Stay away from this company and it's game. 

I played this game hardcore for 1.5months only to get innocently banned 5 times!!!! yes 5 TIMES! 

I was the GM of the #2 Ranked guild on Emerald  with 175 members called "Elysium"

You can read the whole story on my blog since it contains over 70 screenshots of how I played, and even a Youtube video of their GM's manipulating forums filters to discredit a post I was trying to make on the forums to make me look bad. YES REALLY!!

http://aeriagamestruth.blogspot.com/

There are bots everywhere, and all their GM's are focused on banning players who legitly buy cash shop items from players with gold. 

Their idealogy is to ban any F2P player who does well in their game without purchasing cash shop items.

If you have any questions i'll be happy to anwer, but STAY AWAY from this company and this game. or DON'T and find out yourself!

I'd normally be a little more skeptical, but I'm well aware of the reputation Aeria has built for itself insofar as customer service is concerned, so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here. Anyway...

I love how they don't even tell you what you did wrong, just the vague 'You have violated the TOS' bullshit. Also, marking replies as spam? Real classy there, Aeria.

The forum filter thing is just priceless though. Wow. I don't think even Nexon's abysmal customer service would sink to those depths.

Not to mention Eden Eternal is a fairly shit game in itself, it has no real content least when I played it, it was like world of warcraft with all the fun striped out of it, and not to mention super grindy. You go to town, finish the quest hub move on, combat was extremly boring as well. I'd not reccomend this game to anyone, unless your just that bored and desperate tbh. Plently of honestly far better f2p games out there. This is just my opinion of a player who played the game for about 3 weeks then washed my hand of it and moved on.

Thanks for the heads up. I was considering trying this game.  Not anymore.

Originally posted by Tingtong1

Their idealogy is to ban any F2P player who does well in their game without purchasing cash shop items.

Then you shoulda bought a cash shop item!

Besides, people that play F2P games, and dont spend a nickle on them, then complain about their customer service experience is hilarious :)

Originally posted by tinuelle

Originally posted by Tingtong1

Their idealogy is to ban any F2P player who does well in their game without purchasing cash shop items.

Then you shoulda bought a cash shop item!

Besides, people that play F2P games, and dont spend a nickle on them, then complain about their customer service experience is hilarious :)

Yea but I had a very simple plan with that in mind. I wanted to be "The Successful Player" who didn't need to buy Cashshop Items to be sucessful.  I had the time and was dedicated enough.

It's the reason I had so many screenshots in the first place.  I was going to make a post and be an example of how it all could be done... I was an example all right....

The reason you are a F2P game is to attract and hook customers who wouldn't otherwise give your game a chance.  Most players didn't have the time like I did to sink in the game so they just buy cash shop items to sell for in-game currency or use themselves. 

Originally posted by Tingtong1

Yea but I had a very simple plan with that in mind. I wanted to be "The Successful Player" who didn't need to buy Cashshop Items to be sucessful.  I had the time and was dedicated enough.

Well, I can understand why the F2P companies wish to ban that sort of successful players :)

To bad your project went wrong.

But in the end, a F2P game where players dont buy anything will end up with a lot of successful players wondering why their game shut down.

Originally posted by tinuelle

Originally posted by Tingtong1

Yea but I had a very simple plan with that in mind. I wanted to be "The Successful Player" who didn't need to buy Cashshop Items to be sucessful.  I had the time and was dedicated enough.

Well, I can understand why the F2P companies wish to ban that sort of successful players :)

To bad your project went wrong.

But in the end, a F2P game where players dont buy anything will end up with a lot of successful players wondering why their game shut down.

I was the top .0001% of the playerbase, I don't think anyone who played Eden Eternal could say they have made 10,000G/day 

I could of just as easily SOLD my gold to some RMT company and bought cash shop items. (The End result would of been the same... BAN!)

However, the mechanics of the game allowed you to buy cash shop items from players threw trade. So I bought $3,000 - $5,000 of cash shop items from other legitimate players for gold.  I played the game fairly, and threw  the contraints of the ToS, only to be called a "cheater" by Aeria Games Staff. If this company didn't want you to play for "free" then they should charge $15/month like everyone else. I would of happly paid it had I known the account I spent 600hrs on would be banned for "Cheating"

I know this thread is speaking specifically of Aeria (AGE) but I must say this is representative of the F2P market in general. Most of these companies have a reputation for holding back non-paying players and rewarding the paying ones (pay to win). Perfect World (PWE) is also a great example. Alot of thier games are PVP based and are completely unplayable on a competitive level without dishing out hundreds of dollars.

Honestly Im wondering what the gaming community expects here. Did you honestly think that a company made a game free to play? Do you realize the costs of running an MMO (server costs, development cycles, GM and CSR salaries)? The free model only works because it makes more money than a subscription. If it were all about the players there wouldnt be anything on cash shops other than appearance items. A single item that effects gameplay whether its as innocent as an xp potion or as game changing as a best in slot item only encourages players to pay to skip content, not actually play the game. If you want players to pay to win, why not sell max level characters with epic items? Do you realize how much money you can save on developement if you remove all those silly lower levels and itemization that never gets equipped.

This is the time for players to speak up. The industry is in a landslide, all subscription based games are failing (yes even WoW is in decline). Companies are turning to a free model which costs the players more, but makes more for the industry. And of course you see huge support for this model in game forums and sites like this, it makes you wonder who has sold out and who really cares for the community. Players need to join up and fight this free to play boom, or never again with you be able to play an MMO for as little as 15-20 dollars a month. Want to unlock a new class, give me 20 bucks. Want a new sword, 10 dollars please. Want more quests, we dont have expansions just pay as you go, trust us its cheaper......... Is anyone really falling for this anymore?

Solution = Stop playing free to play games that rely on item mall sales.

Suck it up and pay the $15 a month for quality games..

Originally posted by wolfneo
i just read the whole blog he linked too and have to say wow dude what you did was awesome! but at the same time you are embodying everything that F2P companies fear and that is a hardcore AH player. you see if players can trade cash shop items in the AH for gold are what ever the company makes less money. the whole point of an Cash shop is to make the company money if people like you can get it with out spending any money then the company doesn't make any money. also if you can do any other Hardcore AH player can and the more they are in game the less the company makes until they just go out of business. on the 1 hand what you did is awesome but on the other this can be made very ugly with this F2P companies can make Cash shop items BoPU and that just stops selling Cash items cold.

If they didn't want players selling cash shop items for in-game currency. they should have bound it to the buyer any way.. there is no reason to ban someone for your own games mechanic

---

Originally posted by Tingtong1
I played this game hardcore for 1.5months...

I would of happly paid it had I known the account I spent 600hrs on would be banned for "Cheating"

---

You spent 100 hours a week playing this game? That is absolutely insane. How are your eyes still in their sockets? How is your head anot caved in?

Really 100 hours a week is very stressing xD.

But, when Slayer skill was add to Runescape renember of playing around that same time 90-100 hours a week to be one of the first guys to get slayer 85 xD.

It was around a 3 weeks doing it, was jobless :(, and well the unique bad effect that happen to me, aside dreaming with the game all nights, was that I got 4 kg fat in those 3 weeks (only pizza, bread and fast food junk and delivered at my house).

*now a days can only play at max 5-10 hours a week (got married and she gets mad easily about online game), but was a good time for sure xD.

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

---

Originally posted by Tingtong1
I played this game hardcore for 1.5months...

 

I would of happly paid it had I known the account I spent 600hrs on would be banned for "Cheating"

---

 

You spent 100 hours a week playing this game? That is absolutely insane. How are your eyes still in their sockets? How is your head anot caved in?

According to Raptr it was 569Hrs (including beta play)

http://raptr.com/TINGTONG

and I played the game about  7.5weeks from beta  so on average 76Hrs/Week.  I was hardcore. It's really sad how Aeria Games spit in my face and called me a cheater.

Originally posted by naraku209

Originally posted by wolfneo
i just read the whole blog he linked too and have to say wow dude what you did was awesome! but at the same time you are embodying everything that F2P companies fear and that is a hardcore AH player. you see if players can trade cash shop items in the AH for gold are what ever the company makes less money. the whole point of an Cash shop is to make the company money if people like you can get it with out spending any money then the company doesn't make any money. also if you can do any other Hardcore AH player can and the more they are in game the less the company makes until they just go out of business. on the 1 hand what you did is awesome but on the other this can be made very ugly with this F2P companies can make Cash shop items BoPU and that just stops selling Cash items cold.

 

If they didn't want players selling cash shop items for in-game currency. they should have bound it to the buyer any way.. there is no reason to ban someone for your own games mechanic

I've been playing eden eternal for a while now and I've also been playing other aeria games. I havent spent a single thing on cashshop items. And yet havent been banned. And I never heard a GM say something about trading item mall items for gold is a bannable offense. Eden Eternal was addicting at first but now that I've gotten farther into it, I enjoy it sometimes and then sometimes I dont. To me, aeria isn't all that bad. It's a company and a company is gonna do what it needs to do to survive. This is the first time I've ever heard of a GM banning a character for not buying item mall items, that right there is just uncalled for.

Originally posted by naraku209

Originally posted by wolfneo
i just read the whole blog he linked too and have to say wow dude what you did was awesome! but at the same time you are embodying everything that F2P companies fear and that is a hardcore AH player. you see if players can trade cash shop items in the AH for gold are what ever the company makes less money. the whole point of an Cash shop is to make the company money if people like you can get it with out spending any money then the company doesn't make any money. also if you can do any other Hardcore AH player can and the more they are in game the less the company makes until they just go out of business. on the 1 hand what you did is awesome but on the other this can be made very ugly with this F2P companies can make Cash shop items BoPU and that just stops selling Cash items cold.

 

If they didn't want players selling cash shop items for in-game currency. they should have bound it to the buyer any way.. there is no reason to ban someone for your own games mechanic

Agreed.  It is totally amateur and unprofressional, not to mention sloppy game design and rather shady.  Funny how this sort of thing is never mentioned in the promo articles and reviews by the F2P columnists here.

Anyway, Turbine binds most cash shop items to account, if not the character, so this sort of thing isn't a problem.  You can also play LotRO and earn cash store points to buy things.  Some players have gone rather far in that game without paying a dime, other than their time.  So not all F2P games and companies do this scammy bait and switch.  They do have store exclusives though where you can't earn the item in game, you must purchase it with cash store points and their new expansion is only available via cash (not their store points).  Overall, Turbine's F2P model is probably the best in the industry at the moment.

Aeria Games is also not above the practice of manipulating their BBB rating.

http://www.aeriagames.com/forums/en/viewtopic.php?t=319617

I just read the title of this thread and could see where this was going.  It's the same title that was used for RoM and Allods too haha.  I heard of Aeria but I've never played any of their games.  I've quit f2p games for this lame reason.  The dumb CS.  The only game I'm looking remotely forward to in f2p is Age of Wulin.