anyone remember the name of the pvp free for all server on Daoc? Nothing better than getting ganked by your own side in Caer Gothwaite trying to train. That was true ,brutal pvp. I want to say it started with an M, but i don’t think it was Merlin.

  • I prefered PvP in wow before they made battlegrounds, they could have improved the rank system they had instead.

    I loved working towards the Knight rank, and finally being able to enter the Alliance barracks on my RP server was cool.

  • Ya know reading this discussion has me thinking. I’m wondering if maybe I’m only remembering the great moments of World PvP. For instance 40 mans working and finally killing Rag was one of the greatest moments of any MMO for me. But it also contained 95% of the worst moments of any MMO for me.

    So thinking towards world PvP I remember some fantastic moments in Vanilla WoW and some epic castle sieges in WAR. But…it also had some of the worst moments in gaming for me. In Vanilla is was hours on hours of really nothing changing. In WAR it was groups of 100 just farming castles that were easy to take, while running from anything challenging. And to some extent the same in DarkFall (granted I gave up on DF pretty quick so probably not a great comparison).

    maybe it’s just me but I really haven’t experienced a “Consistent” great world pvp. As much as I like Barts comments in principal, what do you do when one side Owns the Hell out of the other like Wintersgrasp?

    Can world PvP even be done without at least 3 factions to allow 2 to gang up on 1? I just don’t know anymore.

    On the flip side I am VERY anxious to get into some 15v15 rated battlegrounds with folks you know in vent. For me PvP is at its best when communication and strategy are used no matter what type of PvP it is.

  • @Keen: I was actually going to mention that. However, they did stick to lore at it’s core. With BC leading into Illidan and Kil’jaeden. Both staples to the Warcraft Franchise. BC was a generally bad expansion altogether, though. So I can understand the problem. However, I still don’t see an open PvP driven world as being viable in Warcraft. It’s never really been that. Granted, it was a little more prevalent in vanilla. It was still driven by it’s PvE players with a side focus for the niche PvP crowd.

    I think that’s the problem with why Blizzard doesn’t take this direction. PvP is a niche crowd. Hardcore 24/7 PvP being moreso. I just don’t see it as something that would drive the game. Let’s take a look at most games designed for the PvP crowd. While they may do very well for their purpose, they’re still only small niche games. DAoC maybe being one of the few exceptions.

    I really don’t feel that sticking DaoC elements into World of Warcraft would necessarily be an improvement on the game. I think, instead, it would hurt the game. There’s a very fine line between PvP and PvE. If you give too much reward from one or the other it will ultimately kill the weaker of the two. It’s very hard as is to balance the two on a casual level. However, when you have two dominating ideals trying to balance themselves out it will almost never happen. WoW would ultimately have to go one way or the other for either to work effectively.

  • @ Anon

    I’ve just got to respond to some of your points as I fundamentally disagree with a lot of what you said.

    “Umm, wouldn’t that run counter to the idea of it being ‘open world’ if you have to queue for it anyway? How is that different to what Blizz is suggesting?”

    I agree and I think any system such as this should only be put in place as a last resort. That being said, there are ways you could do it and still maintain the “open world” feel, if not reality. For example, the queue would only be necessary if teams reach a certain level of “lopsided-ness.” Only then would a queue be necessary to allow more members of one faction to enter versus the side that significantly outnumbers the other. I would argue that even if you have this system in place it should be used sparingly.

    “1) Balanced teams are more fun than uneven ones (Hence auto-team balance via queues)”

    Not always true. I agree it is no fun to be constantly hopelessly outnumbered and, as mentioned, safeguards can be put in place. In DAoC the teams in the frontiers were rarely, if ever, “even.” Also, how much more satisfying is a victory against greater numbers? How about doing hit and run or harassment raids on key objectives to break up the zerg or just kill off stragglers and be a pain in the rear? There is plenty of fun to be had when outnumbered if developers create the circumstances allowing it or players are creative enough with the systems they’re given.

    “2) Not everyone PVP’s nor cares too (Nothing you can do about how people choose to play the game).”

    I can’t disagree with this, but I’m not sure how it impacts anything either. If people don’t want to PvP, then don’t go to the PvP zone or queue for BGs. I don’t mean to be a smart ass, so maybe you could elaborate if I am missing something.

    “3) PVP without suitable rewards quickly becomes pointless in a game that’s all about progression. (As seen from the complete lack of outpost raiding currently in WoW)”

    Then create PvP with suitable rewards…problem solved. I believe WoW already has this system in place. As others have mentioned, you can include access to new instances based on keep ownership, the obvious and already built-in Honor Point system. New systems like guild ownership of keeps and additional PvP related achievements, etc. can add to this.

    “4) Make the PVP rewards too great and people just jump ship to the winning side to reap the benefits (Because most people like being on the ‘Winning’ Team)”

    Really? How many folks have PvP-ready level 80s available for each faction on the same server? I guess over time there will be more and more, and with server transfers and faction transfers it could be more of an issue than I think. However, I still don’t really see this as being a huge problem. And in any case, the battle will be ongoing and the pendulum will swing back and forth, it could do so many times a day. If there are handful of people willing to switch sides based on that, I don’t think there will be too much of an impact on anyone’s enjoyment of the system.

    “5) Make the difficulty of taking back a PVP target too great and people will just ignore it all together. (See point 1).”

    Or you could end up with a system like DAoC had where a relic raid was often a server-wide faction effort, which created a focal point for the whole server to rally around. Rarely could any one guild pull it off alone. Guilds interacted, planned relic raids, and joined together in alliances to facilitate it all.

    “I think the only games where world PvP can work fully are games that are purpose built for it. Make the world *all* about PVP from the onset and you’ll make sure you’re population base is really up for it.”

    No. That is what I hated about WAR. It was supposedly ALL about the WAR and both the PvE and PvP suffered for it. I agree about the game needing to be built for PvP, but developers can create a COMPLETE game that has both good PvE and PvP. It has been done before. A good MMO should have PvE only areas, some PvP only areas, and areas where the two are blended.

    I personally enjoy the areas where the two are blended the most. It allows for spontaneous conflicts and skirmishes to take place. Hit and run at the enemy, attack a higher level or better geared opponent when he is at a disadvantage, call in guildies or faction teammates for help, etc. Very dynamic and it makes PvE more fun when anything can happen if you ask me.

    “Blending PvE and PvP will never really work.”

    I almost laughed out loud when I read this. It has been done before. DAoC had the perfect blend of the two prior to ToA. In fact, most sandbox type MMOs are completely blended with PvE areas also being FFA PvP areas (like EVE), except in starter areas. Also, as someone else mentioned, WoW does a pretty dang good job of it too. Granted, WoW needs work in the open-world aspect as mentioned.

    I think WoW has missed an opportunity to really take their PvP to the next level and satisfy many more gamers than it does. All the systems are there, they just need to put it together. I can’t tell you how many times I thought, “if Wintergrasp was a little bigger and with a few more objectives of different types, and open all the time instead of the timed battles, it would be so much better than it is now.” Sometimes I just hang around the fortress there or fly around the zone looking for trouble. Sometimes I find it, but lately less so.

  • At first (alpha) pvp wasnt even in the game. you did choose between horde and alliance, but they could form groups and play together, since alle the races united after the warcraft-RTS-games. blizzard never intended to build a pvp-game and to this day pvp remains an afterthought. heck, the frickin’ engine can’t handle a lot of players at the same time without crashing the servers.

    I’d love to see open pvp again, I have fond memories of countless skirmishes around hillsbrad or stranglethorn vale.

  • @Shadrah: With Blizzard’s talent and budget, they could have their cake and eat it too. As Balthazar points out in his comment, if people don’t want to participate in the 24/7 PvP struggle ala DAOC’s Frontiers then they don’t have to visit that zone/continent. BG’s would still be there, Arenas would still be there, the currently pseudo open-world optional PvP is there… they would just add to it.

    They would have to change very little and, as Bartlebe points out, spend little if any time maintaining it. The players drive this content themselves. DAOC’s RvR was very hands-off and required almost nothing to maintain it. Heck, the only reason why Mythic even patched was because they were pretty bad at class balance.

    @Tom: I’m yearning for the days of Warcraft 2 where these two factions just loathed each other. It would definitely make for the perfect game if Blizzard could somehow fix their crummy engine not sustaining large amounts of players.

  • Because it worked so well with Aion, Keen? The game where players nerfed PvP themselves by using the free server transfers to create single faction dominated servers? The abyss is pretty much your defintion of a player contested area with checkpoints and defensible positions.

  • @Dblade: You can cite a bad example for everything in the world. I don’t subscribe to the “X failed to do it right so it’s impossible for another game to do it”, especially when Aion was flawed from the start in umpteen ways.

  • I’m playing DAoC on Uthgard right now (which is a blast) and the PvE/PvP blend I was looking for there was that there was a direct incentive – a big fat juicy carrot – in shape of a +40% XP bonus for killing mobs in PvE zones. You try to ninja your way in and find a spawn and hope that someone isn’t out hunting those areas for you…

    Darkness falls: perfect example of Blending PvP / PvE … Oh Sh!@# the albs got DF while i was in there…. how long can i go on hunting before i’m wiped out? Will my realm be able to get it back and come in and clear it out?

  • @Pierre: You can see why it was my first true love. Oh, and I’m finally going to try to get Uthgard to work since I’m on a different comp now.

  • Questioning why WoW doesn’t add PvP…You’re joking right? Have you played the game? They have systematically removed all PvP since launch.

  • Personally I really like WoW’s pvp. I just wish it had some World PvP objectives with maybe a Third Faction.

    Hell, just create a new faction and throw the space goats, Blood Elfets, Gremlins, and Teen Wolfs into it. That fixes everything, ahahhaha.

  • @ CaptHook

    Are you joking?

    Since launch they’ve added battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, arenas, and several open-world PvP areas like Halaa (which was a blast during the initial months of BC by the way).

    Maybe I am not understanding what you mean by PvP. That made me think of a funny line from Hitchhiker’s Guide: “Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word [‘PvP’] that I wasn’t previously aware of.”

    I hope I’m not feeding a troll here…

  • I could reverse that Keen and argue that just because DAOC did it, doesn’t mean that its automatically possible for other games to. My point was more that Aion showed the players weren’t all that sold on PvP, and while it’s a flawed game, it’s not all that much different from WoW mechanics at the base.

    I don’t think Blizzard didn’t look at that and start to think about how vital open-world PvP was.

  • Could be wrong, but aren’t you one of the people that says 2-sided open world PvP can never work (generally in criticism of WARs failed model)?

    Would WoW need a 3rd faction for it to work properly?

  • @Dblade: Right, but you never know unless you try. The point is, it has worked. Aion offered PvP as an integral part of the game whereas WoW could add it just because, and still lose nothing in the attempt.

    @Deigh: I’m one of the people who strongly supports 3-way PvP/RvR. I’m not one that believes any 2-sided conflict is destined to fail. The point being, we’ll never know until they actually try it and try it correctly (even without a 3rd faction).

  • @ Balthazar

    WoW had world PvP before battlegrounds were introduced. Battlegrounds turned PvP into a grind and completely removed the ‘mmo’ aspect from it. But I guess if you consider Battlegrounds pvp you’re right.

  • I remember trying to do open-world pvp in beta and right after launch. we would go and “conquer” minor towns of the alliance, like Astranaar.

    Unfortunately, the devs saw this as griefing and added uber-ultra spawning guards and insaneo flight master npcs.

    sure it sucked going to westfall and having a bunch of 60s killing the flight master, but it added another dimension to the game.

    instead of nurturing that dimension into something awesome, they chucked the baby out with the bathwater.

  • Alas, it would not be that difficult to sneak in one decent open world PvP aspect into WOW but they just refuse to do it or they do not understand…I dont get it.

    Some people dont even know what real PvP is anymore…they think PvP = arena and battlegrounds…set up spoon fed PvP..not organic PvP which just happens (quick, someone call Stormwind..PvP happened..all by itself!) and takes its natural course…the people that share that belief..have their PvP…why not open up the game to a different brand of players?

    It really wouldnt be that hard…couldnt be that time intensive…and it would give them a real bang for their buck in my opinion…on the other hand, I have the feeling that we can point the fingers at Blizz all we want…in the end, it may just be the player base that doesnt want open world PvP (as weird as this sounds…this could be true)…I am sure there are vocal minorities but maybe Blizz is just catering to what the majority of people want…we just dont like what the people want…(or the people?)

  • @ CaptHook

    Well, generally, I would consider any environment where players are killing each other to be “PvP.” I guess I am not a PvP “purist” in that sense as I do enjoy the BGs and even some arena, although open-world is definitely the most enjoyable of the three for me.

    That aside, I do agree that WoW has done a few things that have been detrimental to world PvP, the dungeon finder probably being the biggest and most recent culprit.

  • @Balthazar: I don’t know that I could really say the DF system was detrimental to world PvP. There’s not many dungeons in WoW to begin with that aren’t fairly easily accessible right from the Flightmaster. By accessible, I mean not more than maybe a 2-3 minute run. If anything, it was a shining improvement. It added a new social aspect to the game that was becoming in desperate need over the last few months.

  • @ Shadrah

    It just seems to me that prior to the dungeon finder there was a natural focus point for Horde and Alliance players to run across each other in and around or to and from the dungeon entrances that presented spontaneous PvP opportunities. Some folks would hang around in the area outside the dungeons hitting mining nodes or herbalism nodes or questing or fishing while they waited for their groups to form as well. Fewer people out in in the world running about doing things means less opportunities for PvP too.

    Also, I wouldn’t really describe the dungeon finder as improving any social aspects either. What’s social about clicking a button and magically finding yourself being teleported into the dungeon in a group with the right class make-up for a heroic without ever saying a word to anyone? And silently going through the content without saying so much as two words to each other, if anything. That’s been my experience anyway. Maybe once Cata comes out and the dungeons are new and more difficult again it will change. People will again be forced to communicate.

    It certainly made getting a group for heroics easier, I’ll give you that.

  • @Balthazar: I would have to agree. WoW has become a hub-game to a degree. At Level 80 people just sit around in Dalaran and teleport to dungeons or pvp-arenas/BGs. The world itself is kind of useless once you hit the levelcap. Blizzard removed a lot of traveling which, in my opinion, is part of what makes a gaming-world feel big and immersive.

  • Keen

    It was a year ago you went back to Aion to check it out… Do you think you could do a yearly update on that game?

    I’m curious as how it has evolved in that time.

  • And while your at it, a lot of us want updates on Allods Online. Heard they lowered the price of perfume to 1500.00 per month to endgame raid.

  • They can try it, but chances are it would be ignored. I don’t know why people keep hammering on FFA PvP as such a good thing when most games that have it either are under 10k current subs or offer large enough safe zones to avoid it. I think it’s mostly nostalgia.

  • FFA PvP is too rough even for moderate market success. I played on Mordred and Andred DAOC servers (even was in their beta status) and can tell you that it was indeed far more niche.

    FFA PvP does not lend itself very often to an opt-in system. Even DAOC, a game renowned for its RvR, was optional PvP. You either went to the Frontiers or you didn’t. If you didn’t, it was a PvE game (And a good one at that). That’s how WoW could be if Blizzard wanted.

  • Just have Blizz set up a few “Hard Core” servers. Let us see if we like it. You won’t need a lot of them, and players will be forewarned before joining. Cut out all God Like NPC’s and let us take over/fight for cities and pride.

    I’d re-roll today.

  • @Keen

    But in your last visit you kept talking about how the game was good, but there wasn’t enough stuff to do in the mid 20s range . would your opinion have changed if that stuff was added? was anything added?

    was the whole concept of Aion flawed? i didn’t get the feeling you thought that when i read your last review.

  • The ideas were not flawed, but the execution was terrible. I can’t speak for the lack of content now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it has remained the same grind without substance that it was before, influenced by its Asian heritage.

    I think the first 18 levels were good. Standard stuff. However, by the time you read 23 you’re ready to quit. By the time you reach 30 you realize nothing has changed. By the time you see how the PvP plays out you’ve unsubscribed realizing it will never live up to the idea.

  • I got that sense from other people too, but as a former daoc player, what’s the difference between the grind in daoc to the grind in aion? just not enough carrots?

  • The carrots helped. It’s also a matter of simply being fun. In DAOC you could sit in one spot and kill the same tree that respawns over and over, or you could get a group and roam the ravine to kill werewolves or you could go into spindelhalla or you could go into DF and do the Legion raid. I made actual progress in DAOC too.

    Aion really had no such viable options and progress was even slower than DAOC with less carrots and less content (things to do, places to go, methods of gaining exp).

    DAOC was sometimes a grind in the sense that you killed the same mobs, but more so because it took a long time to level and it didn’t have the quest-hub method of leveling. Aion is a grind because you literally kill the same thing over ad nauseum — it is a classic Asian grinder.