@ Aion players - the longevity of this game

[xCxStylex]

It seems that recently, there have been a lot less players in the game since two-three weeks after launch. I don't play on one of the highest populated servers, Vaziel, but people have definitely thinned out whenever I go to Sanctum.

With the level grind the way it is, I think a lot of people quit because they didn't realize how Korean/Asian mmos are like A lot of the superficial (lol level 10) reviews compared it to wow, and while a ton of the classes/spells are like WoW, the game is really nothing like it.

Also, I heard of rumors ingame that a lot of people were banned for talking to gold farmers. Likely, they bought gold or were botting.

Finally, with the excessive botting and sheer amount of gold farmers might be a turn off for a lot of people. It sure is for me, but then again, I never anticipated playing Aion for over a year anyway. Most people are playing it as an "in between," waiting for FFXIV, Star Wars, Star Trek, or whatever.

Right now, my chanter is 44.5 chanter :/

Any other opinions?

 

[Reckoner]

yeah, I quit when my first month was up. WoW spoiled me I guess; I just don't want to deal with an epic grindfest to max level. The lack of quests were a turnoff as well. Apparently they've worked on these things on the korean side in terms of a patch, so maybe I'll revisit the game when that arrives stateside.

DAoC was the last grindfest I told myself I'd endure. That was a special game...

 

[KIAman]

My co-workers and I are fine playing Aion. We all have 2 chars in the 30's range, one main and one off char. We understand the grind but are fine by it (typically, we are not grindish). I also notice the drop in the number of bots and spammers, which I think is great.

Considering we play only for PvP, we are slow levelers but I have a feeling we'll be playing this game for a while. If it weren't for the PvP, we'd already be cancelled by now.

BTW we are also on Vaizel as Aspplodians.

 

[Golgatha]

My co-workers and I are fine playing Aion. We all have 2 chars in the 30's range, one main and one off char. We understand the grind but are fine by it (typically, we are not grindish). I also notice the drop in the number of bots and spammers, which I think is great.

Considering we play only for PvP, we are slow levelers but I have a feeling we'll be playing this game for a while. If it weren't for the PvP, we'd already be cancelled by now.

BTW we are also on Vaizel as Aspplodians.

Man, bots and gold spam are all over Fregion. I don't see why a GM can't just come in-game and start banning crap. Especially the people who put up sign posts right by the teleport stations in Sanctum. It's absolutely ridiculous. Heck, I even see bots in the Abyss sometimes now. It's kinda fun to kill those for free AP though .

All that said, I can see myself playing for quite awhile. Don't know how long, but so far it's still fun and I'm grinding through level 32 ATM.

 

[Pepsei]

how do people write a bot already for a new game like thsi?

 

[imaheadcase]

The game is not new, its been out about a year in Korea.

I quit the game already, the bots and gold spam simply put killed the game. I hear that sentiment throughout the forums.

I kid you not, i can show you 100 bots right now on Azphel server. Plain as day easy to spot bots. They have no active GM's at all.

I never played WoW, because I don't play a single player game only online. But if they ever made a DAOC 2 i would be all over that, even if they made WoW into a pvp game from the ground up and not have pvp as a afterthought like they do now.

 

[Muad'Dib]

The people who quit will always be vocal, but I don't think the overall population has dropped much on Yustiel. There have definitely been people who quit because of the grind but NCSoft is still getting new subscribers and I think that ultimately having a longer, slower grind is going to be better for longevity in a game competing with WoW. AoC and WAR saw massive drop offs once everybody hit the level cap and grew bored and so I think the slower pace/open PvP in Aion is a good thing.

As far as personal experience goes, my legion is no smaller or larger than it was after the first week. The last couple of fort flips on the lower layer have had the largest turnout that I've seen from either side and now there are enough 40+ to start to take upper level forts as well which will definitely help provide alternate excitement.

 

[Scouzer]

I've been playing it very casually--I can't stand another grindy MMO. I'm only level 23 and I'm taking my sweet time. I essentially want to get to 25, do some Abyss, then quit. I don't see myself going past that, all I enjoy in these games is the PVP. I don't enjoy the grind at all. This will probably be my last MMO.

 

[novasatori]

We quit at the first month.

If they fix XP,we will return. Though I did see there is a patch coming, so we'll see.

 

[DangerAardvark]

how do people write a bot already for a new game like thsi?

They just modified the old bots that have been out for the Korean and Chinese versions.

I quit after the first month. No point playing unless you can roll with a good guild. Can't have anything nice without grouping. An MMO is only as good as its community and entirely too much of the community is comprised of goldsellers, gold-buyers, botters and elitist pricks.

 

[Gothgar]

They just modified the old bots that have been out for the Korean and Chinese versions.

I quit after the first month. No point playing unless you can roll with a good guild. Can't have anything nice without grouping. An MMO is only as good as its community and entirely too much of the community is comprised of goldsellers, gold-buyers, botters and elitist pricks.

So glad I never jumped on this....

Shit, I felt the grind on the open beta weekend when I got to level 15ish

 

[brandonb]

Out of the 25 or so players who started with our Legion (Guild), only about 3 are active to this date, the other's havent logged in for atleast 10 days. That is not a good sign.

However, I did have a blast last night, I went to the abyss and asmodians were coming in force to take over a fortress (about 100 players), and us Elysios went to defend. We got our ass handed to us (maybe 30 of us), however, we camped the area between their main force and the enterance location and we were killing the stragglers and those who died and were coming back, we handed their ass to them, but then when they finished conquering the fortress the other 70 came back from behind us and wiped us out, then we had a good little battle in the starting area for another hour or so.

All in all, as a lvl 26 cleric, I raked up 26 kills (and took maybe 5 deaths in the process)... We had fun.

The PVE is horrible in the game, but the PVP is fun. But I have a feeling it feels a bit like planet side in the PVP setup. Bases which can be conquered with raids, but it doesn't really mean "much" so in the end, the PVP will become useless and the PVE isn't strong enough, and the game will die a slow death in the end.

 

[VashHT]

As someone else said I haven't seen the population drop much. Most people are in their 30s or 40s now so the lower places seems somewhat empty (still plenty of people rolling alts though). My legion is still really active and I haven't had a lot of trouble finding groups outside my legion. I can definitely see a pretty good chunk of people playing this for a long time, so if you do decide to stay with it other people will be playing it for sure.

That said I have been playing pretty casually and I have a templar at 31 and a ranger at 27. I'm pretty slow at leveling too so imo this game isn't really that hard to level in. The quests are kind of slow between 20-25 but once you hit 25 it opens you up to a lot more things you can do and then it's not so bad.

Anyway the big 1.5.1 patch is supposed to be out in November, they are still testing it but they said they want to release it in November sometime. They've released the notes and its supposed to increase xp from quests in the lvl 20-50 range, so that should make things easier to level.

 

[ViviTheMage]

how do people write a bot already for a new game like thsi?

vb is the most common....to simulate mouse clicks.

 

[Genx87]

Heh glad I never got into this game. The grind sounds insane.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Heh glad I never got into this game. The grind sounds insane.

It's a very casual grind compared to a hardcore grind MMO, but Aion definitely requires some good old fashioned monster killing that will frustrate people who are used to zerging between waypoints as quickly as possible to level. It also has a much less linear quest hub path than most games, which means it's easy for people to run out of quests in a certain town and then not know where to go for more quests.

While both of those are good reasons to stay away if they sound irritating, they serve to encourage players to explore rather than follow waypoints and I've had a lot of fun "grinding" by simply killing monsters as I work my way through an area rather than killing monsters in the same spot over and over. There's also more excitement to this if you do it in the Abyss (25+) because it's an open PvP area.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Coming from my first MMO (Asheron's Call), which was a grindfest compared to what WoW has turned out to be, Aion just isn't for me in its current state. It's not the grinding that gets me, it's the lack of places to go and (fun) things to do (grinding rep, killing the same boss for the 10th time, or PvPing in the same area over and over is not fun). Pretty much the same reason I quit WoW.

Even at level 19 I feel like there's only one specific place I'm "supposed" to be, and really not much else to see until I level up some more. Sure, there's they Abyss at 25, but I really don't feel like spending my entire play time in one area.

Give me an open, seamless world that allows me to go wherever I want whenever I please. Then, randomly populate it with various things to see, monsters to kill, and treasures to discover, so an area is never quite the same twice. Tie that all together with a loot system that gives even regular monsters a decent chance of dropping something powerful and I'll gladly pay $15 a month.

 

[NinjaCat]

hm i do agree that that there isn't enough places to go explore. Like there's places that get you to 50, but then that's really it. There's a specific place you need to be whatever level you are. The Abyss is cool at first, but then it's not really that big. Only exploring i found was me being an elyos, going through a rift and into asmo lands, their areas are actually very nice looking compared to our uninspiring areas we have. Like it's pretty much once you get to 50, you pretty much have seen everything.

 

[brandonb]

Scratch one more from my legion, the only people left are me and my girlfriend, and both of decided to not buy Aion at release because we feared another AoC (mass abandonment) but the rest of our legion (real life friends and coworkers) talked about how this is the next big thing so we bought it anyways because we knew a dozen or more people playing... All of them quit just about at the time their first month expired, most went back to WoW.

I think the game is no good, it's another MMORPG designed around a FPS engine, and its limitations show because of it. Small maps, you have to teleport between lands so it's not seamless but instead little confined worlds that link together, you can do a lap around each of the land masses within 5 minutes and there's 4 of them on each side. The game is very linear, you go there at this lvl, you go there at that lvl because of it.

I was going to stick it out anyways because of the social element that we knew so many going into this game, and now I'm the last man standing. I'm sick of changing MMORPGS. Asheron's Call and EQ where the games I've enjoyed most, and honestly I think I'm going to quit MMORPGS after Aion. I'm not sure I will last in Aion, I will have to make friends and join another Legion and see how it goes.

 

[DangerAardvark]

I was watching an oldschool Rogue PVP video from WOW yesterday and it struck me how smooth the PVP experience was compared to Aion. In WOW I experienced none of the latency issues like rubberbanding, out of range messages and abilities not activating despite having a similar latency. My Aion PVP experience was plagued with silly shit like this, while WOW PVP incorporated positioning and tactical decision-making more simply because the client was more responsive and I didn't have to stand still to do combos and half my abilities weren't useless if my target moved 5 feet to the left.

 

[JACKDRUID]

I simply ran out of quests to do... at level 21...
I'm fortunate with nice gears, able to grind to level by killing level 25s...however, its still a very slow grind.

mineral grinding is awful... tons of quests asks you to extract something requiring high extraction skills. In order to up extraction skills, you had to teleport to the previous map and spend tons of hours just to level up that skill.

I don't see myself playing it after the initial month.

 

[VashHT]

What they really should have done is waited until 1.5.1 was out and rdy to release it here. That should clear up the few spots where you need to grind early on. I had to grind 2 bars out at 21 as well and also at 24 i had to grind out about a 1/4 of a level. Now at 28 on my ranger and 31 on my templar I have a full log of quests, it really expands a ton after 25.

The funny thing is people are willing to do quests that are basically grinding but they just can't stand to grind by their own will. I knew people in WoW that would grind to 60 because it was faster than questing, but of course more people quest even though a ton of quests for WoW are just kill 10 guys or collect 15 things by killing this guy and getting a measly xp reward.

 

[SunnyD]

Scratch one more from my legion, the only people left are me and my girlfriend, and both of decided to not buy Aion at release because we feared another AoC (mass abandonment) but the rest of our legion (real life friends and coworkers) talked about how this is the next big thing so we bought it anyways because we knew a dozen or more people playing... All of them quit just about at the time their first month expired, most went back to WoW.

See, I had a feeling this would be the typical response. It's the same reason no MMO has caught on since WoW, and it's also the same thing that happened with EQ when WoW initially came out. People are spoiled in WoW - they invested the time and are in social happiness over there. They play another MMO for a month, realize it's essentially the same thing with a new coat of paint, and they don't want to invest the time to get up to the level they feel they would be happy with when all they have to do is log into WoW and get that instant gratification back. It's sad really.

I play these games to explore new worlds, not to dick around on chat saying "So, you wanna go raid X for the eleventeenth time?" I know I'm not going to play forever. Same reason I don't play WoW anymore - I got bored given all MMO's lack any real endgame content to make it replayable.

 

[VashHT]

I have to agree with you Sunny, I'm sure there are some WoW players out there who would quit before cap if they had to level in the original(I'm talking before all of the leveling buffs that are in now). A lot of my friends continuously roll alts and the only reason they stick with it is because they can fuel their alt with amazing gear while they level. They just want to power level to the end game so they can start doing raids etc.

I have a question for some of the guys who think this game is a really bad grind, what other MMO's have you played before this? I just want to know because I don't find the grind in this that bad really, so I wonder if that's because of the games I've played in the past.

 

[Scouzer]

I have to agree with you Sunny, I'm sure there are some WoW players out there who would quit before cap if they had to level in the original(I'm talking before all of the leveling buffs that are in now). A lot of my friends continuously roll alts and the only reason they stick with it is because they can fuel their alt with amazing gear while they level. They just want to power level to the end game so they can start doing raids etc.

I have a question for some of the guys who think this game is a really bad grind, what other MMO's have you played before this? I just want to know because I don't find the grind in this that bad really, so I wonder if that's because of the games I've played in the past.

I have played:

Asheron's Call
Anarchy Online
World of Warcraft
Age of Conan
Everquest II
Vanguard
Star Wars Galaxies
Eve Online
Planetside
World War II Online

More I'm sure I'm forgetting. I find Aion the grindiest out of all those minus Asheron's Call.