Posted by Spooner | 51 Comments
An honest review of Aion after 7 weeks
I want to ask you guys a completely opnion based question here. There are no right or wrong answers, just feel free to voice how you feel about this issue. Aion. I stopped playing for three reasons.
- 1) I don’t have the time to dedicate to a game like Aion as it’s entirely way too grindy and there’s no sense of progression.
- 2) NCsoft has a track record I should have researched for shit-canning a lot of their titles into extremely niche markets that ultimately fail.
- 3) The level of botting and RMT is staggering and if not for the grind oriented game mechanics, could be easily remedied.
So here’s my question. Do you agree at all with any of these statements. The game for me was kind of a complete fallout, I was promised something and it was not delivered, the game was sold to me under the guise of pretty profound lies. NCsoft claimed to lessen the grind (quoting exactly “this game isn’t just another Korean grinder) for the Western market as we’re not fucking robots here in the USA – the game is still a complete and utter grind-fest.
NCsoft are repeat offenders.
NCsoft pretty much fucked City of Heroes since grinding and farming was pretty much the entire basis of the gameplay soon after its inception. You may have also heard of a little game called Lineage II which is essentially played only by bots with nothing at all done to change it. Coming back full circle to Aion, NCsoft deems it a worthy solution to remove chat from the game entirely until you reach level 10 at which point you can enter the chat channels which are typically still full of RMT spam or people complaining about the game. I won’t even get back into the tirade about their utter failure of a launch. As for server balance? Yeah you can say they’re balanced, congratulations on that, PvP in the Abyss is still tripe where the land is ruled by the few no-lifers who sat down and grinded for something like a week straight, most likely using bots or popping enough caffeine pills to raise the dead.
PvE? Not here.
As for my progression comment, there is none. Some fanboys will spout off saying “oh you have to earn your gear in Aion.” Bullshit, go fuck yourself. The earliest you can run an instanced dungeon is at level 25. It has a cap of level 29 so the moment you hit 29 you cannot enter the instance ever again and if you level up inside and you die and release, you’re never going to finish that run. Ever. After you run the instance you realize that the trash pulls don’t drop any loot at all really except some coin and anything you would normally find (and as frequently) outside in the regular world. Then the 5 or so mini-bosses drop absolutely nothing. Then you finally hit the last boss the big badass general, you kill him. He has no loot table. Sometimes he will drop an item. Sometimes he won’t. I ran the dungeon 12 times and saw loot 3 times. In the end, I lost the roll for the staff I needed as I hit 29 to another player (a cleric that would never use it to its potential like I would as a chanter) who was level 25. There is no need or greed just roll or pass.
Aion Community managers, making the game better by parading like assholes in the street.
Aion Community managers, making the game better by parading like assholes in the street.
Say goodbye to your family, your sex life, and your health.
So you grind all over the game. You enter a dungeon and really, it’s just instanced grinding for exp. You PvP in a fortress and more often than not you’re attacking the Balaur which is the NPC faction and also more often than not, players will come and gank your group or essentially ruin your raid.
I wasn’t asking for handouts, I was asking for a sense of progression. Not billion kinah money sinks, I feel I should email NCsoft and take them to court so I can get my share of a stimulus package and player kinah bailout. I level up and should feel good, I don’t because it’s 92,000+ kinah to learn 3 new spells all of which really don’t do shit differently than the previous ranks. Flight? Restricted, get ready to buy a million kinah at $6.00 a hit so you can afford the consumables that you’ll need to be chain popping just to keep in the air, that is of course until some ranger comes out of the blue and pushes your face through your own rectum – you know, fair fights and all.
I like PvP, when it’s balanced. I was promised this and got nothing. I like to feel like I’m making progress, I spent hours and hours watching a little blue bar fill up ever so slowly until I died and watched half of it vanish and the game asked me for 45,000 kinah to buy back the past 8 hours of exp.
And what are the people responsible for making good on their claims and for delivering a wonderful gaming experience doing? Striking poses like a bunch of douchebags on Facebook celebrating how awesome they are for making money hand over fist on a game that really isn’t anything new and most definitely isn’t any better than a glorified slot machine with no jackpot. Keep up the good work fellas, you lucked out that most if not all your players were World of Warcraft burnouts and I give it another two months before they either quit MMOs entirely or go back to big Blue.
Really? Are you fucking kidding me?
Amen. I saw this coming from a mile away. The game has the start of an idea, but it’s definitely not a complete storybook. All they can tell you is “The world split an the two halves are fighting over the middle”… so where is the PvE in all of this? It lacks PvE so badly that it’s not even enjoyable. And when we down a boss and nothing drops, I want to say FUCK YOU to the team for wasting my time. At least in Super Mario Brothers 3, you got a song and dance at the end.
I was disappointed when this blog started to ignore WoW and was relieved when I saw it’s return with JA. I felt all of the above things and couldn’t see why there was such a bandwagon feel. I think many people will end up feeling this way or already do. Glad to hear less about such a meh game.
After reading your post, I think its safe to assume that prior to Aion most of the mmoers these days started with WOW where its so easy to lvl up and farming can get you everything. Mmoers these days are spoiled by recent games that are catered to lazy whinning americans. I started with EQ 1 and in my opinion is the best mmo ever, in EQ there was a sense of great challenge, a sense of great punishment when you die, which makes the game more challenging. And yes the spells are costly as well, some you even have to find, or quest for. As for grinding… i’ve played the game casually for 5 years and did not reached the lvl 50 cap. Loot was also rare, bosses are constantly camped and may not spawn for hours with place holders spawning instead. But still, it was the best mmo ever and i’m sure many ppl who played would agree on that. These days mmos take a month or two at mose to reach max lvl cap…. yet you guys are saying the grind is tough?!? give me a break. Aion so far is a great game, yes its hard to get rare loot, but when you do you feel great, working for a reward feels alot better than hand outs. there are plenty of pve in aion. a new instance for every 5 lvls or so, not including all the open world dungeons. Aion reminds me of the good ol days in EQ, where it is a challenging game, a game which you have to earn your rewards. Mmo is not for everyone, for ppl who likes to enjoy a casual game then just pick up a console single player rpg, you can finish it in 40 hours or so and don’t have to pay monthly.
Wow, I guess if NCSoft can find 100-200k people like Will, eager to toil away at the Aion grind like a little hamster in a wheel, they have found their niche, eh? I hate to burst your bubble, but if you really think by todays standards that EQ1 was great, its only due to some misguided sense of nostalgia. Yes, it was awesome AT THE TIME becasue it was among the first of its kind, but was it really that fun finding yourself trying to stay awake at 5am in the morning because you are spawncamping a boss for your guild?
I guess part of my reason for ditching Aion so quickly is because as a gamer and full time employee my gaming time is VERY LIMITED AND THUS PRECIOUS TO ME, and I can no longer be fucked with the whole “two steps forward three steps back” rigmarole that you claim is “challenging” and I claim is a piss poor excuse for a rewarding experience, and a thinly veiled excuse by NCSoft to keep you playing and paying as long as humanely possible. Too much stick and not enough carrot. I think that about sums my feelings on Aion in 7 simple words.
Spooner, dude… you hit the nail on the FUCKIN’ HEAD BRO.
Amen.
Keep writing, man. I love reading your stuff.
“Over the last year, gamers all over the world have been introduced to Aion. This new lifestyle has grown into an overwhelming passion that transcends nationality, religion, or race.”
LOL.
EL OH EL.
Aion in a year has transcended all those centuries of Jesus Christ with other various Gods and Religions?
Wow NCSoft.
I saw the picture of the Community Managers and thought “Why are these guys getting my money?” – that pretty much sealed the deal.
Look i think that Aion is a good game. I would like to believe that it gave other future and present MMO’s a thing to think about and some good ideas for improvement. The problem with Aion is that its Korean, its not for our markets (EU and NA). We are casual players who work and have a life. We are not die hard grind machines who do this for a living.
If Aion had a good PVE with a lot of instances with a bit higher chance of loot drop, if it had good balance (it does NOT have now, admit it) and if the quests were more, so to minimise grinding, it MIGHT turn into a WoW competior.
Do you remember how AIon was advertised before it when out? When the devs were asked what are its strenghts? There was only one answer- flying combat. If the developers, who know the game’s ins and outs can’t say anything more than “flying combat” then why do you think that this game will shine more than the others out there.
I stopped playing Aion as i dont have the time and will to grind. I grew tired of being camped in the abyss by ppl who grinded or bought kinah and then dressed all blues that were able to craft or buy.
I made really good firends in Aion, ex- WoW-ers, grown up people. I am really happy for that. That is why Aion was better than wow. A lot of the “old” generation (vanilla wow) people started Aion in search of the thrill they experienced in vanilla wow. I am a happy person i met them and we are now really good friends. If I could move all those people to WOW and move all the kids from wow to Aion, i would so much do that.
Tell you what happened this weekend. I started with wow again. My guild was happy to have me back which made me feel really good. On Sunday there was a raid on Ogrimar organised. We gathered 4 raid groups (160 people) and this is what happened. While waiting at the valley of heroes for all the groups to form, kids were screaming “for the alliance”, “Horde is our bitch”, “Gron (the raids lead) is noob”, “Dreams’ mum is a 1337 biach”…etc, etc. After we went in Ratchet, some kids in our raid started killing the damn gnomes there so the whole raid reputation started falling down like crazy…., when we reached Ogrimar, noone was listening what the “noob” raid leader was saying , so we split in so many pieces and mini groups that horde just anihilated us in a matter of minutes… I am generalising here, not all people were kids, some of them were actually helpful, summoning people, healing, listening to the raid lead, but most of them were acting like kids on a suggar rush.
The raid ended in about half an hour and in the trade chat you could read peple blaming the raid lead for the failure. kids, kids, kids. I actually know personally one of the biggest flamers- and he is a 16 yr old kid that got thrown from our guild for acting like a complete idiot.
My point is that wow is just full of kids (by kids i also mean grown ups who act like kids because noone can really tell that they are actually 30 yr old with no life hiding behind their 22″ monitor with a porn magasine for those long raid brakes) and Aion had more mature players, at least on my server, who were helpful and knew what organization and chain of command means.
I like the game, yes some things could be different but that goes for every game out there, my first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot btw, for reference. I was also part of a raid guild that cleared most of Naxxramas in Vanilla WoW before TBC, I played Warhammer but quit because of lack of direction in pvp, city siege is the wrong direction imo. As a working father I also have less and less time to play as many other gamers out there that are getting older.
Yes, Aion can be a bit grindy, the leveling curve is very steep still in 1.5 with slightly too few quests giving a slightly too little reward in general, but I mainly grind away any rested exp because it’s faster than running back and forth and then go for the quests with good rewards. For the casual it might feel hard but I like that you have to make an effort. Questing is also a grind though, just a different type where you run back and forth between quest givers and mobs you kill and stuff you pickup.
Remember that my paladin in vanilla WoW took 13 days played ( 312 hours ) from 1 to max lvl, 4 hours a day that is 78 days, shadow priest maxing at 11 days played I think. Being lvl 41 with 399 alchemy and 4 alts (lvl 17 14 12 12) in Aion, not missing any content, counting backwards its 6-7 weeks since server I’m on started, that’s 40-50 days times whatever hours per day you can put in.
What level do you think you should be if you’re casual? Not 50 (some have been that for a while already), probably not 40, last fortress raid we had a full alliance from our legion all being 30+, that’s a good measure of progress in my opinion.
What I heard (I quit before TBC after raiding 40 mans most night beating half of naxxramas) the leveling in WoW was changed in the expansion and is now piss-easy, maybe that’s what most people compare against?
Sure there are other things that could be better in Aion, every boss should drop something atleast, be it a pile of kinah to share, instead of nothing. But keep the great drops decently rare and have lesser items drop more often, where’s the fun if everyone has everything from the first try, you want to show off the great stuff. Loot rolling could also be better, need/greed/pass instead of need/pass but that is minor if you group with people you know.
Rmt/bots, ncsoft still need to convince me there, lots of bots that I report daily that nothing happens to but atleast the goldseller spam is 95% gone.
PvP, it’s a bit onesided currently on our server since asmo refuse to come out and play after their two biggest high-ranked legions got into a fight and now refuse to cooperate. Since in general the server population is too low lvl for Upper Abyss forts some nights are very slow so the future will tell how it will be.
For the comment “my gaming time is VERY LIMITED AND THUS PRECIOUS TO ME”, maybe MMOs is not for you, in general they require a time commitment and WoW’s and everyone elses business plan is to keep people playing and paying. Isn’t the carrot actually sitting down, relaxing and playing a game for fun. With limited play time in an MMO you’re bound to fall behind in some way, be it level or items or whatever measure stick is used for progression, than those that have the opportunity to spend more time.
I do agree that there could be more things to do than just quest/kill at lower levels, the rifts are rare some days and even the lower abyss fortresses are invulnerable the whole day. With just quest/kill it can turn to be monotone grind.
And spooner, single death meaning loss of 8 hours of exp? You lose what, 2% when you die, 1% permanent and 1% you buy back. Math example; lvl 40 is 42million exp for level. 1% is 420k that you lose permanently if you die. If you’re casual you have rested exp meaning getting 25k per mob you kill is not hard at all (I’m around 30 for abyss mobs). So around 17 mobs to get 420k, as a chanter surely you can kill 2 mobs per minute so in less than 10 minutes (or 15 if you kill one per minute) you regained what you permantly lost. I know you’re a writer (and a good one, I like your stuff) and want to create a discussion but 15 minutes is not 8 hours and clearly gives the wrong view.
All in all, all games are not for everyone, some like this, some don’t. Aion might be grindy to level but WoW nullifies whatever achievements you’ve made by adding a new expansion with new levels and new gear where your old hard earned gear is now worse than new quest rewards. Isn’t a new expansion like that like a “grind like a little hamster in a wheel”, in a different looking suit?
I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying about Aion. I too was very psyched when I heard about it (only about a month before it’s actual launch) and I actually found this site through your Aion videos on youtube. Not having played any other MMO than WoW and that only a lot during pre-TBC times, i was really excited to get in to a new game world and had great plans for it.
Up until about 20 I though the game was really good. Cool people, neat animations, great graphics, chain skills and other stuff. Then it started to get repetitive. I endured the grind though and at level 25 I thought: “Abyss, that’s when the real fun starts”. But after getting to 30 doing quite a few NTC runs and some world PvP (and shitloads of grinding in the Abyss) I was more than let down. After getting a blue drop only once in the instance I read on aionarmory and there it seemed like the next instance (Fire Temple) would be even worse. Awesome drops with retardedly low drop chance seemed to be the only thing on the menu.
As for pvp, range DPSers killing u in 2secs if u happen to lag in to their LOS in those amazingly boring Asmo vs Elyos encounters where people basically just stand there and hope to get some points for their kill (which for healers was impossible from what I understood if you just healed). Either that or getting ganked by someone much higher level flying about fighting the boredom isn’t something that’s very appealing to me.
Even though the game is for sure a good polished MMO, the reward for the time you spend in it is way too small. From what I understand endgame even is just grinding instances and flying around getting ganked, so why bother? So yes, I agree and I won’t be coming back to Aion ever again unless some radical changes are made.
Hey for the record my first MMO ever was FFXI and for any other ex-final fantasy players you know that that entire game was nothing but grinding and grouping. There was no solo game at all and unless you were part of a supportive and strong Linkshell (guild) you weren’t going to get anything done. As for progression, it was all won with blood and tears as dying made you lose exp you could never get back and you could lose a level, you had to do these massively huge and insanely hard quests just to raise your personal level cap, and god help you if you wanted to see end game stuff which was the most brutal time sink ever.
Ultimately my comments here are my own opinion, casual or not and I err on the side of less casual – this game had all the trappings of a great title. You need 4 key things for an MMO to be truly successful.
Story: Aion has the premise for an amazing story, but it falls short too many times and doesn’t give you enough. The questing as well though at times can be fun, doesn’t deliver anything remotely epic of world changing as was promised.
Combat: Skill Chains were a lot of fun. Combat does feel like a robust and engaging system but not for clerics or templars. Rangers too are in no way fun to play until about level 16+ when you get more skills, they start off terrible and then turn magically into one of the most amazing classes in the game. There’s a lot of circumstance and stipulation to justify the fun, and that’s a big warning sign.
Progression: Not enough. Even in PvP there’s little to no progression since most fortress raids consist of massive lag battles where the players with the best video cards and fastest PCs can actually see what’s happening. There is no PvE game at all, and what little attention was given to it seems entirely like an afterthought. Marketing the game as a PvP ONLY title where the focus was 100% on the PvP would make more sense as the lore and the PvE is really pathetic for the standards of TODAY. Look at Dragon Age: Origins for example, WoW, the new Starwars MMO coming out.
Lastly, Community: Communication from NCsoft itself is short and dodgy. They never directly address the issues people have and if they do it’s always some broad inspiring mission statement and no REAL information or battle plan. The player run community is nothing short of Aion fanboys or MMO purists thinking that hardcore time sink gaming is still something worth bringing back (it isn’t – look at the market from a financial point, grinders are in the past get over it) fighting with WoW players or anybody that dares to say anything negative about NCsoft.
NCsoft should have known better. This fall season was a terrible time to launch Aion. You CANNOT have such a terrible launch and such serious game breaking issues in an environment where you have WoW, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed II, Torchlight, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, Modern Warfare 2, Starwars: The Old Republic, Startrek Online, Champions Online, and the holiday price drop on consoles.
There is another thing that Spoon mentioned- Progression and end game content.
I just want to add that at lvl 25 you are introduced to end game content- PVP in the Abyss. Just the sheer thought of me having to do the same fortress runs over and over again for the rest 25 lvl and then till new content comes makes me want to pour gasoline on my aion discs and burn them to hell. Whatever you do there will be always ppl who defend the game and others that just love it the way it is. I have a firend who loves grinding and loves Aion, he says grinding is his life. Just to irritate him when i left Aion i gave him my hard grinded million of kinah so he will not have to grind for some time, he- he.
We can all go back and forth and point fingers saying WoW kids today have to easy, and in my day with EQ we had to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow.
I have played many MMO’s (EQ 1, EQ 2, FFXI, WoW, Star Wars Galaxies), and I can honestly say (go ahead and call me a WoW bitch) that the only one I have actually stuck with is WoW. To me, doing a mind numbing grind that requires the most minimal of brain function is not fun. The key word is fun.
People can say that WoW is easy and Aion is hard, but pushing a boulder up hill is hard too. That doesn’t mean I want to spend 200 hours doing it.
What it eventually boils down to is if the game is fun. If you find grinding fun then so be it, but I think the vast majority of people would rather do something fun with their spare time.
And if you are one of those people who say that MMO’s aren’t for you because you can’t dedicate 8 hours a day doing something boring (grinding) then listen here, I do spend 8 hours a day doing something boring. It’s called work and I get paid $13 an hour thank you very much.
James you’re a fucking prophet man. Grinding feels like work, only you never got the paycheck in Aion.
I am wondering if it is more “unrealistic expectations” than “promises undelivered”. I guess you were to eager to find something different from WoW that you didn’t managed to realize (due to zeal or lack of experience in Asian mmorpg) that it was a regular grindfest. I downloaded Aion, I run through the crap, the lines, etc. and in exactly 14 minutes, no more, no less, I shut the game, sold my account and uninstalled the program. Aion was, no… IS, a mediocre game, disguised as the savior of the wow-indulged online community…
There are plenty of games that offer what Aion does, and free, like Requiem, but execute the idea gleefully, and without egos the size of the Hindenburg… with mature com unity that isn’t bawing for every change in the system or bots raping the servers.
In the end, I think you just let yourself down and now you’re trying to find redeeming points in a game that, for the purposes we (the-fed-up-of-wow-gamers) sought, sucked.
I’m not bothering to redeem Aion. And yeah following the advertisements and the developer podcasts and video journals they kept really sold me on the lie that was the Aion development team and finished product. I’m sticking to my original statement though, they had the ingredients for something truly amazing and they fucked it up royally. Looking back at everything NCsoft has done I can honestly say I’m no longer surprised.
Hold, I actually take back about Aion being mediocre, coz’ there is no doubt that the game is visually stunning, but honestly, must of us weren’t looking for the best looks, but different dynamics, a videogame that would fulfill our desires as gamers. Aion failed.
The lore was great, the animation was great, the concept was great, the wings were frakin awesome! I love the concept of tiered combo abilities and wish Blizz would pick up the same idea in future expansions (would definitely diversify the dps rotations for some classes and stylize the gameplay to be unique and of your own design rather than facerolls and macro pounding). The character customization was cutting edge and, frankly, the reason I bought it in the first place.
The grind was terrible, the (typical NCSoft) UI was kinda clunky and not very intuitive or customizable. The controls, abilities, mechanics were a little off; GCD starts AFTER the ability goes off, you have to complete a full effect animation before your next ability kicks in. It just seemed too unrefined to me. I stopped playing after the three weeks.
I never got very far in Aion, but not only were the areas Grindy, but they seemed very guided like you couldn’t really divert away from the planned course much; it was claustrophobic. Hell, Zelda for the 64 was more diverse.
About Grind: Grind is okay as long as it’s minimal. We have to feel like we’ve achieved the level cap, don’t want to inflate the upper ranks with teenagers who only want to tell titty jokes and call people fags. At least the ones who do get filtered through and hit lvl cap have spent weeks grinding their way up to that point and have at least some appreciation for the content and the achievement.
I agree 100% that Aion was 100% grind with no diversity whatsoever. There are things you can do to make the grind seemless, take some notes from WoW, make the drop rates respectable less “kill 40 of…” and more “kill this one really hard mob”… make the story line engaging (maybe it was me, but it seemed the quests all seemed to melt together and there was no real story arc other than the main Daeva arc)… finally, don’t make someone spend eternity in the same zone, lonely, bored, and grinding fuckin swamp slime, it’s not entertaining… like James said above: FUN!
@Nuurdie: yeah Ocarina of Time had more exploration than Aion did which was really sad for such amazing graphical advances in gaming.
I -really- wanted to like Aion. I got to level 36 and you know what? It felt like nothing. There was no thrill at all to the game from level 20 on.
There was grind, more grind, and then to spice things up grinding in a group. Solo shit? Non-existant unless you were a specific class or two and/or had amazing gear and/or were way over the level of the mobs. That part of the game was very much like FFXI.
They stated on multiple occasions that we’d be able to choose our style of play – 1500 quests for PVE progression, or PVP in the Abyss, Fortress Raids, crafting. The sad fact is that the game was AWESOME until you got past level 20. Then it was nothing more than a second job THAT YOU PAY THEM FOR, unless you had the good fortune to be in a very very active Legion (guild).
There were no lower level instances, and you get locked out of the Training Camp at 29. I couldn’t complete one of the quests due to it bugging, I asked for help, they offered to delevel me so I could run it again. Seriously, that was their solution. Boss drops are a joke. PVP is nothing but zergs and/or griefing, or griefing by zerg. The economy is pathetic – clearly they stuck to the pay per hour model instead of the pay per month (or longer) model.
Spoon, you hit it, there was no sense at all of accomplishment. In fact I started to dread gaining levels because of the hideous costs — my 7 skill books at 37 were around 90K each. So 630K just for skill books, like one of which was new skill and it was really only a variant of another skill I already had. Soul healing? Stupidly expensive, it really felt like they were punishing us for playing the game and having the temerity to die. And my personal favorite — the ‘challenge’ of socketing mana stones. Who the fuck thought breaking them ALL was a good idea when ONE failed?
Anyway…yeah…done with Aion. Nuked all my alts, sold my stuff and sent the proceeds to in-game friends. When you have to work up the energy to login to a game because it has become a chore, when the game is work with no fun and no rewards that feel like they’re worth the effort you expend…well, that’s the time to move on.
This is the best review of Aion I’ve read yet. I spent a little time in the closed beta and really enjoyed the game. However, I never leveled beyond 10 in the beta. When the game was finally released, I jumped in it with tons of excitement. I knew it wasn’t going to be a WoW killer, but after 4 years I was looking for something different.
Unfortunately, the day the game went live was also the day the game took a nose dive. Everyone knows about the spam, bots, and grind fest. Don’t forget to mention the utter lack of support from NCSoft. Who launches a game and has absolutely no forum support? Who launches a game that is predicted to land in second place to WoW with no 24 hour in-game support? There was one (now two) community manager that never spoke the truth about the game.
After playing Champions Online, I thought Cryptic had the worst customer support ever. That was until I played Aion.
Needless to say, my subscription lasted a little over a month. I’m still kicking myself for paying for one month. I actually quit 2 days after my first payment. I can’t say never, but I have a hard time seeing myself in another game developed by NCSoft.
Well, aion is grind 100%.
ITs L3 And if i wanted to grind my Aes of ill go to GW and play proph old style or activate my L2 account.
One sure thing is Blizzard,Anet, Know ppl dont like grinding wich is why the MMos made a succes.
WOW: 12 mill
GW: 7mill
Aion: 21.9.09 – 400k Subs, 16.11.09 – 200k subs, over 60% quit.
Hey spooner, got a question, just quit aion, as i cant see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel lol.
What games are you following atm that are released as of now.
Played Wow, lvl 80 prot pally, aion, 32 temp, diablo 2, halo 3 etc, anything your following atm that kinda fits into those categories?
Hell yea Spooner, I had the exact same feelings as you. I did play beta thought it was alright, couple weeks later bought the game, got to around 15 and said :Yea……this is pretty lame. I’ma grab me back my wow subscription.
I laughed at Jacks comparison to L2… L2 has been out 5 years or so? and doens’t have a max level person yet, aions been out 2 months and has a lot of max levels.
anyway, doesn’t really matter, if its for you, its for you, if not, its not. Personally I like the grind, the main problem I’ve had so far is out-leveling stuff before I’m done with it, doing lv25 instance (NTC) once a day, with minimal play between is basically free ticket to 3 levels in 3 days if your trying not to level, which means you can only do it 3 times or so before your to high level for it. Next instance (FT) I ran maybe 30 or 40 times… drop rate should really be increased on that one some, but regardless, still outleveled it before I was ready… by the time I figured rifts out, I was a level below the last 2 easily accessable rifts in the starting area, and had to completly stop playing my char to try and catch them a few times before I out leveled those before I was ready to. I still havn’t done a full run of either of the out-door dungeons that are 3 or 4 lvls behind me now… if any thing the leveling pace is to fast and should be slowed down some so you can actually spend some time in the content before you out level it.
On the up-side, the kids are going back to wow in droves ’cause theres less instant gratification, leaving a significantly better community playing Aion… all in all, I highly doubt it will be wildly popular or a large-scale MMO (albeit it wont be a zomg aion is dead failure either.) It’ll be a decent one with a fairly good player community and crappy support.
And yea, NC West has always sucked at managing games. Its a shame NC Korea puts out the best games for NC West to ruin with poor management.
@Thiras: Left 4 dead 2, Torchlight on the side, WoW on the wayside, Borderlands also on the side.
@PyroAmos: It’s not about instant gratification, and I think that it’s a little naive to think all the good players are staying with Aion and the bad are going to play WoW. I don’t get that line of thought at all really, it’s a pretty generalized claim that can always be proved wrong through the many many exceptions of say – complete jerkoffs playing Aion and amazingly good people playing WoW, and vice versa. But we’ve gone over this a hundred times already, there just isn’t enough sense of accomplishment in Aion and typical of every NCsoft game I’ve seen/played/researched it’s main focus is the grind and preying upon gamer’s addictions like people who are addicted to the grind. I can turn my brain off and grind only so many times before i wonder what the fuck am I paying for?
I think it was Whatever that said it best, other games provide the same mechanics for free and they do it better than Aion has. The only thing I can truly say without a single argument is that Aion is visually stunning and they did a great job with their character creation system. Everything else feels like it was a second thought.
@PyroAmos it’s not lack of instant gratification, to reiterate what Spooner said, it’s lack of maturity in the programming of the game itself.
I personally like PvE. My PvP appetite is more than satiated by Halo and the periodic Wintergrasp raid. Aion has fail PvE culture and it’s just not for me. The PvP is nominal and unbalanced imo; I’m sure it gets better once you suffer your way through the grind. People are going back to WoW because it’s more robust and it’s the experienced gamers leaving Aion in the dust, not the kids.
@PyroAmos: Would you happen to be Pyroskull?
Your assumption that the community is improved by the people leaving is pretty arrogant. I’ve met a lot of very nice people that are excellent gamers that are leaving the game. About all it does is leave you with people of a similar mindset. Frankly, read the official forums, the community is crap. =) Of course that’s assuming you can even get the forums to load, and with your actual sign in, and no 505 errors, or return trips to the home page…etc.
Aion is pure fail on just about every level save the visual, and as they say — beauty is only skin deep. ^_^
I have to say that I loved this game… and I really wanted to keep loving it but…
I started it with my friends, made a beautiful Templar, spent hours making her look as good as possible.
At first the game was great, grindy, but great, visually stunning, nice animations, flying is awesome, lots of very different places, it was full of people everywhere and many things to do. I loved all aspects of the game, gathering aether, materials, pve, pvp (defend against Elyos incursions, and Arena)
I spent a week crafting a blue armor for lvl 28, that was hard, and frustrating, but it was so rewarding. My Templar looks like a beautiful golden Goddess…
The leveling started to get tedious and more tedious, bots everywhere, less and less people actively playing, caring, or doing anything, guilds dying… feels as if the whole game is dying… you have to put so much effort into leveling and earning money and in everything in general, its just not worth it.
Then I realized that at higher levels, all there’ll be to it, will be abyss and more abyss. The areas you left behind are no longer useful and the game will be restricted to that crappy looking place.
Oh and don’t go alone in there as you’ll get raped, you need an active guild with people willing to go with you, but everyone is busy with their stuff or botting or playing something else, so that’ll be hard too.
Now it feels like an empty and pointless game, but by the time I realized that they had just charged me the 3 months I originally expected to play.
So yeah I wasted my time and money, and not only that… I’m sad too because I’m gonna leave my Templar, with all we’ve achieved, I’m really gonna miss her. I regret purchasing this game in the first place.
And I DON’T regret any of the 3000+ hours I spent in Guild Wars (which is not a grinding game), felt so much better, it was so much bigger, it had content and balance updates constantly, and I never had to pay a fee for it, so what do I want so say with this? I’ll never again pay fees to play an MMO… the money goes straight to their pockets, and I don’t get any benefits from it… server maintenance?? BULLSHIT.
Aion could have been so much more =(
So in the end, I’m back to Killing Floor, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptX1m7Efx2w <- Now this IS Grinding =)
(not to mention that its only 18€ with no monthly fees and FREE CONTENT updates, so no ripping me off here)
Aion had a lot of unrealized potential. I think they made a big mistake in not having 1.5.1 closer to release when they launched. And while I haven’t had many direct problems with bots, it’s disheartening to see the same ones stick around for so long.
I don’t know if I burnt out so much as I feel really apathetic. I play a cleric. She’s L41. I could spend another 40 (or however many) hours getting to 50 but what then? I can siege fortresses to not get any medals because I’m somehow not managing to get enough AP during the battle. And, um, rift in my free time? I guess.
I didn’t have any problems with money, though I can’t seem to complete my expert armor smithing quest (I can’t seem to convince Kinterun to award me with the appropriate recipe). I found group exping fun and a nice flash back to exp groups from EQ1. Rifting can be entertaining, at least until someone 9 levels higher than you arrives and kills you while you have no recourse. It boggles my mind that a primarily PvP game would have some a huge level-based resist curve.
Anyway, my small group of friends and I had a lot of fun for a while, but suddenly it just doesn’t seem worth the effort to continue.
more or less the issues im having, going to keep playing till my time card runs out and then if no major changes are in the works give it up. Next mmo for me is star trek
(feel so geeky admitting that )
Nice blog, man. I have had fun with this game to level 20. I am going to quit there for one reason: NCsoft doesn’t RESPECT their customers. I can see this because of
(1) the blatant gold spammers in their little private shops right in the major cities day after day which any GM if they had any could immediately terminate at very little cost to NCsoft and probably huge benefit; and
(2) the gladiator bots that are there with obvious bot names like jdfkjdlkjfs that (again) if they had GMs in game could easily deal with.
So every time I see either of these things, I feel like I’m being slapped in the face and told to piss off. I won’t pay for that, so 22 days into my *free* period, I’m canceling and reactivating my WoW. I still keep AoC, too. Don’t laugh, please. I believe this game has potential if Funcom can relaunch this much improved game with the Rise of the Godslayer expansion next year. If not, well…I met a cool group of people in my guild and had some fun.
Thanks for the great writeup, Spooner, and the thoughtful posts from others. Cheers.
Funny,cuz i mentioned on the ”WoW vs Aion” that this game will never deliver what most of mmo gamers want to see in these days,i feel kinda ‘’special”(?)
Besides since most of them is a player base from WoW,really all that those people want,is Blizzard satisfying their needs,they don’t want a new game,they want the old one improved.
If Aion is really failing as hard as spooner says,then i am wondering,will they even get back the money they invested in this project before it dies out?
From the other hand,those who have played WoW from the beginning,will know how many years it took for Blizzard to get it somewhat right,so maybe,just maybe,all that Aion really need,is few years to get their shit straight,after all at the beginning Blizzard promised exact same things from WoW,and at first,none of those things they said was delivered,and it was quite big of a grind fest.
There are 1499 quests for each faction in Aion, and if you accomplished all of them, you’d have reached level 50 twice. That was said in an interview with one of the developers and since now, I (level 42) only had to grind once, and that was from 38-40 in the KaidanHQ. There even is a rewarding quest for this grinding I did there, lol.
I also know that you have two characters, in one comment in an earlier posted article you said they were 29 and 18, if I remember right. With these levels you didn’t see anything in Aion.
Your points about missing GMs / Bots / RMT : They are all true. But I think you are overreacting a bit. You should always consider this the beginning of Aion, because NCSoft West is new to this game. In a few months, maybe in a year, they should have solved most of the problems you had with the game. They hired GMs recently who now are on the way to Brighton to start banning people and make Customer Support available 24/7.
Have faith, and don’t say a definite “no”. Aion might improve, as all other MMORPGs did and then you might want to return.
But that logic is completely retarded. I should wait one solid year or so for the developers to get their shit straight before I can start to enjoy the game?
Saying Aion has no grind and that you can get by with only questing is a flat out lie. At some point (and typically when you get to Lv25) you MUST group and complete quests that essentially are grinds with extremely fast respawn timers.
Also I’m hearing the monster run bug is working as intended, so if you aggro something it’s supposed to never stop chasing you until you zone like FFXI? AWESOME MECHANIC TO BRING BACK!
@Lotus Normally game developers aim to get the most awesome,beautiful and what not out of the very start of game,it’s a trick that every dev should know,if you make a game,and make it fully enjoyable only at late levels,that is like saying ”pay us your money,and after some time you MAYBE will realize how great this game is”,cuz there aint no guarantee that you will enjoy the end-game.
Here is how it is:
When WoW came out,i bought it,and i can honestly say i did not enjoy it at first,yet it was the only one of it’s kind so me,and everyone else was kinda stuck.
Difference in these days is that there is shitloads of choices,so to be successful you really have to hit a bulls-eye,in this particular case,NCSoft missed the shot.
@Spooner:
I don’t know why,but yes it seems like that.
If we recall it was/is/will be same with Lineage II,i have heard plenty of promises to add more quests,and reduce the need for grind-fest,they never delivered the package.
Reading these blog entries,makes me think,what would be my perfect MMO,what would be the perfect combo of countless possibilitys offered these days,to get it right for my taste.
Defo one of them would be BE females,that’s for sure!
Anyhow,it’s NCSoft,anyone who was hoping for a game that mortals can play,should stop dreaming,Aion was a brave move,but in wrong direction….again,aint no surprise in that tho.
As it was mentioned a few times: what does everyone consider a viable endgame for a subscription based MMO?
@Klinger: When you say viable I’m going to take it as something that the vast majority would consider fun and accessible. It’s not an overly hard idea to conceptualize but a lot of different people have contradicting opinions as to what fun would be. In the end, you can strike a common middle ground where everybody has at least something to do that they haven’t already been doing before. That (I think) is the key here and most importantly what aion was missing.
At the end game in PvE content you want to have unique and interesting concepts and encounters, dungeons or exploration. Boss fights or raids or world events, SOMETHING that isn’t just a repeat of what you did at level 20 with the Krall or Mau areas.
You should have a PvP option for players that enjoy that especially if it lends to the lore and story of the game, something to strive for at end game. The PvP at level 50 in aion is the same as it is at level 25, 30, and 40. The only difference is that at level 50 you’re going to typically have more gear and better stats than the guys lower than you on the food chain. It’s boring. Maybe have NPC launched or assisted assaults on certain areas, actually orchestrate some battles. WoW’s battlegrounds are a good way to break up the monotony of free for all world PvP (JUST AS AN EXAMPLE). That kind of large scale PvP (world) can get really tedious sometimes if that’s all you’re offered. And nobody wants to admit because we’re all such big swinging dick hardcore gamers, but it’s not fun at all in any way and its completely inexcusable to be forced to level in an environment where there is zero protection from getting caught up in world PvP being held by players 25 levels higher than you.
Aion’s end game is nothing new or different or WORTH LOOKING FORWARD TO, that you won’t completely experience at level 25-30. Period. That’s where they made their biggest mistake and where I personally see that they haven’t done anything past the superficial to change Aion for the western market other than print it in english.
Well the thing is that everything that is decent,and loved by player base is already out there.
World raids.
Dungeon raids.
World pvp.
Arenas.
Coliseums.
PvE/PvP rewards.
Ground/Flying mounts.
Story behind all of it.
Different ways how to deliver all above mentioned.
And lots of other stuff.
I can’t really imagine anything more that would seduce a gamer in these days.
Maybe partially that is one of problems – people expect impossible things from devs these days.
They aint got no idea what do they want,but something inside digs that there must be something more,and when new project arrives,all they see is same modes/mechanics just in different styles,and concepts.
What’s missing from Aion is three things:
1) Variety:
Everything was pretty much just higher level versions of things we’ve already seen in game. And while that’s true to a certain extent in most games it is painfully obvious in Aion. Even the quests are very dull – Kill X of Y mobs, Kill X Mobs to get Y Drop, Take X to Y. That’s about it. VERY few of the quests were actually engaging or interesting in any regard.
2) Fun:
With a lack of variety comes a lack of fun. PVP was especially dull since it was almost totally gank squads and zerg rushes. =) Rifting is a joke – Asmos have one viable rift, and both sides camp the spawn locations 90% of the time, as a result rift runs are typically very very very short and unsatisfying.
3) Sense of Achievement:
Nothing really hit me with any sense of achieving anything of lasting value. The instances were all very much tank n’spank. EVERYTHING was a grind – leveling up you had to grind to get the kinah to buy the books to learn the skills that were almost entirely just upgrades to existing ones and very rarely anything new. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I admit I didn’t reach 50 but even then there was endless grinding from some folks I know that did reach 50. Even soul healing existed since they got a huge XP buffer, admittedly you didn’t need to buy off your XP debt, at least not until the level cap got raised.
1+2+3=Aion was not worth playing.
They did some things very right, the game was awesome up until the mid-20s, then it just stagnated. The graphics were amazing. The skill chains were neat. The character models and customization options stellar.
Bots and Goldsellers own the game. Give it a few months and one of two things will happen: 1) They’ll do something effective about the bots and RMT douchebags
2) They won’t and they’ll have another L2 on their hands.
I’m betting on 2 based on NCSoft’s track record. =)
Well, I tried to make my question general…
It really was a general question as I’ve heard the same complaint about other games I’ve played.
I like Aion so far. (I’ll leave it at that, rather than risk going too far off topic.)
And some Aion info:
1) They claim to have banned 16,000 account across the NA./Eur servers today.
2) Tomorrow, on the 24th, they are releasing in-game footage of the expansion. They talked about this previously (if it is what I think it is) but didn’t give too much specific information.
3) [opinion and not news] GM Vagabond from TR was on board for the closed Betas. If he is still working for them, then I expect the player base to have their ***es collectively kicked in the future by the Balaur – and not in the Abyss either. [OK, it's not an opinion, it's an unsubstantiated expectation.]
Fuck me good,they have not fixed the original yet,and already have a FOOTAGE from an expansion,damn
One of my mates bought Aion couple of days ago,lets see what he says.
Buy anyways,what the fuck? Not even half a year,and already an expansion?
A question raises here,do they even realize that they got issues with the damn thing at current level?
If not,i guess they are more ignorant towards community reports than any other gaming company.
Read the comments left on their official post of the video Kron. Half of the players are saying how it’s bullshit that they haven’t done anything to change the game currently (or are not doing enough) and the other half are too busy cleaning the cum out of their shorts to realize it’s NCsoft – they’re really REALLY good at keeping the fish on the line but never reeling it in.
I could make another reference to coitus and climax here but that’d break my quota for reply posts.
I took a peak at forums and noticed shitloads of bot reports.
And also a topic that basically states that Aion ‘’supports” gold sellers.
Now this might look like yet another shit pulled out from nowhere,but there actually once was a scandal around Lineage II and almost got WoW in it as well,To many people started to state that companys is actually supporting in-game currency selling sites,instead of attempting to get rid of those little gold bags,they took a certain amount of their in-come.
And to think of it,there is actually to many good ways to get rid of them,and one might of started to get a bit suspicious about why devs wont accept none of ideas.
Then again,if what you say is true…about the fish,then those who still kicks around deserve to be fucked over just because they are to stupid to realize it.
Well, it’s not like the bots are just going to vanish because they killed some accounts; but, yesterday they were almost nonexistent on my server. A few sellers with private stores – but no gold-seller spamming.
I really doubt they are going to “fix” the game. Their stated intent was to slow down leveling because (before the western release) people were skipping content and just grinding mobs. (The recent changes to XP mission rewards benefit only those who are doing the missions.)
I agree that anyone sticking it out in the hope that NCSoft will release the one update that resolves their gripes with the game (swimming, housing, etc) is in for a long wait.
I was really looking forward to getting Aion after watching your youtube videos, but this review makes it sound like a horrid terrible pice of shit excuse for a game. I am not judging it as i have not played it but how can a game that looks so good in your videos e so crap?
Ive played wow for about 4/5 years now and i have totally and completely burnt out. I was hoping to find a game that is a little more ‘grown up’ than wow but not neccessarily bland and dark (like Warhammer).
*sigh*
Thanks for this review otherwise i would have found out how crap AIon is/was/willbe the hard way.
To be fair:
CoX was created by Cryptic Studios and was later taken over by NCSoft. It was Cryptic (who I feel are worse than NC) who screwed the game over so badly with sudden brash decisions in each early patch: Tanks can no longer tank, blasters get killed in 2 hits, controllers can no longer control. And they added the grind fest.
I actually picked up the game again (for a while) after NCSoft picked up the title and Cryptic went on its hissy fit to create Champions Online. They finally listened to what players had been wanting for years: Architect system, other changes that I can’t think of at the moment…
I think the only reason why that was a semi-success is because NCSoft didn’t create the game, they just took it on and backed up funding when Cryptic was in a tight spot. If NCSoft created the game themselves, it would have been even worse.
I still hate the grind in that game. I’ve had an account for 5 years or so and my main is still only level 41.
Top to bottom I have read each comment here. Some I agree with whole-heartedly and some I can almost call trolling. But each account and instance of player’s credentials and arguments listed here are so far completely linear to my feelings.
I am only up to lvl 21 on my Spiritmaster and have a few other toons that I started as trials and experiments. So far the games biggest gleaming pot of gold for me is the look. I actually upgraded components in my computer to get the full effect and yes.. polished and beautiful are the only words I can use to describe Aion.
But the question remains… Where is Aion going???…
Potential. I have heard this word 100 times over in less then a month of researching my latest money sink in the MMO world. It’s there, but to what end? So far I have seen propaganda and player responses… trailers and youtube videos. Forums and other sites like this one. (Great review Spooner…. Hope you are getting payed for that artistic work above)
And to this end I am left with that absolute forboding feeling… the same one I got when Guild Wars (NCsoft) finally said RELEASE: TRAILER FOR GW2!… for 2 years I stuck with GW working hard to get titles maxed and (late in the game) my EotN “I Love Me” shrine filled to max. It was almost 6 months ago that the trailer was released now. 2 months after that news of the lead dev quitting hit the blogs. and weeks after that … the release of a new game….. Aion.
Aion is grind. Which i don’t mind as my personal decission in gaming allows. I am there for the beauty of the artists creation. So the game takes a different twist for me. But the company that would be the great NCsoft,…. well to say the least sucks balls. And they even suck at sucking balls. So potential or no.. If you want a satisfaction out of your gaming experience and a world that is submersive and life sucking… stick with WoW. (sorry WoW burn-outs.. I know the feeling)
Well, Ive played WoW for 4 years and wc1 and 2. I have noticed a lot of change in wow period. It use to be where you needed a group to get quests done or very challenging for solo’in. Wow is not challenging what so ever anymore more. When you are 3 lvls below a mob and can run up and auto attack and walk away from the key board and come back and the mob is dead something is wrong. Ive watched spooners video’s on youtube about Aion and it seems his mind has changed because of the grind or the loot drops.. 1 concept that people are missing is it isnt WoW. It may not drop epic loot. But, the one thing I am going to point out is this… for the people that complain about the grind in Aion are fullish… what do you think we have been doing for months or even years if you have been playin WoW that long… dungeons for drops.. heroics for badges.. 10-25 man raids for drops… rep. (Nothing but Grinding) What we need to think about again is Aion or any other game is not WoW. So to compair them is like fire and ice.. because you are always going to find things you like and dislike about the two when doing so.. We need to take the game and enjoy it for what it is and like it for what it is.. If you dont enjoy it and its not fun to you then its not for you, find something that is.. but I am bored of WoW tired of 3 button rotations and no combos. Sick of the game being so easy. I am looking for something new and challenging so if someone can point me in the right way plz feel free to send me an email. Ive been checking out Aion and been doing lots of homework on it and watching videos… warhammer .. and some others but I am just trying to find something fun and challenging.. and dont mention WoW cause I cant even find it in me to even log on anymore. thx