I was looking to check out Gamestop's preorder info, when I stumbled across an interesting customer review with some startling information. Of course I won't base my purchase of the game entirely on it, but it has made me somewhat hesistant about preordering..

Not going to be what most people think.

www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductReviewList.aspx

By: A Customer Date: Saturday, Jun 27, 2009

Let me start off by saying that I have played the Chinese Beta and Official release as well as the North American Beta. I heard the hype, I was right there with it and I thought this game was it. After playing it from 1 to 50 that opinion was changed, however. The game is very smooth, it runs very well, has beautiful graphics and animations, as well as a very easy to use and clean HUD. Combat controls are also very easy to pickup and the combat is very fluid. Wings look cool and flying is very fun, and the main story quest chain is fairly interesting.

That, however, is about where the good points end.

Water kills you, period. If you can't stand up in it, you will die.

Also, flying is neat and all, but not when it is restricted to about 1/5 of the areas in the game, and you only have a 60 second to 2 minute fly time depending on what wings you have an what level you are. Leveling is very slow and very grindy. You can tell this was imported from an asian market. Almost every quest in the game is a go and kill, or a go and gather quest. There is never enough per level to get you to the next level anyway, after about level 20 you will be stuck grinding for the rest of the game.

It starts out easy and fast with lots of quests, but quickly turns into the same old grind your character level, then grind your resource gathering, then grind your crafting type game as Lineage 2 and various other Asian based MMORPG titles. The game is extremely linear. You will be in the same exact areas from start to finish no matter which character you make, doing the same exact quests. It's like an RPG on rails, you have no opions of where to go to level, it's basically one area per level set, and one area only.

Once you make one character and take it to max level, you will have seen the entire game. You won't even see new content if you reroll as the other race, much less just make a new class of the same race. Making it even worse is the fact that at level 25-30 everyone gets thrown into the Abyss, which is basically a giant Black Hole with lots of floaty rocks of resource nodes and mobs. Everyone, Elyos or Asmodian, is there from level 30-50 grinding and ganking or getting ganked. So basically there is half a game's worth of zones, which are the same zones for each race just with different textures (don't believe me? look at some side-by-side screenshots) and then at the halfway level mark everyone gets thrown into a giant void to kill, be killed, and farm resources.

  There is no such thing as PvP balance in this game, which is stupid considering it is supposed to be a PvP centric game. A few classes have the obvious advantage in every situation. If you are any other class and don't have a level advantage of at least 10, you will stand no chance. Certain classes can even take on groups of 5 or more other players, all 5-10 levels higher and still win. I'm not going to name these classes, in order to keep them from being abused any more than they already will be. Classes in general are also very limited. You get a choice between basically 8 classes, and that is where the choices end. Each class has a specific playstyle and this can't be changed. You unlock more skills to buy as you level, but every single person who plays that class gets the same exact skills. There are no feats, or talents, or attributes to spend to customize your character or make it unique. Every single Gladiator will be the exact same as every other Gladiator, the only difference between players is their gear, and depending on the gear that is a marginal difference at best. There is no endgame content. There are no instances, raids, guild cities, or citadel battles as of yet. They say they will add them, but I wouldn't count on that being any time soon. Basically the endgame content is grinding up your crafting level so you can have marginally better stats on your gloves than someone else, or farming lowbies in the Abyss for your PvP gear.

 All I can say is his information is wrong on one part.

There are raids and instances. They were added in 1.2 and 1.5. Other than that I don't have the knowledge to pick apart. I'm sure others can find faults in it though :)

1) China isn't on 1.5 which is what we will launch with and adds a bunch of end game stuff.

2) I know that almost every level 50 i've seen hails this game as having the greatest class balance so I don't know about that part of his review and balance.

3) Flight is a personal opinion.  I love the way classes can manipulate flight times and how it adds an extra level of strategic management to the game. 

4) If he is 50 already I would be willing to bet that he botted/cheated his way there.

5) If he is 50 already there aren't many others there that didn't bot/cheat to get there so I wouldn't be surprised if he felt like he had nothing to do.

6) He played the game 1-50.. if he didn't bot or cheat than he got hundreds of hours out of the game which must have entertained him enough to keep going.  Hundreds of hours = getting your moneys worth and then some entertainment wise.

7) It seems like he has no idea what the stigma system is or even that it exists.

8) He says there are no raids or instances and we shouldn't expect them anytime soon yet we are launching with 1.5 which includes many instances and raid objectives.

Stigmas give each class their personal "flavor" and they've just expanded this system with 1.5.

Can't say anything about the lack of quests later, as I've only played to 20 thus far, however, I found them to be a lot more interesting than go and kill X, most quests actually felt to have a good reason behind them and the campaign quests were a good bit of fun.

Originally posted by ProfRed

4) If he is 50 already I would be willing to bet that he botted/cheated his way there.

 

   Yeah, I certainly hope not...

  Although I see that Aion released in China on April 16, 2009, so max level in two months and a week is not so bad.

  The way I see it there are two cases: 

  A. There really is a grind, implying he botted his way to the top.

  B. There isn't much of a grind at all.

 Only the Chinese players know for sure.

The person that gave the customer review mentions he hit 50, yet he mentions nothing about the stigma system and goes along the line that Aion offers no kind of customization between same class characters.

Grinding is a relative term, "too grindy" yet he is 50 within two months of china release, also there's the chinese guy that hit 45 in 5 days of non-stop playing, that's about one month of playing an average of four hours a day. I can't give my opinion on it though as I've only played to 20, but still, it doesn't sounds as bad as 90% of the MMOs in which you can't hit the level cap within a week.

About instances/highend content, he probably didn't know China is in 1.0, and there are already 3 major content patches: 1.1, 1.2 and 1.5 all of which will go live in NA/EU servers already at release. There have been added over 10, maybe 15 instances in these patches.

Quests being merely kill X or gather Y is a simple matter of actually reading the quest text, otherwise every quest in every game falls down to these simple objectives. And in my opinion Aion's quest texts quality are above the average, very good in fact, and we're talking about a game localized from the korean language. NCWest is doing a great job in there.

About flying, that's a matter of taste. They never said you'd be able to fly everywhere, they in fact give you an idea you won't be able to fly so freely. I like that only a few areas have flight enabled, those are usually developed with this in mind, while the no-flight areas allow the progressions like invading the Black Claw Outpost or other areas, if you had flight enabled people would simply fly above mobs to get to the boss they need for their quest. Flight is a tool for PvP combat, you will use it in the Abyss for your PvP.

And really, you don't have to level from 25 on in the Abyss if you are scared of the world PvP. You can still level in your continent in which world pvp is reduced to rifters, invaders are limited by maximum level and number per rift, that appears only once every few hours. I can't say how "ganky" and "campy" the Abyss is though, it seems you can fly in most of the Abyss, if not all.

If he played on China he should have mentioned hackers and botters, which people say it's a real issue there. Also how the RMT companies have destroyed the world chat channels like the trade and LFG chat. Excessive RMT and hacking/exploiting/botting do worry me about buying this game, but I'll be playing it as long as I find these issues have not destroyed the game, after all China is like... THE bots and RMT heaven. I don't know how NCWest will deal with them.

Funny thing I find about that guys comment is he says he has played in china's OB and retail and goes on to say that when you reach lvl50 you have seen and done everything........

My question is: China has 1.0v and the lvl cap is 45 so how did he make lvl50 and see lvl50 content?

hahaha funny stuff indeed.

Originally posted by stayontarget

Funny thing I find about that guys comment is he says he has played in china's OB and retail and goes on to say that when you reach lvl50 you have seen and done everything........

My question is: China has 1.0v and the lvl cap is 45 so how did he make lvl50 and see lvl50 content?

hahaha funny stuff indeed.

   Maybe China's OB? See I'm glad I posted it here: Even if he made it up, there are still things for me to learn about the game.. like the botting/hacking problems, which could become a reality here too.

I find it very hard to believe he actually played it through.  My guess is he played the (english) beta and guessed at the rest.

Originally posted by //\\//\\oo

Originally posted by stayontarget

Funny thing I find about that guys comment is he says he has played in china's OB and retail and goes on to say that when you reach lvl50 you have seen and done everything........

My question is: China has 1.0v and the lvl cap is 45 so how did he make lvl50 and see lvl50 content?

hahaha funny stuff indeed.

 

   Maybe China's OB? See I'm glad I posted it here: Even if he made it up, there are still things for me to learn about the game.. like the botting/hacking problems, which could become a reality here too.

 

True we don't want Bots / hacking in NA/EU, but to say "I played aion in china" and it will be the same is false IMO.

I also play in china and cannot stand the botters there but I understand that it is run by a chinese company and they don't give a rats azz about player conduct what so ever.

NCSoft knows very well what's riding with this release here in the west and will do everything they can to prevent what you see in china. 

Originally posted by EricDanie

The person that gave the customer review mentions he hit 50, yet he mentions nothing about the stigma system and goes along the line that Aion offers no kind of customization between same class characters.

Grinding is a relative term, "too grindy" yet he is 50 within two months of china release, also there's the chinese guy that hit 45 in 5 days of non-stop playing, that's about one month of playing an average of four hours a day. I can't give my opinion on it though as I've only played to 20, but still, it doesn't sounds as bad as 90% of the MMOs in which you can't hit the level cap within a week.

About instances/highend content, he probably didn't know China is in 1.0, and there are already 3 major content patches: 1.1, 1.2 and 1.5 all of which will go live in NA/EU servers already at release. There have been added over 10, maybe 15 instances in these patches.

Quests being merely kill X or gather Y is a simple matter of actually reading the quest text, otherwise every quest in every game falls down to these simple objectives. And in my opinion Aion's quest texts quality are above the average, very good in fact, and we're talking about a game localized from the korean language. NCWest is doing a great job in there.

About flying, that's a matter of taste. They never said you'd be able to fly everywhere, they in fact give you an idea you won't be able to fly so freely. I like that only a few areas have flight enabled, those are usually developed with this in mind, while the no-flight areas allow the progressions like invading the Black Claw Outpost or other areas, if you had flight enabled people would simply fly above mobs to get to the boss they need for their quest. Flight is a tool for PvP combat, you will use it in the Abyss for your PvP.

And really, you don't have to level from 25 on in the Abyss if you are scared of the world PvP. You can still level in your continent in which world pvp is reduced to rifters, invaders are limited by maximum level and number per rift, that appears only once every few hours. I can't say how "ganky" and "campy" the Abyss is though, it seems you can fly in most of the Abyss, if not all.

If he played on China he should have mentioned hackers and botters, which people say it's a real issue there. Also how the RMT companies have destroyed the world chat channels like the trade and LFG chat. Excessive RMT and hacking/exploiting/botting do worry me about buying this game, but I'll be playing it as long as I find these issues have not destroyed the game, after all China is like... THE bots and RMT heaven. I don't know how NCWest will deal with them.

Wasn't there an article, (on this site I believe,) that stated the Chinese government have made RMT illegal now?  Something to the effect of no longer being able to exchange real currnecy for digital currency / goods.  I think that once China's government begins to enforce that policy, we'll only have to worry about the RMT trade here in the states which, I hope, is significantly less than that of China by comparrison.

Originally posted by Onitora

 

Wasn't there an article, (on this site I believe,) that stated the Chinese government have made RMT illegal now?  Something to the effect of no longer being able to exchange real currnecy for digital currency / goods.  I think that once China's government begins to enforce that policy, we'll only have to worry about the RMT trade here in the states which, I hope, is significantly less than that of China by comparrison.

  Actually that only applies to Chinese citizens: They are allowed to sell gold to foreigners for currency, so that wouldn't inhibit the Chinese gold-sellers you have and will find in upcoming MMO's.

A guy saying he's level 50 in 1.0.

A guy saying flight is 2 minutes.

A guy saying there are no instances (1.0 has 3 instances per race).

Im not buying this review.

I agree, AIon is a terrible MMORPG, however, it is a fun game and definitely something worth playing for the time being.

So he played in china from 1 to 50... when you only can level to 45 there, and he said there is no instances or raids... when you can /check your timer to enter them since level 1 and it give you 6 instances at v 1.0... really todays trolls are so funny xD

Originally posted by Ephimero

A guy saying he's level 50 in 1.0.

A guy saying flight is 2 minutes.

A guy saying there are no instances (1.0 has 3 instances per race).

 

Im not buying this review.

True enough. Since I've seen videos of the "0 instances" on YouTube in CN and Korea versions.

Originally posted by stayontarget

True we don't want Bots / hacking in NA/EU, but to say "I played aion in china" and it will be the same is false IMO.

I also play in china and cannot stand the botters there but I understand that it is run by a chinese company and they don't give a rats azz about player conduct what so ever.

NCSoft knows very well what's riding with this release here in the west and will do everything they can to prevent what you see in china. 

The time I would believe such a thing is long gone.

Most MMO companies. Even the big famous ones are corrupt as hell and don't give a rats rear end.

If Vivendi/Blizzard really wanted to succesfully combat RMT, then they would have to ban and terminate over 60% of their active WoW accounts.

Do you really think they going to ban and terminate over 6 million accounts? Wich results effectivily in a monthly net loss of 90 million dollars ??

Get real!

The only thing they ban and combat, are the small idiot RMT companies that bot during PrimeTime and spam the crap out of the channels and so effectivily effect and ruin REAL players experiences.

The bigger, well known RMT companies like IGE have their farmers bot outside Prime Time hours and don't spam the channels. As people who want to buy gold and use other RMT services know where to find them anyway.

And those big RMT companies bring a shitload of money (in form of box sales and subscription fees) in the pocket of the MMO companies and are allowed to continue their RMT practises!

There are also plenty of rumors circling around that a lot of MMO companies accept so called donations (wink wink) from these big RMT companies to look the other way.

And you think NCSoft is any different or will act any different??

Right... dream on.

Cheers

60% are gold farmers? Quite a bold statement. Personally I think it's a bit out of touch with reality. It would basically mean that more than half the players you meet are gold farmers. Clearly in the west this is not the case (no idea about the east, but even one farmer for every ten legit players seem too much).

Also, despite what people think, game companies don't gain money from boxes sold to gold farming companies, since they basically charge back their credit cards when they get banned.

Originally posted by Xasapis

60% are gold farmers? Quite a bold statement. Personally I think it's a bit out of touch with reality. It would basically mean that more than half the players you meet are gold farmers. Clearly in the west this is not the case (no idea about the east, but even one farmer for every ten legit players seem too much).

Did I say 60% are gold farmers? Learn to Read.

If you buy gold for real cash. You are just as bad as the gold farmers and so also activily involved in RMT.

Cheers

No, you were vague. Thanks for the clarification.

I don't think that banning players is the correct form of punishment in case of gold purchase. It would make much more sense to take the money back and/or penalise the account with an equal amount of cash as the one purchased. Sort of what EVE is doing.

Originally posted by Syno23

I agree, AIon is a terrible MMORPG, however, it is a fun game and definitely something worth playing for the time being.

Agree.. this is what most will be doing.. playing ONLY because there is NOTHING else.

I love it... NCSOFT will do everhthing they can to STOP BOTS and the like here in the US! Yet all you have to to is look at ALL their other MMO's .. yeah sure AION will get all their attion.  they use GAMEGUARD.  This is why you will see just as many bots here as there.. lol its NOT NCSOFT..no its just china.. NCSOFT is innocent ..aw..

Well the original poster will proly not read it but anyway... Let's get few things straight.
Water - big deal. Usually you drown yourself if you stand in the water so... big deal.
Flying - it's more of a new type of aerial combat rather than means of transportation. Sure it sux that you have to run a lot from time to time but again - it's not that big deal.
Leveling & grinding... why people always assume that their way is the RIGHT way? You don't like to grind and you like to max lvl for 2 or 3 days? Ok, but i DON'T. Do i try to say that fast leveling and 100% questing is bad thing? No. Do you say that grind is bad and slow leveling is bad? Yes. So... who's right and who's wrong? I like to have some "private time" alone with my character, to learn my char, to enjoy learning it. I'm not in a hurry, are you? What difference will it make in one year if you leveled up to max level 3 days before me? No difference at all. Not enough quests? Sure, if you like to max lvl ONLY from quests, then there are not enough. But every once in a while i get bored from the quest log always telling me where to go and what to do and i want to do whatever i want. Maybe i don't wanna deliver the fruit basket to the "X" NPC, maybe i want to slaughter the pirates near the shipwreck for hours and hours. Why would i wanna do that? Well, because i want to. Because that's what i enjoy. Because that's the way I WANT to play MY game. Besides killing 10-15 mobs which will take me the "unbearably long" 10 mins will basically give me the exact same amount of XP which the same lvl quest will do. What a discovery... But i would've gain them the way i want - by practicing my rotations and enjoying my character the way i want. And you know what... it's the right way for me to do it. I like grinding. There's nothing wrong with it.
"Once you make one character and take it to max level, you will have seen the entire game."
Wow... what a shocker... just... wow. It's like... it's like... it's like in EVERY other mmo out there!!! Congratulations, you have just discovered the wheel. Or not. Tell me exactly how many mmo's you know where the max lvl zone isn't... the last zone you will see? You totally miss the concept of the Abyss but there's no point trying to discuss it. The Abyss has some more to it, not only leveling and killing mobs. Go figure...
PvP balance in mmo's is always an issue, get used to it or stop playing mmo's at all. There's no way that any game developer will be able to make a game with 8+ different classes where every class can counter the other equally. It's basically impossible. There will always be certain classes that  ave advantages against others and weaknesses against the rest. And there always will be FotM which will be strong vs anyone... until the next patch which will change the FotM and so on and so on. Again... what a shocker. Yes, we all know about the OP templars and clerics who melt faces at the tournaments, we all know about the mega ganking skills of the sorcs and rangers in the Abyss. I myself am quite enjoying my ranger in both. True, it takes me ages to kill a good templar for example but i'm not complaining. It's a fresh start and quite different feeling compared to the 3 button facerolling and 10 sec 2 shot kills in... never mind.
The game is by no means complete and it's not as easy as most of the ppl expect it to be. Only time will tell if this will succeed. So far most of the ppl who are playing it are positive about Aion's future. So am i. I don't mind if they add siege contents, castles, more centralized RvR content later on. Again - it's not like you see EVERYTHING the developers are planning for one mmo at the date of it's release. Icecrown wasn't there in 2004 you know... Content is slowly introduced. And it has to be slow. Otherwise if you get everything you want at the start, you will be stuck farming it for the next 5-6 months or more and get ultra bored until the next content.

Originally posted by Drakaris

Well the original poster will proly not read it but anyway... 

  Yeah, that's an abomination of formatting; I regret having read as much as I did.

  However, all I got from it was your personal preferences and nothing concrete, so... 

  No thanks.

Originally posted by Nedax

Originally posted by Ephimero

A guy saying he's level 50 in 1.0.

A guy saying flight is 2 minutes.

A guy saying there are no instances (1.0 has 3 instances per race).

 

Im not buying this review.

 

True enough. Since I've seen videos of the "0 instances" on YouTube in CN and Korea versions.

True substance.

Every single Gladiator will be the exact same as every other Gladiator, the only difference between players is their gear, and depending on the gear that is a marginal difference at best

That actually sounds good to me. I'm tired of the huge gear gaps in most PvP games. The classes have to be similar otherwise there would be even more imbalance, in my opinion. Besides, even if there were different talent trees or skill sets (edit: stigmas), as soon as players figured out which one was the "best" they may as well erase the others.