I played Aion from beta and i still play it now but lets not kid ourselves. The cash shop is not purely cosmetic. All the socketing supplements they sell in the cash shop amount to a huge advantage that anyone who has blown millions of kinah on socketing or enchanting can attest to. Without those supplements it is rather possible (and has happened to many players) to spend months farming kinah (Aion's version of gold/currency) only to blow it all on manastone/enchanting attempts and come out with nothing or even in some cases with a downgrade of gear for all your effort. If you want to be competitive in pvp in Aion socketing and enchanting is a must. Sure you might get lucky and go without the cash shop socketing/enchantment supplements and manage to improve your gear to the same level, but its highly unlikely you will be able to do it without some costly fails along the way that will set you back large amounts of kinah unless your incredibly lucky.

     The cash shop supplements are very pay 2 win and not cosmetic.

Originally posted by Nailzzz

     I played Aion from beta and i still play it now but lets not kid ourselves. The cash shop is not purely cosmetic. All the socketing supplements they sell in the cash shop amount to a huge advantage that anyone who has blown millions of kinah on socketing or enchanting can attest to. Without those supplements it is rather possible (and has happened to many players) to spend months farming kinah (Aion's version of gold/currency) only to blow it all on manastone/enchanting attempts and come out with nothing or even in some cases with a downgrade of gear for all your effort. If you want to be competitive in pvp in Aion socketing and enchanting is a must. Sure you might get lucky and go without the cash shop socketing/enchantment supplements and manage to improve your gear to the same level, but its highly unlikely you will be able to do it without some costly fails along the way that will set you back large amounts of kinah unless your incredibly lucky.

     The cash shop supplements are very pay 2 win and not cosmetic.

 A free  player can accomplish the same thing it's just going to cost them more Kinah and time like you said.  I think the whole system sucks regardless of the cash shop, but to me that's not P2W because you've still got access as a free player.  Trust me I remember the woes of socketing my clerics Fenris with full MR before you could even buy those things. 

If i was going to guess i would say they were going to put one class added for each arche-type in the game, as such one mage, scout, warrior, and then priest. As such i would say that the armor would go alongside the arche-type classes normal ones (though i could see a neew class for going or looking for a higher armor to differate themselves.).

For the warrior or rogue i could see a duelist/fencer style character class thatt would use a single one-handed weapon (sword, axe. hammer) for their weapon, and also which might wear lether armor as a form of showing how skilled they are distaining heavier armor as a show of confidence in their abilities. The class might use alot of debuffs as well as debuffs effects make up the disadvantage from not having the heavier armor.

For the mage maybe could be a mage-knight style character that is largely built as a close/melee range fighter, which channels their spells or power thru their weapon (might weild ole-arms, two-handed weapons like swords, axes, or hammers). Though i would think that they might look into gaining chain/mail or plate armor for such a class yet with relagating them to malee range for damage with only a small degree of ranged attacks that might have eeither long cast times or long cds it would work out somewhat balanced. Although even going so far as giving the mage arche-type a necromancer class that uses alot of dots, and which uses legions of relatively weak pets (skeletons, zombies, ghouls, and such) that can be used as a form of scarifice to power more powerful effects (maybe even ways of healing others) would be interesting as well.

FOr the priest i would say some kind of ranged holy damage styled class like a bishop or arch-priest. One reason i think this way is that priests already have a melee range/buffing class n the chanter, as well as a healing class in the cleric an so going with a ranged based class that would allow for an even distribution of their clases over all three ranges. Though it could be a more melee paladin/crusader styled melee combat class as well that would fit well.

For the rogue i could see either a duel pistol short, or rifle long range class style, although with how it stands a mid-range class that might have access to both a long range an more mid range build an both pistols an rifles would be interesting. Though i would much rather see duel pistols in a mid-range set up of attacks as long range is already pretty well the ranger's domain in the rogue. THough this could even go into the warrior which would give warriors a ranged class in their arch-type.

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by Nailzzz

     I played Aion from beta and i still play it now but lets not kid ourselves. The cash shop is not purely cosmetic. All the socketing supplements they sell in the cash shop amount to a huge advantage that anyone who has blown millions of kinah on socketing or enchanting can attest to. Without those supplements it is rather possible (and has happened to many players) to spend months farming kinah (Aion's version of gold/currency) only to blow it all on manastone/enchanting attempts and come out with nothing or even in some cases with a downgrade of gear for all your effort. If you want to be competitive in pvp in Aion socketing and enchanting is a must. Sure you might get lucky and go without the cash shop socketing/enchantment supplements and manage to improve your gear to the same level, but its highly unlikely you will be able to do it without some costly fails along the way that will set you back large amounts of kinah unless your incredibly lucky.

     The cash shop supplements are very pay 2 win and not cosmetic.

 A free  player can accomplish the same thing it's just going to cost them more Kinah and time like you said.  I think the whole system sucks regardless of the cash shop, but to me that's not P2W because you've still got access as a free player.  Trust me I remember the woes of socketing my clerics Fenris with full MR before you could even buy those things. 

     A free player COULD accomplish those things, but it isnt entirely in thier control if they will actually be able to, even with the time/expense involved. As i pointed out, you can actually spend months playing and farming kinah and spend it to upgrade yourself and get nothing for all of your effort. Meanwhile a player who buys felicitous supplements from the cash shop is guaranteed success. Thier have been many players who have given up attempting to be on the same level because the rng has punished them for not buying from the cash shop with unlucky socketing/enchanting attempts.

     Im sure socketing fenris with MR was probably a pain for you. Now imagine trying to do that with 6 slot abyss gear and then +15 it, just to be competetive with the cash shop players who were able to simply purchase that power without a risk of lost months worth of kinah. Sure it is possible, but its a huge disadvantage. In a pvp game that is as gear based as Aion, you need to match the best players in gear. You can do it with luck, but not everyone will be lucky. So it winds up being either P2W or be lucky(which you have little control over). For the record ive been pretty lucky myself, but i understand the frustration of those not so lucky.

Originally posted by falica
they have A ranger class slready its called a scout till 10 then u can chose a ranger or assasian a necromancher would be nice more pet job :) i love petrs tough mesmer sounds nice to i can probly sit here and think what id want to be lol and if bard might as well throw a summner or ninja lol too many games too many possiblities for classes whatever aion choses im sure ill be happy but 4 chaterters for each race is kinda sucky pls up this to 8 or more or let us pay foir more charecter slots i have altinitis lol pls and thank u   

 

For me the ranger class they have is more akin to a hunter or archer class, where as to me rangers are much more archer/hunter class which trades some power for the added bonus of having a pet to use. I agree though a necromancer pet-based class would be very interesting as well as fun to play.

Originally posted by Asuran24
Saddly for me a cs that gives players a higher or absolute chance at staying or getting competitive with other players is not the definition of  pay to win. Pay to win to me would be one that you can buy an item that gives you an absolute advantage over others in power, such as better weapons or armor that are not attainable or which have eaul or greater counter-parts in the game, but just giving an advantage of success or increased power is much more a fact of convience with the side effect of reducing time it takes to get the same power in game. As such that this  is more of buying a convience over buying rraw power, it would rather not fall into pay to win  as it would be like saying that putting exp boost packs in the cs being p2w after raising the exp needed to level by an extreme amount.

     The problem with your stance is that without using the CS for these items, some players will in fact NEVER reach the point of being competitive with those that use it no matter how long they play. The RNG in this game has been that cruel to quite a few people. your looking at it in terms of "well, eventually you will be competitive with the CS users" but it simply isnt necessarily true. It still comes down to luck. And many players dont have luck when it comes to Aion's rng. It may not be P2W for you, but for some, thats exactly what it is. You can spend months attempting to improve your gear and wind up with nothing to show for all of your effort and time.

     I personally spent over 160 million kinah at one point attempting to get an armour piece enchanted to +10 from +3 and wound up with +1. And i was buying stones 25-35 lvl's over the lvl of the gold gear. That money represented 3 months of grinding and selling everything i could. Im far from alone on that type of experience. If you dont consider being able to bypass such experiences P2W, then i guess we simply have different definitions as you say.

interesting.

Originally posted by Nailzzz

Originally posted by Asuran24
Saddly for me a cs that gives players a higher or absolute chance at staying or getting competitive with other players is not the definition of  pay to win. Pay to win to me would be one that you can buy an item that gives you an absolute advantage over others in power, such as better weapons or armor that are not attainable or which have eaul or greater counter-parts in the game, but just giving an advantage of success or increased power is much more a fact of convience with the side effect of reducing time it takes to get the same power in game. As such that this  is more of buying a convience over buying rraw power, it would rather not fall into pay to win  as it would be like saying that putting exp boost packs in the cs being p2w after raising the exp needed to level by an extreme amount.

     The problem with your stance is that without using the CS for these items, some players will in fact NEVER reach the point of being competitive with those that use it no matter how long they play. The RNG in this game has been that cruel to quite a few people. your looking at it in terms of "well, eventually you will be competitive with the CS users" but it simply isnt necessarily true. It still comes down to luck. And many players dont have luck when it comes to Aion's rng. It may not be P2W for you, but for some, thats exactly what it is. You can spend months attempting to improve your gear and wind up with nothing to show for all of your effort and time.

     I personally spent over 160 million kinah at one point attempting to get an armour piece enchanted to +10 from +3 and wound up with +1. And i was buying stones 25-35 lvl's over the lvl of the gold gear. That money represented 3 months of grinding and selling everything i could. Im far from alone on that type of experience. If you dont consider being able to bypass such experiences P2W, then i guess we simply have different definitions as you say.

If you could not at all get competitive with other players in the game that use the cs, without using it yourself then you are right that is pay to win, but the issue is you can get to a compettive level if you are willing to spend the money an time to get there (regardless of how much or long it takes.). The issue is yeah the chance of upgrading/enchanting/gemming what ever you want to call it in game without using the cs, and with using the cs are huge yet still not p2w as it is doable even if unlikely. As i said this is buying a convience factor over merely buying raw power that is not attainable in game, or just buying items that are outright better than others in game. For myself an i am sure many others if i had to choose between seeing this kind of convience kind of item buying, or buying actual items that are out right better than others in the game (true pay to win.) without playing game, i would much rather see this style myself. An yes we are talking about two different standards of p2w as you example is any cs that gives a advantage to the players in the game, where as mine is well when you can actually purchase somethign that aloje makes you vastly more powerful or able to win.

If RNG is your thing then Aion suits your needs perfectly.

The music rocks in Aion

The graphics are amazing

The grind is hard, not as hard as it was but still hard enough

I quited a long time ago and never looked back tough, played it in a private server for quite some time to enjoy a more balanced pvp and that was fun, but man this game could have been alot better with some small diffrences in RNG and grinding.

I'm bettin on a plate.

Spear plus shield anyone ? :D

Originally posted by marz.at.play
Exciting news. Aion is the #1 (IMO) F2P game with only fluff items in the cash shop.

nope not anymore 

gw2 is here baby 

Originally posted by Mothanos

If RNG is your thing then Aion suits your needs perfectly.

The music rocks in Aion

The graphics are amazing

The grind is hard, not as hard as it was but still hard enough

 

I quited a long time ago and never looked back tough, played it in a private server for quite some time to enjoy a more balanced pvp and that was fun, but man this game could have been alot better with some small diffrences in RNG and grinding.

 

its not hard its boring

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk RUNS to get a single drop...this game has THE WORST drop rate an mmo has to date.

no wonder ppl ragequit and the devs still dont get it.

Originally posted by ShimpoGenmu

Originally posted by marz.at.play
Exciting news. Aion is the #1 (IMO) F2P game with only fluff items in the cash shop.

nope not anymore 

gw2 is here baby 

gw2 is not  f2p its buy to play, so his statement still stands.