Review of Aion from lv 50 Korean Player!

" So I'm an old MMORPG member who's been inactive for quite along time. Aside from that I've been playing Aion for the last 6months on the korean server (well, I am korean).

My impressions of the game so far is that it is unfortunately a WoW clone working its way into refining more and more each day.

The game does seem alittle unrefined compared to WoW, but considering the years WoW has gone retail and has had like 100,000x times of patches to amerliorate the game, Aion is pretty much going through the same process.

There are alot of bashers of the game, because once again unfortunately, more than 90% of the bashers are WoW carebears. Ironic to this fact is also that alot of the bashers themselves have been playing Aion eventhough they say they hate it -_-;; (wdf? korean people are weird...or I just don't understand my country and its people)

People in EU/NA already have this perception the game is a grindfest, but that is a half-retarded assumption only 'fanbois' of other games can make. Let's make one thing clear, until a recent patch, there was even a way to grind your way to lvl40 in a single day ( of course, this was patched not too long ago).

The korean version of Aion seems like it's almost a rip-off because we have to pay to play such an unrefined game full of glitches and bugs, that only the few find and take advantage of before being reported and patched. Fortunately for you guys in NA, it will be alot different. Rumor has it, all the koreans think NCsoft is taking the koreans like test subjects to make profit and refine the game for foreign launches. (I get this impression alot nowadays).

The game does not start at lvl25. I guess for the early birds, sure it can start at 25. But those will be the ones who start from day 1 of open beta. The problem with the Abyss is that, once there are established players (lvl50s) new players going to the Abyss starting from lvl25 will have a hard time trying to do quests that involve going to different places of the Abyss that is already a huge ass map in itself.

They implemented the Abyss to spread the Mission Quests and Side Quests that you can do to lvl up, and at the same time involve every player in a never ending open PvP arena basically. Fields of both Elyoss and Asmodian sides are basically open to PvP as well, but portals are only open every 2 hours, and sometimes random depending on which portals on which parts of the maps. Raids through portals are about the most brilliant thing in this game in my opinion, and it is very fun and thrilling.

Overall there are three important aspects to the game. Those three are crafting, PvPing, and raiding for boss monsters.

Leveing up cratfing skills is a tedious process, but there is a merit in becoming a mastercraftsman. One thing the game prevents is having a single character become a master craftsman in every category. You are only allowed to become one mastercraftsman in whichever category you choose. Weapon crafting for example is a big gamble. If you successfully have a critical while crafting you can create something of very big value, but if you are unsuccessful at what you decide to craft, it can really hurt your economy. Alchemy on the other hand is a very profitable skill that brings in stable income. Whatever you decide to do, it's all discretionary to the player.

PvPing in this game is also in some aspects a big gamble. PvP in abyss has its benefit, but players are not enforced to PvP in the abyss. Usually, players live and die by PvP in the end game. Legions will gather and fight for forts in the abyss, and in the same process any player is welcomed to join players of other legions and fight against the opposing race. Taking down forts will allow you to gather silver and gold medals required to purchase Abyss gears, which are the best PvP gears you can acquire in the game (upper PvP gears have bonus % to attack and defense when PvPing). Having alot of abyss points also make you a target for the players of the other race either because they do not want you to gather more abyss points, or they can acquire more abyss points by killing you.

The combat system is very different from WoW, you aren't constantly required to move around to get side and back bonuses. There are back hit bonuses for certain classes such as Assassins and their skills. Melee classes can take advantage of motion cancelling to chain skills faster, and in some cases do more dmg from behind an enemy. For example, archers using the right timing to jump cancel skill motions can do more skill attacks faster than just standing and running around while attacking. At first people were reporting this as a glitch in the game, but since NCsoft has claimed it is part of the combat system that players with better keyboard control can take advantage of. Only times when moving control would be effective is when you have weapons that stretch. If you use any skills that trap an enemy, you can run around from a distance to attack for back hit bounses and avoid attacks from the enemy because of reach. It is similar to Mage classes using mes to trap an opponent and attack from afar. They say moving attack is mostly useless because attacks auto-track anyways. But good players take advantage of moving attack given the situation. Micromanagement and tactics become very handy for the veteran players, and it is what separates the skilled and new players, as in any game. For mage classes PvP is totally different but similar to any game in that there are tons are counter skills and different mes skills for certain situations. A very good mage can be one annoying ass to deal with.

Stigmas are interesting in that you can equip and unequip them, but it's not anything new. Only thing new about them is that you can acquire certain abyss stigmas with large abyss points. These abyss stigmas...are really good, however require extreme dedication from hard-core players.

Boss Raids in open field is similar to what Everquest used to be. There are campers, especially of bigger and stronger legions waiting for Boss spawns. Although they camp, fighting the boss mobs are not limited to abusers. Sometimes different legions will gather for epic bosses and duke it out against each other.(most legions let random high level players into their party or force, noone's really left out unlike Lineage series, in which half those alliances were asses) Whichever party or force does most dmg gets the rights to loot. One boss monster Menotios? (i have no clue what it's called in english) which spanws in the very core of the Abyss is open to both races, and becomes a very intense battleground for raiding and PvPing between the Asmodians and the Elyoss.

Otherwise there are instant dungeons as well. At this point there aren't many instant dungeons compared to the likes of WoW, but with each new update NCsoft is adding different instant dungeons with different gear drops and related dungeon quests.



The game overall is unrefined at this point, but with each new update it is becoming more and more promising. Although NCsoft fails miserably when meeting customer satisfaction, only reason more and more korean players are still and will play Aion is because they are waiting for better news with each update. (It's partly why I still play...)

It took me two months to reach lvl50 with a casual play time of maybe 2-4 hours a day. Of course, there were days when i played more than 8 hours, but as many days not playing at all.

People bashing about the grind is basically a misconception and probably an animosity they still have for NCsoft from the Lineage series.

I will admit, there are certain points in the game when you run out of quests and are forced to grind out killing the same monsters over and over again. But like I said, with each update more quests, more stuff to do, and patches to what needs be fixed.

I particularly didn't have too fun of time lvling in between 30 to 40, but heck...every game has its flaws...and Aion doesn't have as many as most of the other MMOs.

The 6 months I played this game and still continue to do so, I don't regret. Only, they (NCsoft) could have made things better if they consistently listen to the gamers' requests. They have been taking care of the botters (which are mostly chinese gold farmers) and eliminated over 100k accounts. But these chinese gold farmers...they're like pests....they just keep making new accounts and appearing not too long after. I don't know if there is anything NCsoft can do about this, since it really is up to the discretion of the gamers to decide for themselves if they want to enjoy a game honestly.

When NA players think of bots they mostly think it's a program or script that runs within the computer hard disk and should be regulated through a hack shield. Honestly it's not simple like that. There are numerous sites that sell little USB cards with scripts on them that bypass hackshields. Just as NCsoft updates its hackshields, so do the programmers that create these little USB cards with auto-bot programming.



All in all, I can't say you will love it...because you will hate it when you get backstabbed by assholes that cloack and run around hiding in the fields...or just the fact that certain fields are just infested with bots...even not long after 70k accounts were just banned....But hey, the game does have its merit. And it certainly has a character customization that is beyond anything out in the market. Did I mention? Character customization even got better with more option with the 1.1 update couple months ago...

Hey, they're (NCsoft) trying...which was definitely not NCsoft's forte. "