Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
About the grind...(last thread for a while)
I'm not going to give a biased opinion on the grind. I'm just going to tell you how it took me to level up to 50 and how long.
From levels 1-20...
Everything went farely easy in about couple days of play time. Maybe like 24 hours overall actual in-game time. Questing was enough for XP, matter of fact, there were too many Quests in the beginning that I was lagging behind.
From levels 20-30...
Early 20s I went grouping for xp at Trushin (not a clue what it's called in english) Forts on both sides with the addition of finishing up quests. Since the mobs in those forts at Verteron (don't know what the town is called in english) are elite, grouping was essential and a full party was almost always required if we didn't want to die too many times, or just overall fail. Did have some fun while grouping here...taking down raid bosses in different channels and etc.
Later 20s I went to Elletenen (not a clue again what it is in english) to Kaiden Prison or w/e to group for xp and drops. Also accomplished quests that I could do on my own. Even made a chanter friend with whom I leveled all the way to lvl50 eventually together doing mission, side, and abyss quests as 1on1 party.
Everything up to this point was fun. We died alot, chat alot, and did stupid things...sometimes get raided by parties of lvl 40 asmodians terriorizing elyoss Elletenen.
Took me about eh....let's say 2 weeks at the most.
From levels 30-40...
Now early 30s I managed to level up to 32 on my own doing quests that were left over. Although I still had tons of quests to do, people suggested I group for instance in the Fire Dungeon starting from lvl32 to later 30s. I guess if I started the game earlier in OBT, maybe I could have gotten into parties to do mission quests at Kiolla Temple, but after people figured out the more efficient way of leveling it had become a trend to just endlessly repeat the Fire Temple Instance.
There was also a reason behind endlessly repeating the Fire Temple Instance besides for the xp. In that specific instance the end boss chromede on very low percentage dropped legendary weapons. (The Chromede Dagger for example is one of those streching weapons which is very useful until you have enough economy to purchase a ASPD weapon. The Chromede weapon series is good till mid lvl40.) Of course, I didn't get one eventhough I went through that godforsaken F**K, S**T, A*S, D**K, C**K SUCKING HELLHOLE instance until I was level 37. But back to the subject. I managed to do other abyss quests and mission quests stacked from leveling up in the Fire Temple. Got enough xp to get to level 39, then went to the Kaiden Base or wdf it's called in english.
I leveled up to level 42 at Kaiden Base, got some very lucky drops and made me some $$$. Up till this point, I didn't really buy anything besides jewelry, because weapons and armors from quests were good enough.
In between leveling up, I went over the portal alot to gank on the asmodians with my dear comrades. You kind of develop this hatred for the other race. After a while the other race aren't people, but just mobs that you kill whenever you see them. Well I did have some fun chatting with them with the Personal Shop title, when I was doing some abyss quests for xp.
Up to level 42, honestly, it took me a MONTH to LEVEL, and half the time I went over portals to raid asmodian towns and fields with other people, because I just....I F**KING hated them. Oh yea, I went to Interedica (again no clue what it's called) alot too, to do quests, but ended up getting backstabbed alot from asmodian assassins cloaking around. This is probably why I developed a hatred for all asmodian A**HOLES.
From levels 42-50
At level 42, I went over the portal again so that I can level up grouping at the same time finish my side quest to get a legendary quest weapon.
When I reached 44, I started going to the Draupnir Instance to collect lvl47 legendary armor parts (still haven't got them all). After hitting level 45, I really just did alot of chatting, going ganking in the abyss with small parties, and sometimes join Open Field Boss Raids or Sieges. I still go to either of the upper end 2 instances hoping I get the gear I want. But most of times, now that I've reached lvl50 and have farely top 10% weapon settings, I mainly PvP alot in the abyss for abyss points and craft alot, hoping I hit the jackpot. So far...weapons crafting has been farely profitable for me.
So from 40-50...it probably took me another month. But that's considering I can't stand doing the same things all the time, and I go around doing stupid things.
Seriously, if I even had the intention of only maxing out my level, I think I could have hit level 50 in no longer than 4 weeks. And this would be going through the basic leveling up routes that most people take. Some extremely hard-core players have been known to abuse a way to powerlevel up to level 40 in 24hours. Of course, this was patched, and you will probably never see it happen in the NA/EU version. Too bad, heh.
All in all, I don't understand where people are getting the idea and making a biased assumption that Aion has a huge grind. I've even seen a reply by some idiot on here who says, the chinese said that the grind is worse than L2. Which by the way, is way too far fetched to make any sense.
If I remember correctly, when i first played WoW in 2005 if took me roughly 2 months to get to level 60 on my rouge. BTW, I remember times when I thought WoW got repetitive and I had to kill X number of mobs over and over again, well it wasn't as bad as Aion. But seriously, grind isn't even half as bad as L2 or even much more than WoW.
GRIND sucks? You wanna be max level in a month?
Since when did society award easy-goers and lazy-fools?
MAKES ME PHOBIC OF STUPIDITY!
Comments
Grind meaning doing REPETITIVE things to level. People mistake grind for killing monsters. And, if it took you 2 months to get to level 50 and you were determinted....it was a grind.
I'm determinted, I'll hit 50.......but endgame starts in the late 30s as far as surviving the Abyss. Great review!!! I hope you get the NA retail.
Grind isn't the issue. Every MMO has grind... the questions is: Is it fun? Each person will have their own opinion to that question so *shrug*
Quite frankly, I love grinding. In Age of Conan, I had to grind for 12 hours straight for 3 days. I had a massive headache and had the most fun of my life.
Who said I was determined? At one point I didn't even play for a week, which was when I was doing endless Fire Temple Instance and couldn't get a single legendary drop. As a matter of fact, while people I knew were getting one or even both daggers, all the times I've done Fire Temple Instance I haven't even seen a single legendary Chormede weapon.
So yea, the game can be harsh, bit repetitive and boring~. But honestly it's not that horrible of a grind. I'll guarantee 75% of those casual players will reach level 50 by the end of 3 months.
GRIND sucks? You wanna be max level in a month?
Since when did society award easy-goers and lazy-fools?
MAKES ME PHOBIC OF STUPIDITY!
Good review mug.
I'm really looking forward to the NA release as I'm waiting for it. I guess it doesn't make much sense to tell you that I am planning on making an Asmo Assassin as my first character. *ducks*
I've always played rogue-type classes in MMO's as it fits my playstyle. I was never born to be a mage or a healer honestly, and I can't stand tanks. So it boiled down to playing an Assassin or Ranger.
If you're going to play assassin I suggest the new instance dungeon dagger that streches with 15%aspd increase and lvl50 dagger that streches, for the end game PvP.
I'm probably going to end up playing NA version as well, since I run a fastping to play the korean version due to lag issues.
I'm thinking going Sorc in NA version, but I still prefer rogue classes as you do. I could never really cope with tanker or casting classes either so, I'll end up with a assassin either ways.
The setting I mentioned above is probably going to be the top 1% setting for quite a while since I hear the NA version is going to launch with 1.2 update.
GRIND sucks? You wanna be max level in a month?
Since when did society award easy-goers and lazy-fools?
MAKES ME PHOBIC OF STUPIDITY!
honestly its getting to the point where I'm so sick of WoW/GW/everything that i'm tempted to try out the chinese version and maybe try a class I won't be playing in the NA version. but rumor has it the english patch won't be working with the next version... and and some claims about crazy numbers of hackers and bots, which while they seem to be somewhat overstated, must have their roots in some truth.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Quite frankly, I love grinding. In Age of Conan, I had to grind for 12 hours straight for 3 days. I had a massive headache and had the most fun of my life.
people die doing that, lol heh... I remember a time when I'd stay up til day break on wow raiding and doing quests for an entire summer.. best time I ever had on wow... cant wait to have times like that on aion.
I don't see this being a grind game, there are at some points too many quests, but i did grind the last 3 bars of xp to lvl 20 in the beta cause i couldn't solo the campaign quests. I don't mind grinding on a game as long as i have good friends and do fun things making good memories. heh, life itself is a grind fest with work and school.
Well. I'm level 30 and completely burned out. I hate grinding. In Aion you can go 1-24 just doing quests and tursin lvl16+. At 24 I ran out of things to do, I grinded to 25 because people were telling me how awesome the abyss is. I got there did a couple quests then there was nothing but repeatable quests. Every level you get a couple new quests/missions which you get done very quickly giving you a little xp and mostly useless rewards, then its back to grinding.
People told me at 30 everything gets better, more quests, new area, new group content. At 30 I went to interdikktah, there were like 3 or 4 quests to do thats all. I did the underground temple eracus area in eltnen but its a really badly designed area and not fun at all. At level 30 the only thing left for me to do is grind repeatable quests. From 1-24 soon as I got home I would log in and play, most fun mmo since wow was new. Now though I just dont want to play.
To make it big in the west this game needs more content badly. As the chinese version is right now, its a grinders game. The first 24ish levels are awesome fun but then it turns into a grinder.
I'm really hoping there are lots of changes for our version.
It feels a lot like age of conan did at release, you have a very well made low level area that they spent a lot of time on. Then the rest of the game feels unfinished.
The chinese version is running a lower version than the Korean / Expected US release.
It's my understanding that the newest version 1.3 fills those quest voids. So yea, they're adding those in. Will they be in time for release? Maybe, maybe not. Do they know there's an issue there and are working to fix it? Yup.
youtube.com/gcidogmeat