My thoughts on Aion 2 Months Later and Aion’s Future

It is now roughly two months after Aion’s release in North America.  For me, Aion wasn’t a major launch.  It was a game that came out of left field after being nothing more than a name until just a couple months before launch.  As such, my expectations for the game were little more than it being something new, exciting, and hopefully traditional with content capable of sustaining me until SWTOR (In other words, year+).  I beta tested the game, or rather I played their marketing version, and got Aion on launch day.  I posted my impressions of the very early game and want to give you my perspective on the game now after two months.  I’m going to focus on the biggest issue and not focus on details like the crafting being boring or bots being everywhere and stuff like that.  I’m a big picture kind of guy and why worry about the details when there are bigger problems, right?  Right.

Aion has a lot of grinding.  This is its greatest downfall for me and the MMOG community.  People are intolerant of grinding and will stay away from a game as though it were a contagious plague if the grinding is not masked.  That’s Aion’s problem:  It does not mask its grinding.  Whether its disguised as a questing treadmill, dungeon camping, dungeon crawling, difficult lengthy encounters that require thought and tactics, or loot pinatas ultimately doesn’t matter as long as you’re not expecting the person to simply kill dozens of mobs in quick succession knowing full well that they’ll have to invest dozens of hours to see progress.  After all, that’s why we do these things — for progress.

Aion’s content in the mid-level range is horrid.  I was faced with an insurmountable hurdle of grinding and investing time doing awful runs through the same dungeon for no reward other than a scrap of bread’s worth of exp.  To put it plainly, leveling in this range feels like I am starving to death and that the only thing keeping me alive is that one grain of rice.  Content and progression shouldn’t feel like an ascetic lifestyle.

There is simply a lack of reward where I am at in the game.  I don’t have loot to look forward to, I don’t have exp, new special abilities, places to go, content to see, or anything realistic and obtainable to latch onto except for the hope of a better future after the suffering.   This better future comes, from what I’m told, in “newer” content that was patched into the game.  I can absolutely believe this.  Why?  Because the content (Training Grounds) is newer.  Apparently the newer the content, the better.  But why push that all to the late 30’s and 40’s?  I’ll be honest, if your game isn’t fun to me right now — or I can’t see the fun coming very soon or even see how long it’ll take me to get to it — then I’m not going to play.  Might sound picky, but I’m far less picky than most and you know it.

Aion suffers from late game syndrome.  You can’t PvP until the late game (don’t tell me you can or I’ll tell you to go PvP at level 30 and report your success).  You can’t do many of the things that represent Aion as a complete experience until the late game.  What does it need to do to correct this problem?  Introduce more content. It’s as simple as that.  Give me more dungeons 30-35.  Give me more quests.  Give me more rewards.  Let it take just as long if you’re really that set on keeping it a steep curve, but give me something to do to take my mind off of it.

Let me turn your attention to Aion’s future now with this video.

Highlights:

* Swimming added
* New underwater zones, cities, dungeons (and even more zones)
* More Quests (+ Questing revamp)
* New Classes (According to Korean forums and translations)
* New Skills for existing classes
* Revamped Combat (More action oriented)
* Improved graphics and animations (DX10)
* Dynamic weather effects
* Customizable player housing
* Animals you can tame and use as riding mounts (some mounts can carry 2 players)
* Mounted combat
* New weapons (whip & crossbow)
* Revamped Sieges
~*And More coming as the translations finish*~

Epic, right?  That is content I want to play.  If I could be doing the stuff in that video then I would not even be writing on my blog because I would be engrossed in a glorious battle against some dragon or flying into battle with an enormous monolithic golem against the enemies homeland in a sieg … or even decorating my house.  But I can’t do those things.  I’m fighting the same spriggs I’ve fought for three levels and the fastest way to progress is to fight them for another three.  All that I have to look forward to when I log in is either killing mobs or waiting for an hour to find a group to a dungeon that takes 10 minutes that rewards me less than if I had killed spriggs.  I can’t tell you how tired I am of “KWIII!!!!”” KWIII!!!!”

The future of Aion, if it isn’t exaggerated in the video, looks epic in every sense of the definition.  But right now I have little incentive.  When/if this comes, it is my opinion that it needs to start sooner in a character’s life than later.  Don’t make me go through another 50 monotonous Fire Temple runs or kill any more worgs, basilisks, or spriggs to some how be worthy of flying alongside dragons and doing the stuff in that video.  No matter how amazing that content is, it can never justify having to put up with crap on the way.  I am a firm believer in making entire games that fun while still maintaining the natural flow of starting low and building yourself up to greatness; this is where Aion gets a failing grade in an overall above average game.

Although Star Trek Online is slated for February, Aion will still maintain itself as the only “newest” AAA title of the traditional type for many more months before the next title capable of destroying it comes along.  If Aion can implement what we see in the video and make that type of gameplay and experience universal, then it has nothing to fear and will be an amazing game.

Tags: , , ,

  • The summoning creatures and mounts looked freak’n awesome. And how about that charming the characters?

    Player housing may suck if they get destroyed during battles though. I wonder if they will have safe area’s that cost more?

  • As the poster above me said, the game in the trailer bears no resemblence to Aion besides pretty graphics and wings.

    The only way they could get the Aion we have now to play like the Aion in that trailer would be nothing short of a complete overhaul, which I can’t imagine them doing.

    My fear is that they will just patch all this new content, swimming, player housing, and some kind of instanced siege encounter, on top of all the old content, which would be an absolute fail IMO.

  • @MrBones: I think that’s where the “Combat revamp” and new combat animations and graphics come in, as well as the change to the sieges, mob AI, and content. Essentially you are correct, this requires a massive overhaul. That’s why I believe it’s either exaggerated in the video or simply not going to come true. I can hope though.

  • Boy that does look like an entirely new game. As has been said, I couldnt imagine them doing such an extreme overhaul on a new game. But boy if it did look and play like that, I’d be resubscribing in a heartbeat!

  • This actually to me, seems like a major overhaul. I never would have thought that anything this game did would make me give it a 2nd chance, but they have accomplished that.

    Looks awesome. Reminds me of Blade and Soul, which is the only Asian type of MMO being developed that I’m itching to play.

    I won’t resub until this patch goes live, and lets hope that alot of the footage is not just end game content I have to grind to get to, or I’ll stay away.

    Excellent video! Funny thing is I skipped over this on Massively since I saw “Aion” in the title. Your blog made me curious enough to watch 🙂

  • According to my guild leader, she thinks it will either start coming out in patches by this summer or be out totally by this summer and for free.

  • Be wary of their marketing.

    I see nothing in that video that would help me have a more enjoyable leveling time.

    Everything that i already liked in Aion only seems to get better. i.e graphics, effects, combat.

    But i fear that the grinding and the money pits will never go away.

    They really need to revamp the quests and rewards.

    The video is very nice, the game wont be more fun. It will take a lot of convincing to get me to resubscribe.

    Got my eyes on Star Trek online, till then, more Lotro !

    ~Higgr

  • Well said Keen. I feel the same way about the current state of the game. The grind killed me and I quit at lvl 30. The content that is there is frustrating and just not fun. (ice claw zone, fire temple etc) These new changes dont address my issues therefore I will not be going back.

    These changes are a lot more candy without removing the cavities.

  • When I can level as fast as my friends and their AOE grind groups on mobs with my cooking, I will resub. Until then, solo play in an asian grindhouse, ehhh not so much for me. REALLY enjoyed Allods so far. Feels like vanilla WoW, which I miss thoroughly; I can only hope that it continues to improve with time.

  • I cant believe people are upset about the grind when theier only level 30. I mean a level takes under 6hrs at that stages its like a walk in the park. Try 20hrs+ lol :P. I dont really agree that you should be able to quest your way to 50, guess im not really up with this new age of hear is everything to get this level no go do it.

    As for the no pvp till 30 , thats just inaccurate . You can rift and gank in the lower abyss before 30. U can start rifting at 20 and ganking at 25 in Lower abyss. Yes ur on the lower end and u will have to gank in a small group due to you being so far behind the leveling curve , but its still very enjoyable to group gank.

    But i guess some people just cant grind at all lol. But yea if your lvl 30 and ur upset about a small 6hr grind you should def quit the game as thats about a 1/3rd of wats required in the 40’s.

  • Afread i got to 40 and well. God aion looks nice but its just so boring all we do is grind grind grind… Otherwise we craft / grind crafting … woot…. or we could… grind gold to buy overly priced items that were grinded by gold spammers selling and raising prices on basic items so you need to grind even more… or pay them to grind for you… >_> grind grind grind…

    The video looks…. soooo wonderful I want to play that game… But really. what dose that mean? 3 months after the game comes out NC soft wants to revamp it?

    Im slightly confused sense NC soft has done NOTHING to improve the US side of Aion as if they think its better that they let the game fail and shut down the servers coming out with a profit telling everyone “sorry try again next time”

    I mean what happened to the US GM team they were supose to hire to deal with the bots and spammers and so forth months AGO!?

    Personally i got so frustrated me and my girlfriend left Aion and reactivated are Lord of the rings accounts that we never really gave a “full” try. Then this video comes out and a kick myself…

    But reading past the video one thing hit me… if i log in to aion its more and more grinding and that video is just… a dream… dosent exist and even if it did come out in korea how long would it take before we see it? 1, 2 or 3+ months? Maybe a year before korea servers have it then another 6 months before the US see it?

    By then i hope and pray to the sith lords to be neck deep in bioware jedi and sith lightsabers ~prays to the old republic gods~

    sorry for my ranting but… its late that aion brings out the rant in me >_>

  • The game is designed as a grinder, bottom line. I fooled myself into thinking that all of the PR bullshit that was handed out before the game was launched was in fact true.

    IMO, the game wasn’t ready for launch in NA. Why it wasn’t, of that I’m not so sure. Somewhere between the PR machine and the Korean dev team, the reality of the situation was lost.

    AION is, at best, a Korean grinder with some additional repeatables and a few more quests thrown in for the NA market. That’s all it is. Anyone telling you otherwise is pulling your chain. That video? Looks wonderful. However, the “vision” that is shown there is nothing like the present iteration of the game. Based on NCSoft’s failure to deal with botters, CSR issues, RMTs, fortress crashing, mass PvP crashing and alike, why should I trust them to implement any vision other than continuing on with their presently shitty game.

    In a world before games like Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, etc, I might be more forgiving. However, the truth is after the colossal failure that was 2008 and now, 2009, I would say we are all more gun shy and critical.

    (Flame suit on)

    At the end of the day to be successful in the NA -EU market you need :

    1. A western developer
    2. A publisher that’s willing to take the game the distance from concept to development, and give the developers time and $$ to bring their idea to fruition
    3. A Project manager/Managing Director that understands what a western MMO is supposed to look like, feel like, and be, and put together timelines that are realistic and achieveable.
    4. Robust CSR support after launch from GMs to billing.
    5. Boatloads of cash.

    That’s the reality. AION had some of this, and some they didn’t. Unfortunately, that’s my benchmark at this point. If a game doesn’t meet these prerequisites, then, 99 times out of 100 it’s going to be a turd.

    I’m sorry, but that’s just the reality.

  • The video is sick. Could get me to go back into Aion, just for the eye candy and the comfortable lull of the grind. I’m not convinced the things we see are far off. With the right game engine…. Was that really all movie animation, not in-game footage?

    @higgr You may be right. The grind may still be there at the time the new features are added.

    @elipsa They did just ban 16,000 accounts. Got to give them some props for that.

    I’m enjoying Fallen Earth, but it is a gloomy world to log in to. Aion (and/or Allods Online) may be a good “other” game to go to for colorful fantasy.

  • I dont get why ppl mind grinding. As Keen says Quests for just grinding with a mask on it. Kill ten of those? Sure, but I dont need a quest to do that. But I guess it could be more fun if you read the quests, which most ppl dont do.
    And beside, its at the max lvl I spend 95% of the time I play a game. And quests does not matter at max lvl, PvP and instances do.

    But I agree that it sux that in EU (where I am) we dont have any GM’s. So when its dau in the EU (and night in NA) we cant contact any1. And when the servers are down its allways in primetime.
    I’ve been in Fort fights, but they have never crashed on me. In fact the game have never crashed. Once I was stuck, could not use return and a GM had to remove me. Took two hours, which sux.

    Bots was a problem, but they just banned 16k accounts. And I belive thats the major part of the bots.

    I like that money matters in the game. It makes a good economy. But it would be better without the bots ofcourse

  • That has to be the best marketing video for an mmo I have ever seen. Truly amazing. Yeah it didn’t actually address any of the core problems of the game… but damn what a video 🙂

    The game stll blows and in all likelyhood will continue to blow for the foreseeable future. Hopefully I’m wrong.

  • I am one of the few who, against all odds and grinding, was still going to play Aion. I had decided long before launch that Aion is my last attempt at rekindling my MMO gaming hobby… I was fed up to the absolute limit with the cash-cow milking treadmill sell-out game known as WoW, and I didn’t see anything else reasonable on the horizon to bring me back to gaming if Aion failed.

    Well, despite all the hurdles and painful grinding… I still think Aion is a good game. Unlike WAR where the ultimate endgame experience itself was majorly flawed and simply not fun… Aion is fun at max level, it is just such a pain getting there. That I can deal with since once you put the idea of leveling out of your mind the process stops being painful.

    That said… once I saw this trailer I was floored. NCsoft is not messing around anymore… they are putting all their chips on the table and reaching for the sky. This is what people want and they are trying to give it to them.

    My only concern is the ongoing performance issues people have been having and how all this monstrous new action will run on an better-than-average machine (such as the one I use). I cannot run through a crowded city or engage in a fortress siege as it stands now without crumbling to 10-20 FPS or worse. The memory leaks need a massive patch and the performance needs an improvement before they try to take a bigger dump on my video card.

  • Each level is an accomplishment, and there is quite a few things variety wise that one can do to help contribute to getting there.

    This trailer is amazing. They aren’t slacking off and they definitely are trying to give us more 🙂 And if rumors are right, for free. Win-win.

  • I’ll bet that those houses will cost roughly 6 trillion kinah to make/obtain. This game is a massive time, money and energy sink.

  • “Aion has a lot of grinding. This is its greatest downfall for me ”

    Wait, what? Wasn’t this the big draw for the game in the first place Keen? You wanted a grinder, amrite? You wanted everquest?

  • Is it a possibility that you simply do not like MMOs anymore? Right? All that you are looking to get are simply not possible to do in an MMO.

    Progress has to be slow otherwise everyone is max level in no time. There have to be time sinks otherwise no content can last for more than a month or so.

    Going at it slow, measured pace, socializing, hanging out, trying out different things – that’s what it is about.

    MMOs should be about the journey not the end level. There is a time when someone gets burned out on all MMOS, the entire formula, and there is no magical gameplay that replaces that.

  • Grinding is the most used way to increase your XP in every game, it’s true. So it could appear that Aion’s endless grind is nothing different from any other game. But…
    Yes there is a HUGE “BUT”….
    I just went back to Lotro, I left a lvl40 guardian at the end of September to play Aion (where I levelled a chanter (32), a templar (23) a gladiator (21) and an assassin (19)).
    Well, yes, Lotro quests are for most part the “kill X mobs, then kill Y mobs” kind, but they give you a story, you follow some kind of plot and between two grinding quests you may have one or two quests that will make you feel like you were part of that story. So it’s not just “Go and kill 50 of those, and 40 of that…” like it’s in Aion.
    In Lotro you may have to chase Gollum, you may have to help a fisherman to get his fishes, you may have to meet some old-time hero who needs your help, and all of these things make the game more enjoyable, and the grinding a LOT less boring.

  • I dunno but I think that the sun has set on the AAA grind game. It started setting with Vanilla WoW launching with massive numbers of kill x quests. I would take them to a flat out straight up grind any day.

    Yes its a disguise but its a disguise that works. I’d much rather kill ten, move on to the next quest kill 12 move on to the next area.

    Lotro (Much as I dislike what the game dose to the lore) is a good example of a game with a continious story to it.

    Wrath of the Litch king I personally think really hits the spot with questing. I find infiltrating an enemy stronghold and gaining their trust while secretly sabotaging their efforts to be extremely fun when compared to killing generic mob 1235 for 8 hours to get XP.

    One mans opinion but I think that anyone who launches an AAA title in North America that has an undisguised grindy timesink like Aion is setting themselves up for fail.

  • As I said, grinding is okay. I like grinding. However, grinding is not a black or white issue. There isn’t a switch you can flip to make it a grind or not a grind or to say all grinding is fun or all grinding is bad. There are, however, methods of making grinding fun (and the opposite). EQ grinding was fun. DAOC grinding was fun. Darkfall grinding was not. Aion grinding is not.

    Those are just examples of games with straight up mob killing.

    Games that mask the grind can be fun to grind. WoW’s grind is fun. The questing in WoW is a great disguise and it is, for the most part, fun. LOTRO is the same way.

    The biggest lure for me to Aion was the hope that it could be a return to mob killing to level. 15-20 in Aion was perfect. The first elite area was not only fun and rewarding, but it was a group grind. The feeling there was not reproduced in the 29-34 range. The dungeon from 25-30 was fun. The dungeon from 30-35 is not. I touched on this already.

    So, either disguise your grinding until we don’t recognize it, or make it rewarding and fun. Yes, there is fun grinding.

  • I agree with keen that some grinding can be fun but one reason aion made grinding even more grindy was the 1 / 100 times you can kill 10 of monster A and 12 of Monster B.

    How is that not a message saying “its a grindy grindy world”

    Personally myself though i would trade in all the grinding for really slow leveling and quests that can pull you in, inspire your imagination and if all else fails atleast inspire role playing (oooo the evil RP’ers!) mwhahahah

    And to anyone that says give props to NCsoft to banning so and so accounts. If anyone has noticed one difference in the ammount of bots or vendors sitting outside of the bank saying go to “so or so site to buy money” then i will be suprised.

    There was no drop on my server we still have about 10 people selling websites and grinding bots everywhere.

  • On a side note as well… Those gold spamming / sellers dont even bother me much. Its those bots that run around for 20 levels killing quest monsters as gladiators and enchanters. They really Piss me off sooooo much. Makes all the work i did on my char seem worthless if i could have made a galdiator and got her to level 40 and not even BEEN there!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    I bet NONE of them got banned

  • Sounds fun… but it’s not enough to draw me back into Aion. The grind put me right off and I have no intention of getting back into it. I’m far too jaded of it now.

    I’m going to hold out for STO, SWTOR and Cataclysm next year. I may even dabble with LotRO before then.

  • Great video, horrible game. The PR people have been doing a great job at fooling people into thinking their game is good. When you actually play the game until 40 and realize its a horrible waste of grinding elites over and over, you start to think otherwise.

    Heck the biggest kicker for me was the crashing in the Abyss, the main reason I decided to play the game. Once I saw that, I was done. My sentiments are with what Crackbone said, this game is a definitely a passer if you haven’t tried it yet. I would hold out for SWTOR which should come out around the same time as this patch/expansion.

  • Two months after release I feel as if the game itself is solid enough that if the gameplay (content, leveling, etc) was fun it would be great. So many games fail to get the basics right … this one got everything right except the content. We need the game to play like the video.

  • Hmmm a very pretty video but I remain….unconvinced. I can’t shake the feeling that some of what’s showcased here will be simply background, graphical fluff or accessible only to a very tiny minority. The majority will be stuck chasing Sparkies/Sparkles with oversized insect-swatters.

    At the core it will remain a soul-destroying grinder (now with underwater grinding!) with annoying Asian proclivities.

    NC is running with “Never-ending Challenge”? I’ll go with “No Content”.

    P.S. Yes I am still bitter about my Aion experiment.

  • I think your time would be better spent getting back into lotro

    Maybe try one of the newer classes warden/runekeeper.

    I just picked it back up and im having a blast.

  • I cant wait tell the lotr expantion commming out… Seems interesting making your own custmizable groups and running them through dungeons that are randomized. Plus all the extra new content.

  • I quit Aion not because I didn’t like it, but because I lacked the time to be competitive in it. If I can’t play to win, I’d rather not play than be some random mig-mug.

    For you guys crying over RMT, bots and crashes:
    -RMT in Aion is no more. It has been eradicated.
    -Bots are still there, but they’re banning them in massive numbers. Am unsure if it’ll help though.
    -Crashing in Abyss and Fort sieges is also no more. It has been fixed a couple weeks ago.

    @Keen: I like your blog, I really do. BUT, what I don’t like so much about you and other gaming bloggers, reviewers etc. is that you judge a game before you hit the level cap. As someone else commented a couple articles ago, you’re just a game hopper that never does anything significant in any MMO you play. Ever. Now, this doesn’t mean your opinion is invalid, but it is certainly far less significant than from, for example, someone who has hit level cap on many MMOs and accomplished things in it.

    People like you and, may I add, most of your readers don’t keep MMOs alive.
    People like you keep WoW at number 1.

    I am one of the people that thinks that accomplishing things in MMOs should be earned with dedication and not be handed out to every random mig-mug.

    Anyways…

  • You mean one should wait to comment on Aion till he gets to the cap level? Do you realize that this means one should PLAY a game without any fun for him for months and months, should suffer and get bored just to reach the top level and then…
    find out that there is no content yet anyway?
    Why should I force myself to PLAY (play, not work) a game I do not like? Are you trying to say that I can not decide if Aion is good or bad for me before reaching the top level?
    I play to relax, to have fun, to enjoy a couple of hours a day after 10-12 hours spent at work. If the game becomes a second job, I have the right to say it’s not good for me and leave it, even if I did not reach the endgame.
    Don’t you think?

  • @ Tenofas

    Go play Hearts. If you want a game to relax at lol. And yes to have any real understanding of the game you should play to MAX Level. Why ? Well thiers nothing worse then reading a rundown on a game that they havent even progressed 1/2 the way through and haven’t even enjoyed a majority of the content lol.

  • I really love when one replies with a “lol”.
    It shows the maturity of the writer.
    Thanks anyway for the effort.

  • @kolapz & Andrew: Nah, that’s silly. We don’t drive cars until they reach 100,000 miles before deciding if we like them. We don’t eat the entire plate of food before deciding whether we like it. We don’t drink an entire glass of a beverage before being able to say whether or not it’s any good. Reality is, we only need a little taste of anything before we can speak to it. You’ll notice I’m not commenting on the end-game. I’m commenting on the leveling gameplay — the gameplay in the 30’s that I currently experience and what came before it.

    Playing to the max level is not necessary in order to comment on the grind before horrible or the content while leveling being boring. It’s irrelevant to reach the max level.

  • @Kolapz

    Not even pro game reviews (those that are payed to review games) Reach top level in mmos when there reviews are published and respected. Heck some of them write reviews for mmos that are still in beta when they get press accounts so that there reviews can be out on the day of launch

    Your hole comments make little sense espehsly about crashing being fixed… might as well say windows runs perfectly for everyone and the blue screens of death is just a mass illusion >_>

    And on mass banning.. It hasnt helped one bit. Actly its incressed the number of Gold spammers infront of the bank and bots on my server so i have NO freaking idea where NC soft gets these massed numbers of banned people. Deffently not from MY server

    But in the end. A good mmo is one that wants you to keep playing and playing and playing. Dosent matter if there are bad graphics or the controlls arnt 100% responsive. It keeps you interested and playing to the end and wanting even more after you see everything…

    To bad game companys mmos dont work for that anymore. I personally myself have not felt that way abotu a mmo sense Ultima Online. My thinking on that is becose the game wasnt about leveling your char to so and so level. It was more about exploration and creating your own little empire of gold, housing, weapon’s and those that are in to it, guild and RP

    Anyways…

  • I do not think you can compare a MMO with food or a car. I think it would be more fair to compare it with a book or a movie (which for me, is in the same catagory)
    And you watch the movie untill the end and read the book to the end before making any comments.
    But Keen is still kinda right. I play Aion quite a bit, and i’m “only” lvl 42. So if you had to reach max lvl it would take too long.
    The good thing in Aion, I hope, is that there is lots to do at Max lvl. It might not be as fun getting there, but to me that does not matter much, since most time is spend on max lvl anyway.
    I played a lot of games with broken or lacking end game. WoW had little to none end game when I reached max lvl. Warhammer had broken end game. COH/COV had little to none etc. At least Aion have fun pvp (mine has never crashed btw)
    instances and crafting.

  • I am going to agree with Keen’s viewpoints regarding Aion. To me, the game just isn’t fun. At first I thought it would be. Playing in the CBT’s wetted my gaming appetite and I purchased the Collector’s Edition Pre Order. (If I like something, I go all in.) But after the opening day debacle, Bots and Spammers, graphical issues that even NCSoft says they can’t fix and general lack of Game Play I find that my enjoyment for the game dropped. Severely.

    I am not a grinder. I hate to grind. Does that show lack of dedication? I think not. If I enjoy a game I will show it the dedication it deserves. To make me continuously farm the same item over and over and over again is a waste of time. Time better spent doing things with friends, guild, whatever. What turned me off to grinding, if it is an integral part of the game? EQ. 5 years of that sold me on playing a game for enjoyment. Anytime I have to play 6-8 hours a day just to be close to the curve is rediculous. That’s not fun, that’s work. I get paid to do work.

    IMHO Keen’s review of a game after only playing half way is valid. Just because he hasn’t reached end game doesn’t make it unjustified. If you consider that End Game is at most 10% of the entire game and the other 90% is getting there. For me, Keen has summed up Aion nicely.

  • 10% of the time is endgame?
    How can you spend 5 years in EQ and only 10% os that time at max lvl?

  • @ Keen.

    Sorry thier terrible analogy’s.

    The beverage will taste the same on the first sip and on the 20th sip.
    The same with the food.
    Ill give you the car tho.

    An MMO is a progression based game so its not as simple as having a small taste. Sorry but u needed to put in a better effort.

    @ Teno . Yea only immature people laugh.

  • @Andrew: Yet you still fail to grasp that I am talking about the here and now, not what is to come in the future.

    I do not care about the end-game, nor do I care about commenting on it, when I am talking about the leveling up game. What you’re doing is called displacement. Don’t make this about the end-game when it’s not.

    You can’t disagree with that since it’s not an opinion. I am now stating facts.

  • @Andrew
    Only immature people laugh at others’ comments during a mature debate. It’s not polite to replay with a “lol”, stating that what was said was “ridiculous”. That’s it.

    I was saying that for me the 1-2 hours I spend in front of my pc, on some evenings of the week (since I have a job, a baby girl, a wife and a dog), are meant to be a relaxing time.
    Aion did not give me any relaxing moment, since level 29-30, as it became a stressfull grind and a confrontation with dozen of bots. So if a game must become a second job for me, it’s not relaxing any more, and I will quit it.
    Lotro on the other hand is extremely relaxing for me, even if it’s based on the same idea basically.
    Now if you want to make fun of me because of this, please, go on, I don’t mind. Tell me to play Hearts if this makes your day. But really, I don’t think it’s a mature way to replay to someone’s opinion.
    No hard feelings, really. I would like just a little respect about my ideas and opinion. I thinks it’s my right!
    😉
    Thanks!

  • I’d grind out the levels 30-50 in a heartbeat if I thought there was something worthwhile at the end…so far…I haven’t seen anything there that justifies this. (there might be but I am not convinced there is tons of fun to be had for me!)

  • @ Teno / Keen

    Fair enough, Your right about Aion not exactly being a Relaxing game lol.

    (not a bad lol )

  • I quit Aion after trying to get expert Handicrafting and selling everything that I have gathered throughout the game. 24.7 million kina just to fail.

    I hit level 47 as a gladiator. Lystanrial on Zikel. Idid all the campaign quests, done everything except for dark poeta. I work during all fortress sieges, been apart of one.

    End game sucks. Plenty of other 50’s and high levels as myself have quit because of lack of FUN!

  • Frankly, the grinding and lack of serious rewards, versus the extremely high cost of everything is staggering. Plus, one also needs to invest serious time into this game- I’m terribly sorry, but those of us who actually work and have jobs/school, dont have time like the 12-14 yr old pilfering off thier parents and living at home…possibly completing thier homework and playing all night on Aion. The length and lack of rewards are intolerable-also having to do the rediculous soul healing and spending all you friggin got on it. AND THEN they tell you you shouldnt go buy gold and other stuff- these people are insane!! Plus, being kept from not going onto higher quests or not being allowed, is pathetic, as it then forces you back into the grinding stage, and total boredom.

  • that video was great to watch. if the game ever does end up like the vedio ill buy 2 copys of the game and a new computer so that my girl could play it with me