Why did Aion fail?

[Solaris17]

I remember when this game came out it was like $80 for the pre order. For an MMO it looked great and even though I hated MMOs I even wanted to give it a try. people talked about it alot and it got good reviews. I went to NCsoft to redownload guildwars I used to play it with a few TPUers. Their news feed said Aion turned 3 years old. I went to go look at the Aion main page and noticed it was free to play. But why? GW is not free its also older was Aion not that popular? why did it fail? was it not diffirent enough?

[TheHunter]

Well if it turned out Free to play it doesnt automatically mean it failed.


I tried free to play and its ok, but it looks kinda dated for today's standards, although they updated it to v3.0 not so long ago, I didnt try this newer version yet..

[W1zzard]

hard to say .. i played it, like every other mmorpg, and it got boring after less than 10 hours

[lilhasselhoffer]

Guild Wars. The game that is being phased out for its new, free to play, brother Guild Wars 2?

Am I missing something?


A lot of the older MMOs have gone F2P in the recent past. Some of them did the transition well, largely due to fanatical fan base support. If you've watched gaming news, you'd know that City of Heroes also went F2P. Unfortunately, it is being shut down in the near future.

In my opinion, most fantasy MMOs try to be Warcraft. The fan base is already locked into WoW, and cannot easily be swayed with another paid service. Aion's developers obviously know this, and went F2P as an incentive. Considering that WoW has even gone F2P, the change is coming.

I fear the microtransactions that make this type of game work. GW2 is doing a great job of it, and Aion must be doing something right if it still exists 3 years later. Microtransactions, and F2P, are here. The days of subscription are passing. Aion, luckily enough for those who play it, has evolved. There isn't anything to be wary about there.

[radrok]

Aion is/was a great game and I loved it, until the latest patches that ruined it.

I played it for one year and a half and I had lots lots of fun, you must have some kind of group to get through it but it was a fantastic experience for me.

I'll start by saying that I rushed the level cap, it didn't take much for my group to reach it, some days we played something like 15-16 hours straight.

Anyway, the pvp that came out of using rifts to get into Elyos leveling zones was awesome, the fact that people communicated between them to say that there were some Asmodian around their realm made it like an hunt and most of the times we could encounter groups of people so we could fight between little groups.
I loved the dredgion PVP which was a mixture of PVP and PVE, you practically had to fight your way trough with mobs and Elyos to reach the command hall and win by either killing the commander or by score.

What was a bit flawed was the flying system, it gave a good advantage to casters and healers, meleers would go mad by chasing casters flying in the air.
Some air fights were fun just because you had to carefully watch your flight time (cause you couldn't fly all the time on AION) or otherwise the flight gauge would drop and you'd fall and die into the void of the abyss


I think that the game was a bit harsh on the occidental community just because many of my friends and other people couldn't bear through the experience requirement to reach the level cap.
I did not mind and I found it enjoyable but I am a rare case, just to tell you my farming attitude I reached level 75 on Lineage II official when it wasn't free to play.

Instances were well made, with good fights and sometimes very hard (every light armored class would get oneshotted if they pulled aggro), especially the last boss in Draupnir Cave, which was 5 levels above the cap and you could literally take one day off to get through the entire instance.
Another harsh wall was the instance drop rate, it was very very low, which for some people who started with easier games like WoW wasn't acceptable.


TL DR; Very enjoyable end game, very harsh leveling (for non oriental minded gamers), AWESOME ground PvP, OK flight PvP.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by lilhasselhoffer

Guild Wars. The game that is being phased out for its new, free to play, brother Guild Wars 2?

Am I missing something?


A lot of the older MMOs have gone F2P in the recent past. Some of them did the transition well, largely due to fanatical fan base support. If you've watched gaming news, you'd know that City of Heroes also went F2P. Unfortunately, it is being shut down in the near future.

In my opinion, most fantasy MMOs try to be Warcraft. The fan base is already locked into WoW, and cannot easily be swayed with another paid service. Aion's developers obviously know this, and went F2P as an incentive. Considering that WoW has even gone F2P, the change is coming.

I fear the microtransactions that make this type of game work. GW2 is doing a great job of it, and Aion must be doing something right if it still exists 3 years later. Microtransactions, and F2P, are here. The days of subscription are passing. Aion, luckily enough for those who play it, has evolved. There isn't anything to be wary about there.

ya your missing it. gw is free to play but you do buy it.

[1Kurgan1]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

ya your missing it. gw is free to play but you do buy it.

So? Aion started off you had to buy the game and pay the sub. Any game that has started like that, then has went free to play has not charged to purchase the game. And I would put my money on the sole reason being, the game was failing, going F2P then charging people to try it out (when the idea of going F2P is to get more people to try it) is just a bad idea.

Any game that started out as P2P then goes F2P is planning on living off of micro-transactions, if you launch with a title that you pay for the game, you don't have to rely on that so much as most likely more bought it at launch (I bought GW2 and have barely played, simply because it doesn't have a sub), and people will continue to buy it over time because of that. It's better to launch F2P than it is to switch to F2P and have to revamp your game.

Either way, beyond that. I played Aion, was extremely unimpressed with it. The biggest problems I had with it, nothing made it stand out from other MMOs, felt a lot like a EQ clone. And then, some areas looked amazing, I remember coming across a lakes with animals grazing, it looked great. 2 minutes away from there you ran into a forest with the worst textures I ever seen (maybe thats an exaggeration). But then I was told they tried to make key areas look great, and areas that weren't suppose to see as much travel got textured down basically. Which all that did was make my character seem like he didn't even belong in the game, only time I have ever felt a disconnection between my character and a game like that.

[3870x2]

I just think that there is such an influx of MMO games that it is just too easy to fail. If you look at supposed blockbuster MMO failure rates, what is the chance that it is going to fail, according to statistics? very high, and that doesn't even count the hundreds that are made by other, not so well known or smaller companies.

Making an MMO is like playing the lottery, I just don't see why anyone still invests in those right now (from a business prospective)

Sure there is a small chance youll hit the jackpot (WoW) but there are much better chances of failure.

Want to win at an MMO? take legend of zelda, mix it with a vast world like skyrim, and add multiplayer on a massive scale. I for one am tired of the old autoattack / passive battle system. I want to swing a sword and hit something. I want to put on some special boots and run faster. I want to solve puzzles by playing with the environment. Something else. please!

[lilhasselhoffer]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

ya your missing it. gw is free to play but you do buy it.

Fair. GW2 requires you to pony up money at the front, while Aion had an initial user fee (to pay for initial setup costs). Once the user base has paid for the game it will likely drop down in price, though this is just my assumption.

WoW had/has the same initial structure to pay for hardware and start-up costs. With the latest revisions you're free until you reach the level cap. Presumably, Aion has the same thing going, but the primary source of income is microtransactions. While Aion and WoW evolved after they paid for their start-up, Guild Wars 2 has to start from scratch and is charging an entry fee. Am I missing something?

None of the three games is a failure. The oldest among them is evolving slowly as its user base erodes, attempting to retain its dominance. The middle child is throwing more into the F2P model, and using its amassed user base to fuel growth by microtransaction. The new kid on the block asks you to help setup with them, but in return the game will remain free to play. All are moving towards an end goal that isn't defined, and none are failures. Isn't that the point of the thread: "Why did Aion fail?" Am I missing the point?

[Absolution]

Ehm Aion didnt go F2P real fast. A better fail would be The Old Republic which is going to go F2P soon. Also I think Aion was the first MMO to have characters with flight (wings) battles, it was unique.

I dont think it failed, it just adapted to the MMO scene. F2P model is much better in the long run for publishers / developers.

[remixedcat]

NC soft goes thru MMOs like water.... not worth getting into thier games...