I really enjoyed Conan; probably the best visuals in a game I've seen in a while. Outstanding and fast past combat, fatalities, open pvp. Very fun... .problem is, most of the servers (and there are not many) feel dead. Last time I played, which was a little over a month ago, the pop was poor at best on Tyranny (spell check) - You can't tell from the create screen either as they always say Medium Load... even at 4am.
If the pop was better, I would certainly dig it more.
its 'f2p ' now. european servers cant even hold the load atm.
Does anyone know if you can buy and DOWNLOAD Aion, or if you have to get it boxed? Is there a digital download is what I'm meaning.
steam
d2d
and i believe even NCsoft's store online.
although the cheapest way to get any game is go via ebay, find a 97% seller or higher, email a few of them while downloading the trial for the game you want, and ask the sellers if they would be willing to send you the CDkey once your payment went through.
that way you have the trial downloaded and can typically begin play with your new official and legal CDkey. most games download in the background nowadays as well so that helps. the only thing left is the now passe physical box and disc coming to you from the ebay seller.
though i have found some sellers are happy to forgoe the shipping charge and not send the box if you just want the key.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
People recommending Aion obviously have not actually played Aion for more then a month or if they did they are masochist. Reasons not to play and this is coming from someone who played 16 months:
1. No local dev team so problems take MONTHS to years to fix
2. The game is ENTIRELY gear based. Gear = skill and I dare anyone to try and argue this with me
3. Too much RNG. Yes it is a grind fest when going on two years later enchants/manastones still make you want to put your fist through your monitor.
4. PvP gear is 100%!! gained through pve. If someone says they got all their pvp gear through pvp they are lying their ass's off or they were a twink and massively outgeared people that they ganked.
5. The servers are still completely lop sided when it comes to balance. Thank the genius's at NCSoft for how they managed th transfer system and destroyed the balanced. Zikel is completely dead for Asmos...Nezekan the Oceanic shard was a nightmare for balance and due to extremely cheap Hardware had to be shut down or deal with 700ms ping
6. All if not 90% of the guilds are gone when GW2 releases. They are gone...never looking back. Aion is f2p or dead when GW2 launches and if you play you know this.
7. Balance is a flat out joke. DO NOT UNDER any circumstances play a Templar unless you hate yourself. Sorcs can stack MBoost to just idiotic levels and just destroy melee like it is nothing. OP classes are made more OP with every single patch that I saw.
I really enjoyed Conan; probably the best visuals in a game I've seen in a while. Outstanding and fast past combat, fatalities, open pvp. Very fun... .problem is, most of the servers (and there are not many) feel dead. Last time I played, which was a little over a month ago, the pop was poor at best on Tyranny (spell check) - You can't tell from the create screen either as they always say Medium Load... even at 4am.
If the pop was better, I would certainly dig it more.
ive played all 3 and i would say that if you are buying the game then you might find AoC acceptable, just make sure to buy the Khitai expac, not the original boxed set. AoC the f2p version is just not really worth your time except as an occasional diversion, like surfing youtube for funny videos. i occasionally logon, but the f2p restrictions are over the top and the shop, imo, is quickly becoming, p2win.
as for Aion v Rift: i bought the CE digital edition of Rift, loved the CBTs and the OB's but somewhere around patch 1.3 or so it fell apart for me. talk about a grind--those rifts are fun for a while, but become old hat *very* quickly.
i am now playing Aion, and while certainly not the best game ive ever played it holds my attention better than Rift does. ive logged in on occasion in Rift during 'returnee' invites, but all i end up doing is sitting there trying to figure out something fun to do besides grinding rifts.
if you want something really immersive however im going to say Vanguard: +crafting, +community, +racial options, +class options, +exploration/soloablity, +grouping, +best dungeons ive seen in a game, +diplomacy if you like minigames that give out city wide buffs or unlock certain dungeons, -population you need to play on the Telon server and join a guild like Twylight Songe. also, i bought my CE boxed set for 10bucks on ebay.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I'm sorry but, Aion has got 3 million subscribers, Rift has probably got around 500,000. And this may be very hard to swallow, but some people like Aion more than Rift...
I'm sorry but, Aion has got 3 million subscribers, Rift has probably got around 500,000. And this may be very hard to swallow, but some people like Aion more than Rift...
and in addition, saying rift is the exact opposite is complete hyperbole. and in some cases patently false, for instance, pvp balance. they can't seem to get a handle on it.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I would suggest you choosing Aion Online, in my opinion, it has got more action, beautiful graphics, flexible character creation, campaign quests ( linear ) for each faction and more. When I played Aion, I got bored very fastly.
I just copyed/pasted/edit part of a post that was on rift vs WoW. Hope it helps a lil
Rift
Pros
- Hidden puzzels and chests in the world that have a chance to give you a epic (google them for locations)
- exciting class/archtype system. Tons of stuff to try.
-PvP cool maps that look great
-character creation is very good and great graphics
-Tons of world (rift) events to do that make game play very fun in Rift. Some events I did were like 2-3 hours long!!. It was very fun and exciting.
- Has open pvp. Warning not much 1v1 going on the high pop servers. Mosting dealing with raid vs raid, or a very unlucky person vs a raid. There were a few really great 1v1 fights.
- Nice community. Doesn't take much effort to find a guild that you can fit in.
- Some gear looks amazing.
-Raid bosses are fun to learn because it's easy to fight them as you go (gameplay really stresses phases).
- I thought the 110% mounts were really exciting in this game. In others, mounts just looked too silly.
Cons
- Stats and abilties are off the charts at higher levels. From a healing perspective your normally dealing with high hps rotations. Very bland and boring from my point of view.
- Gear upgrades are way too high in pvp. A person in the best pvp gear will kill your new level 50 almost instantly, and it takes a while to be on pair with other pvpers who already farmed the gear.
-PVP becomes very grindy and boring due to the limited amount of bgs.
-PVE, the fights don't seem to be too complex. Some bosses just don't really stick out.
- Far more balancing issues in Rift in comparison of WoW. People say there are a lot of play style/archtype choices. This is true, but only a few of any the four classes are good in most situations.
- Stuck with one UI (no addons). Really sucks for a healer.
- A lot of premades in battlegrounds.
-Fractions can talk to each other in battlegrounds and in game. Which means a lot of trash talking and so on. If you played something like Halo combat evolution you would understand very well.
-Low health pools in pvp, and powerful aoe abilties= dieing a lot as melee/ dieing super fast as range/ aoe fests.
-CC hardly exists in battlegrounds. Most players are immune to cc abilties because of dr rates are wacky.
-Not many deep builds work. You need to mix talents of one archclass with another most of the time.
- A lot of soul builds that are being used just don't really stand out much for me. There are so many options yet, it feels a lot of people are using cookie cutter builds,
For Aion I can't really make a list because I played it for only a month after the release. I hear it changed a lot of the things I disliked about it, so I might be giving it a try again in the soon future.
Rift has more subs in NA/Euro and has more content that ten Aions put together.
There is no debating this.
Play RIFT.
Anything to back this up? It's easy to just say the words. I could tell everyone that SWG has more subs then Rift...lol
Oh wait.... I didn't see the rest of your post... apparently, there is no debating what you wrote. My apologies.
What do i have to back up? Aion has litterally no endgame... what is it one instance and some pvp? Rift is only four months old and is in the process of adding its 5th progression raid, 5th pvp map, and 11th&12th dungeon.
Or maybe you were talking about the sub claim? just log in brother, Aion is near dead in those territories while Rift doesnt have a server under medium pop during primetime.
I'm sorry but, Aion has got 3 million subscribers, Rift has probably got around 500,000. And this may be very hard to swallow, but some people like Aion more than Rift...
Aion Korea is the dream MMO. Just amazing support and crazy developement and real next generation gaming. Aion NA used to fund Blade and Soul. It has 4million subs and just rules Korea.
I'm sorry but, Aion has got 3 million subscribers, Rift has probably got around 500,000. And this may be very hard to swallow, but some people like Aion more than Rift...
Aion Korea is the dream MMO. Just amazing support and crazy developement and real next generation gaming. Aion NA used to fund Blade and Soul. It has 4million subs and just rules Korea.
Aion NA/EU is the bastard child of NCSoft Korea.
And Aion NA/EU is the only thing that matters when discussing a Rift vs Aion topic.
Aion blows ass here with virtually empty servers, RIFT is a much better experience here.
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
+1 and QFE
although i will give the troll you are addressing some room there on the asian subs, as we can't play the korean or chinese version w/o national IDs. however, i think you're right on the money, whenever ppl mention wow subs they never say, 'oh minus the asians'.
and frankly every time i create a new toon there are at least half a dozen or more people in the starter areas, and the city always has people, and the chat is always going in trade and LFG.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
Not me.
I know better than that. WoW would be lucky to still have 4 million subs in NA/Euro after cata and Rift.
I don't count asian subs because we dont have access to those players since this is mostly a NA/EU community site.
Who cares if Aion has 2.8 million subs in Asia when here its hardly 200k?
Also i see everyone is avoiding my endgame comment and how Rift has more content for endgame players than even Aion Korea which is pathetic for a game what? near two years old?
Addition: Do i need to go on? Aion can't touch Rift when it comes to dungeon design, what about the class system? the way Rift does events and handles its zone wide open world content? I can go down the list other than maybe slightly faster combat rift is a much better game all around.
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
+1 and QFE
although i will give the troll you are addressing some room there on the asian subs, as we can't play the korean or chinese version w/o national IDs. however, i think you're right on the money, whenever ppl mention wow subs they never say, 'oh minus the asians'.
and frankly every time i create a new toon there are at least half a dozen or more people in the starter areas, and the city always has people, and the chat is always going in trade and LFG.
Same with Rift. I'll provide pictures with proof, if you'd like.
I played Aion, as did one of my sons, and it's the usual Asian grindfest and boredom-inducing quests that were fresh and innovative 12 years ago. We gave up on it and never went back. I don't play Rift yet, but he does as well as 7 friends from another MMO and they're all enjoying it so far.
Aion is not an Asian Grindfest which leads me to believe you haven't actually played Asian grind games.
OP: of the two I would say Aion, it's a better game though it has its issues, especially if you aren't on a blanced server.
Yes, it is an asian grindfest. I played it from release to level 42 and then threw it away when I realized I'd be killing that same monster over and over and over again for another week or two. If you don't think that's a grindfest, that leads -me- to believe you are either lacking in the social aspect of life, or are you are such a fanboi that you refuse to accept it even when it's pummeling you up the backside with no lube.
I've played both games for over four months and I think your decision should be based on how much you enjoy pvp. Aion PvP is forced on you while Rift has a battleground type system.
Both games are extremly polished and probably the only polished MMOs released in the last three years.
Rift is more quest to quest, Aion has a lot fewer quests.
Aion has better RVR but certain servers are one sided due to server population.
Aion's "endgame" involves PvP castle control on on the abyss map while Rift has PvE raids.
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
+1 and QFE
although i will give the troll you are addressing some room there on the asian subs, as we can't play the korean or chinese version w/o national IDs. however, i think you're right on the money, whenever ppl mention wow subs they never say, 'oh minus the asians'.
and frankly every time i create a new toon there are at least half a dozen or more people in the starter areas, and the city always has people, and the chat is always going in trade and LFG.
Same with Rift. I'll provide pictures with proof, if you'd like.
ironically, i was just trying to make the point i believe you are trying to make with me, ie., the game (Aion/Rift) is active. i certainly do not belive that Rift is inactive at all. in fact i would argue that despite its comparative size to WoW, the community is more interactive and therefore a better one.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Damm....You people are making it hard to pic. The first few post convinced me of Aion, now I'm not totally sure.
I still think I may go with Aion. I have to make my decision soon because I'm off all this week and have most of my work done, leaving me with free time soon.
Aion - I hate Asian music.
Rift - I'm not crazy about the possibility of dropping everything I'm doing to fight off rifts just to gain exp. This reminds me of Warhammer, dropping everything to do Scenarios to gain Exp.
Damm....You people are making it hard to pic. The first few post convinced me of Aion, now I'm not totally sure.
I still think I may go with Aion. I have to make my decision soon because I'm off all this week and have most of my work done, leaving me with free time soon.
Aion - I hate Asian music.
Rift - I'm not crazy about the possibility of dropping everything I'm doing to fight off rifts just to gain exp. This reminds me of Warhammer, dropping everything to do Scenarios to gain Exp.
You are never forced to drop anything to close rift's. They are entirly optional but fun to do on the way to a quest location. There are rift quests as well where closing rifts are part of the objective. Latest patch 1.4 in rift was very nice lot's of gameplay and interface tweaks. I love it now they added a place to store those pesky quest items that were taking up inventory slots.
Aion: There are soo many things about that game that irritated me to no end that I don't even want to get started on. Played to lvl 40ish shortly after release and it felt way to much like work with little reward that it made me sick.
RIFT: Way better game! As a previous poster stated, there really is no debating this!
I would suggest a good PvP server for extra realisim, wish I had of rolled my main char on Briarcliff!
Damm....You people are making it hard to pic. The first few post convinced me of Aion, now I'm not totally sure.
I still think I may go with Aion. I have to make my decision soon because I'm off all this week and have most of my work done, leaving me with free time soon.
Aion - I hate Asian music.
Rift - I'm not crazy about the possibility of dropping everything I'm doing to fight off rifts just to gain exp. This reminds me of Warhammer, dropping everything to do Scenarios to gain Exp.
Trust me if you go with AION I can almost guarantee you will have a bad experience at some point. Not to mention that NCSoft Asia will lie to thier players and spread false hype to get thier players to keep playing. I have friends that got hacked in AION and absolutly despise NCsoft (Asia) now. And they were so hyped for AION when it first released you would have thought it was the second coming of christ. Now they are all playing RIFT after switching from Warcraft and we all are having a blast. Especially now after 1.4 patch and the end of the latest world event!
I would suggest you choosing Aion Online, in my opinion, it has got more action, beautiful graphics, flexible character creation, campaign quests ( linear ) for each faction and more. When I played Aion, I got bored very fastly.
This makes my head spin in confusion...not to mention the headache.....
Comments
its 'f2p ' now. european servers cant even hold the load atm.
Why not play the trials? :-
It's the safest step you can take and if you do like one or the other you can immediately upgrade your trial account to a paying account.
steam
d2d
and i believe even NCsoft's store online.
although the cheapest way to get any game is go via ebay, find a 97% seller or higher, email a few of them while downloading the trial for the game you want, and ask the sellers if they would be willing to send you the CDkey once your payment went through.
that way you have the trial downloaded and can typically begin play with your new official and legal CDkey. most games download in the background nowadays as well so that helps. the only thing left is the now passe physical box and disc coming to you from the ebay seller.
though i have found some sellers are happy to forgoe the shipping charge and not send the box if you just want the key.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
People recommending Aion obviously have not actually played Aion for more then a month or if they did they are masochist. Reasons not to play and this is coming from someone who played 16 months:
http://na.aiononline.com/myaion-character-detail?charId=598330&serverId=1
Reason not to play:
1. No local dev team so problems take MONTHS to years to fix
2. The game is ENTIRELY gear based. Gear = skill and I dare anyone to try and argue this with me
3. Too much RNG. Yes it is a grind fest when going on two years later enchants/manastones still make you want to put your fist through your monitor.
4. PvP gear is 100%!! gained through pve. If someone says they got all their pvp gear through pvp they are lying their ass's off or they were a twink and massively outgeared people that they ganked.
5. The servers are still completely lop sided when it comes to balance. Thank the genius's at NCSoft for how they managed th transfer system and destroyed the balanced. Zikel is completely dead for Asmos...Nezekan the Oceanic shard was a nightmare for balance and due to extremely cheap Hardware had to be shut down or deal with 700ms ping
6. All if not 90% of the guilds are gone when GW2 releases. They are gone...never looking back. Aion is f2p or dead when GW2 launches and if you play you know this.
7. Balance is a flat out joke. DO NOT UNDER any circumstances play a Templar unless you hate yourself. Sorcs can stack MBoost to just idiotic levels and just destroy melee like it is nothing. OP classes are made more OP with every single patch that I saw.
Rift:
Exact opposite of all that up there.
ive played all 3 and i would say that if you are buying the game then you might find AoC acceptable, just make sure to buy the Khitai expac, not the original boxed set. AoC the f2p version is just not really worth your time except as an occasional diversion, like surfing youtube for funny videos. i occasionally logon, but the f2p restrictions are over the top and the shop, imo, is quickly becoming, p2win.
as for Aion v Rift: i bought the CE digital edition of Rift, loved the CBTs and the OB's but somewhere around patch 1.3 or so it fell apart for me. talk about a grind--those rifts are fun for a while, but become old hat *very* quickly.
i am now playing Aion, and while certainly not the best game ive ever played it holds my attention better than Rift does. ive logged in on occasion in Rift during 'returnee' invites, but all i end up doing is sitting there trying to figure out something fun to do besides grinding rifts.
if you want something really immersive however im going to say Vanguard: +crafting, +community, +racial options, +class options, +exploration/soloablity, +grouping, +best dungeons ive seen in a game, +diplomacy if you like minigames that give out city wide buffs or unlock certain dungeons, -population you need to play on the Telon server and join a guild like Twylight Songe. also, i bought my CE boxed set for 10bucks on ebay.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I'm sorry but, Aion has got 3 million subscribers, Rift has probably got around 500,000. And this may be very hard to swallow, but some people like Aion more than Rift...
and in addition, saying rift is the exact opposite is complete hyperbole. and in some cases patently false, for instance, pvp balance. they can't seem to get a handle on it.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Im sorry i've played both games.
Rift has more subs in NA/Euro and has more content that ten Aions put together.
There is no debating this.
Play RIFT.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I would suggest you choosing Aion Online, in my opinion, it has got more action, beautiful graphics, flexible character creation, campaign quests ( linear ) for each faction and more. When I played Aion, I got bored very fastly.
I just copyed/pasted/edit part of a post that was on rift vs WoW. Hope it helps a lil
Rift
Pros
- Hidden puzzels and chests in the world that have a chance to give you a epic (google them for locations)
- exciting class/archtype system. Tons of stuff to try.
-PvP cool maps that look great
-character creation is very good and great graphics
-Tons of world (rift) events to do that make game play very fun in Rift. Some events I did were like 2-3 hours long!!. It was very fun and exciting.
- Has open pvp. Warning not much 1v1 going on the high pop servers. Mosting dealing with raid vs raid, or a very unlucky person vs a raid. There were a few really great 1v1 fights.
- Nice community. Doesn't take much effort to find a guild that you can fit in.
- Some gear looks amazing.
-Raid bosses are fun to learn because it's easy to fight them as you go (gameplay really stresses phases).
- I thought the 110% mounts were really exciting in this game. In others, mounts just looked too silly.
Cons
- Stats and abilties are off the charts at higher levels. From a healing perspective your normally dealing with high hps rotations. Very bland and boring from my point of view.
- Gear upgrades are way too high in pvp. A person in the best pvp gear will kill your new level 50 almost instantly, and it takes a while to be on pair with other pvpers who already farmed the gear.
-PVP becomes very grindy and boring due to the limited amount of bgs.
-PVE, the fights don't seem to be too complex. Some bosses just don't really stick out.
- Far more balancing issues in Rift in comparison of WoW. People say there are a lot of play style/archtype choices. This is true, but only a few of any the four classes are good in most situations.
- Stuck with one UI (no addons). Really sucks for a healer.
- A lot of premades in battlegrounds.
-Fractions can talk to each other in battlegrounds and in game. Which means a lot of trash talking and so on. If you played something like Halo combat evolution you would understand very well.
-Low health pools in pvp, and powerful aoe abilties= dieing a lot as melee/ dieing super fast as range/ aoe fests.
-CC hardly exists in battlegrounds. Most players are immune to cc abilties because of dr rates are wacky.
-Not many deep builds work. You need to mix talents of one archclass with another most of the time.
- A lot of soul builds that are being used just don't really stand out much for me. There are so many options yet, it feels a lot of people are using cookie cutter builds,
For Aion I can't really make a list because I played it for only a month after the release. I hear it changed a lot of the things I disliked about it, so I might be giving it a try again in the soon future.
Anything to back this up? It's easy to just say the words. I could tell everyone that SWG has more subs then Rift...lol
Oh wait.... I didn't see the rest of your post... apparently, there is no debating what you wrote. My apologies.
What do i have to back up? Aion has litterally no endgame... what is it one instance and some pvp? Rift is only four months old and is in the process of adding its 5th progression raid, 5th pvp map, and 11th&12th dungeon.
Or maybe you were talking about the sub claim? just log in brother, Aion is near dead in those territories while Rift doesnt have a server under medium pop during primetime.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Aion Korea is the dream MMO. Just amazing support and crazy developement and real next generation gaming. Aion NA used to fund Blade and Soul. It has 4million subs and just rules Korea.
Aion NA/EU is the bastard child of NCSoft Korea.
And Aion NA/EU is the only thing that matters when discussing a Rift vs Aion topic.
Aion blows ass here with virtually empty servers, RIFT is a much better experience here.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Aion NA gets updates right afther Korea and the servers have great population. Rift will never have the World Wide subs that Aion has and please dont say Asia does not matter when every time a person mentions World Of Warcraft people say 15 million subs.
+1 and QFE
although i will give the troll you are addressing some room there on the asian subs, as we can't play the korean or chinese version w/o national IDs. however, i think you're right on the money, whenever ppl mention wow subs they never say, 'oh minus the asians'.
and frankly every time i create a new toon there are at least half a dozen or more people in the starter areas, and the city always has people, and the chat is always going in trade and LFG.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Not me.
I know better than that. WoW would be lucky to still have 4 million subs in NA/Euro after cata and Rift.
I don't count asian subs because we dont have access to those players since this is mostly a NA/EU community site.
Who cares if Aion has 2.8 million subs in Asia when here its hardly 200k?
Also i see everyone is avoiding my endgame comment and how Rift has more content for endgame players than even Aion Korea which is pathetic for a game what? near two years old?
Addition: Do i need to go on? Aion can't touch Rift when it comes to dungeon design, what about the class system? the way Rift does events and handles its zone wide open world content? I can go down the list other than maybe slightly faster combat rift is a much better game all around.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Same with Rift. I'll provide pictures with proof, if you'd like.
Aion is not an Asian Grindfest which leads me to believe you haven't actually played Asian grind games.
OP: of the two I would say Aion, it's a better game though it has its issues, especially if you aren't on a blanced server.
Yes, it is an asian grindfest. I played it from release to level 42 and then threw it away when I realized I'd be killing that same monster over and over and over again for another week or two. If you don't think that's a grindfest, that leads -me- to believe you are either lacking in the social aspect of life, or are you are such a fanboi that you refuse to accept it even when it's pummeling you up the backside with no lube.I've played both games for over four months and I think your decision should be based on how much you enjoy pvp. Aion PvP is forced on you while Rift has a battleground type system.
Both games are extremly polished and probably the only polished MMOs released in the last three years.
Rift is more quest to quest, Aion has a lot fewer quests.
Aion has better RVR but certain servers are one sided due to server population.
Aion's "endgame" involves PvP castle control on on the abyss map while Rift has PvE raids.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
ironically, i was just trying to make the point i believe you are trying to make with me, ie., the game (Aion/Rift) is active. i certainly do not belive that Rift is inactive at all. in fact i would argue that despite its comparative size to WoW, the community is more interactive and therefore a better one.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Damm....You people are making it hard to pic. The first few post convinced me of Aion, now I'm not totally sure.
I still think I may go with Aion. I have to make my decision soon because I'm off all this week and have most of my work done, leaving me with free time soon.
Aion - I hate Asian music.
Rift - I'm not crazy about the possibility of dropping everything I'm doing to fight off rifts just to gain exp. This reminds me of Warhammer, dropping everything to do Scenarios to gain Exp.
You are never forced to drop anything to close rift's. They are entirly optional but fun to do on the way to a quest location. There are rift quests as well where closing rifts are part of the objective. Latest patch 1.4 in rift was very nice lot's of gameplay and interface tweaks. I love it now they added a place to store those pesky quest items that were taking up inventory slots.
Aion: There are soo many things about that game that irritated me to no end that I don't even want to get started on. Played to lvl 40ish shortly after release and it felt way to much like work with little reward that it made me sick.
RIFT: Way better game! As a previous poster stated, there really is no debating this!
I would suggest a good PvP server for extra realisim, wish I had of rolled my main char on Briarcliff!
Trust me if you go with AION I can almost guarantee you will have a bad experience at some point. Not to mention that NCSoft Asia will lie to thier players and spread false hype to get thier players to keep playing. I have friends that got hacked in AION and absolutly despise NCsoft (Asia) now. And they were so hyped for AION when it first released you would have thought it was the second coming of christ. Now they are all playing RIFT after switching from Warcraft and we all are having a blast. Especially now after 1.4 patch and the end of the latest world event!
This makes my head spin in confusion...not to mention the headache.....