10 Reasons Why Aion Will Fail

Aion launched to more than 400.000 pre-order copies last week and has seen an enormous amount of players logging in over the past couple of days.

Much of the feedback thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, in spite of prevalent server queues. There have been no major game-breaking bugs, server crashes or glaring gameplay omissions and yesterday I even managed to write down ten reasons why Aion will manage to hold on to it’s current subscriber figures.

But not all is good in this virtual world and there are definite areas of improvement and reasons to expect things to turn for the worse a few months down the road. So today I present to you ten reasons why Aion may go down the road to follow the likes of Age of Conan and Warhammer Online.

These are ten aspects of the game that could use some work, ten hurdles Aion must overcome in order to keep a high retention rate and become one of the major Western MMORPGs.

PvP-oriented Gameplay

A major draw to the game for some, but likely a deal breaker for many others is the way PvP is handled in Aion.

There are no PvE servers, most zones are fully PvP enabled with random portals ensuring entirely unpredictable clashes and the end-game mostly consists of PvP (or PvPvE) content. This is an aspect of the game that most people have yet to come into contact with, which means today’s positive comments could turn sour very quickly once carebears start getting ganked.

While I think this is a major draw to the game, I also know that I’m hardly the average player right now. Most of the people who’ve flocked to Aion are World of WarCraft players, and many of them will be in for a shock once they hit the halfway point and head on to the Abyss.

A major draw for some, myself included, but Aion's focus on PvP gameplay will turn a lot of players off

Flight is a Gimmick

Oh sure you can fly for a couple of minutes once you’ve got things maxed out and you can float mostly everywhere else. Great.

Unfortunately it is capped to only a couple of minutes and to a number of zones. Many zones, including the – floating – capitals do not support flight, only floating on air currents (or: downhill). A great way to ruin your prime distinctive gameplay feature.

In-flight combat seems like a cool gimmick, but with flight capped to roughly 3 minutes it seems unlikely to become an actual commonly adopted play style.

Visual Style

Now this isn’t going to drive any current players away, but it’s likely to drive some people away from making the purchase.

Aion may have undergone extensive westernization, but the world, item and character design is still distinctly Asian. Oversized weaponry, spiky hair, exaggerated features, all the Asian bases are covered.

This will result in some lost sales from people who inexplicably rage on anything Asian or Asian-looking. Bad for NCSoft, but for us (the community)… probably not.

Atmosphere

I recall a Massively editor stating that Aion has no soul. It may have been harshly worded, but there’s some truth to that.

I’ve played several characters on either side, up to a little below level 20. Thus far the game’s atmosphere just hasn’t been as entrancing as it was in MMORPGs like Lord of the Rings Online, World of WarCraft or Guild Wars.

It’s like NCSoft has looked a bit too much at Western MMORPGs and taken good things from all of them, but didn’t spend enough time giving the game character. Most of the cutscenes feel just off, the transition from battle to atmospheric music is jarring (despite the good tracks featured on both ends) and the world fails to captivate as fully as other MMORPGs once did.

There is a decent chance that this will turn around near level 25, when the Abyss (and PvP) opens up. Aion is a PvP-oriented game so it would make sense for it’s identity to be most pronounced in that area. I recall other games that had similar turnarounds, such as RF Online.

But that still leaves an early experience that is just slightly… off.

Cutscenes are in, but frequently seem rather pointless

Indistinctive

The previous point brings me to a more important reason why Aion might stand to lose some of it’s customers: it’s not very distinctive.

Aion may have flight implemented in a way that’s never been seen before in a MMORPG. And it does offer a beautiful world and every feature you’d expect of a modern MMO game. But it doesn’t bring a whole lot new to the table.

This will not matter to a majority of players, who’d rather play something familiar, but it will cost NCSoft some subscribers in the long run.

Server Population Balance

Actually the population balance across the servers in Aion is excellent right now, thanks to NCSoft’s overly harsh server policy.

The problem lies in the fact that you’ll have a hard time meeting up with friends on a popular server. You may know a lot of people who play the game, but if you just joined and see that their server of Perento (or Spatalos) has a 2500 player queue, then you’ll be going for Kahrun. Or your friends might stop playing before you even make it through the server queue!

It can also fracture guilds that were formed prior to launch but contain some members who’d rather actually play, whereas others insist on staying on a specific server. This means players who know each other are less likely to play together, which decreases the likelihood of their subscribing for further months of play.

Balanced it might be. But the community is not as happy as it could, or indeed should, be.

Server Queues

And that brings me to the topic of the … err … month: server queues.

‘First impressions are everything’ is not an idiom known to NCSoft. I can hardly play with my friends on the Perento server at all, because it translates to a 2+ hour wait. I only have a few hours every evening to actually play this game, which means I’m not going to sit around and wait to get in for a few hours.

A lot of people are voicing similar complaints about the ridiculous server queues, which have lasted for more than a week and are actually getting worse again. NCSoft has responded by launching a single server, which hasn’t helped the queues on other servers at all.

In fact, Perento’s queue today is higher than it was yesterday, and Kahrun, the new server, is already at high population.

Well... it's definitely pretty

Gold Farmers and Botters

Actually I haven’t spotted any bots yet, but there definitely are scores of gold farmers and real-money-traders to be found in-game already.

Knowing how much havoc these kinds of activities can play on a game’s economy, having them in – and actively harassing players with whispers – at this point is not a good sign.

The WoW Comparison

Most of the current Aion crowd consists of former (or current) World of WarCraft players. All of them will be comparing it to that game, as it is now.

In that comparison, Aion does not come out too favorably. The world isn’t nearly as big, there clearly aren’t enough servers, the total amount of quests available amounts to less than a quarter of WoW’s count and there aren’t even as many different races and classes to experiment with.

A fair amount of players will leave simply because WoW has more to offer (to them).

Longevity

Aion does not offer class-specific starter zones, nor even class-specific quests. It also doesn’t offer sufficient quests to opt for alternative paths on a second character. Alts translate to grinding, which is not a good thing in the long-term.

There are precisely enough quests to keep leveling up on either side (Asmodian or Elyos), which means that one go at both races is enough to experience all of the PvE content available in this game.

This is – somewhat – counteracted by the fact that the end-game is PvP focused, which means it’s essentially endless. But it would still help if NCSoft took some time – eventually – to flesh out further beginner areas to make creating alts a more alluring experience. Especially for those players who do not care for PvP.

So what do you think? Is Aion doomed to fail, or will NCSoft step up to the challenge and continue to make it’s new game world a better place to be in? Are you planning on extending your subscription beyond the first month? Or aren’t you even going to bother with the game at all?

Chime in and leave a comment!

Also see: 10 Reason Why Aion Will Succeed

Related Posts:

• October 7, 2009 -- Aion Server Queues Revisited (0)
• September 28, 2009 -- 10 Reasons Why Aion Will Succeed (2)
• September 26, 2009 -- Queuing up for Aion (6)
• September 23, 2009 -- Poll Time: Are You Playing Aion? (0)
• August 31, 2009 -- Aion vs World of WarCraft: Launch Conditions (19)