NCsoft Plans for Aion MMO to Take Second Place, 'Erase the Memory' of Tabula Rasa

Am I the only one that found TR ridiculously fun for playing with friends and making friends?

I know it didn't pick up with the normal grind grind grind mmo fanboys, but for that reason I found it to be quite a bit of fun. It sickens me when a company says something like this not becaues it was a bad game, but because the sales didn't live up to WoW... the holy grail of mmos.

Before you start saying TR is a terrible game because it had no end game content, I had the most fun I've ever had playing a RPG while leveling. LEVELING. When you play other MMOs, like WoW, the game isn't even fun till you get to the last few levels and even then it's just a big grind if you actually take a look at it.

There is a huge niche fanbase for TR... even still. My friends still remember it and I wouldn't mind playing a condensed version at lan parties. There are a lot of people begging for the server source code to be open sourced so people can start their own private servers. I mean what do they have to lose? They gave the game away for free for the last few months and now consider it a disgrace, why would they want to hold back?

I'd even say they should repackage TR and include the server software in the box with the client so people can setup single player games or play it with friends. Package it for 20 dollars a box and I know a lot of people would buy it, just cause its a ridiculously fun game to waste away hours with friends. The one man stands or taking back CPs is awesome when you're in a room full of friends and holding on for dear life. It's what LFD should've been, instead of the linear crapfest it turned into. You could even replace all the aliens with zombies and have a ridiculously good zombie shooter in the future.

Fuck you, NC Soft. Tabula Rasa was awesome :|

Give me an OST CD too, the music was amazing.

I'll be trying out Aion anyway though. It looks kind of cool.

Strong Pre-orders means nothing really, just look at Conan. Everyone rushes in to see it then complain at wasting 45+ dollars on a game they won't touch again.

I am willing to bet that this mmo like practically every other recent release in the last 12 months or so, will follow the same path.

It's already got its own legion of fanboys singing its name from the peak of high mountains calling it the second coming of Christ. You only need to browse the forums of some of its main community sites - such as Aionsource to see total fanboy infestation. (nuke from orbit?)

Anyway I've played in one of its closed beta phases and to me it really doesn't have that special something that's going to see it really differentiating itself from what else is out there already. The graphics are nice but they're not jaw-dropping by any means. They're very 'Asian' but really dont have the same character as what you find in something like WoW. (disclaimer - i'm no wow fanboy). The graphics remind me a lot of guild wars actually - particularly the character models. Of course it's better than guild wars, but a very similar style. The things you fight look like they've been yanked directly out of Pokemon.

The game is actually very polished with some really nice touches, but yeah, it's standard thoroughfare really. It's amazing how many people out there play wow - or used to play wow but keep going back to it, and are absolutely dying for another mmo to come whisk them away from wow and be the next big thing. This is totally what is driving all this Aion hype imo. I don't know why people just cant stop playing wow and leave it at that - it's like the first time they played a mmo (usually wow) a great big void is opened that can only be filled with a mmo of some description. These people have played wow so long, invested so much time that unless a wow killer or equivilant comes long, they're doomed.

Unfortunately, Aion aint gonna be this game.

Even in the early teen levels, while the combat looks flashy and the animations are nice, it's just the same attack style over and over. It's based around combos - the new thing in mmos - where rather than giving you simple functional skill options, in order to get the same result from one press (like other games) instead you now have to press three attacks in sequence. What this achieves initially is giving you the illusion that it has a complex and interesting combat system - until you realise that by the early teens you're just banging out the same combo over and over regardless - and if anything, there's less diversity to your available skills than other games anyway.

On top of this, Aion touts one of its major selling points as flying. Pffftthbbt I say! You can only fly in certain restricted areas, it has a one minute timer(which once ends has a 60 second cool down before it can be re-used) and on top of that, you cant even fly over water! The game uses water like another mmo uses walls - it looks pretty, but you cant swim in it. You get to this area with all these cool big dinosaur looking things grazing in a big lake, yet cant go anywhere near them to get a close look as ...it's water! When you run to the lake your character rather than swimming, follows the ground down underwater, quickly taking big damage until death. Um erk! Call me old fashioned but come on...you see water in a mmo, you expect to be able to at least swim in it.

So yeah anyway, don't get me wrong the game has some really nice things about it, but it definitely aint no wow killer, and i would be surprised if the 'hype' continued beyond the first month - if that.

Aion is a good game. I will be playing it when it comes out.

clusterfuck world
+
lots of grind due to lack of quest
+
VERY coreen style (see ff)
=
me not buying this

So the new first place is actually second place?

the kungfu/ninja ballet action seems strong with this one, i think i'll pass.

Anyone, how good is this game?

Anyone have any links to good reviews. Atleast reviews that actually say something about the game other than "the game starts like this", "you quickly get equipment", "you fight rats" -- basically detaling their adventure like some kind of journal instead of an indepth analysis of what's good, bad, and needs improvements.

I guess I won't get any readable reviews untill the game hits N. America.

Well, next year we have both StarTrek and The Old Republic coming out*, so I think their anticipation of "2nd place" is wishful thinking at best. Both games seem to have TONS of potential and huge built-in fanbases.

Oh, and FUCK SWG.

It's ironic that this Jaeho fella's name rhymes with A-hole considering he sounds like one. ;)

Anyway, all that aside, this isn't going to do any better as an MMO (for many reasons, several of which have been posted in this comment section already) AND it won't even have the hook of Lord British's name attached to it. So it might behoove A-hole Lee to consider that before dismissing Tabula Rasa, which wasn't half-bad, all things considered.

This is just another MMO that will flop in a year (or less). Go away, NCSoft - the only good thing you've contribued to the scene has been Guild Wars and you only published that.

I may quit wow for this. Well, after my free months expire in October. That should give it enough time to see how the game will pan out.

I don't have time to play Guild Wars. What makes you think I'll pay to play Aion?

Aion can rot in hell with the trojans it installs in your system. GameGuard disabled my printer and a program I use to connect to work servers causing a massive headache for me until I discovered that it was the cause. It injects itself into your running processes and usually doesnt remove itself when done. It won't let steam and other common apps run. Then top it off with the fact that it doesn't even stop the cheaters. My pre-order was swiftly cancelled. Guild Wars didn't need this shit to remain cheat free.

Interesting that they're quiet about Guild Wars 2. It must be slipping even further out.

i would've expected a more "oh tabula rasa did some thing right but ultimately it failed because of x,y,z" and not a flat out "fuck that game" type statement. That's pretty interesting that they want to totally distance themselves from their own game like that

Yes, because we need more sword and sorcery MMORPGs with mages, warriors, priests, etc.

Why can't someone figure out a MMO that takes place in some other world? Fallout would be a great universe. As would Mass Effect. Why do companies keep beating their heads against a wall with WoW wannabes?

The main Difference that i saw overlooked about Aion is that were on the OPPOSITE end of where we are usually in the MMO sphere.

Where in we usually get the launch product we are getting a product that is being patched to 1.5.
Granted it is an Asia MMO, but they are doing design changes for our market. I hope it works out, I have been looking for that DAoC ish style game since ... well DAoC.