Will A:IR Reignite AAA MMORPG Development? - Bill Murphy - MMORPG.com

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Will A:IR Reignite AAA MMORPG Development? - Bill Murphy - MMORPG.com

A:IR, or Ascend: Infinite Realm, was just fully revealed ahead of G-STAR 2017. Being made by Bluehole Studio (TERA) and brought west by Kakao Games (Black Desert), it looks to have everything an MMORPG fan desires. RVR combat, complex crafting, housing, customizable airships, pets, deep classes, a massive world, player-made quests, and so forth. Could it be that the first big AAA MMORPG to hit the West in years will come out of South Korea?

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LrdEtrius

Nope. I jumped out of the hype boat as soon as i noticed the gender lock. If they can't even have this basic thing in character management i don't wanna know the rest.

Righteous_Rock

I’m big excited (drool runs out of my mouth as I see another dead tasty treat that was freshly struck by a speeding car)

Tiller

LrdEtrius said:

Nope. I jumped out of the hype boat as soon as i noticed the gender lock. If they can't even have this basic thing in character management i don't wanna know the rest.

This game is what I would expect to see if you mixed GW2 with BDO. Looks ok but what is it with Korean games and gender lock classes?

mcrippins

This game might end up being good, I dunno.. but to me it looks like they're trying to do too much.

geburahsan

As far as i remember Tera runs usually like crap even on todays high end pcs if its unreal 3 you can forget big battles... Everyone still remember those Nexus fights with less than 5 fps on average

Righteous_Rock

I simple solution to 5fps is to market the game as turn based

Mikeha

Looks amazing. I want to know more about the pvp system.

cameltosis

Does sound like a good feature list

However, unreal 3.....gonna run like shit. Most unreal 3 games run like shit for me anyway, but trying to scale it up to an MMO just wont work. Also, I am eternally skeptical of Asian RPGs. Always so full of potential, but almost always let down by something fundamental. Sometimes it's the payment model, often it's just endless grinding.

Maybe this one will be a genuine AAA MMORPG with minimal problems, but at this point im highly doubtful.

Also, whats with the generic piece of shit name for the game?!

"Ascend: Infinite Realm Reignite"

Doesn't roll off the tongue, doesn't tell you shit about the game, doesn't even have a good acronym!

SEANMCAD

I doubt it seriously..it doesnt look that much different

abnesher

A few alarmbells goes off for me. Of course because of the gender lock, but mostly because of the focus on the flying aspect of the game.. It's even in the name.

"We need flying" is such a gimmicky concept to build an MMO around

Bloodaxes

I'll keep an eye on it. With so few mmos releasing nowadays, you can't be so picky.

Hope it has meaningful pve and optional pvp (Crosses fingers but doubt it).

Albatroes

We have to be honest here, if they shoot themselves in the foot and make it a pvp only without pve servers then its already a loss. I'll admit AA would've done a lot better if it was handled right in terms of management but it would've still been niche without pve servers. If they do pve servers, then that's a step in the right direction for a majority or at least have similar penalties like BDO where OWPvP kind of feels pointless. There's always a way to handle both and even WoW is doing something in the right direction by doing away with PvE/PvP servers per se and just making it so you can opt in/out of OWPvP and phased to those types of realms (or whatever they are being called) when you feel like participating. Personally, I care more about the systems after hitting cap since I'm obsessed with my playstyle continuously changing after playing a class for a while at cap to make me want to keep playing it vs the hamster wheel gear grind.

ConstantineMerus

Torval said:

I watched the trailer. Man that looks cool. Aerial combat, steampunk, mecha + magic. Oh yeah, I cried a little.

It's time for man-hugs and man-tears brother! 

francis_baud

Jet packs, mini-gun, flying sailboats, dragons, magic, mech robots...

Mixing too much stuff imo... I'll pass.

ConstantineMerus

SedrynTyros said:

LrdEtrius said:

Nope. I jumped out of the hype boat as soon as i noticed the gender lock. If they can't even have this basic thing in character management i don't wanna know the rest.

Seriously, gender-locking classes is just lazy development.  They need to do the extra work and allow people to make the character they want.

I wouldn't mind if it had lore behind it. For instance Amazon or Valkyrie being female and have a different male equivalent as an option would make everything more interesting, it adds to the depth of character creation when race, class and gender affects playstyle. Sadly, this is not usually the case and people are just fucking lazy as you said!

jmcdermottuk

I have a hard time understanding why so many people object so much to gender locking. It can't be that they resent playing a member of the opposite sex. So many games have no choice for the "hero" anyway, Lara Croft, Max Payne etc. You play the character your given.

Ok so it's an MMO and you get to choose. Then again when it's an eastern game they have a different culture and a different outlook on those things. There may be Lore behind some of those choices. Even in the west we've had gender locking. Warhammer  had the witch elves, all female, for example.

As for this particular title, it's "wait and see" as far as I'm concerned. The hype train left the station without me. I'll wait to see a finished product before I make a decision.

SEANMCAD

jmcdermottuk said:

I have a hard time understanding why so many people object so much to gender locking......

I am just against locking in general.

Not in all cases but in cases in which it doesnt make sense to not allow the player to choose it kinda pisses me off as a game design

BillMurphy

I don't like gender locking, but it's not a deal breaker for me. I totally get why it can be for some, though. Hopefully they learn from BDO.

Forgrimm

jmcdermottuk said:

I have a hard time understanding why so many people object so much to gender locking. 

Because I have no interest in playing female characters. 

Sovrath

mcrippins said:

This game might end up being good, I dunno.. but to me it looks like they're trying to do too much.

I agree.

Oh, I'll try it, don't get me wrong, I like to try everything if I can. But in some ways it feels like the mess that is Revelation. You can fly or you can have wings and fly, or you can have a horse but why because you can have a flying mount AND fly and let's throw in some story. Or not.

On a more positive note, there's something so genuine and "from the adolescent heart" (from a male perspective) about Asian games.

It's like little boys got together and said "yeah, we'll have steampunk space dirigibles and dragons and swords and magic and monsters with friggin' lasers on their heads!!!!" all thrown together without a single regard for tone but with more than a nod for "OMFRIGGINGOD LET'S DO IT ALL AND IT WILL BE SO AWESOME LASERZ!"

"And we'll have cool armor and ninja light swords and robots and cat costumes and pumpkin helmets, and leisure suits with raybans and cucumber shields ..."

Well, you get my meaning.

It's kind of fun for fun's sake but without a second thought to some sort of artistic integrity yet all the artistic ability to actually have artistic integrity.

jmcdermottuk

Forgrimm said:

jmcdermottuk said:

I have a hard time understanding why so many people object so much to gender locking. 

Because I have no interest in playing female characters. 

So you never played a Tomb Raider game then? Or any of the dozen other games with a female protagonist?

ScottJeslis

BillMurphy said:

I don't like gender locking, but it's not a deal breaker for me. I totally get why it can be for some, though. Hopefully they learn from BDO.

Yes but I HATE BDO's cosmetic system/sales. Some of the silliest, sexist costumes I've ever seen. I like GW2 and ESO in that regard, outfits worth the $$ IMHO.

Sinaku

I also dipped out as soon as I read about gender locked classes. Not the game for me. I feel like I have put too much time into Korean mmos to get little out of them as well. I think this is going to be a hard pass from me.

Forgrimm

jmcdermottuk said:

Forgrimm said:

jmcdermottuk said:

I have a hard time understanding why so many people object so much to gender locking. 

Because I have no interest in playing female characters. 

So you never played a Tomb Raider game then? Or any of the dozen other games with a female protagonist?

Not that I recall, no. And it's different in an mmo, when you're interacting with other people. I tried a female character in WoW and the amount of creepiness I witnessed made me realize I'd never do it again.

Iselin

Interesting concept and visuals. Those airships in the first scene made me think of how I envision some of the later Shannara books.

Hopefully the game play will be a bit more Western, i.e. not as mind-numbingly grindy as most Eastern MMOs.