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Aion: Pro's and Con's? -Calling All Players-
From the get go, I've been really interested in Aion, ever since i got wind of Aion's PvP I kept my eye on it. What I was hoping to achieve by this post was to gain some pro's and cons for Aion. And please don't go... 'Aion is shit' I would like a proper response, I do have the money to buy it, however I will not be downloading it as I have a monthly download limit of 10gb, and Aion would eat too much for me, so Ill buy boxed..anyway... so before I decide i; would like an honest opinion from some players.
If you could organise your response in a uniform way i would really appreciate it, and hopefully this post will develop and aid others in my situation, that being,there are so many flamers and fanboys that it gets overwhelming 
Final Note: Please try your best to find an even amount of pro's and con's, I need an honest opinion from both sides before making a final decision ( I do have a brief understanding of aion, but I havnt played it, hence asking for aid)
THANKS!
Example
Pro:
- one
- two
- three
Major Pro:
- one
- two
- three
Con:
- one
- two
- three
Major Con:
- one
- two
- you get the idea >_>
Comments
Pro:
It's got a cool box.
...that's all I got. But at least you're not downloading it, so you'll get the best feature.
Cons:
Everything else. Seriously, save your money, or wait for a trial.
-I hope you dont mind but ill just tell you my oppinion of game without that order of yours :P. I am playing MMO's for a long time and i purchased Aion on launch day and i can't say i didn't like the game at first, but after few days of playing there were a lot of bugs and some issues but that was to be expected, but i found Aion to have most strange weakness in low lvl classes....you can't kill more than 2 mobs in same time without spaming pots like maniac and that kinda is boring....having to wait for health regen after almost every fight, there is a lot of grinding in game as you prolly alredy know, quests are not that bad and kinda of fun to do :P, annoying thing is bots and kinah spammers....and also biggest annoying thing is NC support if any <_< that was the reason i quit playing Aion....i had big problem with it and NC couldnt now resolve my problem. I can't really tell you much for PvP since i had really big problems with my game and i didn't progress much :S, i hope this help you a bit to decide
-I hope you dont mind but ill just tell you my oppinion of game without that order of yours :P. I am playing MMO's for a long time and i purchased Aion on launch day and i can't say i didn't like the game at first, but after few days of playing there were a lot of bugs and some issues but that was to be expected, but i found Aion to have most strange weakness in low lvl classes....you can't kill more than 2 mobs in same time without spaming pots like maniac and that kinda is boring....having to wait for health regen after almost every fight, there is a lot of grinding in game as you prolly alredy know, quests are not that bad and kinda of fun to do :P, annoying thing is bots and kinah spammers....and also biggest annoying thing is NC support if any <_< that was the reason i quit playing Aion....i had big problem with it and NC couldnt now resolve my problem. I can't really tell you much for PvP since i had really big problems with my game and i didn't progress much :S, i hope this help you a bit to decide
It's all good about the order, just an aid if wanted, thanks for your adive, would like some more opinions though
First of all: I’m really amazed that Aions Hype rating places it that low on the list here on mmorpg.com. Overall it’s a really nice game that happens to have a few major flaws. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed though.
Second: Since no one else seems to bother telling about this game, I feel I should.
I have been playing Aion since its release (eu), and I gotta say I like it. The PvP aspect of the game has some tweaking and balancing issues, but I live in hope that it will all get fixed… Eventually.
Singleplay in Aion can feel like a grindfeast at times, but I don’t think it’s any worse than most other mmo’s.
And that’s about it in terms of cons for me. With a little spit and polish, Aion really could become THE online game. Even challenge you-know-what.
As for the pros… Where to start...
PvE in general is really fun. And there’s A LOT of it. Aion has a truckload of quests you can do, in all zones. Sure some of them are the same over-and-over, but again, it’s no different than any other mmorpg. As a whole they are quite fun and tells you nice little stories about people that need your help for various things. I personally like reading all the text for the quests. Just to get the stories.
Campains, like quests are also quite well implemented. Generally they work exactly the same way as quests. They can be way more challenging though. Like quests they tend to try to make you more involved in the world of Aion itself. (It’s actually really cleverly done: Ask ANY Aion Elios-player if they liked the whole story about how they got their wings… Everyone likes being a hero. – I haven’t played Asmodian at all yet, so I can’t describe what they are like to play. But one would think it’s more or less the same thing.)
Another thing worth noting about Aion is the graphics engine. I used to play EQ2… Aion kicks EQ2’s butt. Seriously stunning. Games homepage has some really good movies which prove my point. (Youtube does too naturally.)
So to sum up I really like Aion Online, despite its flaws. And don’t think I’m one of those fanboys that can only see the upside of whatever they are hooked on. Once Final Fantasy XIV is released… Well let’s just say that NCsoft better pick up the pace on them updates, and start fixing what needs to be fixed. I like Aion, but right now it’s not finished imo. The potential is there for sure though.
Long post. Sorry about that. I hope you all find it useful though.
Honestly I know some people like this game, but i'll never fully understand why.
Pro:
The first 20 levels are kind of fun the first time through
Con:
21 to 50 the game just turns to crap. You could pick up a F2P asian MMO and the gameplay would be the same. IMO they focused on the first 20 levels of play more than any other part of the game.
The class balance is just horrible. PvP is for the ranged classes. Crowd control spells are over powered and have no immunity timer. Basically to counter it all of your 1 or 2 anti-cc abilities have to be up as well as not be caught off guard. If not ranged classes will kite you everywhere.
The big thing in this game is flight. Without items flight time is really short. The areas you can fly in are really limited. Flight is basically pointless for most of sieges. I'll just put it this way you spend enough time running around on foot that mounts definately need to be added to the game.
The developers bait the hell out of current and future customers then don't deliver.
There is a 40% or 60% damage reduction in PvP. Meaning if you are a class that only has DPS abilities you are going to hurt in PvP until of course you get the very best gear in the game then it supposed to be fun.
PvE is boring.
PvP is boring.
Anybody that says Aion is fun also enjoys the grindy style of PvE that most asian MMOs have. I wouldn't say it takes as long to max level as most other Asian mmos but it definatly is not an enjoyable grind.
Recommend waiting for a free trial.
Honestly I know some people like this game, but i'll never fully understand why.
That would be me. I like the PvE in Aion Online. You gotta take your time and acturally READ quest info to enjoy it though. Don't just grind to lv up the fastest. You miss out on some nice stuff. It's not a race to the top.
Honestly I know some people like this game, but i'll never fully understand why.
That would be me. I like the PvE in Aion Online. You gotta take your time and acturally READ quest info to enjoy it though. Don't just grind to lv up the fastest. You miss out on some nice stuff. It's not a race to the top.
It is a race to the top... that's all majority of the player base knows...
You can go 1-80 in "certain" games - in about 2-3 weeks of ACTUAL time .... not really possible in Aion - so the race turns into a "grindfest" and hence where 90% of the cry comes from...
Personally I don't have any problem with Aion's PVE... it isn't anything fantastic but it isn't crap either.... its on par with most games to tell you the truth (LOTRO, WoW, AoC, etc). Same standard questing system, kill mobs for XP, run around dropping off errands for NPCs, etc... it just takes longer to do these things in Aion (level wise) - IE: You can't go 1-50 in a few weeks and 40-50 is a long haul.... if you can't handle not being level cap in a few weeks (no matter how much playtime you invest) then you should stay far away from Aion
Honestly I know some people like this game, but i'll never fully understand why.
i find it funny that you made it all the way to 50 in Aion and you didnt even like the game. VERY FUNNY ROFL.
While i actually like Aion but stopped at 47, the grind just got boring and the PvP sucked.
Aion v3 "RELOADED" - A glimpse into the future of the MMO genre
Honestly I know some people like this game, but i'll never fully understand why.
i find it funny that you made it all the way to 50 in Aion and you didnt even like the game. VERY FUNNY ROFL.
While i actually like Aion but stopped at 47, the grind just got boring and the PvP sucked.
He didnt.... he quit at 37
First of all thank you all for your responses!
I think I will wait till mid year to see if they improove, because pvp is my thing
thank you all, a nice balance! hope it helps others.
I spent a day playing, at first glance gameplay feels mediocre but once I got used to it isn't bad but the sound effects are really annoying after a while. I have one issue so far, I'm left handed and it's difficult to find appropriate key mapping for all the abilities (ctrl doesn't work for most things) and no mouselook mode but I'm sure I'll get used to it.
I pretty much like Aion. Leveling is not easy, but it's not just a grind. I never really ran out of quests (I'm level 35 now) on my main and on my alts I do even better...but you have to go out and find quests, they're not always in expected places. I like the fact that it's a mix of PvP and PvE. After level 20 you'll encounter PvP everywhere at times, but not to the limit that it really gets boring or frustrating. Even in the Abyss you can often do quests without being harrassed too much on my server (Castor Europe). The game is quite smooth and there are not many real bugs. I love the graphics, but I always had a thing for anime.
Character customization is beautiful, I can get nice looking armor with good stats nonetheless. I like the crafting system as well, although it's partly based on luck, but when you've got a bit of luck you can craft really good stuff. Although mobs seldom drop something interesting, you still often can get a rewarding feeling from this game, when you finish some almost impossible quest, craft something rare. The envorinment is large enough to do a lot of exploring. Ingame the community is mostly ok (on the forums and elsewhere you'll encounter the trolls and whiners). Servers are well filled most of the time and finding groups is not really a pain. Soloing is also a viable option.
The cons: Maybe although I really don't mind, it's another fantasy MMO, so you encounter parallels to other games like WoW, AoC and LoTRo. Quest: kill x of y, fighting: push the right combination of buttons etc. etc. Sometimes when there are fortress sieges, the game can get really laggy and I can get DC's, but when I put my fps on fixed I can still play often. Besides when you see 100 people in your screen, it's not so obvious what you see and can do. Not all of the environment seems finished. I find the Abyss quite empty for example. I hope they add some more details later.
About goldsellers and bots, well..you can block the spammers in lfg. I can't really mind the private stores and at times NCSoft takes action to ban. Bots you'll see, but honestly I never had a problem finding mobs because of bots and prices are not really extreme on my server. Leveling alts is not too interesting, since you have only 2 choices in starterzones and till level 20 you'll have to do the same thing all over, but since it's not so easy to level to 50, you don't really need a legion of alts. A bankalt is handy anyway, since I always have storage problems.
All in all it's a pretty balanced game and fun to play imo, which can be still improved of course. If only they realize part of the visiontrailer it'll be much better still. I also play sometimes MMO's for a few hours or days and then quit, often because something really disturbs me or it simply bores me, but this game I'm already playing almost daily since closed beta and I'm still not finished playing this game.
Pros
Gorgeous looking
Great customisation
Awesome animations
PVP combat
Cons
No sense of being a daeva you struggle to take more than 1 2 dot even con mobs down
grindy in a lot of places
quest rather boring outside of the main storyline
PVP sieges although the combat in itself is fun 1v1 or small group sieges are a absolute joke with no real tactics and largest zerg wins.
Pros:
1. Polished game. I read some about bugs, but in my experience they are very minimal.
2. Avatar customization is great. But see con 2. below.
3. The graphics are great.
Major Pros:
1. PvP. I really enjoy the neighborhood watch style PvP in the race specific zones. You can at limited intervals and locations 'rift' into the other side's lands and run wild. But you will soon get on 'radar' and a hunting party will come for you. Have had experiences where we went thru with 20 people and ended up facing similar numbers.
2. Community. People are nice in general, informative, and observe need over greed in drops.
Cons:
1. Concept fail. As someone above mentioned and I will elaborate upon, you are supposed to be a demigod/goddess. Still you can not hold your breath under water (they plan to fix this), you labor to kill snakes, armadillos, and birds, you can’t fly in over half the areas.
2. I recognize its just a subjective con but, the armor and some of the character models in this game make me laugh.
*rant warning skip to 3 to avoid*
As someone on another forum said of the armor, it looks like you are going to a dinner party. This is partly cultural, the look is very eastern. To each his own, but they remind me of goth dance night more than a more classic Tolkien or AoC style that I like.
Relatedly, I don't personally 'get' certain Asian concepts of machismo, i.e. as many forum posts have noted, the male characters in this game look effeminate. (much like GWs). Like a lot of anime, I know objectively there is a more sleek and fast concept of manliness as opposed to the rough brute in my own archetype.
(Not that I'm not homophobic in any way and note I said effeminate and not gay; if I role played a gay dude, he'd be more Brokeback Mountain than Perez Hilton and even this is hard in Aion since the male characters stand brooding with their crotches out at all times of rest)
I am playing female toons here because of it, which I don’t usually do since I have a very low voice and people pretty well laugh at it on vent.
3. Lack of soloability. I for one don't play an MMO to solo since I know what the letters stand for and all. BUT I do respect the people that do enjoy soloing in a game with a changing evolving world. It gets hard to solo content in Aion even in the teens.
Major Cons:
1. No variety in 'builds.' Characters of each class have very limited options for different powers/skills. When you get to higher level your choice of 'stigmas' gets further effectively limited by the advanced stigma system (which requires prerequisites in a line to get a major skill/power).
True, you can tweak a character slightly one way or the other with gear, e.g. make a tanky glad with hp or magic resist or a dps one with crits.
2. Small world. Not a huge area to explore.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Pro:
Major Pro:
Con:
Major Con:
I like Aion quite a bit myself, but saying the PvE is on par with LotRO or WoW is simply absurd. The campaign quests are all fun, and the writing overall is well done, but not nearly to the extent that it is in those two games.
Here's my own list:
Pros:
Major Pros:
Cons:
Major Cons: