Yes, we’re back to the Daily Blogroll. Another allergy attack has left me asleep by 9PM, which really shortens the nights for me.
Is Aion too derivative to be successful? Tobold thinks so. In fact he wonders why people would pay full price (US$15/month) for a WoW-like like Aion when they can get the real thing for the same price, or a free WoW-like in Runes of Magic. He also doesn’t hold out much hope for Fallen Earth, calling it too much like failed MMO Tabula Rasa “just working less well, being less fun, and having less good graphics”. So that’s that.
Being a WoW-like doesn’t look like it will keep many away from Aion. Spinks thinks the beauty of the game, the storytelling and the PvP (as well as the third dimension with flight) will bring people in. Caliga of MMO Gamers has the rundown of the extra stuff you can expect in the collector’s edition, as well as an automatic pass into the beta.
Speaking of new games, Hudson has the latest round-up of the news Cryptic has been leaking about the state of Champions Online, due to be released September, same as Aion.
Having played both betas, I would go with Aion if forced to choose, but the Champions NDA prevents me from saying just why.
Syncaine at Hardcore Casual looks at Blizzard’s limiting of the formerly-open Wintergrasp PvP zone to 100v100 with some measure of skepticism based on other games (like Warhammer, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, Darkfall and others) being able to handle much larger fights. Tobold uses some bad math to make the case for it being a strain on resources to keep it unlimited. (In a client-server architecture, resource use increase linearly, not geometrically).
Blizzard is using WoW as a money machine to support development on other upcoming titles. As long as the WoW ATM keeps spitting out million dollar bills, everything is FINE and it’s easier to limit players than add more resources.
The best thing about WoW, if you’re Blizzard, is that you can’t beat players away with a STICK, as
Lastly, if you’re not a fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, I can only guess you’ve never seen any of them. To even start with why I love them would take a thousand words, so I won’t say more than: The very first anime I ever saw was Miyazaki’s “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind”. A friend sat me down and made me watch it, and he had a weird smile on his face. It was in Japanese, I didn’t understand a word of it, nor what was going on, but even just with the pictures and Jo Hisaishi’s amazing music to go on, I was blown away. When I later saw it dubbed in English, I was blown away yet again because the plot was just as amazing as the visuals.
For the past decade or so, Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli has had a deal with Disney where they would bring Miyazaki’s films to the US dubbed in English by major voice talents, uncut and unrearranged, exactly as how they were released in Japan, except in English. Since then, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle have had astonishingly wonderful US theatrical releases, and this summer comes his latest masterpiece, Ponyo, about a goldfish who makes a wish to be human — with disastrous consequences.
See it, you’ll love it.
Yet Tobold did not take into account the power of “New Smell” © in MMO’s. People will flock to a new MMO even if it is the same old grind, just more polished thanks to “New Smell” ©
Of course, that wears off, and what are we stuck with? Blizzards MMO still being number one!
Bah!
That was actually me, not Zubon. He has way too many smarts to do what I do. Besides, it was because my wife wanted to play a video game with me. That is powerful juju right there.
@Ethic Ooops! Corrected! 😉
I suspect all these bring-a-friend schemes are a pain to set up. I remember it wasn’t smooth sailing sorting out the EQ2 one (but not as bad as ethic’s experience 😉 ). I do think people could stop apologising for playing WoW though – if you hate it that much, make an excuse.
At best, I got credit for about 1/4 of the refer-a-friend/scroll of resurrection deals I sent out that were accepted by a buddy coming back to WOW.
The thing about Aion is it is not a nice world to adventure in. It is not as “cutesy” as I thought it would be and it has good lore, combat and other things so why not ride it and see how far it goes. The thing about it being like WoW is that it is NOT WOW. I don’t think Tobold understands some people have had it with that game, its mechanics and Azeroth in general. I prefer my worlds a bit darker and want a better story at the moment.
Trust me, all the WoW people can stay there I really won’t miss a majority of them 🙂
The thing about Aion is it is not a nice world to adventure in. It is not as “cutesy” as I thought it would be and it has good lore, combat and other things so why not ride it and see how far it goes. The thing about it being like WoW is that it is NOT WOW. I don’t think Tobold understands some people have had it with that game, its mechanics and Azeroth in general. I prefer my worlds a bit darker and want a better story at the moment.
Trust me, all the WoW people can stay there I really won’t miss a majority of them 🙂
Ah so you did try the beta 🙂
Tobold already has it in for Aion anyways. His vision of the game is skewed on so many counts.
Today he already has a post based on someone else’s blog post that has a very misinformed view of the selling of gear (player shops vs AH)
Looks like he has found another reason not to play…as if he is trying his best to hate it.
Whatever
I have all of Miyazaki’s films that have been dub’d in english. They are amazing films and portray the heart of excites me about fantasy.
I found the Blizzard Recruit a Friend quite simple actually. I didn’t encounter any issues. We were both online and linked within minutes. The only annoying aspect are the restrictions they’ve placed on trial accounts to thwart gold farmers which isn’t tied to the friends program. You’d encounter this silly restrictions like no-trading, no email, no whispering, etc. using any trial account.
/agree with Openedge1… Tobold needs to go back to WoW, his posts now are so conjecturish. It feels like he lost purpose. 🙁
My first Miyazaki movie was Spirited Away. A good friend of mine recommended it to me, but it took me a while to rent it, since I’m not really into Anime stuff anymore. I watched it with my wife and we both loved it! Since then we’ve watched Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and Grave of the Fireflies (a Ghibli movie but not Miyazaki’s).
I haven’t heard from Ponyo yet, but I’ll make sure I’ll check that out.
BTW – Feel better soon Tipa. Several co-workers have had a particularly rough season this year with allergies. Mine have been the opposite – they’ve lessened dramatically since moving from IL to back to GA. Very odd since I grew up in NYC and had no allergies so I don’t think it’s a city thing.
Proper dubs are actually quite hard to do, which is why you see (and hear) so many horrible ones. Even Neil Gaiman, a brilliant writer on his own right, remarked on how hard it is to make one: You really can’t translate the jokes, certain languages have subtle intonations that cannot easily be replicated in an another language (for example, Japanese tends to be slightly different depending on whether you’re talking to a friend, an equal or a superior), the original work assumes that the viewer understands certain cultural idiosyncracies and last but not least, some languages simply tend to be shorter than others. From what I understood, making a good dub of Akira is practically impossible without redrawing because the mouth movements were drawn to match the original Japanese voice acting, and you simply cannot say the same thing in English using the same amount of syllables.
The interview is here: http://www.hollywoodgothique.com/gaiman.html
It’s my opinion that most people still want to find the ‘perfect’ MMO for them. The grass is always greener right? So, everyone gets hyped up about the new game thinking it will be the right one for them. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.
@Hirvox Gaiman’s English script for Princess Mononoke was incredible — so much trouble to make mouth movements match and so successful.
Hey! I didn’t talk about Aion in that post! I talked about clones of WoW that offer nothing new, and no improvement over the original. I haven’t played Aion, didn’t get into the beta, but as far as I’ve heard it offers new features like flying, and improvements in graphics and character animations. I think Aion will sell quite well.
Okay, that was speculation, but with Aion the closest thing to a high profile WoW-clone currently in beta that I know of, anyway, it was the first that came to mind — especially since you were so clear about Fallen Earth.
So, what’s the subscription non-Aion WoW-clone you were referring to?