Lol I got to 25 and had no grind so far again, i'm up to 28 nearly 29, going to go into the instance again to get me there, then i've got enough quests to get me to 30 and loads more to do then. This isn't a grind fest unless you group up every quest that can be solo'ed, miss every mob unless its a quest mob. I've grinded about 2-3hours to get to 25 and not grinded since, thats pretty good for any mmo. I'm sure most ppl read its a korean MMO and go, oh its a grind fest, then don't look and re look for quests as this game isn't as linear as some think, then say its a grind fest as i have no quests, but not looked.

But hey, ppl can think wat they want, if they don't want a grind, don't play.....erm.....anything? Racing games have grind, MMO's have grind, coming to think of it pretty much all games could be classed to have grind factors in them, whether it be kill npc over and over in a fps, or race track after track, pitch after pitch. Meh I'm not a huge fan of endless grind but this isn't it by a long way, I'm used to 1 quest for a level and grind the rest, this has enough quests I don't know past 30 but i've got quite a few and then the new instance to play in so I should be fine.

/.

Originally posted by sbanting

Lol I got to 25 and had no grind so far again, i'm up to 28 nearly 29, going to go into the instance again to get me there, then i've got enough quests to get me to 30 and loads more to do then. This isn't a grind fest unless you group up every quest that can be solo'ed, miss every mob unless its a quest mob. I've grinded about 2-3hours to get to 25 and not grinded since, thats pretty good for any mmo. I'm sure most ppl read its a korean MMO and go, oh its a grind fest, then don't look and re look for quests as this game isn't as linear as some think, then say its a grind fest as i have no quests, but not looked.

But hey, ppl can think wat they want, if they don't want a grind, don't play.....erm.....anything? Racing games have grind, MMO's have grind, coming to think of it pretty much all games could be classed to have grind factors in them, whether it be kill npc over and over in a fps, or race track after track, pitch after pitch. Meh I'm not a huge fan of endless grind but this isn't it by a long way, I'm used to 1 quest for a level and grind the rest, this has enough quests I don't know past 30 but i've got quite a few and then the new instance to play in so I should be fine.

Little over the top. I agree that it's not nearly as bad as Lineage 2. I know you didn't mention lineage 2 but it was a GRIND FEST. I got to 75 on L2 and gave it up and that was not botting, powerleveling, or anything crappy like that.

Aion I think they did it right. I think we all get use to games like Age Of Conan and Wow where it's SO EASY to level that we step back and don't realize that most games will have lots of grind. Maybe we are all looking for that game that is enjoyable all the way to the max level with no grinding. Instancing and questing. Sure questing has grinding but it's not as bad if you're doing quests. 

Not all games have big grinds. I will say that NCSoft did pretty well and at level 24 I'm getting 8k-10k per mob. It ranges. But see that's really good. Needing over 2 million xp to level is a little steep and I can't imagine level 40+ but killing 200 mobs to level isn't SO BAD. Lets just see how bad (if at all) it gets in the 40's. The game has many problems no doubt but it's very nicely polished and it's a load of fun. Breath of fresh air to some degree if you will. Not a big breath of fresh air but it's decent. It pretty much threw tons of other games into 1 and made it it's own type of character.

I'm looking forward to instancing. :)

The first instance is a Training Camp to train you for Fortress Battles, so you take over an artifact and then raid the fortress and kill the boss, the elites give you 45-50k exp and the boss's give even more, this is why I haven't grinded since 25 lol! That instance ends at lvl 29 and lvl 30 is the next one, can't wait to see that!

Yes I know I was exaggerating the fact all games have grind, but I'm getting fed up reading that this is a grind game when there are so many quests, but ppl are not bothering with the quests and grinding instead then saying its a grind lol, my misses is at lvl 23 now and not grinded one single mob, yet there are level 12s that are complaining that they are out of quests!

  I think though my biggest gripe here is excusing  them using twitter to communicate with the games population, I don't use twitter never read a feed and don't intend to, and it is as stated many times over here just lame for them to use it to communicate with their players.  We all know that using programs and such offered online also many times opens you and your pc up to that company as well and I am certainly not going to pay NCsoft to give my information to twitter, and no I don't expect a phone call (no other mmo does that but they all have a better way to communicate with their player base than this game is offering with a twitter feed) but I sure don't expect to have to use some third party chat software either.

What's so wrong about them using Twitter? You're saying that they're not communicating, but they are through twitter. You can't blame them if you refuse to use twitter. It's the same thing as saying if you refused to use the forums. I really don't see how it's any different than communicating through the official forums.

Also, they stated the reason for lack of communication on the forums. The GM's and Admins or whatever can't respond in already started threads, there are bugs and they're working them out.

na.aiononline.com/forums/information/noticeView

Originally posted by xfrozenx

I'm not about to comment to everything the op said. However; I will agree that the game has a massive grind past 25. I'm still enjoying it on my cleric and there's lots to do. The grind could be less though. But hey, it's NCSOFT! Be prepared to see many botters soon, I know of many  right now that I've seen to be honest. It's going to happen on a grind fest such as this. But I will say again that I'm enjoying the game.

Im a level 31 cleric and I did grind a level from 23 to 24. After 25 I did the abyss training instance which put me to 28 in 3 (!) days (repeatable every 16 hours). I deleted a bunch of quests in some plain desert, finished some to hit 29. Next I did the accessquest to temple of fire and since then I am leveling in that instance. If I grow bored I go to the Abyss and fight some Elyos or level my collecting/crafting skill.

No clue what youre doing wrong but till 31 there is hardly any grind involved. If you dont want to group up and do instance runs youre probably running into content holes, nonetheless in that case youre playing the wrong class and game anyway.

Although people are calling it a grind, the game has barely been out two weeks, and people are already in the mid forties. Granted these people are probably playing a heap, however, it clearly indicates that while there may be some 'grind' involved to get to max, it will not be a 6 month non stop hard code grind like other so called 'korean grinders'.

i couldn't agree with you more.

While there are a lot of people flaming the original poster, there's a lot of truth in what he's saying. Im currently still playing Aion and still enjoying it for the most part, but many of his comments hold true.

1. This is correct, the leveling does get a bit tedious and there is a bit of a disconnect for levels/quests. For some this will be a bit of an issue. I worry more that it will get worse.

2. The crafting/gathering is much like any other game, it has its perks and if you wish to invest time into it, its there for you. My only gripe about crafting is a lot of times it seems like you can go afk for most of it (which is the same for other mmos). Early on in the game it's definitely a money sink, but it has its definite rewards.

3. Bag space can become an issue, you can't be as carefree as other games and you have to have a good "rearrange" sitdown with your warehouse. Doesn't bother me personally much.

4. Can't comment on that

5. I'm on a newer server, this does not affect me, not the best but i recommend new players join the new servers.

6. Can't say i've noticed this.

7. Gold spam is the worst i've ever experienced from any game. When I logon, I generally block 2-3 people right off the bat from general chat, and 2-3 whispers. Then after that point every hour i'll have a new one popup, its definitely a problem.

8. Rubberbanding is a very bad issue even on the new servers, and yes lag is present sometimes as well.

9. There is virtually no contact with GMs in game, and I don't think they monitor servers closely. On my server there was someone spamming a keylogger website for nearly 3 hours before any Gms came to the server to do something about it.

10. Read 9

11. The chat does personally annoy me, one of the first things I noticed after joining a guild, I have to scroll up continuously and miss things easily with this chat box.

12. Can't comment

Adding one: Bots, there are quite a few bots so far on my server and little seems to be done about it.

For those saying "who cares? leave the game" or saying none of these are an issue whatsoever, its simply not true. Some can be interpreted differently, or not a problem at all, but many people in game talk about it. It's good for players thinking about purchasing the game. Though again, I'm currently still playing the game so the positive outweigh the negatives thus far. Nothing wrong with constructive criticism though.
 

 Ya, I know they're still 'working' on Lineage III...but then again Blizzard was working on Starcraft: GHOST until they up and scrapped it. Plus it sucks they aren't going to use the new Unreal Engine; instead they're going to make their own. For one thing Aion uses the CryEngine...so unless I'm mistaken NCsoft doesn't even have it's own graphics engine....this does not look good considering designing a Graphics Engine from scratch will undoubtedly cause numerous bugs and stability issues. So If Lineage III ever does get off the ground I suspect its overall quality will be much less than Lineage or Lineage II.

Originally posted by Greeve11

Rather disappointed with the game, for many reason but most importantly-

1. The leveling. After 20 theres no doubt about it quests become rare and the XP is lacking even from the ones you run into. Grinding isn't necessarily my thing. Though someone can argue that grinding mobs is no different than grinding quests but straight grinding is monotonous.

I am at level 34 and have 29/30 normal quests  and 8 Campaign quests to do. I never had a point where there weren't quests to do. However, I agree that there aren't that many in early 20s as there are once you get to do three zones. In case of Asmodians, quests are divived and require regular travel between Abyss, Morheim and Beluslan.

Also, group XP is amazing in this game and there are always group areas to do as well. I have only done them for the quests, not grinding.

2. Crafting and gathering. The game almost makes me feel like I need to level these two, and when it came down to it I had 200 Iron Ore that took nearly 30 minutes (Or more) to smelt into bars. There's an issue there. I've also heard of people spending over four hours just doing work orders to level their craft. This doesn't settle well with me. The drop rate on required fluxes is unsettling as well. I've had to drop over 100k Kinah on Fluxes just for a shot at making a blue item, just a shot...

You do not need to gather to level your crafting skills. Also, crafted items are very good in this game. In comparison to some other games, like WoW. Dropping 100k to buy fluxes is nothing, if the item you can gain sells between 200k-600k.

3. Bag room/space. Very lacking and you're expected to pay mass amounts of Kinah to expand your cube. My bags are always full because of the gathering materials/gems I'm always picking up while leveling.

I agree. Having second character at level 10 helps a lot. Never had cube problems with two characters.

4. Certain mechanics. In my opinion some abilities need to be taken off the GCD. Like a Gladiator's Crippling Cut for example. Sprint causes my character to fly across the screen occasionally (Well, more than that) when used. Ranger's Stunning shot deals 200-400 damage but I've have it crit over 1k. There was another post about this I believe. Random numbers are random and don't make sense.

This does not warrant an answer.

5. Queues. I'm not into waiting 2 hours or more to get into the game. I'm not sure why they opened with so few servers, especially with the game being out for a while in Asia.

In agreement here.

6. Channels in the 1-10 and 11-20 zones but none for the zones above that? It's hard enough to muster the intention of grinding, but when I do I have to worry about large masses of people all over doing the same.

Had no problems regardless of high number of people. Only met few assholes, but apart from that people have been fairly polite. Also try asking to group when you are doing mobs that are on a high farm rate due to quests and such.

7. Gold spam. This is out of hand. And I need to log onto their main site to place in a ticket! This is ridiculous. I can block all the spammers I want but it seems like theres an army of them.

Had no problem with gold spam at Perento, EU. Blocked 3 guys in total. Perhaps other servers have more problems, so can't really say.

8. Lag. Constant disconnections are happening left and right for many players. Once again, with the game being out for some time you would imagine they have a pretty hefty revenue to make the game smooth and solid, but apparently not. The other night the server randomly came down without word as well, which will also lead me to my next point

Had two crashes the whole time. Only disconnects when server goes down to maintenance.

9. Communication. When the server went down we received no word at all on the status of our server for 4 hours. When word finally came out, it was a Twitter update. This is very- VERY poor communication with customers. Forums were packed with threads and no one knew what was going on at all because after a certain point we couldn't even see the server lists. Another issue is there are no updates on the launch client. Nothing at all. When servers are down for maintenance.. I wouldn't know. It would just tell me I couldn't connect to the servers and kick me off the game. This causes a lot of confusion. Lastly, petitions need to be carried out through their website- wtf? I begin to wonder if they even have any game masters at all.

Yes, in-server communication could be better. However, this affected me one time for few hours. Not that big deal to be honest.

10. As mentioned earlier. No in-game support.

11. Chat. The opacity and font cannot be changed which is a bother for me as I find the text to be far too large and even with my chat filtered I find it difficult to keep up with legion/party/whisper chats. The lack of a command list irks me as well.

Pretty standard MMO chat. Sure some functions are missing or not there, but not every game have it the same way. Aion chat could use few more options, but seperating the group, combat, legion and generic chat helps a lot. You do know that you can drag and drop them out from the frame?

12. Triggered emotes- these are just annoying...

Option to turn them off would be nice, but do not really bother me.

13. Oh screw it, you get the point. I won't be returning until serious changes are made.

Answers in blue. Most of those things you want changed, I do not. I have been pretty happy with the game. However, I have to say that you seem like  a guy with no patience, so I would quit anyway. Why? Because you will probably quit once you get to the Abyss anyway .

Originally posted by Leucent

I agree with everything here and more. Boring gameplay, linear as hell, KSing, no pvp till 25, could fall asleep fighting(click a skill, then another, oh look a combo skill, over and over), terrible kid like sounds, nothing new in the least. Before i got to any of these gripes, I couldn t get past the boredom.

You just described every MMORPG on the market. I guess this genre not you cup of tea. Play something else instead and get out.

---

Originally posted by lev-27

---

Originally posted by Leucent

---

I agree with everything here and more. Boring gameplay, linear as hell, KSing, no pvp till 25, could fall asleep fighting(click a skill, then another, oh look a combo skill, over and over), terrible kid like sounds, nothing new in the least. Before i got to any of these gripes, I couldn t get past the boredom.

---

---

 
You just described every MMORPG on the market. I guess this genre not you cup of tea. Play something else instead and get out.

---

You would have to be a very sad person indeed if you truly believe that AND still play MMOs.

Tbh, instead of you guys come complain about the game to MMORPG.com . Why don't you just quit the game? That will make me very happy since Queues will drop =D If you don't like, just quit lmao. No quests at 20+ ?? o0 I remenber having like 26 quests at lv20 PLUS some campaign quests which i only make when im at their exact LV.

At LV 28 i remenber having my quest log full :) I Don't understand why you troll about everything your wrong, Low space on bag? Just lv it up? ( better then those games that when its full u got nothing to do coz it can't be expanded )

No pvp till 25? , after 20(u get to 20 in 3 days maybe less if u want to) in elten theres allready lots of PVP rift based :) at lv 33 geting 25% takes less then 1h for me when its about grinding.. how can u say thats too much grinding???????? Game has only 50 Lvs, u dont want to be 50 within 2 days right? I DEFINATLY didnt pay this game to finish it in a couple of days.

Seriously some people have some serious mental problem, if ur just tired of MMORPG , go play something else, make my fukin butt happy, leave the game, go complain with ur head against a wall while u contribute to lesser queues and make the Good gamers happy.

Lvling boring? its the first game i enjoy fighting, especially in abyss, where u gring and need to look over ur sholders to make sure u dont get a back stab from the enemy faction, seriously, if u want to get a life, dont use Aion as an excuse, get the FO and make Aion Gamers happy.

My 2 Cents.

 Haven't played the game and don't plan to so I will only comment on one thing that I knew would be there without playing it, the grinding.  People whine and complain about it and actually act surprised when they find they have to grind mobs to level.  I'm guessing those same individuals have never played an Asian MMO before.  I have never seen one that didn't involve grinding.  They enjoy doing that over there, more so than western players.  Not to say nobody here does, but not near as many.

It may be more polished than most grinders, but no matter how much polish it has, in the end, it's still nothing more than another grinder with the same Asian character models and grinding.  If you don't mind that kind of thing, then I would try it.  From what I hear from friends, it's the best one to hit the US yet.

Originally posted by jpaprocki

 Haven't played the game and don't plan to so I will only comment on one thing that I knew would be there without playing it, the grinding.  People whine and complain about it and actually act surprised when they find they have to grind mobs to level.  I'm guessing those same individuals have never played an Asian MMO before.  I have never seen one that didn't involve grinding.  They enjoy doing that over there, more so than western players.  Not to say nobody here does, but not near as many.

It may be more polished than most grinders, but no matter how much polish it has, in the end, it's still nothing more than another grinder with the same Asian character models and grinding.  If you don't mind that kind of thing, then I would try it.  From what I hear from friends, it's the best one to hit the US yet.

 

Since when is doing quests grinding? I think a lot of people have lost the meaning of what a grind really is.

Originally posted by dstar.

Originally posted by Hrothmund

I agree with many people here. I am a level 35 ranger now and the game is just, well boring, and I feel like the only reason to play is the leveing grind, which is'nt exactly a motivation.

 

Same reason I've put the game down.  I took a break beginning on Monday and I haven't logged in since then, and I haven't really had the desire to either.

Same here. I found myself playing the game just because I had bought it, not because I really wanted to play it. So I cancelled subscription and felt relieved. Playing this game made me feel like wearing a corset.

Originally posted by lev-27

Originally posted by Leucent

I agree with everything here and more. Boring gameplay, linear as hell, KSing, no pvp till 25, could fall asleep fighting(click a skill, then another, oh look a combo skill, over and over), terrible kid like sounds, nothing new in the least. Before i got to any of these gripes, I couldn t get past the boredom.

 

You just described every MMORPG on the market. I guess this genre not you cup of tea. Play something else instead and get out.

very constructive fanboi :)

Originally posted by ezduzit

Originally posted by Greeve11

Rather disappointed with the game, for many reason but most importantly-

1. The leveling. After 20 theres no doubt about it quests become rare and the XP is lacking even from the ones you run into. Grinding isn't necessarily my thing. Though someone can argue that grinding mobs is no different than grinding quests but straight grinding is monotonous.

2. Crafting and gathering. The game almost makes me feel like I need to level these two, and when it came down to it I had 200 Iron Ore that took nearly 30 minutes (Or more) to smelt into bars. There's an issue there. I've also heard of people spending over four hours just doing work orders to level their craft. This doesn't settle well with me. The drop rate on required fluxes is unsettling as well. I've had to drop over 100k Kinah on Fluxes just for a shot at making a blue item, just a shot...

3. Bag room/space. Very lacking and you're expected to pay mass amounts of Kinah to expand your cube. My bags are always full because of the gathering materials/gems I'm always picking up while leveling.

4. Certain mechanics. In my opinion some abilities need to be taken off the GCD. Like a Gladiator's Crippling Cut for example. Sprint causes my character to fly across the screen occasionally (Well, more than that) when used. Ranger's Stunning shot deals 200-400 damage but I've have it crit over 1k. There was another post about this I believe. Random numbers are random and don't make sense.

5. Queues. I'm not into waiting 2 hours or more to get into the game. I'm not sure why they opened with so few servers, especially with the game being out for a while in Asia.

6. Channels in the 1-10 and 11-20 zones but none for the zones above that? It's hard enough to muster the intention of grinding, but when I do I have to worry about large masses of people all over doing the same.

7. Gold spam. This is out of hand. And I need to log onto their main site to place in a ticket! This is ridiculous. I can block all the spammers I want but it seems like theres an army of them.

8. Lag. Constant disconnections are happening left and right for many players. Once again, with the game being out for some time you would imagine they have a pretty hefty revenue to make the game smooth and solid, but apparently not. The other night the server randomly came down without word as well, which will also lead me to my next point

9. Communication. When the server went down we received no word at all on the status of our server for 4 hours. When word finally came out, it was a Twitter update. This is very- VERY poor communication with customers. Forums were packed with threads and no one knew what was going on at all because after a certain point we couldn't even see the server lists. Another issue is there are no updates on the launch client. Nothing at all. When servers are down for maintenance.. I wouldn't know. It would just tell me I couldn't connect to the servers and kick me off the game. This causes a lot of confusion. Lastly, petitions need to be carried out through their website- wtf? I begin to wonder if they even have any game masters at all.

10. As mentioned earlier. No in-game support.

11. Chat. The opacity and font cannot be changed which is a bother for me as I find the text to be far too large and even with my chat filtered I find it difficult to keep up with legion/party/whisper chats. The lack of a command list irks me as well.

12. Triggered emotes- these are just annoying...

13. Oh screw it, you get the point. I won't be returning until serious changes are made.

I dont believe a word you say. I havent played Aion but i look forward to it. I bet you work for Blizzard. Really! You probably work for Bliz
 

sure boy he works for the cia too, they want to destroy ncsoft and have nothing else to do

/sarcasm off

Originally posted by altairzq

Originally posted by dstar.

Originally posted by Hrothmund

I agree with many people here. I am a level 35 ranger now and the game is just, well boring, and I feel like the only reason to play is the leveing grind, which is'nt exactly a motivation.

 

Same reason I've put the game down.  I took a break beginning on Monday and I haven't logged in since then, and I haven't really had the desire to either.

 

Same here. I found myself playing the game just because I had bought it, not because I really wanted to play it. So I cancelled subscription and felt relieved. Playing this game made me feel like wearing a corset.

I also cancelled my subscription for pretty much this reason. I've tried to get into the game, but it really is just grinding. Some people keep saying "Its not grinding, I've done quests all the way through - you must be doing something wrong!" - Well they are missing the point.

Almost every quest is a grind in this game outside of the campaign quests. In other games, these "kill 10 monsters" are filler quests - in this game the "kill 10 monsters" is the core of the game. Its just not interesting. I can only assume that those that love the game have just blasted through those parts in the hope that the next bit is good, then perhaps the next bit after that.

Its not a terrible game, but this game is really for people who love MMOs and love to grind. For the normal folks they will have stopped playing within a month or two. This game has no X-Factor and I guess that can only be expected when they don't try to offer anything new.

The long wait for a great MMO continues...