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Considering Aion...
NrthnStar5
Member UncommonPosts: 16
in Aion
But I have one major question.
Is there a game here for those who don't care for PVP? Aion has a beautiful world, and looks like it could be quite a bit of fun. My concern is whether or not PVP is required. I don't mind optional PVP, like battlegrounds or the PVP matches in WAR, but it is at the bottom of my list of what I want to do in an MMO.
Is there any point to playing Aion with this perspective?
Comments
This isn't really the MMO to play for a pure PVE experience. PVP will happen, and it will happen often enough that someone who would want a strict PVE ruleset would be annoyed.
Aion is failing fast in the U.S. and EU. They are about to do server mergers.
U.S. servers from 13 to 4 and EU from 18 to 8. Not a good sign at all. That on top of the lack of PVE content or at least there was when I played.
If you want a solid PVE experience and something amazing looking wait for FF14.
If you cannot wait then there are decent games like AoC or Lotro out now.
If you don't like pvp then you won't like this game. End game, and even much of the game up to end game, has a heavy pvp focus.
Ah, well good to know. Shame really. Before it came out I was under the impression the game was hoping to provide more balance between PVE and PVP. It's like with AoC, PVP is big there, but there is still great PVE content to be had, and one can enjoy the other aspects of the game without even touching PVP if they so choose.
Oh well, I can put it out of my mind then.
It appears as though you have decided to stay away from Aion. Being someone who was in your shoes just a couple of weeks ago (I spent $40 on this game), I thought I'd solidify what I feel is a good decision on your part. I would suggest staying away unless you obtain a trial key for this game. This is a repost of my concerns:
1. I don't like sandbox, but the progression was extremely linear and lacked variety. (I only did level 1-23) Even in crappy MMO's like WoW, you can make a dwarf and level in Elf land or.. w/e.. you can level in many places and travel anywhere in the game right from the get go. Most MMO's give you greater variety. (More grouping, sooner, dungeons right away, and leveling through PVP)
2. Leveling is a slow proccess, which makes questing feel very repeditive.
3. I don't like the asian-style. (Example: As a female character, I sounded like a 10 year old girl having orgasms during cut scenes. I jumped up and down with over-excitment.. for... putting a small stone in an armor socket)
4. While the some components of the games graphical desgins are beautiful, they clash with eachother and feel.. fake.. unnatural in some ways. (Example: A tree simply sticks out fo the gound like a toothpick in a birthday cake. There is no disruption to the ground.. no "mounding" effect or.. partial roots apearing around the tree above ground).
5. No mailing or communicating with ANYONE for the first 10 levels. This was upsetting because I tried playing multiple classes through various levels and when I decided to go with Cleric, I was unable to send all the money/items I had earned on the other 3 toons, because those toons were not level 10. That's right, you cannot even MAIL yourself your own items or ask for help in area/global chat. You cannot whisper someone "Hey thanks for the buffs". All of this, on a NON-trial account.. a paid.. legit account.
6. You get wings.. beautiful wings. But, they have a short life. You can make your wings spring to life but you have less than a minute to use them, then you can fall from the sky and die if you don't land in time. You have to wait for them to recharge before using them again. There are no mounts to supplement this. The wings are also very limited on where you can use them.
I might be too picky. To each his own. If I were you I'd try for a free Aion trial key on one of the forum threads. Oh, and yea, supposedly you CAN level up without PVP but I hear it's a horrific grind festival. I also hear the best gear in the game comes from PVP more than it comes from nearly unobtainable drops in end-game raids. I could have listed further concerns but I felt those were too small to rant on. Let me know if you find a good MMO! I'm also looking!
While the game has definitely lost players, its not falling fast as you say. Its decline has been slow unlike other MMO's like AOC, WAR and STO where their populations fell what I would consider fast. For the most part right now Aion is fairly stable.
As for the OP, you cannot avoid PvP in Aion so if you are that against it, I dont recommend you play.
#5 was implemented awhile back as a countermeasure against gold spammers making level 1 characters and whispering/mailing everyone that was online, so instead they put in restrictions on chat and mailing until level 10, they will still level to do it, but it's died down to what it used to be like.
As you get beyond 23 you have more options. Quite frankly, your 1-23 is aking to leveling in tortage in Age of Conan. I-10 is the tutorial and 10-20 gets you set in the world. Then you are able to do the abyss as well as other areas.
You can argue that this is not the way to go but it seems that they were eager to have a somewhat story driven and longer tutorial from 1-20ish. And again, that is about when you start doing the quests so you can enter the abyss (though that might be 25ish, can't remember)
I for one was glad for the slow leveling. As a friend of mine said, "Aion got it right over how silly WoW's system was". So to chalk it up, this is definitely preference but not everyone shares the same idea of "fast leveling". I'm certainly glad Aion had a more delibertate levelign pace and hope that not all games in the future adopt the fast "zip to level cap" mentality.
If you don't like the asian style then why play an asian style game. And then list this as a good reason for someone to take the trial insead of buying it. There are people who like the asian style games and this is a plus.
I wouldn't say you are picky but you know what you want. Given that it would be clear that Aion wouldn't be your game. All of this info has been out for quite a while. Essentially you didn't do your research, bought a game that you didn't like the style of anyways and basically didn't like it.
When I played Lineage 2 for the first time, shortly after launch, I knew that I wasn't going to liek the game because of the reveiws. hard economy, ffa pvp. But I tried it anyways because I loved the art style and I wanted to see what an online game was about. And all the reast didn't interest me at all. I then played the game for over four years.
So i the end, people should do research to prepare themselves but if they have doubts they shoud take the plunge. The trial is a horrible trial and just doesn't give a good idea of the game.
Oh, and the "no message 1-10" is more for bots and gold farmers. Does suck for legit people but they've had to be a bit draconian because of all the farmer issues.
Aion's problem is that it was very misrepresented to people who probably would not have played it. Saying that players could concentrate on their chose playstyle (pvp/pve) was a half truth as it wasn't clear until the open beta that one could concentrate on one or the other but in the end you still had to put up with the other side.
that topped with a million wow players who are used to how wow plays, all complaining about the leveling and thinking it's a grind game (when they probably have never played a real grind game in their lives) and it just generated bad press.
Goes to show you though, developers and more so marketing people need to understand who the market for their game is for and market to those people. Stop trying to get "everyone and their uncle" in the game as all that's gonig to do is generate bad press.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
To set it straight,
Aion IS a beautiful game world. It's a bit more linear than I would like but everything is very well done.
However, one can do pve or pvp but they have to put up with both. There are areas that you never have to see pvp.
1-20, then move to the all pve area around 22 to 25 and then you can come back to that area at around 40 or 41ish depending on class.
But that cuts out a great part of the world and unfortunatley for all pve players those areas might expose you to some pvp. Though truth be told you lose nohing of great value except for some abyss points. If you don't care about the abyss and the rewards one can purchase there then those don't matter.
Someone kills you just hit the button, go to your bind point and go to another place. Or announce where you were killed and you will get many people descending on the area.
But if being killed will just ruin your day then don't play Aion.
I recommend it for people who felt Lineage 2 was too harsh and that WoW was too easy. Well at least the leveling part.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I really agree with your last two posts, Sov! While I was never a L2 player, I've played WoW for years and can say that Aion is a nice step up from the easy-mode of WoW. Aion has the most beautiful/detailed game world I've ever played in and that is certainly leaps and bounds ahead of WoW. Since Aion is PvPvE, it will be tough to avoid PvP at the higher levels but the game seems to have enjoyable PvE for most of it..plus..in 2.0 there are supposed to be many more dungeons to run.
Overall, I feel that Aion has received a tremendous amount of bad flak from typical "WoW noobs" who have become so used to how easy that WoW is they forgot how real MMO's are! Also, they must have never been around for WoW launch...that was a GRIND in many ways. I'd say Aion has a very pleasant leveling speed, it's not deathly slow like some Korean games can be and it's not so fast that you can't soak in the wonderful zones and take time to enjoy leveling up. You see, unlike WoW where the zones are pretty drab, Aion is more enjoyable leveling due to the beauty of it. Flying/gliding is really something else, and something to really master as an art in the game. Don't be so quick to pass this great game off as bad. If I remember correctly, which I think I do, Aion has had the smoothest MMO launch in just about every MMO I've seen in years. It's a very high-polished game.
Thank you and I think there are going to be a lot of players who want a world with a different art style and also a leveling speed that is a bit more lengthy.
but of course, no marketing departement wants to say "hey, this is going to take more time and there are going to be some games systems that include some randomness.
I realize people complained about the crafting in aion but what of the crafting in Lineage 2 where you lost everything if you failed?
People say Aion is a "grind game" but again, I feel that they haven't actually played a typical grind game. Still, if someone doesn't like it then that has to be fine. But I don't show up at a concert with a mosh pit and complain that someone body slammed me to the floor. I just don't go to such things and therefore no complaint.
If only NC was a bit more forthcoming with info then they would probably have attracted the right crowd for Aion and those who wanted something different would have just passed.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Once again, agreed. I'm glad they have a very nice splash page and promotion video for 1.9 patch. Out of plain interest, besides L2, what are some deathly Korean-grinders that are quite popular? I have no real interest in beginning playing since I am returning to Aion, however, just want to know to further prove our point to some people I know.
I think many people made a mistake when they thought Aion will be like WoW - both games are so much different. I don't know what people expceted from Aion. They also forgot that you don't need to bitch on something that you don't like!
Besides that grinding is a part of every mmo - on the base level I don't really see a difference in grinding on mobs or grinding on quests, almost none reads them anyway nowdays so why does people feel the need to see big exclamation marks over the heads of npcs?
Now, personally I didn't like Aion much. Mainly because the world felt too small and combat was slow for me ( too long animations, not really a big deal) but the biggest issue for me were bots and gold spammers, and what was even worse absolutely no reaction from ncsoft even after multiple reports. One bot grinding straight for full 3 days and nights in the same spot. I've said to myself on the 4th day 'if they don't respect me, my wallet won't respect them either' and that was the true reason I've left.
The thing that I really liked thought was the Abyss! I remember after reaching 25 I've rearely left it. Was having so much fun pvping! That was my basic motive to play the game, to pvp. The sad thing is you need to do this dull pve side first and after playing WAR when you can pvp from lv 1 (of course this sad case of empty rvr zones is a different matter) I was kinda spoiled by it.
Maybe things changed, with the bots? Action was taken? Anyway, NCsoft as a company has a big negative on this one from me, and I've learned to 'check' customer support from that day on more throughly before purchasing the game.
Anyone has an answer for that ?
They cleaned up the bots. I haven't seen one in months.
Archlord is a grinder.
I think Shaiya could be considered a grinder, someone will have to verify that. I did play it but I didnt' get to super high level so can't say for sure.
I believe perfect world is a grinder.
I think sword of the new world is a grinder.
maplestory?
I can only say lineage, lineage 2 and Archlord for sure. The others I listed, I believe are considered grinders. Though I'm pretty sure Maplestory is a grinder.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Don't get me wrong, im just trying to pass on info i know. Some of my friends said that World of Warcraft has a system where you do not have to pvp, you can chose not to pvp if you wish. In that sense I would say try WoW, you might have more control over pvp.
Aion does not have any such facility - Aion's rule is : if you are in open world you can pvp by defending yourself or by standing still while somebody rapes you hardcore.
Aion does have some zones where no enemy fraction can join - those zones are from lvl1 - lvl20 and lvl45 - lvl50. The lvl1 - lvl20 zone is a game progressing path - can't avoit it. The lvl45 - lvl50 area is totally avoidable, you can cap your lvl without setting a foot in that area.
If you do not play aion for the gears and the pvp, you will not enjoy this game - simple as that.
Haha that made me laugh and it describes a lot of people very accurately.
I mean complaining about the infamous "grind" and wanting it to be "fixed". Regardless of whether this grind is too much or not, it's game design. Not broken to be fixed.
Complaining about low drop rates and wanting the drop rates to be "fixed". Again, game design, not broken to be fixed even though they did increase it a bit.
Also early on it was the art style and complaining about how men looked like girls! that's got to be the most ignorant and retarded complaint I've ever read on these forums! xD
People running FT hundreds of times and cying afterwards about getting bored and frustrated because no shiny loot dropped. People spending millions and millions of kinah to proc Fenris/Miragent and complaining about the retarded design and them being broke. People solo grinding to max level and complaining how linear and boring it is.
Seriously, do these people hate themselves??
I've played Rappelz and Shaiya to good levels and they are true grinders compared to Aion. Even the so-called PVP centric game Darkfall is a grinder.
Aion is pretty polished and work as intended. It's not a grinder but a little bit more lenght learning curve than WoW. And it has PvP. If you want to enjoy PvE, tons of PvE try Allods Online. Really, its superb in that way.
It is a question of fangs.
Merges dont mean the game is failing.
PvE is looked at as being noob, if u wanna join a strong legion the leaders look at ur kill count. If ur lvl 50 with 700 kills........ dont expect to get into the top legions.