Interested in trying Aion

Belarion · July 2012

A few questions.

What are the three best features of Aion?

What are the three worst features of Aion?

Whats NCSofts method of getting us to pay for things? I mean how much content is actually free? How badly will I be affected by paying as little as possible?

Someone told me this games F2P setup was done very well. Were they right?

Misthawk · July 2012

Originally posted by Belarion
A few questions.

What are the three best features of Aion?

If you play RvRPvP, that is a plus.

There are safe areas, so no, I wouldn't call in oPvP.

I did like the storyline, but it was the eagerness to find out what happened next that kept me glued.

These are the simple things I enjoyed, but I am sure others found more.

The PvE is fun, but themeparked, and you eventually willl start running out of things to quest, until you enter the center core, where the real actions starts,

This is true, but not as obnoxious if you have a guild with you.

What are the three worst features of Aion?

The ganking in the centercore can get old.

The PvP zones (not centercore) are more fun when you are with people, but can be gankalicious as well. Lack of the quests to follow in the themepark ride.

Whats NCSofts method of getting us to pay for things? I mean how much content is actually free? How badly will I be affected by paying as little as possible?

Someone told me this games F2P setup was done very well. Were they right?

I was only in it before the f2p. The issues we had were server population was dwindling, and since the game is WvW PvP, it makes for a huge problem. I imagined when they went f2p, more players rejoined, and set the servers back to being populated once again.

SaintGraye · July 2012

Originally posted by Belarion
What are the three best features of Aion?

Quite subjective, but...

1. Polished gameplay of the tab-targeting variety, featuring a diverse amount of skills and relatively distinct classes. Minor imbalances exist, as with all games, but, for the most part, there exists sufficient freedom to experiment with the archetypes, creating, for instance, a PK'ing Cleric (actually quite devastating) or a heavily defensive Mage (not as effective).

2. Diverse activities, including the usual PvE (quest-oriented), PvP, dungeons (of varying group sizes, including solo, and many with a PvP twist), sieges and guild-events. Housing. Pets (functional and aesthetic). Flight. Crafting, with a number of specializations. Etc...

3. Continued support. GM's are rarely encountered, thus expect to spend a moment or two blocking gold-spammers in the global chat (save you turn it off or simply don't care), but NCSoft continues to patch the game on a regular basis and release various events. Some are simple rehashes of old activities (mostly the holiday stuff), but others are new for the F2P release.

Originally posted by Belarion
What are the three worst features of Aion?

1. Classic tab-targeting gameplay. Again, this is subjective, but after years of playing such, I find myself in the camp who yearn for a more action-oriented approach (a la TERA, Guild Wars 2, RaiderZ, et al), less select target, click 1-2-3, repeat.

2. Grind. Aion is, effectively, a spiritual successor to Lineage II, one of the mother-of-all Korean grindfests, and ably represents the genre. Having said that, the 3.0 version has tuned it down substantially (such that you will easily outlevel many equipment tiers and even entire areas by questing alone), yet it persists in both quest design and relative mid-to-endgame content. To whit: expect to be hampered with multiple quests that require you to enter a specific area and slaughter 25, 30 or even 50 of a specific mob and later levels require enormous amounts of experience to attain. Dailies are also a must for many areas.

3. Most of the gameplay, and hence community, are based around instanced dungeons. Personally, I have always loathed, and always shall, instanced areas, period. Anything that pulls members of the community away from the community-proper is detrimental to the sense of a MMO, no matter how "epic" the experience. The meta-knowledge that thousands of other players are accomplishing the same feat and may do so again, repeatedly, further detracts. I much prefer games in which the overworld remains relevant, whether we're discussing Rift's take on... well, rifts, Warhammer's public quests, GW2's dynamic events or whatnot. In this respect, Aion fails to deliver. To progress with any sort of speed or acquire decent equipment you will need to run the same dungeons repeatedly.

Originally posted by Belarion
Whats NCSofts method of getting us to pay for things? I mean how much content is actually free? How badly will I be affected by paying as little as possible?

Insofar as the Cash Shop is concerned, NCSoft is, presently, the uncontested master of F2P. No other title even begins to approach Aion (NA) in terms of being genuinely FREE-to-play. No content is locked behind a purchase, no classes, expansions, dungeons, skills, equipment, nor even housing and the like. Everything is there, everything is free and choosing not to pay a single copper penny will not diminish your experience in the least. Best of all, there is no differentiating between accounts, either in-game or by NCSoft, thus you need never feel like a pariah for being a "Freebie" while all the Silver/Gold (or Premium/Subscriber) accounts enjoy added benefits.

Having played Lord of the Rings Online way back in that halcyon time before Turbine completely warped their Cash Shop and when TurbinePoints could be readily farmed in-game, compared against Aion's approach, Turbine are abysmally greedy capitalist pigs... to put it lightly. There's no earning premium currency in Aion, but there's also no need to do so.

Aion's shop features cosmetic items (which contribute few-to-no statistical bonuses), a small number of pets (some of which allow the owner to attain extra crafting items or access extended inventory space, which is seldom, if ever necessary) and items that confer parts required for a race-specific mount. Coupled with them are the usual Cash Shop "boosts," items that temporarily enhance your experience rate or crafting success. These are not required and can all be purchased in-game, either direct from player-stalls or at the Auction House.

All told, there is precious little to be derived from the CS that is genuinely worthwhile and you are far more likely to feel embittered by the vast gulf in power between you, a new player, and the veterans who've stuck with Aion since launch... they'll be mutli-millionaires with swanky houses, whereas you'll be stuck in a free apartment and struggling to level swiftly enough to join the endgame blitz (not that housing is anything more than a colossal money-sink).

Originally posted by Belarion
Someone told me this games F2P setup was done very well. Were they right?

Yes.

Having said all that, I'll be blunt: Aion is an amusing game and I've enjoyed my time with it... but Aion is also likely to feel overly familiar to anyone with extended MMORPG experience. My advice is thus: find a friendly, active guild and join them. Sooner or later, Aion will begin to wax very "been-there-done-that" in its execution, at which point it's the community that will bring you back, not the game itself.

DaezAster · July 2012

It's FREE, just try it and see for yourself. Nothing better than knowing for yourself....

eye_m · July 2012

it's a decent game, population isn't great but it's sufficient. Some areas feel a bit more like a grind then others, but it's still fun. Never hurts to try it yourself.

Belarion · July 2012

Prolly just my shite computer or ISP but I started downloading Aion and it said some crazy amount of time. So i got depressed and quit :P bahahaha mayhaps ill try again later

EvilestTwin · July 2012

Originally posted by SaintGraye 1. Classic tab-targeting gameplay. Again, this is subjective, but after years of playing such, I find myself in the camp who yearn for a more action-oriented approach (a la TERA, Guild Wars 2, RaiderZ, et al), less select target, click 1-2-3, repeat.

I'd say Aion probably has one of the more advanced tab targetting combat systems. There are just so many 'fighting game'-esque tricks involved in end game combat that it feels fairly actiony even though it is still a tabbed based game.

There's all sorts of animation cancels that are essential for end game play (especially pvp), like weaving (auto attack animation cancelling), jump shotting, jump casting, jump weaving, etc. Combined with the extreme speeds at which characters attack and move end game it actually feels almost like it's not a tab based game.

Karteli · July 2012

Originally posted by Belarion
Prolly just my shite computer or ISP but I started downloading Aion and it said some crazy amount of time. So i got depressed and quit :P bahahaha mayhaps ill try again later

You can close the launcher during the download and next time you open it back up to download the game, it will pick up where you left off, as a suggestion, if you can't leave your computer on for long periods, like overnight.

Sovrath · July 2012

Originally posted by SaintGraye

2. Grind. Aion is, effectively, a spiritual successor to Lineage II, one of the mother-of-all Korean grindfests, and ably represents the genre.

That's not even remotely true.

Lineage 2 was about going into a field or dungeon, getting a group together (or solo) and killing mobs over and over again. And the levelign was such that it took a solid week of hardcore play to even get to level 20. Many people never got to level cap and at the higher levels it could take half a year or more to get a level.

Aion is a quest based game, has the same type of kill x of y quests that games like WoW and LOTRO have. On top of that, with hardcore play, I was abel to get to level 32 in two days. With a level cap of 50.

If anything, Aion is closer to games such as WoW and Lotro over actual korean grinders.

negativf4kk · July 2012

NA client is free. I think still ahead with version set up.

Eu version of free is limited access to chat no AH. 3.0 coming soon.

NA servers got friendlier people.

Great game.

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