I am two weeks into Aion and I am enjoying the game. I have had a few problems, but the game support has fixed them fast. I have a limited amount of time to play a game and feel as if I am progressing in Aion at a steady rate. This game might not be for everyone, and you can't find a game that is for "everyone". It reminds me of a good mix of EQ2 and WoW with some extra touch-ups. I am hoping they find a better option for dealing with botters as Blizzard dealt with WoW Glider.
It took me a year to get my toon in WoW to 80. People complain about content because they have no lives and they want to get to the level max in 3 - 4 weeks, which people did do in Aion. After that they complain and the game, in the US, had only been out in a month. Best way to enjoy an MMO is take your time and still have a life. Not coming off harsh but it always makes me wonder when people talk about content in an MMO in this type of a situation.
I have a 37 cleric, and am LOVING the game, still.
I don't craft much, or gather. I just kill stuff, both npc's and players, but mostly npc's. I do the quests that seem worth the trouble, but I'm just as happy to grind around an area.
I've been saying this since CB. Aion is NOT ground breaking. It is just a pretty solid example of the video game genre of choice.
The other day we went so called "furback huntin" with my guild - all of us in the range of 26-29 - killed a bunch of asmos, got a major force coming back and wiping us, we hunted them, they hunted us ... hid our kisk on a high ledge above - and as we glided down back to trouble one of my guildmates blurted it out : "man I love this game" ... to which I could only add - "me too buddy" you see Aion is a game of many facets - most people approach it as a race to the max level. But guess what max level is not the goal, just play the game, enjoy the ride.
This game has so many minigames in it - is it maximizing the flight time to gather aether - risking one more high extract? Crafting and proccing a high level blue? Running the instances that are actually challenging and a bad pull can an will wipe you?
Running out of money? Actually I enjoy that immensely - and I ran out of coin a few times - only to make it back with a proc on blue armor. finally a game when money actually matters- you have to make smart decisions - and when you do you are way ahead of those who make bad ones.
The vibrant economy, fights, gathering, crafting, enchanting, socketing, dyeing (coloring) your armorsets, campain quests, cutscenes, spectacular mob models, gliding, flying, tricks with dropping to the ground and breaking your fall at the last moment - (you can escape almost anyone that way), collecting faction specific resources on the opposing faction's land (make a fortune ), rifting, sieges, taking artifacts - boy this game has it all - 500 recipes for every craft, each node dropping two kinds of resources, customizing you build with stigmas such an amazing game
I'll bite..
You are exactly where the majority of us, ex-Aion players were a month ago. We loved the game too, everything seemed bright and shiny once you hit 25. That is as far as I will agree with you though, I am an Ex-Aion player afterall.
Please enjoy your rifting days while you can, they are certainly one of the main things that makes Aion enjoyable at that level. The sad fact of the matter is, they don't last.. as soon as you hit the final leveling zone prepare for horrid rifting runs and bots galore. You can not rift 45+ ... which removes a huge faccet of the game. You did not mention the Abyss, nor forts so I won't go into the obvious faults with them currently.
Crafting high level blues is a chore, if you have not hit a failure streak at 300+ crafting skill level then you have no idea the cost one incurs from such misfortune. I hope your tolerance for pain is high indeed, when you need to get from 399 to 400 prepare to do a quest based purely on luck of the draw where every failure costs 100's of thousand of kinah... some pay multiple millions to complete the quest whilst others pass on the first few attempts. Crafting is a grind, like everything else in the game, with barely anything to hide the fact.
Instances in this game are challenging? They are all tank and spank, move into them with the proper group makeup and they are ALL absurdly simplistic. There is really nothing anyone can say to challenge this fact, instances are simple. They are simple because they have to be, NcSoft implemented their instances to be a grind ( notice the trend?) requiring many hundreds of runs to "gear out".
There is actually very little customization with this game... Stigmas are a carrot, they don't make my cleric any diffrent from Joe Blows. Artifact takes are a bore as well ... just wait untill you are in the Upper and one Artifact which a single group has taken wipes your Entire Raid of 3-4 alliances. It certainly sounds wonderful when you are not on the recieving end. Enchanting and Socketing are both ways to promote grinding of various ways, they are both a chore and hardly intuitive
I actually understand why you think the way you do about Aion, I was there too. Aion will always fill a niche market, but it is hardly the game it was marketed to be, or that I let myself believe it was. You are in the honeymoon phase of the subscription ... I encourage you to come back once you are 43-50 so we can get a revised review. I suspect it will be titled " Two months in -- What Happened?"
The other day we went so called "furback huntin" with my guild - all of us in the range of 26-29 - killed a bunch of asmos, got a major force coming back and wiping us, we hunted them, they hunted us ... hid our kisk on a high ledge above - and as we glided down back to trouble one of my guildmates blurted it out : "man I love this game" ... to which I could only add - "me too buddy"
you see Aion is a game of many facets - most people approach it as a race to the max level. But guess what max level is not the goal, just play the game, enjoy the ride.
My guild mates and I felt just the same at one point. Big wars in Eltnen after the Asmos invaded, sneaking into the asmo base during the spy quest, finding a rift in the middle of nowhere and exploring the wonderous land, hunting furbacks! It's nothing like that now. Now it takes forever to find a rift in Aion. You could search for an hour and not catch a single one. If you do catch one, it will usually have a few of the following: -A dozen rank 9 (never PVPed) bots killing nearby
-Players way too easy to kill (sometimes in a group)
-Players extremely hard to kill (sometimes in a group)
-NPC's surrounding the rift that are far too hard, sometimes elite.
-High-level guards blocking the paths out of the rift area. They'll 1-shot anyone who gets close. Out of all that, if you're spotted and announced to the zone, your group has a good chance to be annihilated by some random level 50 who will then camp the rift and kill any lowbies that come through. The rifts are only open until (usually) 20-40 people go through, so don't expect a huge battle. It used to be fun, though...
This game has so many minigames in it - is it maximizing the flight time to gather aether - risking one more high extract? Crafting and proccing a high level blue? Running the instances that are actually challenging and a bad pull can an will wipe you?
No offense meant to you, these are real pissoff "minigames" that most games have. They're really just tasks. A mini game would be a game in itself, sort of like a Public Quest in Warhammer or crafting in some other games.
Gathering Aether is a pain in the dick, I can't believe someone likes that. As if boring and tedious isn't enough, I had to compete with a couple bots the entire time who were also undercutting me with 100's of Aether on the broker.
Crafting is so... nothing. You get items, you put them in the slots, you hit "craft" and hope for the best. I got to 449 cooking, it wasn't that great or bad. I can make a ton of money by turning ingrediants into crit/dp jelly, but other cooks seem to think super undercutting until below any profit makes a good market. All I've heard was envy from pissed off people who spent millions trying to get a blue to proc so they could finish their crafting graduation quest. Crafting for non-cooks is really just a gamble, nothing else.
Instances are the same old thing we've all seen, except more boring. Kill trash trash trash trash trash trash trash boss (drops no loot 4/5 times) trash trash trash trash (Enjoy cleaning a dump and getting no pay!) boss (drops a green) trash trash, done. Want to run again for another half hour?
Running out of money? Actually I enjoy that immensely - and I ran out of coin a few times - only to make it back with a proc on blue armor. finally a game when money actually matters- you have to make smart decisions - and when you do you are way ahead of those who make bad ones.
I once ran out of money. I had to sell some of my gear, all of my stigma shards, some crafting supplies and grind a bit, then get 250k in donations from guild mates. Why? Because everything in this game costs money. Switching zones, Dying, gear/spells/stigmas/consumables/marking (setting respawn point if you die) all add up to a fortune. If I die 10 times, it costs me 250k to pay it off. I'll get to the reasons why I died that much in a moment.
Consumables are a must for pvp in this game, by the way. Mana/health/flight potions, food, scrolls, and manastones are needed if you want to become decent in pvp against other twinks.
Incoming long list!
The vibrant economy,
Everything costs a fortune in this game. There is a huge divide between very poor and very rich players. When I got my crafting to 449 I instantly became rich. Of course, it all drained when I continued dying and buying consumables. It almost seems as if NCsoft WANTS people to buy gold, since it's so tough to make any. They're also stupid to be 3-day-banning people who reply to gold messages, even if the message is "STFU!".
fights,
PvE is awful, boring solo grinding, unlike group grind games. PvP is interesting, I just wish it was more accessable. In the Abyss, you either find:
-Nobody
-People very easy to kill
-People (sometimes solo) that just fucking decimate you while you and your friends can't dent them.
-BOTS, AGAIN During sieges, you find: -The perfect slang definition of a zerg. 100 people run at 100 people and shit flies everywhere. No strategy, just kill stuff n' rush to the boss. There will probably be a few amazing battles in the future, but I can't see that being a common thing.
-You crash every few minutes, despite how awesome your I7 quad-sli GTX 295 system is. Minimizing graphics and making player models invisible helps. So much for that system!
-People have no reason to help a guild defend its keep, so it's guild Vs server.
-If you're defending, your artifacts on the OUTSIDE of the fortress can be rushed by the enemy zerg and activated (mo-mo-mo-mo-monster kill). Still a Zerg vs Zerg fight
gathering,
I maxed out gathering. It wasn't fun. "Go find a spot where the stuff spawns, gather for 20 minutes, move to the next spot". When you get into high-level gathering, it turns into "Look up a spot where stuff spawns, gather for 1-2 hours, move to the next spot". Nothing innovative.
crafting,
(Read my whiny complaints above and below) I made none of the money back (1.5m) I spent on cooking until I got to 350 cooking. Nothing is worth cooking before that. People aren't buying up siege weapon fuel yet.
enchanting,
You get an enchantment stone with a higher level than your item, use it on an item, hope it doesn't fail, and it improves your stats. People who have played other Korean MMO's will find this familiar.
socketing,
Some items have slots. You get stones that add stats such as "+50 HP" and put them in the item sockets. Stronger items have more sockets. Most of these stones suck, so people usually spec crit/hp.
dyeing (coloring) your armorsets,
The horrible PVP penis-armor the tanks get still looks bad (imo) whether it's pale, black or red.
campain quests,
Same as normal quests, except these are usually longer, even more boring and reward more exp. You get a list of them for every big zone. You'll still have to grind endlessly to level, despite finishing these. These usually have the bad clips in them.
cutscenes,
The cut scenes are there, yeah. They're horrible though.
Quest: Kill tree men! "Twee men have huwt my viwwage and waped my famiwy!" *camera pans to tree men walking around* "prease kill dem, dey ah vewy dangowis!" *tree man pops up in front of the screen and roars while eerie music plays*. It would have been better if they kept actors with that accent instead of taking themselves so seriously.
spectacular mob models,
This is personal preference. Some of the creatures look great (bone drakes, rock monsters, Gargoyles, Raptors, the Guardian Deity at the fortresses), on the other hand think I some of the things were designed by little kids:
A crab
A scorpion with a python connected instead of a stinger.
A giant dragonfly.
A slug
A mushroom.
A mushroom man. Midget men in Heiron A weird 4-legged piece of shit with red skin, 8 horns, beedie eyes and a creepy smile, looking ready to commence rape.
Pokeshit-inspired Spiritmaster pets.
The big red Krall guys are definitely fun to kill, but you have to grind them for hours on end until they get boring. Then they're re-used throughout the game as "different tribes".
gliding, flying, tricks with dropping to the ground and breaking your fall at the last moment - (you can escape almost anyone that way),
The game has a lot of flying bugs. This is why I died so much and lost over a million kinah in exp recovery. Here are some frequent instances:
-I'm flying after someone in The Abyss. They decide to close their wings to escape, I do the same. They re-open them about 2.8 seconds later and fly down, mine are open for 3 seconds and I end up dying (falling for 3 seconds=death in the Abyss).
-Same thing as above, except my wings won't open despite having a full flight ring. I can glide again, but not fly. I wait to die at this point as I glide into nothing.
-I jump off a ledge in the abyss to escape someone. I drop for almost 3 seconds and open my wings. Server lag rubberbands me back up a couple hundred feet, so I get caught and die.
-Same as above, except after I drop, glide and wait 10 seconds, fly won't work. Drop and fly won't work. I have to glide to my death because it's bugged.
-I'm in a PvE area gathering aether, but I need to get more flight pots at town below. I drop far down, then glide around for a good 20 seconds just for fun. As soon as I hit the ground I take full fall damage, as if I had never glided. This used to happen 3-5 times a day when I gathered aether.
-Same as above, except I glide from the very top of Heiron for 10 sec, then drop, then attempt to glide/open wings. Neither work. I die, despite being in a fly zone with a full ring.
collecting faction specific resources on the opposing faction's land (make a fortune ), rifting, sieges,
Already explained my rifting/siege problems. If you try to collect faction resources in the Abyss however, good luck not getting ganked and killed before you even realized what's going on (If you're not a tank/healer). This will continue on for hours (I once had the same level 50 grief me constantly in the morning, later in the afternoon, then at night. He just camped lower spots)
taking artifacts
It was fun before, now it's just annoying. One zerg takes them all, the next zerg takes them a couple hours later. If there's a stand-off, it used to be a lot of fun as long as there were less than 30 people on each side. Now it's a complete zerg rush.
- boy this game has it all - 500 recipes for every craft,
I don't see these as new things for the genre. In fact, Aion pulls this off terribly.
I play a cook. Most of the stuff I make is next to useless (Health regen+15?, Accuracy +50?) compared to the better food (Physical Crit +50, accuracy +50), potions (instant heal over 1k every 30 sec) and scrolls (+30% run speed). I spent a lot of time to get to 449, and I was surprised to learn that most of the 400-449 food isn't better than the 300-399 food. In fact, the 300 food sells better because it has better stats. The 400-499 food costs a fortune to make! Here's an example:
200-299: Physical attack+40
300-399: Physical attack+50
400-499: Physical attack+40, 5 second of flight time (easily replacable with the weakest flight potion [12 seconds] in the game, which has a reuse of 24 seconds)
Now why wouldn't they make the 400+ food amazing, being it's so hard to get to 400 and you can only get there with 2 crafting professions? This means anyone with a massive amount of money and a couple days of their time can get the best out of every crafting class. All of my food I sell except the DP jelly is the 300-399. I only make 5 different foods at the moment.
each node dropping two kinds of resources,
One is common, one is rare. At higher levels there are 3-4 per node, it's still White, Green, Blue, Orange. Nothing special.
customizing you build with stigmas
Roughly the same as any other game with skill trees, except the good stigmas in this game are drops you'll most likely have to buy off the broker. That wouldn't be a problem if the drop rate wasn't so pathetic in this game.
such an amazing game
It's quite a unique experience.
For those who don't want to read all that, I don't blame you. Many of us have been through it when we're on our way to 40. It was a promising game 1-20 though. Again, PVP is fun if you find the right battle, but at the moment it's almost always "destroy them" or "get thrashed".
The grind will forever haunt me. Seriously, this game became so depressing I had to take it off my desktop after unsubscribing. If I even looked at the icon, I felt like I had to get 5 month's worth of work done with a chance of no payment (in fact, I was losing my money).
I'm going to go take a cold shower and find something else to do.
The other day we went so called "furback huntin" with my guild - all of us in the range of 26-29 - killed a bunch of asmos, got a major force coming back and wiping us, we hunted them, they hunted us ... hid our kisk on a high ledge above - and as we glided down back to trouble one of my guildmates blurted it out : "man I love this game" ... to which I could only add - "me too buddy"
you see Aion is a game of many facets - most people approach it as a race to the max level. But guess what max level is not the goal, just play the game, enjoy the ride.
My guild mates and I felt just the same at one point. Big wars in Eltnen after the Asmos invaded, sneaking into the asmo base during the spy quest, finding a rift in the middle of nowhere and exploring the wonderous land, hunting furbacks! It's nothing like that now. Now it takes forever to find a rift in Aion. You could search for an hour and not catch a single one. If you do catch one, it will usually have a few of the following: -A dozen rank 9 (never PVPed) bots killing nearby
-Players way too easy to kill (sometimes in a group)
-Players extremely hard to kill (sometimes in a group)
-NPC's surrounding the rift that are far too hard, sometimes elite.
-High-level guards blocking the paths out of the rift area. They'll 1-shot anyone who gets close. Out of all that, if you're spotted and announced to the zone, your group has a good chance to be annihilated by some random level 50 who will then camp the rift and kill any lowbies that come through. The rifts are only open until (usually) 20-40 people go through, so don't expect a huge battle. It used to be fun, though...
This game has so many minigames in it - is it maximizing the flight time to gather aether - risking one more high extract? Crafting and proccing a high level blue? Running the instances that are actually challenging and a bad pull can an will wipe you?
No offense meant to you, these are real pissoff "minigames" that most games have. They're really just tasks. A mini game would be a game in itself, sort of like a Public Quest in Warhammer or crafting in some other games.
Gathering Aether is a pain in the dick, I can't believe someone likes that. As if boring and tedious isn't enough, I had to compete with a couple bots the entire time who were also undercutting me with 100's of Aether on the broker.
Crafting is so... nothing. You get items, you put them in the slots, you hit "craft" and hope for the best. I got to 449 cooking, it wasn't that great or bad. I can make a ton of money by turning ingrediants into crit/dp jelly, but other cooks seem to think super undercutting until below any profit makes a good market. All I've heard was envy from pissed off people who spent millions trying to get a blue to proc so they could finish their crafting graduation quest. Crafting for non-cooks is really just a gamble, nothing else.
Instances are the same old thing we've all seen, except more boring. Kill trash trash trash trash trash trash trash boss (drops no loot 4/5 times) trash trash trash trash (Enjoy cleaning a dump and getting no pay!) boss (drops a green) trash trash, done. Want to run again for another half hour?
Running out of money? Actually I enjoy that immensely - and I ran out of coin a few times - only to make it back with a proc on blue armor. finally a game when money actually matters- you have to make smart decisions - and when you do you are way ahead of those who make bad ones.
I once ran out of money. I had to sell some of my gear, all of my stigma shards, some crafting supplies and grind a bit, then get 250k in donations from guild mates. Why? Because everything in this game costs money. Switching zones, Dying, gear/spells/stigmas/consumables/marking (setting respawn point if you die) all add up to a fortune. If I die 10 times, it costs me 250k to pay it off. I'll get to the reasons why I died that much in a moment.
Consumables are a must for pvp in this game, by the way. Mana/health/flight potions, food, scrolls, and manastones are needed if you want to become decent in pvp against other twinks.
Incoming long list!
The vibrant economy,
Everything costs a fortune in this game. There is a huge divide between very poor and very rich players. When I got my crafting to 449 I instantly became rich. Of course, it all drained when I continued dying and buying consumables. It almost seems as if NCsoft WANTS people to buy gold, since it's so tough to make any. They're also stupid to be 3-day-banning people who reply to gold messages, even if the message is "STFU!".
fights,
PvE is awful, boring solo grinding, unlike group grind games. PvP is interesting, I just wish it was more accessable. In the Abyss, you either find:
-Nobody
-People very easy to kill
-People (sometimes solo) that just fucking decimate you while you and your friends can't dent them.
-BOTS, AGAIN During sieges, you find: -The perfect slang definition of a zerg. 100 people run at 100 people and shit flies everywhere. No strategy, just kill stuff n' rush to the boss. There will probably be a few amazing battles in the future, but I can't see that being a common thing.
-You crash every few minutes, despite how awesome your I7 quad-sli GTX 295 system is. Minimizing graphics and making player models invisible helps. So much for that system!
-People have no reason to help a guild defend its keep, so it's guild Vs server.
-If you're defending, your artifacts on the OUTSIDE of the fortress can be rushed by the enemy zerg and activated (mo-mo-mo-mo-monster kill). Still a Zerg vs Zerg fight
gathering,
I maxed out gathering. It wasn't fun. "Go find a spot where the stuff spawns, gather for 20 minutes, move to the next spot". When you get into high-level gathering, it turns into "Look up a spot where stuff spawns, gather for 1-2 hours, move to the next spot". Nothing innovative.
crafting,
(Read my whiny complaints above and below) I made none of the money back (1.5m) I spent on cooking until I got to 350 cooking. Nothing is worth cooking before that. People aren't buying up siege weapon fuel yet.
enchanting,
You get an enchantment stone with a higher level than your item, use it on an item, hope it doesn't fail, and it improves your stats. People who have played other Korean MMO's will find this familiar.
socketing,
Some items have slots. You get stones that add stats such as "+50 HP" and put them in the item sockets. Stronger items have more sockets. Most of these stones suck, so people usually spec crit/hp.
dyeing (coloring) your armorsets,
The horrible PVP penis-armor the tanks get still looks bad (imo) whether it's pale, black or red.
campain quests,
Same as normal quests, except these are usually longer, even more boring and reward more exp. You get a list of them for every big zone. You'll still have to grind endlessly to level, despite finishing these. These usually have the bad clips in them.
cutscenes,
The cut scenes are there, yeah. They're horrible though.
Quest: Kill tree men! "Twee men have huwt my viwwage and waped my famiwy!" *camera pans to tree men walking around* "prease kill dem, dey ah vewy dangowis!" *tree man pops up in front of the screen and roars while eerie music plays*. It would have been better if they kept actors with that accent instead of taking themselves so seriously.
spectacular mob models,
This is personal preference. Some of the creatures look great (bone drakes, rock monsters, Gargoyles, Raptors, the Guardian Deity at the fortresses), on the other hand think I some of the things were designed by little kids:
A crab
A scorpion with a python connected instead of a stinger.
A giant dragonfly.
A slug
A mushroom.
A mushroom man. Midget men in Heiron A weird 4-legged piece of shit with red skin, 8 horns, beedie eyes and a creepy smile, looking ready to commence rape.
Pokeshit-inspired Spiritmaster pets.
The big red Krall guys are definitely fun to kill, but you have to grind them for hours on end until they get boring. Then they're re-used throughout the game as "different tribes".
gliding, flying, tricks with dropping to the ground and breaking your fall at the last moment - (you can escape almost anyone that way),
The game has a lot of flying bugs. This is why I died so much and lost over a million kinah in exp recovery. Here are some frequent instances:
-I'm flying after someone in The Abyss. They decide to close their wings to escape, I do the same. They re-open them about 2.8 seconds later and fly down, mine are open for 3 seconds and I end up dying (falling for 3 seconds=death in the Abyss).
-Same thing as above, except my wings won't open despite having a full flight ring. I can glide again, but not fly. I wait to die at this point as I glide into nothing.
-I jump off a ledge in the abyss to escape someone. I drop for almost 3 seconds and open my wings. Server lag rubberbands me back up a couple hundred feet, so I get caught and die.
-Same as above, except after I drop, glide and wait 10 seconds, fly won't work. Drop and fly won't work. I have to glide to my death because it's bugged.
-I'm in a PvE area gathering aether, but I need to get more flight pots at town below. I drop far down, then glide around for a good 20 seconds just for fun. As soon as I hit the ground I take full fall damage, as if I had never glided. This used to happen 3-5 times a day when I gathered aether.
-Same as above, except I glide from the very top of Heiron for 10 sec, then drop, then attempt to glide/open wings. Neither work. I die, despite being in a fly zone with a full ring.
collecting faction specific resources on the opposing faction's land (make a fortune ), rifting, sieges,
Already explained my rifting/siege problems. If you try to collect faction resources in the Abyss however, good luck not getting ganked and killed before you even realized what's going on (If you're not a tank/healer). This will continue on for hours (I once had the same level 50 grief me constantly in the morning, later in the afternoon, then at night. He just camped lower spots)
taking artifacts
It was fun before, now it's just annoying. One zerg takes them all, the next zerg takes them a couple hours later. If there's a stand-off, it used to be a lot of fun as long as there were less than 30 people on each side. Now it's a complete zerg rush.
- boy this game has it all - 500 recipes for every craft,
I don't see these as new things for the genre. In fact, Aion pulls this off terribly.
I play a cook. Most of the stuff I make is next to useless (Health regen+15?, Accuracy +50?) compared to the better food (Physical Crit +50, accuracy +50), potions (instant heal over 1k every 30 sec) and scrolls (+30% run speed). I spent a lot of time to get to 449, and I was surprised to learn that most of the 400-449 food isn't better than the 300-399 food. In fact, the 300 food sells better because it has better stats. The 400-499 food costs a fortune to make! Here's an example:
200-299: Physical attack+40
300-399: Physical attack+50
400-499: Physical attack+40, 5 second of flight time (easily replacable with the weakest flight potion [12 seconds] in the game, which has a reuse of 24 seconds)
Now why wouldn't they make the 400+ food amazing, being it's so hard to get to 400 and you can only get there with 2 crafting professions? This means anyone with a massive amount of money and a couple days of their time can get the best out of every crafting class. All of my food I sell except the DP jelly is the 300-399. I only make 5 different foods at the moment.
each node dropping two kinds of resources,
One is common, one is rare. At higher levels there are 3-4 per node, it's still White, Green, Blue, Orange. Nothing special.
customizing you build with stigmas
Roughly the same as any other game with skill trees, except the good stigmas in this game are drops you'll most likely have to buy off the broker. That wouldn't be a problem if the drop rate wasn't so pathetic in this game.
such an amazing game
It's quite a unique experience.
For those who don't want to read all that, I don't blame you. Many of us have been through it when we're on our way to 40. It was a promising game 1-20 though. Again, PVP is fun if you find the right battle, but at the moment it's almost always "destroy them" or "get thrashed".
The grind will forever haunt me. Seriously, this game became so depressing I had to take it off my desktop after unsubscribing. If I even looked at the icon, I felt like I had to get 5 month's worth of work done with a chance of no payment (in fact, I was losing my money).
I'm going to go take a cold shower and find something else to do.
Im not gonna go through all of that because you obviously feel strongly enough about it to quit playing - which we can all agree Aion isn't for everyone.
I will comment about your crafting part though. I am a cook - lvl 300... I've made back my money and then some... yes, even on lower level recipes. 420 is when it starts getting REALLY good but I always make money. If I didn't craft - yes - I'd probably have even more money - but for what I have - I really can't complain. This game is VERY easy to make money in... very very easy.... so easy in fact I broke my first million at lvl 25... and no I've never bought gold and in fact - I've given my guild mates and GF money as well - so I've probably made more than that.
40+ You make a PILE of cash... even on white drops.... Money in this game is VERY easy to come by and if you find it difficult I dear say you are wasting money on things you shouldn't (IE buying blue items while leveling - not saying your doing that specifically just saying you aren't keeping your cash for important things).
The rest - is mostly subjective opinion that I chose not to get into.... best of luck with whatever your next MMO is
Im not gonna go through all of that because you obviously feel strongly enough about it to quit playing - which we can all agree Aion isn't for everyone.
I will comment about your crafting part though. I am a cook - lvl 300... I've made back my money and then some... yes, even on lower level recipes. 420 is when it starts getting REALLY good but I always make money. If I didn't craft - yes - I'd probably have even more money - but for what I have - I really can't complain. This game is VERY easy to make money in... very very easy.... so easy in fact I broke my first million at lvl 25... and no I've never bought gold and in fact - I've given my guild mates and GF money as well - so I've probably made more than that.
40+ You make a PILE of cash... even on white drops.... Money in this game is VERY easy to come by and if you find it difficult I dear say you are wasting money on things you shouldn't (IE buying blue items while leveling - not saying your doing that specifically just saying you aren't keeping your cash for important things).
The rest - is mostly subjective opinion that I chose not to get into.... best of luck with whatever your next MMO is
I don't blame you for not wanting to read all that!
I think it was just the server I was on. Nobody even bought attack/health food, even for below profit prices. I vendered a lot of stuff and dumped it in the guild bank. I was curious to see how the economy was on other servers. It was absolute hell to make the 700k or so needed to gather Ferilla so I could make money. I think I gathered gold for 4 days straight, 6 hours a day to make 500k. I tried grinding too, but I never once saw an Orange drop. Painful...
When I got close to 40 I started just killing ogres and those Krall guys, but I think I'm just unlucky. It took me 2 hours to get a white, and a couple deaths would set everything back, that's why I decided to gather my way to fortune.
I still was wearing a couple Spatalos pieces, that's how little I spent on gear so I could afford other things.
Even so, when I became rich I found myself bored because the only thing left to face was the major grind, and that's why I quit. I'm not a fan of no-thought gameplay. I like strategy/action. If they make fun instances or increase exp I'll think about giving it another go. If Kotor is any good, I think Aion will be forgotten though, sort of like AoC was...
I think I gathered gold for 4 days straight, 6 hours a day to make 500k. I tried grinding too, but I never once saw an Orange drop. Painful...
I think you're mostly confused. You are never going to be able to farm an epic drop on solo - do you not understand the rarity of an epic drop? There is no game where you could go out and grind out one...
As for money - I really don't get it. A single white drop in the Fire Temple (that you can enter at level 30) is guaranteed to vendor for over 30,000, a single aether crystal vendors for 600 kinah, there is a node right outside the auction house (in Eltnen fortress), as you run to the auction house you can get 3000 kinah in 45 seconds. Or go out to a fortress when your faction owns it. Aether nodes galore - no ganking due to guards.
I report what I see at my level 31 - making 100,000 kinah takes no more than one or two hours - not even dedicated grinding - while you are getting other stuff done. If you are having problems raising 500,000 kinah at level 40 - frankly you just don't know how to play.
That's a really good post glofish. That's also one heck of a long post there, which I actually read till the end LooseBowels. I can see where you're coming from.
get to 30+ or 40+. that's where the game really lacks content.
and gets borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.
yadda yadda - I have been hearing this same old tune since level 17 - some other geniuses on these very forums predicted that one will have to grind to level to 20
complete and utter nonsense propagated by individuals who seem lack the minimal intelligence needed to find a quest hub...
I am level 31 with a full quest log ... and I bet I'll have plenty of quests to do at level 40 as well so there...
my main is lvl 41 SM and my alt is 33 glad, still have a TON of stuff to do for both chars. Having an awesome time so far.
all the trolls here are full of shit. if you enjoy they game dont listen to them spout ther "blah blah if ur under 30 you dont know anything." ive had people tell me the same crap for other games and i would always come back a month or 2 later and say "look i'm still playing and having fun you idiots." same thing for this game.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
Comments
I am two weeks into Aion and I am enjoying the game. I have had a few problems, but the game support has fixed them fast. I have a limited amount of time to play a game and feel as if I am progressing in Aion at a steady rate. This game might not be for everyone, and you can't find a game that is for "everyone". It reminds me of a good mix of EQ2 and WoW with some extra touch-ups. I am hoping they find a better option for dealing with botters as Blizzard dealt with WoW Glider.
It took me a year to get my toon in WoW to 80. People complain about content because they have no lives and they want to get to the level max in 3 - 4 weeks, which people did do in Aion. After that they complain and the game, in the US, had only been out in a month. Best way to enjoy an MMO is take your time and still have a life. Not coming off harsh but it always makes me wonder when people talk about content in an MMO in this type of a situation.
I have a 37 cleric, and am LOVING the game, still.
I don't craft much, or gather. I just kill stuff, both npc's and players, but mostly npc's. I do the quests that seem worth the trouble, but I'm just as happy to grind around an area.
I've been saying this since CB. Aion is NOT ground breaking. It is just a pretty solid example of the video game genre of choice.
I'll bite..
You are exactly where the majority of us, ex-Aion players were a month ago. We loved the game too, everything seemed bright and shiny once you hit 25. That is as far as I will agree with you though, I am an Ex-Aion player afterall.
Please enjoy your rifting days while you can, they are certainly one of the main things that makes Aion enjoyable at that level. The sad fact of the matter is, they don't last.. as soon as you hit the final leveling zone prepare for horrid rifting runs and bots galore. You can not rift 45+ ... which removes a huge faccet of the game. You did not mention the Abyss, nor forts so I won't go into the obvious faults with them currently.
Crafting high level blues is a chore, if you have not hit a failure streak at 300+ crafting skill level then you have no idea the cost one incurs from such misfortune. I hope your tolerance for pain is high indeed, when you need to get from 399 to 400 prepare to do a quest based purely on luck of the draw where every failure costs 100's of thousand of kinah... some pay multiple millions to complete the quest whilst others pass on the first few attempts. Crafting is a grind, like everything else in the game, with barely anything to hide the fact.
Instances in this game are challenging? They are all tank and spank, move into them with the proper group makeup and they are ALL absurdly simplistic. There is really nothing anyone can say to challenge this fact, instances are simple. They are simple because they have to be, NcSoft implemented their instances to be a grind ( notice the trend?) requiring many hundreds of runs to "gear out".
There is actually very little customization with this game... Stigmas are a carrot, they don't make my cleric any diffrent from Joe Blows. Artifact takes are a bore as well ... just wait untill you are in the Upper and one Artifact which a single group has taken wipes your Entire Raid of 3-4 alliances. It certainly sounds wonderful when you are not on the recieving end. Enchanting and Socketing are both ways to promote grinding of various ways, they are both a chore and hardly intuitive
I actually understand why you think the way you do about Aion, I was there too. Aion will always fill a niche market, but it is hardly the game it was marketed to be, or that I let myself believe it was. You are in the honeymoon phase of the subscription ... I encourage you to come back once you are 43-50 so we can get a revised review. I suspect it will be titled " Two months in -- What Happened?"
Long, semi-detailed response incoming
For those who don't want to read all that, I don't blame you. Many of us have been through it when we're on our way to 40. It was a promising game 1-20 though. Again, PVP is fun if you find the right battle, but at the moment it's almost always "destroy them" or "get thrashed".
The grind will forever haunt me. Seriously, this game became so depressing I had to take it off my desktop after unsubscribing. If I even looked at the icon, I felt like I had to get 5 month's worth of work done with a chance of no payment (in fact, I was losing my money).
I'm going to go take a cold shower and find something else to do.
For those who don't want to read all that, I don't blame you. Many of us have been through it when we're on our way to 40. It was a promising game 1-20 though. Again, PVP is fun if you find the right battle, but at the moment it's almost always "destroy them" or "get thrashed".
The grind will forever haunt me. Seriously, this game became so depressing I had to take it off my desktop after unsubscribing. If I even looked at the icon, I felt like I had to get 5 month's worth of work done with a chance of no payment (in fact, I was losing my money).
I'm going to go take a cold shower and find something else to do.
Im not gonna go through all of that because you obviously feel strongly enough about it to quit playing - which we can all agree Aion isn't for everyone.
I will comment about your crafting part though. I am a cook - lvl 300... I've made back my money and then some... yes, even on lower level recipes. 420 is when it starts getting REALLY good but I always make money. If I didn't craft - yes - I'd probably have even more money - but for what I have - I really can't complain. This game is VERY easy to make money in... very very easy.... so easy in fact I broke my first million at lvl 25... and no I've never bought gold and in fact - I've given my guild mates and GF money as well - so I've probably made more than that.
40+ You make a PILE of cash... even on white drops.... Money in this game is VERY easy to come by and if you find it difficult I dear say you are wasting money on things you shouldn't (IE buying blue items while leveling - not saying your doing that specifically just saying you aren't keeping your cash for important things).
The rest - is mostly subjective opinion that I chose not to get into.... best of luck with whatever your next MMO is
I don't blame you for not wanting to read all that!
I think it was just the server I was on. Nobody even bought attack/health food, even for below profit prices. I vendered a lot of stuff and dumped it in the guild bank. I was curious to see how the economy was on other servers. It was absolute hell to make the 700k or so needed to gather Ferilla so I could make money. I think I gathered gold for 4 days straight, 6 hours a day to make 500k. I tried grinding too, but I never once saw an Orange drop. Painful...
When I got close to 40 I started just killing ogres and those Krall guys, but I think I'm just unlucky. It took me 2 hours to get a white, and a couple deaths would set everything back, that's why I decided to gather my way to fortune.
I still was wearing a couple Spatalos pieces, that's how little I spent on gear so I could afford other things.
Even so, when I became rich I found myself bored because the only thing left to face was the major grind, and that's why I quit. I'm not a fan of no-thought gameplay. I like strategy/action. If they make fun instances or increase exp I'll think about giving it another go. If Kotor is any good, I think Aion will be forgotten though, sort of like AoC was...
I'm trying out Warhammer again. Thanks.
I think you're mostly confused. You are never going to be able to farm an epic drop on solo - do you not understand the rarity of an epic drop? There is no game where you could go out and grind out one...
As for money - I really don't get it. A single white drop in the Fire Temple (that you can enter at level 30) is guaranteed to vendor for over 30,000, a single aether crystal vendors for 600 kinah, there is a node right outside the auction house (in Eltnen fortress), as you run to the auction house you can get 3000 kinah in 45 seconds. Or go out to a fortress when your faction owns it. Aether nodes galore - no ganking due to guards.
I report what I see at my level 31 - making 100,000 kinah takes no more than one or two hours - not even dedicated grinding - while you are getting other stuff done. If you are having problems raising 500,000 kinah at level 40 - frankly you just don't know how to play.
That's a really good post glofish. That's also one heck of a long post there, which I actually read till the end LooseBowels. I can see where you're coming from.
yadda yadda - I have been hearing this same old tune since level 17 - some other geniuses on these very forums predicted that one will have to grind to level to 20
complete and utter nonsense propagated by individuals who seem lack the minimal intelligence needed to find a quest hub...
I am level 31 with a full quest log ... and I bet I'll have plenty of quests to do at level 40 as well so there...
my main is lvl 41 SM and my alt is 33 glad, still have a TON of stuff to do for both chars. Having an awesome time so far.
all the trolls here are full of shit. if you enjoy they game dont listen to them spout ther "blah blah if ur under 30 you dont know anything." ive had people tell me the same crap for other games and i would always come back a month or 2 later and say "look i'm still playing and having fun you idiots." same thing for this game.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)