Aion is only a grind if you make it a grind....pretty simple really. For those who want to reach max level asap and get the best gear possible (WoW anyone?) their likely not likely to enjoy Aion much at all. Whatever happened to enjoying the journey rather then the destination? O.o
For me Aion is hella fun and it keeps getting better then more I level up. Sure 20-25 is abit lacking of quests but thats a minor flaw for me that should be fixed eventually.
IMO Aion is the best all round MMO out right now, hands down. And I've played them all.... Graphics are top notch. Gameplay is polished and fun. And best of all nothing comes easy in Aion. You have to work for good rewards which is way it should be imo. I'm so damn sick of MMOs leading me by the hand to max level it isnt even funny. LOTRO and WoW are good examples of bland/boring quest grinding MMOs imo. I've never return to them.
For those who complain of a grind.../quit simple as that. For those who are enjoying Aion, pre-grats on level 50 because its going to be an awesome feeling of accomplishment once you've reached it.
I'm done with the quest grinding / easy MMOs coming out these days. I'll take Aion over them anyday. Unless something comes out thats totally different and fresh I'll be playing Aion for a long long time with hopefully 3-5 top level toons to the distant future. Sure ill take breaks here and there but in no way am I planning to rush to 50....thats where the grind kicks in.
I keep seeing the fanboys posting this crap, its only a grind if you make it a grind. To get to lvl 50 at some point you will have to grind mobs simple. There is not enough content to keep you busy what ever the content may be. Any one who says I've never grinded mobs in Aion is a well...
Tragically, the higher you level up in Aion, the worst it seems to get. The game 1-35 really is decent. That's why people like Ethian post about it being a really good game. When he gets up to 40(where my highest is atm) he'll start realizing the horrible flaws.
Funny thing is I looked forward to Aion back in the day because it was suppose to take longer(than current generation MMOs) to get to the level cap and now, while I still don't want 'hand it out for free WoW-like' speed, I'm realizing that leveling speed as a value isn't the only factor that matters.(i.e. it has to be fun and involving along the way) I guess I always took it for granted in all the games I played previously. Who'd-a-thunk a developer would get that part wrong. lol
P.S. I'm still currently playing Aion... only because there's nothing 'better' out there. ('been there; done that' is included in the usage of 'better')
I keep seeing the fanboys posting this crap, its only a grind if you make it a grind. To get to lvl 50 at some point you will have to grind mobs simple. There is not enough content to keep you busy what ever the content may be. Any one who says I've never grinded mobs in Aion is a well...
edit: gamespot review was spot on.
Just highlights you don't understand what they're talking about
There's plenty of 'content' to get to top level in WoW or WAR for instance yet people still call those 'grinds'. As soon as people have to do something they don't want to to get somewhere, or it takes longer than they want, it's a grind, it doesn't matter anymore what type of content there is at that point.
Some people enjoy grinding mobs, it makes them think of the good old days when every MMO was like that. For those people what you call a grind, is not a grind for them.
His bias is obvious in that point alone, never mind the way his review is written. Calling Aion a "grind" because of the gather, kill, and delivery quests is kind of amusing since that is what EVERY SINGLE RPG USES SOME VERSION OF!
EVERY RPG is a grind of some sort because you have to gain levels. If you don't want to gather, kill, and deliver, play a FPS.
Agree, this game sux. Have been on aion side since 4 months before release. Played it 2 months. And had to quit after that for huge boredom. It's just a korean game with lots of grinding and no lore (there is, but it's very little). The game looks like a good free mmorpg, so i quit it. Now i'm going back to LOTRO.
A living creature that has stopped evolving is not worth existing.
Considering this is Gamespot - I was abit surprised...
But then I looked at few other reviews from them on Asian games and I got the picture.
Gamespot is promoting US / EU devs and it has done so for years. The simple fact that it took them weeks to even make a review for Aion - while other games like AOC/WAR (not to mention WOW) came out less than a week after release with "glowing" remarks.
And now Gamespot is promoting Dragon Age 24/7 so ... good review for Aion was never on the cards.
Its just Politics and buisness.. It has nothing to do with good or bad games.
His bias is obvious in that point alone, never mind the way his review is written. Calling Aion a "grind" because of the gather, kill, and delivery quests is kind of amusing since that is what EVERY SINGLE RPG USES SOME VERSION OF! EVERY RPG is a grind of some sort because you have to gain levels. If you don't want to gather, kill, and deliver, play a FPS.
I am personally a supporter of this game. However, the reason i unsubbed was because of the horrible grind that it is. I'm sorry but you shouldn't have to grind in one spot for hours on end to level. The pvp in the game is great as it should be. Also just because someone gave WoW a high score means very little. It got rated so high because the game is very good. Sure it not everyone's cup of tea but from a pure fun factor few games top it.
Considering this is Gamespot - I was abit surprised... But then I looked at few other reviews from them on Asian games and I got the picture. Gamespot is promoting US / EU devs and it has done so for years. The simple fact that it took them weeks to even make a review for Aion - while other games like AOC/WAR (not to mention WOW) came out less than a week after release with "glowing" remarks. And now Gamespot is promoting Dragon Age 24/7 so ... good review for Aion was never on the cards. Its just Politics and buisness.. It has nothing to do with good or bad games.
I believe I fit into the category of casual player. but when I play, I play hard and I want to have fun.
I quite after the first month in Aion because there was a point from level 18 to 23 where I just got bored as hell. When I saw how slow I was moving at 23, I had to end the pain.
I recently came back since I heard there were a lot of XP adjustments, and everyone told me that 23-24 are a couple of the worst levels in the entire game. So I pushed through to 25, and as if I had entered a new MMO, the game changes. 25-30 has been a blast.
That said, I think the game at its current state deserves a 7.5/10 overall. Its got incredible potential, but the 'hardcore' gamers NEED to accept that not all of us want to 'work' for levels. I play GAMES for FUN, not for a sense of accomplishment (wtf kind of accomplishment can be achieved in a game anyway?)
I thought the review was spot on tbh. Aion is a below average game I would say, same old same old. Sad really, so many people where looking forward to it and it turned out to be well a bit grindy.
I won't go into is Aion good/bad and my opinion of it personally because that's what a review is supposed to be : opinion. I get that. I don't have to agree with what Gamespot says. HOWEVER. I find their review terrible because it's simply WRONG in parts. For example : They say flying outside specified areas is never justified. That being grounded is just some flaw that is never explained.. WRONG. The lore states clearly why you can fly in certain places and you cannot in others.
He also said Fortresses flip vulnerable on a seemingly random timer. WRONG. It's not random at all, it comes up same times every time. I wish you could schedule your own fortress raids but regardless it is NOT random.
He also states an opinion that Fortresses are all about sheer numbers and involve no tactics. Again this is WRONG. My guild of 50 can take on double to triple our numbers in our fortresses and win. Now I'll agree MOST people are not capable of doing this but it doesn't mean it is not possible.
He also states the game is terrible beyond the first 10-12 levels, which is funny cause even the people who quit Aion and claim they can't stand the grind will admit it's fun till 35-36 when grind really picks up. But this guy says 10 is about the limit of the fun.
He also puts down GRIND as a FLAW. Now I'll admit I am not a huge fan of lengthy grind leveling but it is not something that should cost a game points on a review. Some people prefer a more grind oriented game so it is a matter of perspective not a game flaw. To say that just shows your bias that you think WoW is the bar of which every MMO must follow. Which is just wrong for a reviewer who is supposed to be unbiased.
Then a whole nother chunk of his review is whining about being PVP'd in a PVP hardcore game. Oh I can't see their levels QQ a higher level killed me. Oh they camp the rifts so I can't do my quest QQ this is terrible. Wow so you can run up to Ogrimmar as a Human and NOT be killed? You're in enemy territory there buddy, you're supposed to feel like a deer in the meadow. I think it's entirely appropiate if I'm dumb enough to try to solo a rift that someone owns my dumb ass. PVP happened in a PVP zone, oh noes.
He also docks the game heavily for sound, which kind of blew me away. I find the audio work in Aion to be some of the best of any MMO to date. Now this can heavily be opinion based obviously but to sit there and rip it apart as being horrible is just ridicules. If you can dock this game more points ontop of grind opinions and throw in audio to boot with a straight face I think you're in the wrong business. I can understand if a game has massive audio flaws but this is clearly not the case here, just this guys opinion that an alarm sound on your wing timer is annoying.
All in all this guy just sounds incredibly biased from start to finish and I can see this guy sitting at his PC just grumbling non stop wanting to log back onto his Lv 80 Deathknight to go pwn some noobs in WSG. Almost as if reviewing this other lesser MMO to the WoW genre (not MMO genre) was such a chore he couldn't be bothered to focus on facts and instead threw in a bunch of crap and said It's not WoW, 6.5.
In the recent PC Gamer magazine they gave the game 7/10 stating: "Aion is a beautiful-looking game that plays it a bit too safe in its design decisions to be ultimately compelling, but rewards long-term play with interesting PvP combat." They also have the same complaints that I have hears echoed by many, the fact you must grind through the first 25 levels just to get the oportunity to get ganked, and then continue to grind upwards till you can actually fully enjoy the pvp. (The graph of the will to play is pretty spot on with my friends and mine experience with the game)
No matter how many posts are made by its fans, its obvious this game will be considered average for western gamers. This is not a negative or bashing of the game, just a consensus of opinions that the game does not stand above other mmos currently offered to western gamers present or past.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
If you would ask the people on my server about Aion, nobody will tell you that Aion is revolutionary in any case. Its a good, nice looking mmorpg without glaring problems and due to lack of better, newer ones atm, people play it. As long as the game provides entertainment and fun people will pay the sub.
Its only forums like this one you find the extremes. 7/10 sound good to me, the gamespot review and the mmorpg one seem off the track.
I think people are more complaining about what gamespot has wrote in the "review" then the actual rating.
I personally was a bit disapointed on their rating but like another poster said (Above their negative "reviews" on eastern games) and I saw it recently too their review started to lack information and detail on the game's features.
Comments
Aion is only a grind if you make it a grind....pretty simple really. For those who want to reach max level asap and get the best gear possible (WoW anyone?) their likely not likely to enjoy Aion much at all. Whatever happened to enjoying the journey rather then the destination? O.o
For me Aion is hella fun and it keeps getting better then more I level up. Sure 20-25 is abit lacking of quests but thats a minor flaw for me that should be fixed eventually.
IMO Aion is the best all round MMO out right now, hands down. And I've played them all.... Graphics are top notch. Gameplay is polished and fun. And best of all nothing comes easy in Aion. You have to work for good rewards which is way it should be imo. I'm so damn sick of MMOs leading me by the hand to max level it isnt even funny. LOTRO and WoW are good examples of bland/boring quest grinding MMOs imo. I've never return to them.
For those who complain of a grind.../quit simple as that. For those who are enjoying Aion, pre-grats on level 50 because its going to be an awesome feeling of accomplishment once you've reached it.
I'm done with the quest grinding / easy MMOs coming out these days. I'll take Aion over them anyday. Unless something comes out thats totally different and fresh I'll be playing Aion for a long long time with hopefully 3-5 top level toons to the distant future. Sure ill take breaks here and there but in no way am I planning to rush to 50....thats where the grind kicks in.
/salute
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
Yet another negative review of Aion. Until developers learn how to make a good MMO this will be the norm I fear.
The Gamespot review is absolutely spot-on
I keep seeing the fanboys posting this crap, its only a grind if you make it a grind. To get to lvl 50 at some point you will have to grind mobs simple. There is not enough content to keep you busy what ever the content may be. Any one who says I've never grinded mobs in Aion is a well...
edit: gamespot review was spot on.
Playing Darkfall EU1 Server
Good review.
-Computer specs no one cares about: check.
-MMOs played no one cares about: check.
-Xfire stats no one cares about: check.
-Signature no one cares about: check.
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-Narcissism: check.
Spot on review indeed.
Tragically, the higher you level up in Aion, the worst it seems to get. The game 1-35 really is decent. That's why people like Ethian post about it being a really good game. When he gets up to 40(where my highest is atm) he'll start realizing the horrible flaws.
Funny thing is I looked forward to Aion back in the day because it was suppose to take longer(than current generation MMOs) to get to the level cap and now, while I still don't want 'hand it out for free WoW-like' speed, I'm realizing that leveling speed as a value isn't the only factor that matters.(i.e. it has to be fun and involving along the way) I guess I always took it for granted in all the games I played previously. Who'd-a-thunk a developer would get that part wrong. lol
P.S. I'm still currently playing Aion... only because there's nothing 'better' out there. ('been there; done that' is included in the usage of 'better')
Just highlights you don't understand what they're talking about
There's plenty of 'content' to get to top level in WoW or WAR for instance yet people still call those 'grinds'. As soon as people have to do something they don't want to to get somewhere, or it takes longer than they want, it's a grind, it doesn't matter anymore what type of content there is at that point.
Some people enjoy grinding mobs, it makes them think of the good old days when every MMO was like that. For those people what you call a grind, is not a grind for them.
An honestly, if they implemented everything I saw in that 'Things to come' video quickly, i would go back!
The reviewer owns WoW and rated it a 9.5
His bias is obvious in that point alone, never mind the way his review is written. Calling Aion a "grind" because of the gather, kill, and delivery quests is kind of amusing since that is what EVERY SINGLE RPG USES SOME VERSION OF!
EVERY RPG is a grind of some sort because you have to gain levels. If you don't want to gather, kill, and deliver, play a FPS.
Agree, this game sux. Have been on aion side since 4 months before release. Played it 2 months. And had to quit after that for huge boredom. It's just a korean game with lots of grinding and no lore (there is, but it's very little). The game looks like a good free mmorpg, so i quit it. Now i'm going back to LOTRO.
A living creature that has stopped evolving is not worth existing.
Well its a kinda fair review 6.5 is not that bad anyway what did u expect?
Considering this is Gamespot - I was abit surprised...
But then I looked at few other reviews from them on Asian games and I got the picture.
Gamespot is promoting US / EU devs and it has done so for years. The simple fact that it took them weeks to even make a review for Aion - while other games like AOC/WAR (not to mention WOW) came out less than a week after release with "glowing" remarks.
And now Gamespot is promoting Dragon Age 24/7 so ... good review for Aion was never on the cards.
Its just Politics and buisness.. It has nothing to do with good or bad games.
I am personally a supporter of this game. However, the reason i unsubbed was because of the horrible grind that it is. I'm sorry but you shouldn't have to grind in one spot for hours on end to level. The pvp in the game is great as it should be. Also just because someone gave WoW a high score means very little. It got rated so high because the game is very good. Sure it not everyone's cup of tea but from a pure fun factor few games top it.
I believe I fit into the category of casual player. but when I play, I play hard and I want to have fun.
I quite after the first month in Aion because there was a point from level 18 to 23 where I just got bored as hell. When I saw how slow I was moving at 23, I had to end the pain.
I recently came back since I heard there were a lot of XP adjustments, and everyone told me that 23-24 are a couple of the worst levels in the entire game. So I pushed through to 25, and as if I had entered a new MMO, the game changes. 25-30 has been a blast.
That said, I think the game at its current state deserves a 7.5/10 overall. Its got incredible potential, but the 'hardcore' gamers NEED to accept that not all of us want to 'work' for levels. I play GAMES for FUN, not for a sense of accomplishment (wtf kind of accomplishment can be achieved in a game anyway?)
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Well this thread has got a few pages now :P
I thought the review was spot on tbh. Aion is a below average game I would say, same old same old. Sad really, so many people where looking forward to it and it turned out to be well a bit grindy.
Playing Darkfall EU1 Server
I won't go into is Aion good/bad and my opinion of it personally because that's what a review is supposed to be : opinion. I get that. I don't have to agree with what Gamespot says. HOWEVER. I find their review terrible because it's simply WRONG in parts. For example : They say flying outside specified areas is never justified. That being grounded is just some flaw that is never explained.. WRONG. The lore states clearly why you can fly in certain places and you cannot in others.
He also said Fortresses flip vulnerable on a seemingly random timer. WRONG. It's not random at all, it comes up same times every time. I wish you could schedule your own fortress raids but regardless it is NOT random.
He also states an opinion that Fortresses are all about sheer numbers and involve no tactics. Again this is WRONG. My guild of 50 can take on double to triple our numbers in our fortresses and win. Now I'll agree MOST people are not capable of doing this but it doesn't mean it is not possible.
He also states the game is terrible beyond the first 10-12 levels, which is funny cause even the people who quit Aion and claim they can't stand the grind will admit it's fun till 35-36 when grind really picks up. But this guy says 10 is about the limit of the fun.
He also puts down GRIND as a FLAW. Now I'll admit I am not a huge fan of lengthy grind leveling but it is not something that should cost a game points on a review. Some people prefer a more grind oriented game so it is a matter of perspective not a game flaw. To say that just shows your bias that you think WoW is the bar of which every MMO must follow. Which is just wrong for a reviewer who is supposed to be unbiased.
Then a whole nother chunk of his review is whining about being PVP'd in a PVP hardcore game. Oh I can't see their levels QQ a higher level killed me. Oh they camp the rifts so I can't do my quest QQ this is terrible. Wow so you can run up to Ogrimmar as a Human and NOT be killed? You're in enemy territory there buddy, you're supposed to feel like a deer in the meadow. I think it's entirely appropiate if I'm dumb enough to try to solo a rift that someone owns my dumb ass. PVP happened in a PVP zone, oh noes.
He also docks the game heavily for sound, which kind of blew me away. I find the audio work in Aion to be some of the best of any MMO to date. Now this can heavily be opinion based obviously but to sit there and rip it apart as being horrible is just ridicules. If you can dock this game more points ontop of grind opinions and throw in audio to boot with a straight face I think you're in the wrong business. I can understand if a game has massive audio flaws but this is clearly not the case here, just this guys opinion that an alarm sound on your wing timer is annoying.
All in all this guy just sounds incredibly biased from start to finish and I can see this guy sitting at his PC just grumbling non stop wanting to log back onto his Lv 80 Deathknight to go pwn some noobs in WSG. Almost as if reviewing this other lesser MMO to the WoW genre (not MMO genre) was such a chore he couldn't be bothered to focus on facts and instead threw in a bunch of crap and said It's not WoW, 6.5.
why make an account to post that?
Playing Darkfall EU1 Server
I had an account before just for some reason it's not working.
In the recent PC Gamer magazine they gave the game 7/10 stating: "Aion is a beautiful-looking game that plays it a bit too safe in its design decisions to be ultimately compelling, but rewards long-term play with interesting PvP combat." They also have the same complaints that I have hears echoed by many, the fact you must grind through the first 25 levels just to get the oportunity to get ganked, and then continue to grind upwards till you can actually fully enjoy the pvp. (The graph of the will to play is pretty spot on with my friends and mine experience with the game)
No matter how many posts are made by its fans, its obvious this game will be considered average for western gamers. This is not a negative or bashing of the game, just a consensus of opinions that the game does not stand above other mmos currently offered to western gamers present or past.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
If you would ask the people on my server about Aion, nobody will tell you that Aion is revolutionary in any case. Its a good, nice looking mmorpg without glaring problems and due to lack of better, newer ones atm, people play it. As long as the game provides entertainment and fun people will pay the sub.
Its only forums like this one you find the extremes. 7/10 sound good to me, the gamespot review and the mmorpg one seem off the track.
I think people are more complaining about what gamespot has wrote in the "review" then the actual rating.
I personally was a bit disapointed on their rating but like another poster said (Above their negative "reviews" on eastern games) and I saw it recently too their review started to lack information and detail on the game's features.