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Aion 3.0 First Impressions
MMO_REVIEWER
Member Posts: 371
I'm going to be extremely straight forward and do my best not to give you the great wall of text to sift through. Aion 3.0 is 'nearly' everything that NCsoft promised and a bit more. Granted there's no swimming and flying in all zones, but what we do get doesn't disappoint.
F2P AND PAY 2 WIN
First, before I delve in head first into this, I'd like to clear any overhead. By that I mean the "F2P" sticker that just got placed on Aion's head. About half of the market looks at F2P and instantly says "pay to win" which is definitely not the case here. The closest thing to pay to win that aion did in the past few weeks was the distribution of the fabled tahabata weapons with the prepurchase of a cube. Sure they practically handed out a fabled class weapon(for about 40-60 bucks) but you have to think about this logically. The level cap was just raised to 60 and the weapon is level 50. I'm sure you are all pretty familiar with the 10 level rule. After 10 levels its time to regear yourself, unless what you have is the end all, beat all. So even if you did fall prety to their little scheme the weapon would hardly do you any good and you definitely wouldnt do any "winning" with it alone. Aside from that its not something thats not accessible to players as is. You can run the dark poeta instance, achieve S rank(which is easier now than it ever was) and [hopefully] have one drop. Now aside from that (which is a promotion that is no longer available) nothing is pay 2 win. Here is the link to their STORE feel free to browse it at your own leisure and see for yourself that nothing there is pay 2 win.
THE NITTY GRITTY
Alright now down to the nitty gritty; the patch itself. It was a pretty big patch, and there were a few issues downloading it. Most were directly related to Pando Media booster. I personally had to uninstall and reinstall that tiny piece of software 3 times before the install completed itself. But after that; smooth as butter - or maybe a baby's arse(?). So what came in this behemoth of a patch?
Simple breakdown:
Housing
Mounts
A few new zones
A ton of new quests(my quest log is FILLED)
New weapons
New skins
New armor
New pvp weapons and armor
Level cap increase to 60
New instances
More pets(including a tonka truck)
New skills and more stigma slots - as well as new stigmas
So theres quite a bit that came in it, and I'm only touching on the main features. There were several graphics fixes and bug fixes that were implemented as well. I dont know if anyone other than myself noticed, but before 3.0 shadows only rendered about 20 meters infront of you. That clip distance has been greatly increased. Just a small example of one of the fixes. Some armor skins also enjoyed a nice texture update as well.
SO HOW IS IT, REALY?
So, after I did a small rain dance to get it installed, logged in (to some INCREDIBLE login screen BG music) I got in the game and instantly dove in. I will admit I watched the intro video on youtube a few months before (in korean) and it sounded 100000000 times better than the english dubbing. Oh dear sweet baby jesus the some of the voices were terrible and others were not so bad. But then again who realy plays with the game audio on?
After bleeding from the ears I got into Sarpan (the first of 2 new zones). Dear god this place was huge. I was grouped with a cleric friend of mine. I think we ran circles around that place for an hour before we got to the first quest. The sheer scope of that city is absolutely incredible. They must've gotten ahold of some of Arenanet's Ghanjah and smoked a few pounds of it, because it's absolutely breath taking. The music, graphics and attention to detail just flow together so incredibly well that I may have put kleenex out of business from my massive amounts of fapping to my newly found nerd pron.
Not only was that main city huge but the forts were equally as breath taking. None, however were as awe inspiring as Tiamat's Eye. That place is just massive. Unnecessarily massive(that's what she said). There's a labyrinth of wind streams that will take you around the majority of it, but even traveling by windstream took FOREVER. I would look to my left and just see these massive walls that are just daunting. They look at you, laugh at your tiny siege weapons and proceed to face roll you, taking all your cerealz, pancake mix, and jail bait.
FOREVER ALONE
Now I will mention that the Tiamaranta region was a bit empty. When i got into Tiamat's giant massive big dick fortress I ran into one person of the opposite faction and that was it. Now I'm going to chock this up to it being the patches first day out, and everyones still hovering around levels 56 and 57. Hopefully when everyone is up in levels that place will be an absolute madhouse, sort of like the abyss was on release day of Aion: and the tower of eternity.
I got to try one of the new instances (Rentus base) in my time in the game. I have to say they are doing their best to come up with creative and challenging dungeons. However, we all know its a matter of time before a video pops up on the ol' jewtube showing how to solo the boss, or how to loci-method that ho. But until then try to enjoy the challenge and not be lazy bums who want hand outs *holds out his hand* now where's my next piece of eternal +15 gear...
Looking back to the new zones, both Tiamaranta and Sarpan are ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. Imagine Inggison x2; That's Sarpan now multiply it by 3 and you get Tiamaranta. I realy cant describe with words their size...you just have to look and see for your self.
I logged out of Aion today feeling satisfied, thinking I had taken in all my poor little brain could handle. Then I realized "I completely forgot to look at the housing area." So i log back in realy quick poke my head and see what the buzz is about. I don't know but I think NCsoft might have a little dick complex, because all of these zones are huge even the housing zone.
Now as far as the houses it seems like they still have a bit of work to do. Most people are stuck with a studio at the moment. The studios are tiny, they're studios what do you expect. Tiny in real life and tiny in game(thats what she....no...too easy). But hopefully once everything is up and running full steam ahead the housing will be awesome. I toured the ENTIRE zone and it looks pretty killer. Now don't quote me on the housing info. I'll admit that I dont have all of the details.
WRAPPED WITH A BOW
3.0 and truly free just bring so much needed change to Aion. I've never seen the servers so populated ...well not since release. It's nice to see the game some-what thriving again. In every zone i went to, even the newb zones there were tons and tons of players, new and old alike. So if you're thinking of picking it up because youre a cheap arse and like free stuff then dont hesitate to download. Now is probably the best time. And don't worry about the leveling curve It's nowhere near as steep as it use to be, and not only that the mentoring system added in patch 2.7 will move you along nicely. It was a smart move by NCsoft to launch 3.0 and F2P. Now I think aion atleast has a leg to stand on. Now if only they'd send me chocolates wrapped with a bow.
~Cheers
P.S. Damn gave you a wall of text anyhow.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Comments
...I didn't even know there was a new Aion... or is it a update?
..or do I even care?
meh
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It's the 3.0 update, which adds player housing, more content, and it's free to play now. Not the crappy free to play with sub and cash shop, just cash shop, everything in the game is free, and there is no option to sub whatsoever so no limitations. I honestly have no idea why OP didn't see anyone at all, I have seen so many damn people in the last 10 minutes of playing that it's insane.
I didn't see anyone because I was in an area that wasn't popular yet. Mostly level 60 mobs and what-not. Most people were trying to rush themselves up to 60. Also it was the first day of the release, so I'm not surprised that the higher level areas were a bit empty to start. I'm sure as things wear on they will fill out nicely.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Err, you consider no sub option at all an *ADVANTAGE* ???????????????
The prospect of having to pay hundreds or thousands of € (or $ or whatever your currency is) just to play a game doesnt excite me at all.
I dont quite understand your comment. You say having no sub is NOT an advantag. And you profess that you have to pay $243249078 dollars to play the game...hate to burst your bubble but that's not the case. You can play the game and never EVER touch the cash shop and have the same experience as someone who is a frequent shopper there. They will have no advantage over you and you will have no advantage over them.
It puzzles me how people don't understand the Truly Free model. It's pretty straight forward.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
I'm sorry, but as long as a commercial company is running this game and needs to make money from running it, there will be no gameshop that somehow magically isnt pay to win.
F2P games are always like that: 90% or more pay nothing, a small group of people pay insane sums.
I Downloaded this game. Like it or leave it, the graphics are 100% Asian style. They don't bother me, but I know some don't care for it. The game installed and loaded easily. I looged in and did the 1st few quests. After about 30 minutes into the game, I was left unimpressed to be honest. It was nothing fresh, it was just like every other fantasy themed MMO i've played in recent years. I didn't see anything that was awful either, just nothing that made me say. "Oh, Hey! this is cool!"
Some people say, you have to play a game in order to speak on it, I disagree. A game has minutes to grab you and if it's F2P and it fails to grab you, it sits. and That's what this game did. I may get around to try it again someday, but I'm in no hurry.
could you maybe do a small write up on the housing system
?
I am one of the players who played for 3 months and then bailed out back to WoW. I quiet liked the game myself but all my friends left one by one. Since it's F2p now i've been thinking about comming 'back'
I wanted to try it out yesterday, but I couldn't even get it to download
. Downloaded the "downloader" and it kept giving me an error that said the server didn't have the download, and asked me if I wanted to go to the official download page. Click yes and it takes me to the Aion front page with no donloader. Sigh. I'll try again later.
Tried it again and I get the same message, though now that it is up I can give it exactly. It says "The file was not found on the server! This build of Aion downloader may be out of date. Press Resume on the main window to retry if you think this is a temporary problem." "Would you like to visit the Aion downloader site"? I click yes and it takes me to the Aion splash page that you first go to when you type in aiononline.com. I am clicking the download client link under account.
Is the 3.0 version only for the US version? I loaded up my launcher and didn't have any updates.
Have not played the game for quite a while so the only way to update it was to download the entire 18GB of code, then you add in Pando Media Booster and sorry no thanks, I don't put viruses on my computer. Like to see the changes in 3.0, but not that bad.
Suffice to say pando media booster is not a virus. It's just a delivery system used by several games. If youve ever played League of Legends it also uses Pando Media Booster. Star wars the old republic used a modified version of it. Several games are adopting it. In essence you dont need it after you download the game... you can download it and then get rid of it once the download/install is completed. Definitely not a virus. If your anitivirus is picking it up as such its because it functions similar to bittorrent. It fetches a file from ncsofts server, unpacks it and then downloads it. No harm no foul.
It always baffles me how people will believe anything that their Norton or Kaspersky tells them. "Hey system32 folder is a virus!" ..."realy?? thanks Norton!" Lets say you go walking down a street with a gun. Sure you have it registered and are well within your rights to carry it, but people will almost always be afraid of you and the police will always see you as a threat despite your intentions to only safeguard your persons. Dont be so hasty to brand every piece of software youve neer heard of as a virus.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
If youre talking about EU I'm not entirely sure. I know EU got the Truly Free model before the US, and from what I hear it wasn't well received due to the serious limitations that Gameforge placed on accounts that didn't pay. However the US Truly Free is actually free. As far as 3.0 being available in EU - not a clue.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
There is a very easy work around to prevent the launcher from installing PMB and still download the game, google it if you are genuinely interested in playing the game again.
3.0 is not available in Europe yet. Aion EU is now run by GameForge and they have yet to announce a date for Europe's 3.0 launch.
Hey Zade, it's funny that the Cleric you were talking about in your post was ME. Some confused mmorpg moderator deleted my posts because he thought I was trolling.... as if.....
Anyways it was hilarious when we were on skype and you mentioned you made a post on this site, and I was like ummm yeah I think I read that one HAHA! What are the odds? Internet is a small world niche community!
Anyways 3.0 has been a lot of fun, bringing back many old friends from years ago that dropped in to check things out.
P.S. Dear moderators, please do not delete this post, I am not trolling.... kthnkxbai
I still can't even download the game. I keep getting a message saying that the download file isn't on the server.
Hope 3.0 makes it to Europe soon too
Downloading now. I think Aion as a P4F is going to be an enjoyable experience. At least long enough to get me to Neverwinter
It's not a virus, however it is a p2p client that eats up your bandwith. It used to not be configurable but it appears that they have been forced to add some options to it such as not starting when you computer starts up etc. Personally I consider it malware as it will eat up some bandwith and it's completely unnecessary.
Anyways...back to Aion!
Thats exactly what I do when I HAVE to use pando..use it then immediatly delete it.Future updates come in without it.
Did you ever get a box of chocolate candy....and start eating and keep on eating,when you know you should stop ? My wife and I pretty much did that with AION FRIDAY, SATURDAY, and SUNDAY.Yes it's been a bit much. And i must step away.But when I do..the meters not running.
My wife and I are playing Rangers atm.i want to give a Sorc a try...but will take it slow.
I do like the crafting.Yes you can make things that are better than most items awarded by quests ...so far. Dungeon drops may out class crafted but..we'll have to see.
My only wish.....that there was low level rvr in the game.DAOC like battle grounds where us lowbies can have some serious fun.
The housing...I've never seen better
In many cases thats entirely correct. But it all depends on what items are in the cash shop. Not to mention their price (look at Allords major mistake in that regard...<face palm>).
I started playing this yesterday to take a look at the new stuff.
Had a problem getting disconnected from server quite regularly. Maybe 5 times over 4 hours.
Anyone else had that problem?