Curse.com founder's open Aion letter to NCsoft Korea
Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, New titles, Opinion
Open letters to MMO developers from forum members area dime a dozen these days but it isn't very often you see one from a forum admin. It's even more rare to see one from the founder of a major fansite network. Today must be our lucky day because Netcurse, founder of Curse.com wrote just such a letter to NCsoft Korea, head studio behind Aion.
The public plea puts some extra weight behind the biggest complaints many Aion players have been voicing since release, namely: "the grind," spammers/botters, and large-scale PvP performance in fortresses. Statements like "...there are three issues I want to bring to the front page today that need to be addressed or this game will end up being a 300k subscriber game within 6 months, not the one-million+ subscriber game it should be," show just how impassioned Netcurse is about these issues.
What's refreshing is that the author is pointing out potential solutions for each problem he draws attention to. For instance, to combat the grind, he feels XP should be increased and more benefits should be rewarded to social players (groupers). Not everyone is agreeing with his comments in the replies, so we're curious, what are your thoughts?





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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Nova said on 8:45PM 10-20-2009
I agree with a lot of what he's saying but think his proposed solutions are too complex and thus have little chance of actually happening.
Easier solutions: Increase xp on regular mobs 10%. Give 10-15% extra bonus xp when in a group.
Then the easy solution for fortress lag/crashes? Add an option (preferably easily to switch on and off on the fly) that removes all special effects. Possibly add one for turning off player models too for.
The UI is just too difficult to rework so I don't see any changes coming to that. It hasn't bothered me at all yet anyways.
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myr said on 12:33AM 10-21-2009
There already is an option to disable all player character models (except the ones you are targeting and the ones in your alliance) by hitting shift+f12. Doesn't do a thing for those experiencing crashes.
SleepingPanda said on 5:55AM 10-21-2009
The crashing has been dissected and replicated by users on the forum. We know exactly what's causing it. It's a memory leak. There's also a problem which has to do with Aion not being flagged for PAE (Physical Address Extension) that increases the amount of memory the application can use to 3Gb and there isn't a 64 bit version of Aion. Both of these can be easily fixed, especially since the Korean and Chinese versions don't suffer these problems.
Como said on 9:57AM 10-21-2009
I largely agree with his comments, the gold spammers are out of control and pvp issues, while relatively flawless for a newer game (it has had time in korea remember) are kinda obnoxious. But "THE GRIND" come the *expletive here* on. People have already hit 50 and the game has been out for only a month. Seriously, I get it the hardcore gamer is not on top any more, we won't be catered to, but this is going way way to far. The xp curve is fine, especially for a new game, but does every game that has come out now have to be WoW ified? Again I like wow (although I will definitely be taking a break after 3.3 til 4.0) but the reason wow is so easy to level in is because it has 4 years of content that we've all done a few times or you want to join up in this game and catch up quick with your friends. IMO the xp curve needs to not be touched, in fact I would kind of be happy with a slight nerf but again it's just one crying fans opinion. Sigh, I guess what I want is one single modern MMO that doesn't just give away things and makes you earn them, and yes you can do that while being catering to casuals. If they are going to turn this into get to 50 as quick as possible and raid/pvp why not make it a micro-trans model then the casuals can get into the game as much as they want? Flame me for being an elitist but I think I have some valid points that should at least be considered.
Lethality said on 8:47PM 10-20-2009
I completely agree with him and I've said it over and over on these very pages...
HOWEVER, I find it amusing how he thinks his opinion is somehow more valued and valid than the entire team of developers or the community of players than have already been saying it.
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royale said on 4:44AM 10-21-2009
It'd be funny if Mark Jacobs wrote an article like this.
Flolah said on 8:57PM 10-20-2009
I do agree quite a bit. My subscription is going to run out within the next week, and I will let it do so, because I find that the lack of real grouping, and (to be very honest) the flying to be a major letdown. The grind just emphasis this, and the lag takes that emphasis and adds all the italics and underlines necessary to completely turn me off of the game.
I am really surprised, given how spammy their more popular games such as Lineage and Lineage II must have been with RMT, that more was not done to combat this from the outset in the beta. I mean, even setting up bots themselves to test against, or asking users to stump their protocols (perhaps with no reprimanding, or even rewarding the attempts) would have helped somewhat. Just now, it seems like there was no real trying until the game was live and the proverbial flood-gates opened up.
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Brian! said on 12:38AM 10-21-2009
Flying is a huge letdown after playing games like City of Heroes and Champions (in the MMO space). I can't even say I care for the controls in Aion for flight either. They made something that other games have had simple for years more difficult than it needed to be.
Casikao said on 9:09PM 10-20-2009
This is not WoW. Sorry folks, Botting is socially acceptable overseas. Still punishable, but more accepted than here, which is why games such as Lineage, Lineage 2 have such High grind points.
AION is mild in this regard, while it has a -small- bit of grinding (Hello, EQ people? ) this game isnt as grind tastic as many people are whining about.
This is not a knock at WoW but, people have been catered too in the leveling world. WoW makes for a very simplistic and easy going level system, the attraction? Anyone can do it, which is fantastic!
But Aion is going to have a grind aspect.. that was and has always been noted especially to those who followed the development.
I personally don't want the game to get easier, It has a good difficulty as is.
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Seth said on 10:41PM 10-20-2009
Don't confuse difficulty with tedium, mkay?
my2cents said on 1:03AM 10-21-2009
I don't think there's any excuse for botting and I really want them to get a handle on it soon. Otherwise, I pretty much am right ther with ya with that you're saying. I personally enjoy the leveling process in addition to endgame.
I like gradually building a character, getting to used to its strengths and weaknesses, learning when to use certain abiltiies, gaining new ones over time, etc. And I like when leveling is at least somewhat challenging.
I really don't like how fast and easy it is to level now in WoW for example, particularly in the vanilla areas. To me, tedium sets in when I know there's no realistic chance of dying unless I totally screw up big time. It causes me to just go into a trancelike auto pilot that gets boring really fast.
I enjoy how in Aion there's a sense of risk in what I'm doing. Even completing basic quests, although not particularly difficult, requires paying attention to your surroundings. An extra add or two that aggros can equal death which equals a hefty price to regain the lost xp. This makes it exciting!
Anyway, I do however think group xp and quest xp should be increased. I like the overall leveling speed pretty well so far (at 34) but it is silly when I can get more xp from continuing to grind than I can from spending 2 mins walking back to camp to turn in an already completed quest. It's also a bit silly to lose xp/hour by killing elites with a group rather than solo grinding regular mobs.
So I'd like to see those tweaked (and the quest xp increase is thankfully in the works) but otherwise I am enjoying the moderate degree of challenge and slow pacing of the leveling experience.
Keen said on 9:15PM 10-20-2009
I won't comment on anything other than this: His facts are not facts.
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ArrA said on 10:10PM 10-20-2009
Like your "facts" on Champions Online?
Keen said on 10:26PM 10-20-2009
Care to expound upon that attempt at being witty? If you're referring to my post where I talk about why I wasn't going to play CO, I kindly direct you to the definition of an opinion. I never used the word "fact" in my post. I stated things as they were in beta when I played as I played them.
Let me share with you what a fact is, straight from google.
Definitions of fact:
(n) fact (a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred) "first you must collect all the facts of the case"
(n) fact (a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened) "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts"
(n) fact (an event known to have happened or something known to have existed) "your fears have no basis in fact"; "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell"
(n) fact (a concept whose truth can be proved) "scientific hypotheses are not facts"
Most of the facts from the letter to NCsoft are either future events that have not happened yet or subjective.
Now, this doesn't mean I disagree. In fact (yes, this would be a fact), I agree with everything he says. That doesn't make them facts though -- that makes them suggestions and opinions.
Thanks!
ArrA said on 3:58AM 10-21-2009
I put "facts" in quotes because they are just opinions. "I stated things as they were in beta when I played as I played them." You stated things that mislead a lot of your readers because you hated the game. Some people took them as "facts".
Duulin said on 7:27AM 10-21-2009
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true"
Homer J. Simpson
Ada said on 9:49PM 10-20-2009
well i didn't preorder after beta because of the grind - so i at least agree with him on that point. i don't really care how they fix it - i'd be fine with same xp lvls, just more quests, but until it's changed, i won't be playing.
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frontsoldatmm said on 10:46PM 10-20-2009
There is a lot of tedium in Aion I am afraid!
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Natas said on 10:55PM 10-20-2009
How many games has this guy been part of making? I vote that he takes a dive off of something high up.
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Anjohl said on 11:41PM 10-20-2009
Aion: 2 years. That's the bottom line.
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