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Whats with the trial ?
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
I have the Trial on my computer for about four days.
The first two were ok but now I'm rarely able to log on. Yesterday afternoon as I was logging on I got the standard message of the day stating that " the servers are full, multiple channels are available " . Then " you are not connected to a server ". It's hit and miss as too logging on. More miss.
I'm totally serious on finding a new mmo. I'm not the type for just getting something for free. I'm still on the fence if I like it or not, but if NCSoft can't give a good trial I may have to drop this mmo, and rack it up as a bad experience.
Does anyone else have a problem logging on in the Trial ?
My experience so far :
Since it's 8 am EST and all ready to play, but unable to log on I'll give my assessment so far.
Graphics are just OK, not great like I expected. Like I stated before the world looks like an over colored water painting. At times my eyes bleed over the exaggeration of reds, yellows, and greens. My character seems to be sharply defined but the world looks cartoonist somewhat like the Burning Crusades expansion pack in WoW, nothing better. WITH ALL MY GRAPHICS MAXED there is still no grass. It's like a bland carpet. In the few areas I had encountered they seem to have the same model with the exception of just outside Altgrade Fortress. It was snow covered, not deep rich snow, but A flat white surface again like a bland carpet or white plastic, would be a better way to describe it..
The beginners area up to level 10 is defiantly on Rails. Sure you have side quest that can be done but you also have to follow your personal quest line that takes up your entire experience. Put it this way, you can bring up a transparent map and it showed a bee line of what you had done so far " a rail line ". At level 10 I made it to the main city of Pandemonium got my wings, new abilities and the personal quest line sent me to Altgrade to complete quest there again on rails. As before I found side quest, but my personal quest line is so full of quest that I feel compelled to do only them. I must say that the story line is well done but I like to make my own fun. If I liked to read a story I would play a solo game like Dragon Age.
In the Trial your unable to chat. I received many invites to group but turned most down because of the chat. I had one exciting encounter around level 9 where I was un able to shut down these generators by myself. Others were having the same problem, so I took an invite from this guy that was having a hard time learning the game. He was a tank and I was a Mage. He had me agro the mobs because he just would not tank. His health was always low because he would not sit between fights. Un able to chat I could not help him. Now this was all ok, and it was fun anyway.
No talent tree's or anything really to set you apart from other mages, tanks or DPS classes, but sockets where you can put equipment to make you somewhat different. I don't have extensive knowledge of this as I CANT GET IN THE GAME !
The official manual for Aoin is very short that explains almost nothing. I had to learn from YouTube videos.
I guess this game is more for PvP experience. I'm sure the PvP is done well, but I don't think this game is for me. I'll try to play later. If not I'll have no choice but to uninstall and move on.
Comments
I recently took a shot at the Aion trial and did not have any of the login issues you had so I can't say much about that.
You are dead on with the discription of the graphics. As is tradition in korean mmos that don't look blatantly anime-ish, the character models are often far better looking then the acual environments. The detail for some of the backgrounds in the higher zones are nicer and semi interesting but the textures in Aion are terrible indeed. I maxed my graphics settings and the ground textures still looked like paste. I also experience a lot of graphical glitches with enemies not appearing on my screen some times like they are still loading or enemy weapons not rendering correctly. I have smooth FPS and more then enough power to run the game smoothly on high settings so there is clearly some thing very wrong with the game in that department. The ascention cinematic also still runs like a turdmobile after 3 years of the game releasing.
The starting zone is indeed on rails but that only lasts untill you leave that area really. The quests outside of the starting zone are more akin to the questing style of World of Warcraft back in Burning Crusade where there are larger zones for a wide range of levels (about 10 levels per zone in Aion) and although its still slightly streamlined, meaning that they might give you a quests to go to another cluster of quest givers, but there are still some random quest givers sprinkled around random places in the zone so it's really not that bad.
The campaign quests on the other hand are completely railroaded, well, because they are campaign quests. They drive the main storyline of the game so while slightly more interesting than the average quest you will find, the downside is that if you have done all the campaign quests on one toon you have done them on every toon so to speak. One of the main problems with quests in general in Aion is that the lack of xp non-campaign quests gives makes some players favor good old fashioned mob grinding as it is some times as quick or quicker than just completing quests. In my opinion if you ever find yourself saying "Hey you know what, screw questing, it'll be faster if I just lay down some good ol' fashioned woodlum creature genocide." that mmo has seriously failed at designing quests.
You do have the ability to chat on a trial account in legion chat but you would also have to get ninja invited to a legion for that to work. It is a good thing trial accounts can't talk on Aion anyways. Back when the game first released there were so many gold spammers that you could'nt even read any of the chat channels unless you left all but legion chat. Luckily because trials can no longer talk that is not the case.
It is true that there are no talent trees in the game but the idea of talent trees is replaced by Aions stigma stones. As you level up you will gain more slots that will let you socket them with stigma stones. Stigma stones might as well be talents because they work the same way, maybe even better than the traditional talent trees. The idea behind them is that the whole point of a talent tree is to give you new abilities specific to what ever tree you spec into but traditional talent trees are often filled with bullshit (see World of Warcraft) where the talents just give you a %damage increase to an ability you spam all the time. The sigma stones cut through the bullshit and just straight up give you a new ability to use of your choice. There are a lot of stigma stones in the game for you to mix and match for different situations. The large variety of stigma stones they give you makes for less cookie cutter set ups. Although there will always be people using a few of the same good abilities there are not as many people using the exact same stigma set up as you would think.
I agree that the Aion is rather bad at teaching new players how every thing works but that also encourages you to join a legion for assistance.
Overall its not that great of a game but its still better than F2P games. It's a game I like to play maybe 2-3 hours a day just to kill time. If you are looking for a mmo to play hardcore for a while Aion is probably not the game for you becuase you will most likely burn out quickly on it. However if you are looking for a mmo to play casually while you wait for any of the new AAA mmos release, Aion is only 30$ for all the expansions and a month of free game time... so you know... there is that too I guess. Meh.
Hay Haxdelesriot, Thanks
That was a good explanation of the Stigma Stones, better help than I could research ( Youtube briefly covers it in a few videos ).
I would like to continue as long as I'm able to log in. I'm not completely done with my assessment yet. It may turn back around for me in a good direction. I still think the graphics are REAL BAD. I can't see how anyone could possibly like them. But I'm in it for the game play as always.
So thanks again
i have never tried the trial so i cant really say much excep that as a paying customer i'v never ahd to wait in line. also to compare Aion's graphics to BC?!........not even close man. not sure what kind of graphics card and monitor you have but there is no comparing the two. Aion is incredibly more detailed, sharp, and opulent then BC. wile the initial starting area (up to level 10) is quite luckluster and plain it gets better the higher you go. the armor especially, once you get higher up, start getting the "glowing" effects on them are pretty insanely detailed and amazing. if you want to see some pretty awesome armor sets just walk arround in the capital cities. combat effects also get cooler as you get more powerfull spells and abilities.
however, (opposite of Lotro) graphics in aion focus on characters instead of the background.
as for the art style and colors, yes, Aion is an acid trip fantasy game. it's like a rainbow, anime, space bomb, just wait untill you get into the Abyss at arround level 20. it's how Korians like it and i must say it grows on you. at first i also thought it was way too colorfull, cute and just weird but after a wile you just take it as Koran style game.
also no talent trees, but once you get to level 45+ there are stigmas you can equip that sort of do the same thing as a talent tree. however, you only have 3 or 4 limited options, unlike most other western games where the choices are very extensive. .
granted, this game isn't for everyone. it is a VERY Korean game.
I was on Vacation all list weekend to give the Trial a good shot.
I spent MOST of the Trial trying to get on. Most of the time I would get in for about 2 sec. Then get " Disconnected from server " It seems that evenings after 6 PM EST was the best to get into the game, but not prim time for me to play. SUNDAY, NOT AT ALL. I was only able to make it to level 13 because of this. I was playing slow, studying things. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with the download. Believe me I played most all mmo's. I know when there is something wrong with my computer, downloads or a game.
I understand 13 is not very high to get a good feel, however I find Aion just OK. Some good some bad, and never was able to experience the root of the game such as PvP.
I'll have to put this one on the back burner. The Trial pissed me off somewhat. It did not help in getting " disconnected from the server "......So maybe down the road, and a few more patches, when others here say the game is great.
Thanks for some input