Most of you probably don't know me, but I do post on this website now and then, and usually something constructive...I hope. I occassionally write reviews, but not much anymore, since they tend to get barried and a lot of effort goes into writing them. Not to mention many people don't even read it, because they are too long. But I want to jot down my thoughts of AION while my experience is still fresh in my mind.

So who am I and where do I come in. I'm a 28 yr old gamer and parent, who's played MMO's since 2002, when I picked up my first game...DAoC. DAoC and SWG remain as my two most favorite MMO's of all time. Since then I've played just about everything, just wanting to experience what the genre has to offer. AION, for me, promised a game with new scenery, but not much else. I knew that going in, and that didn't bother me. So now you know a little about my background and what I expected.

Upon entering AION at 3:05pm on headstart day, I was amazed at the sea of players dotting the landscape. There was people everywhere, and of course the game had latency problems. I didn't care, because being there at that point and time was worth it. After about 10min, the latency cleared up as people spread out. At any rate, the game was pretty stable and the game world looked good.

I'm not going to give my opinion on the graphics, or tell you what classes there are or how they play, because all of that can be found elsewhere. I'm just going to account for my experience with the game, and my feelings about certain things. Things that you all can relate to.

First off, the game is worth the box fee. AION is a relatively complete game, well polished, and is stable. Any game that can boast that is worthy of a box fee. As for a subscription, that's really up to you. So if you're just reading this with hopes that I'll tell you whether or not the game is worth buying, well you can stop here, because it is. From here on out though, your experience may vary.

So as you all may know, the game has 1 starting area, complete with a set number of quests and campaign quests that are just enough to get you to lvl 10 including the Ascencion quests. My spelling is off today, so please forgive me. So for those that like to reroll and hate repeating content, you may last through 1-3 characters, if you don't mind grinding, because grinding is decent xp if you want to skip the quests. Otherwise, you'll tire of the quests quickly and then get bored of the game before you reach any new content later in the game. For some this isn't a problem, but for others, it doesn't matter if the game gets good at 25 if the path there is utterly boring. For me, I created 4 classes on Lumiel. I got my first, a Templar, to 18 before rerolling after disliking the templar in a group setting. The second, a Chanter, I got to 21. He was fun, but by this time my curiosity for how other classes play has set in. Before anyone says anything stupid, playing every single class is not a bad thing, because every class offers a different experience, and no matter how much you read up on the classes, it is never a substitute for first hand experience. So a game should cater towards people that want to try out all the classes first, before choosing a main character. Better yet, catering to the person who would like to play all classes would be even safer.

At any rate, I ended up creating 3 characters on Lumiel before the new server came out for the EST. So I rerolled on the new server, this time deadset on sticking with one character. I got my Sorceror to level 20, and seen that it was lonely all by myself at 20, because the majority of the community was between 10-15. Because I've become a 1-20 pro by now, I decided to reroll another character to play with the majority of the community, because DAoC taught me how fun playing with others is. So I created a Gladiator. By this time, I couldn't help myself and decided to roll all 8 classes on this server, so I could try them all out. Because everytime I thought I found a good class, I seen another class that looked pretty cool too. All the while I am repeating the same content over and over and over again. So here I am, with 8 classes, not counting the 3 I played on the other server (which I deleted).

A week goes by, and in that week I get more and more tired of repeating content and none of the classes hold any real appeal anymore. My favorite class ever in the genre was the Thane. I love a class that can deal ranged magic dps and melee dps and still take a beating. In SWG, my favorite combination of classes was MTK/MFencer/Combat Medic. Again, a combination that allowed me to be super resiliant and heal myself. No ranged magic, but I was going for Jedi, which would have given me everything I wanted (ranged dps, melee dps, healing, resilience). That's just how I like to play. I love hybrids. I know, it sounds like a super character, with no need for a group. This is why the Thane was such a good class for me. I could deal some dps and take some, but I relied on others to heal me, buff me, perform crowd control, and assist me. So basically, AION doesn't have the PERFECT class for me, but it has what I like spread out among all of the classes. So in order to receive the same enjoyment I got with one class in another game, I have to play several in this game. I hope that makes sense.

In that week, I got real friendly with the BLOCK feature, because NCsoft has no GM's. AION fanbois may cry otherwise, but let's be honest and reasonable here. If you see the same gold spammer day in and day out, and the same scammer trying to get you to go to this website that steals account info., day in and day out, would you believe the game has GM's? It take only 1 GM monitoring the channels to see this spam and do something about it. Even in 5 min, 1 GM could eliminate all the spam happening and the retreat back to his manager and have him ban those accounts. 1 GM I tell you, but no, players are given the ability to BLOCK and arguments ensue over this in the community all day.

So anyways, it's now 3 weeks after release (?) and I'm bored to tears. I'm tired of repeating content, which is bad game design when you have so many classes and you know a lot of people will reroll, and not all of them like to repeat content. I could choose 1 class and focus on it, so that all content past lvl 22 will be fresh. That'd work for a while, except for the part where I don't 100% enjoy the class I'm playing, because the game doesn't offer the type of hybrid I like to play. To add to this, every day you have to play the "/block the spammers" minigame. Oh, did I mention the community blows? Not everyone, but the majority you hear anyways. Most people are asking questions about where to find this or that quest objective, when the info is in the quests or can be found with a little exploration, but the community is either stupid, or just plain lazy. Then there's the people who purposely cause trouble to get a rise out of people. That's easy to ignore, but what about the constant arguing over chat about WoW vs. AION or any number of dumbass subjects akin to it, or the racism, sexism, or general disrespect for each other? In the end, you just assume you're better off with general chat turned off. Too bad that's where the guilds (legions) spam the recruitment adds. I've managed to find a good legion for every character, mostly, but most of the game is solo up to 22 and I haven't needed them.

So here I am, being long-winded as always. I should have just written a review. Bottom line is that I'm bored with AION. The game is too linear, lacks GM's, and has a bad community (Elyos Meslamtaeda server). The game could fix the linearness by having multiple starting and leveling up areas. I know it opens up some at 20 with 2 zones, and then more a little later, but you spend a lot of time before then in the same zones, unless yo powergame through them. Good luck keeping that up (powergaming), because the game is a grind at about 21 when you have to literally grind for 4.5 hours or more, depending on your class, to get to 22. Sure you could do the lvl 22 quests at lvl 21, but then what would you do at lvl 22 and so on? The game should have introduced the abyss ealier. I'm sure I'd of love the abyss, because I loved Darkness Falls in DAoC, and the frontiers. I like how WAR allowed you to PvP right out of the character creation screen...too bad the rest of that game blows for the most part.

At anyrate, this isn't too constructive, but I did say they are just a display of my feelings of the game. Feeling aren't exactly organized or rational. If you have specific questions, I'll try to answer those with rationally, maturely, and without bias, unless bias is called for. I still say the game is worth the box price, because it will offer you at least 30 days of gameplay, whereas a single-player game will offer a lot less for the same price.  I really wanted to stick with this game for several months, at least until a new MMO came out, but I'm just bored to death. Boredom + grind = lack of motivation to persevere even when you usually would. Afterall, I was able to grind through DAoC with some effort, AION would of been no problem. I just couldn't find a class I loved in order to tolerate the grind long enough to get to the good stuff.

My lord, I didn't realize it would be that long. I wrote the thing and I still got critted for 5k dmg by the great wall of text.

 i´m happy i tried the chinese open beta, and expierinced the same as you, as for me it was free :). guess we'll all be waiting for SW:ToR Together, bioware knows how to make rpg's ^^.    i tried to parry your wall of text but it still critted me for 3.5k.. :(

ps. star trek is awfull, just look at the name :P

 toughts and toughts feelings and opinions, im playing the game at the moment and im 30 years old working parent.

i havent yet reached level 25 wich they say the game starts to be more interesting , i havent yet having a need of grind. and kinda enjoy the game, playing it until something else in mmo frontier comes out. there is couple good single player rpg also coming soon so need to check them out.

anyway my fears of aion pvp gona be group ganging in the abyss and ifits something like that i most definetly leave the game.

cheers,

Originally posted by vladakov

 i´m happy i tried the chinese open beta, and expierinced the same as you, as for me it was free :). guess we'll all be waiting for SW:ToR Together, bioware knows how to make rpg's ^^.    i tried to parry your wall of text but it still critted me for 3.5k.. :(

 

 

ps. star trek is awfull, just look at the name :P

Oh yeah, I really think SWTOR will reinvent the genre. Their turning a typically grindy genre into a genre that supports story that can be played with others online. Hopefully there'll be factional pvp at the end, and that'd sum up a pretty nice game in my eyes.

(we should talk about sw:tor somwere else, but nvm :P )

lucasarts/bioware already stated that there will be peeveepee <3

Originally posted by m0lly

 toughts and toughts feelings and opinions, im playing the game at the moment and im 30 years old working parent.

i havent yet reached level 25 wich they say the game starts to be more interesting , i havent yet having a need of grind. and kinda enjoy the game, playing it until something else in mmo frontier comes out. there is couple good single player rpg also coming soon so need to check them out.

anyway my fears of aion pvp gona be group ganging in the abyss and ifits something like that i most definetly leave the game.

cheers,

I'm not saying your opinion will change, but give it time. I played the game A LOT since headstart as you read. Most of my characters were 18+, and the rest were around 15. I also got 3 crafts to 99, which adds even more time in-game. Basically, I'm just saying I probably have a lot more time in the game than you, so got burned out faster than you would. So I think it'll be a while, if ever, before you get burnt out on the game. The amount of time I play probably also has an effect on me being bored.

Originally posted by nate1980

My lord, I didn't realize it would be that long. I wrote the thing and I still got critted for 5k dmg by the great wall of text.

It was interesting, thanks for the head up.

After quiting eve online a few years ago i decided to try wow cause all my friends were there.

I played wow for a few years too , it was a nice fun game to play , but i got bored after a while and decided to quit it too.

Sice then i tried every game there is out there hoping to find something new to play , doing the exact same drill OP describes , playing all classes to choose which one i like.

I tried war , got bored in a months time, AOC same .

Playing over and over the same content trying to decide which class to play , leads only to boredom.

I decided to try AION , and to my suprise it was a really nice game .

But this time i rolled a cleric and decided to stick to one class no matter what.

I am having so much fun once more . I even tried my first PVP fight today , i am level 22 by now .

So i guess don't do that , trying everything ends in not being able to decide what to play so the game gets boring so fast.

Just my opinion .

holy smokes dude, how many times are you going through levels 1-20

that's the problem right there, go out there and experience the PvP part of the game, if you don't like that it is fine, but knocking it after repeating the same content 10 times ... geez

You played the starting area ELEVEN times for around a month?

I am not surprised you got bored to tears, a couple of times is tiring enough!

Originally posted by raven222

After quiting eve online a few years ago i decided to try wow cause all my friends were there.

I played wow for a few years too , it was a nice fun game to play , but i got bored after a while and decided to quit it too.

Sice then i tried every game there is out there hoping to find something new to play , doing the exact same drill OP describes , playing all classes to choose which one i like.

I tried war , got bored in a months time, AOC same .

Playing over and over the same content trying to decide which class to play , leads only to boredom.

I decided to try AION , and to my suprise it was a really nice game .

But this time i rolled a cleric and decided to stick to one class no matter what.

I am having so much fun once more . I even tried my first PVP fight today , i am level 22 by now .

So i guess don't do that , trying everything ends in not being able to decide what to play so the game gets boring so fast.

Just my opinion .

You have it right. You see, I did figure this problem out before I tried this game, after all, I've been playing in this genre for 8 years, but here's what happened. The Templar was the closest class by description that came to what I liked. However, when I got into a group, I hated tanking in this game. I've tanked in WoW, in DDO, and in DAoC. I liked tanking in those games for the most part, but in this game I just couldn't hold agro all the time against my 5 other groupmates. Now at the time, I seen it as a class problem, so I rerolled. After playing in other groups, I now know it was a group problem. Either way, being the tank in a new game, not knowing where to go or what to do is stressful for me. So Templar was probably not the best class choice. But now I've played all the other classes and have seen how great each are in one thing or another, except the Scout classes (blah) and now I'm bored. I actually haven't leveled up a Cleric yet, and have been thinking hard about it. I'm not sure if it's age or what, but the idea of keeping a group alive sounds more entertaining than wacking a mob as my eyes glaze over, or trying to hold agro while hoping to dear lord that a dps doesn't go wild or the healer doesn't overheal and get agro. Clerics in this game are decent too from what I seen, kind of reminds me of Smite Clerics in DAoC.

But the thought of going 1-10 on a Priest for the second time today, and then 10-20 in Vertenon for the 12th time has me wanting to voment. I'd probably fair a lot better if I stuck to one class and got to new areas. The game was fun when it was fresh, and I was sure I was staying with my Templar, lol. Also, the thought of chasing kiters or kiting myself while flying is daunting, compared to healing people. Then again, I also don't like the general disrespect people have for Clerics or people who fill the healing role. We're referred to as "healers" or they're screaming for heals, like we aren't paying attention or something. Being reduced to "healz" is a bit degrading when the class can do more.

Rerolling Asmodian would be a fresh start with fresh content, but I CAN'T stand their fury backs, or their clawed feet. It just doesn't look right. If I don't feel like I look good, I don't have that attachment to my character.

Well, I went back to the Lumiel server to role my Cleric. I'm going to give the game one more shot and then decide on the 20th whether or not I'll resub. Gonna stick with one character during this time. Going back to Lumiel is probably the best thing I've done. The community over all seemed more mature and I've had some great discussion on the Cleric channel.

To the OP:  I am not trying to be lame, rude, a jerk -- whatever you get the point.  But I didnt even read one sentence.  Seriously, some of you people need to chill out and realize this is not the place to write a short story.  its a PC game message board.  Keept it down to a paragraph maybe 2.  Some of us dont feel like wasting all that time to read your ramblings.

 Surefire way to burn yourself out on a game is playing the "grass is greener on the other side" game.  Pick a class and stick with it.  I keep getting a nagging itch to change to a Sorcerer by I know if I let myself start swapping characters I'll burn myself out and lose interest.

Originally posted by Tyvolus88

To the OP:  I am not trying to be lame, rude, a jerk -- whatever you get the point.  But I didnt even read one sentence.  Seriously, some of you people need to chill out and realize this is not the place to write a short story.  its a PC game message board.  Keept it down to a paragraph maybe 2.  Some of us dont feel like wasting all that time to read your ramblings.

Some of us don't feel like wasting the time reading useless ass posts like this one, by I'll be damned if I didn't get screwed into it.

 Play asmo. Theres your new content. 8D

I think people who can only see the next level get bored very fast no matter what the game.  There is a lot more to a game than just getting to the next level.

fgdgfdgdggfdgf             gfdsgf                      fdgs

Originally posted by comerb

 Surefire way to burn yourself out on a game is playing the "grass is greener on the other side" game.  Pick a class and stick with it.  I keep getting a nagging itch to change to a Sorcerer by I know if I let myself start swapping characters I'll burn myself out and lose interest.

Well that's just the problem. You just don't know what you're missing by not playing the sorceror. They have the highest dps that I know of at the low levels, have high survivability due to their crowd control and their ability to deal high ranged dps, and can open a portal to Sanctum.

Originally posted by Crosswire

I think people who can only see the next level get bored very fast no matter what the game.  There is a lot more to a game than just getting to the next level.

It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with being bored with no new content in sight. Fun is the purpose of playing, not gaining levels, but when you're bored to tears and the game doesn't offer new content for another 12-15 hours, well...I can think of better ways to spend those hours.

Anyways, if you read up, you'll see I'm giving it one more shot.

Originally posted by Tyvolus88

To the OP:  I am not trying to be lame, rude, a jerk -- whatever you get the point.  But I didnt even read one sentence.  Seriously, some of you people need to chill out and realize this is not the place to write a short story.  its a PC game message board.  Keept it down to a paragraph maybe 2.  Some of us dont feel like wasting all that time to read your ramblings.

It takes less than 5 minutes to read a post that size. It's your 5 minutes, so I won't begrudge you of them, but if you can't spend that kind of time reading a post, then why come to the forums to begin with? You'd rather read a page worth of flaming between 2 parties than a longer more mature post?

I hope you don't approach college the same way, because you can learn something from anyone. If you just view others opinions as ramblings, you're going to grow as a person very slow.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Crosswire

I think people who can only see the next level get bored very fast no matter what the game.  There is a lot more to a game than just getting to the next level.

 

It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with being bored with no new content in sight. Fun is the purpose of playing, not gaining levels, but when you're bored to tears and the game doesn't offer new content for another 12-15 hours, well...I can think of better ways to spend those hours.

Anyways, if you read up, you'll see I'm giving it one more shot.

Honestly you're not missing much at higher levels. You've effectively played 90% of what the game has to offer. At 25 you get the abyss but the abyss is more like a PvE zone with ganking enabled. Artifacts and Forts are JUST LIKE WAR. Dungeons are boring snoozefests that passed the first one don't give decent XP and all them don't give decent rewards(Bosses with a chance to drop no loot?).

If you're getting bored at ~20 then welcome to 30+. Its the same thing except more time per level grinding the same mobs while dealing with 100's of bots that they never ban.

spot on op, I said this before and during the cb about how there is 0 replay ability.

I enjoyed the game what killed it for me is how there is 0 gm's  0 customer support and still yes still 3 hour queue's in the eu.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Tyvolus88

To the OP:  I am not trying to be lame, rude, a jerk -- whatever you get the point.  But I didnt even read one sentence.  Seriously, some of you people need to chill out and realize this is not the place to write a short story.  its a PC game message board.  Keept it down to a paragraph maybe 2.  Some of us dont feel like wasting all that time to read your ramblings.

 

It takes less than 5 minutes to read a post that size. It's your 5 minutes, so I won't begrudge you of them, but if you can't spend that kind of time reading a post, then why come to the forums to begin with? You'd rather read a page worth of flaming between 2 parties than a longer more mature post?

I hope you don't approach college the same way, because you can learn something from anyone. If you just view others opinions as ramblings, you're going to grow as a person very slow.

West Virginia University - 1995

I dont read entire threads where people go back and forth.  Rather I skim through.   I save reading a few pages of text for when I am reading news, such as can be found on cnn, google news, msn, etc.

"because you can learn something from anyone."  -- couldnt agree more.  I tell this to people all the time.  But, that doesnt mean I am going to read every random wall of text on a message board.