Aion is a group game, made for people that can work together.  It is not uncommon to see people still struggling to solo this game, just because its possible.

Personally, I find a 4 person group to be optimum for grinding elites, and duo for quests. Best solo activity to do in game is gather and craft.

I've been saying this since I first Played L2. Farming bots are an essential part of the games success.  I'm glad to see them out there famring major elemntals and other crafting materials. They keep the broker full of gear and make it generally more fun for other players. 

When there is a bot or multiple bots in an area that you need to be, it doesnt take more than a few minutes to disrupt their botting programs and take them out of the equation while you hunt. I have yet to come up against a superior bot that I could not either block from attacking, kill it, or get it to default to zero, there was some really good ones that took about 6 minutes to disrupt.

Bots have a place in a game just like rats have a place in society, we need them, we just don't want to see them.

If anyone has been keeping up, My wife, and I have been playing Aion since launch.  After a few months my Son decided he wanted to play, so we all rerolled into traditional roles. Me the Tank, my wife the Healer, and my son the Spirit Master. It has been a bit better then 3 months since that happened and last night we leveled to 45!

Each level that we attained since 40 has been rewarding not only from progression, but from the new parts of the game that we look forward to. For example, we really have been looking forward to grinding out the Platinum Coin quest (why I don't know, we just talked about it alot for sometime now). Also, and more importantly there is the 5 level spread in this game, where if something is more then 5 levels higher than you your resists are many. We now have the ability to really take on the lvl 50 npc's and players with a bit more confidence. Very exciting indeed. There are many more things and we look forward to Dredgion at 46!

A casual players we are still able to enjoy the game, remember we are three though and we only play when the three of us are online at the same time. 

We each have alts, and because my schedule is a little more flexible, I am able to gather and craft to make enough money and gear for all 3 of us (it is like a second job I feel sometimes, grinding kinah for 3 people) But, that point should illustrate that 1 person working a full time job, coaching a Lacrosse team, going out to dinner with friends is still capable of generating enough income to have top level crafted gear, all our spell books, mana and health regen potions. for 3 characters. It took alot of reading and preparing and knowing where to go thanks to resources found online for free, and guild friends who we have many on our server.

Lots of high level peeps got burnt out playing hardcore, I hope they come back to see how the game is maturing politically, there really is never a dull moment in LFG. 

Of course we love Aion and look forward to playing it whenever that illusive hour or two pops up. Hope to see you all soon in game. Get a partner group up and kill some mobs.

Cheers

Imagine only 6 levels to cap.  Here's a quick update.

Firstly, I have to say the 40's so far have been the best levels of the game.  There are stll plenty of quests with good rewards, notably Betoni's Weapon Quest. Betoni's was a tonne of fun, getting to pvp for a good lot of time, and frustrating with the Elyos always around to thwart any attempts on the Reapers. Very well done quest.

My wife, son and I are starting to not die so much during PvP and have been hunting in the abyss at least once a night for many weeks now. Its great to be on the giving end finally, and it just feels so rewarding to spread our wings over a dead sun sucker.

It is a grind, but getting a full group together and wasting some elites for very nice loot is good fun. With all that loot its nice to have the 99 slot backpacks now after finishing that crazy cube expansion quest. We break it all up with PvP, questing, group gathering, and crafting while we watch Lost.

So recap, great quests in the 40's and some very interesting PVP. Blood for Blood!

send in a ticket for help from Aion Support, they are very good at getting to the root of any issues and respond realitivly quickly from my experience.

Wicked, Aion will work well on any modern computer with a dedicated Vid Card.  Have fun.   Good Luck its an epic game. But its not easy on the mind when soloing.

Aion has lost more subscribers then it gained I would surmise; however the population on my server seems to be fairly constant. Burnt out level 50's quit, and new players fill their void. As for loot drops, dungeon times etc they are the same as launch and frankly I don't have any issues with that.  I like rare equipment to be rare, thats personal though. 

Aion is a tough game to play mentally, and requires a significant attention span to play due to the heavy grinding (albeit fun still for me) and the heavy travelling and death penalties. 

I have been playing with my Wife and Son for the last 6 months, and would not recommend this game to anyone who are M&S or not semi/fully elitist type personality.

Originally posted by Azerin

I agree 100%. After spending 30 mins wading in a sea of players, having to make a macro just to be able to target the NPC cause players covered him up, I still had no idea what the actual purpose of the event was. The crowd would move around from spot to spot and he would spawn random mobs, but nothing dropped and no kinah was given away. I think the highlight was when Fergy dropped down to a lower platform in Sanctum, and all the players who had him on follow fell to their death. But 30 mins of this piss poor excuse for an event was all I could handle, so back to Eltnen I went to  keep questing and help fend off against some lowbie gankers.

Edit: After reading the forums, it seems that Fergus was controlled by a GM on each server, and apparently on my server (Ariel), after  causing a bunch of people to fall to a platform you couldn't get off of, or fall to their death, the GM just dissapeared. No drops were had. So you can't even chalk this up to a NPC glitch? Dam you NCSoft!

Shift F12 removes all player controlled avatars and names unless you select them, or they are in your group.

The rest, well Aion has a poor track record so far for events. This event was no different.

Originally posted by Larry2298

Many Asian family like to play online game all together just like the news of today. A couple of Korean addictive to play online game and only feed their 3 months old baby once for a day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8551122.stm

Playing game is fun but it may not be good for all family members to play online. I think the family would be better to go outdoor or dining at a better restaurant from time to time.

 

What is this outdoor that you refer to? :P

If you have been paying attention, my wife, son and I just hit 40 this morning. There must be something about that milestone, because we all feel pretty good.  We have been playing a Templar, Cleric, Spirit Master Combo. Its been 2 months playing these classes, but my wife and I have been playing since launch.

Ill keep it brief! Its been quite an adventure and we continue to learn how to play our characters better and enjoy the increased ganking activity. We have been strong enough to thwart most attempts, but the tiny little bugger sins get a good stun lock going every once in a while.

The power on our server has shifted once again back to elyos, I suspect our server is regrouping and licking wounds.

We all have recently got our MMV 20% speed boots which is nice for moving around the maps. 3 manning 300 elite MMV was a fun grind, at least the hair drop everytime.

So, we have our new spells now and are looking forward to decimating this level 42 mil XP :)

GO TEAM

I would say the fortress disconnect bug was solved a few months ago.

Actually our first raid that we did in the abyss was the power shift in the abyss a couple of weeks ago it was honestly pretty epic to smack down the elyos. We have been defending and attacking in the abyss with Savage and the rest of the power houses on the Asmo side.  The defending is not as exciting as the taking, but all the zerg pvp is pretty epic. So many people all out for blood its phenomanal.

We are all almost 39 now! Still enjoying the game, and more of my friends have joined and also enjoying. Looking forward to opening up some more dungeons.

I have to admit, I was nervous that going through level 36 was gonna be a grind, but some how NC made sure there was enough content for yet another level.

So far I have level 24 missing content, and partially level 35. Other then those two levels I have yet to run out of quests. Well done!

Still having a blast with my wife and son its been almost 5 months! Our guild on Yustiel is Phenomanal and the power shift in the abyss has been amazing.

See you all in game:)

Troll much

Originally posted by Sonoko

There never was a grind even before the exp buffs/double exp weekends.  There's plenty of quests at any level, more than enough that combined with the natural exp you gain through doing them to level up.  All the way to 50.

The only time you'd ever have to grind is if you're dead-set on leveling the absolute fastest and skip the vast majority of the content in the game, or if you refuse to do group quests or some such.

That is just not true, there are some blank spots. I have done every quest so far that has been available including all group quests and level appropriate campaigns, and at level 24 i had to grind a significant portion ot the level, again at 34 the same thing. Now Im at 35 and there is only about 4 quests left in my log and no where near 36. 

However, I don't mind the grind at all I have been 3 manning FT in hopes of some nice drops of the boss, no luck yet. Maybe tonight will be my night.

Originally posted by Sidereus

out of the subject...

I wish I had had parents like you... it would have been fun to play video games with my dad, especially MMOS...but he is more like hammers, screws, construction things like that.

Sry, I had to post it because I find it cool that you, your wife and your son are all playing the same game :D

TBH, I am a nuts an bolt guy.  I have been an Engineer for 17 years, my wife works at a bank in mid-office, and our son is an advid Lacrosse Player.  If we have any free time we spend it together, it just so happens our hobbies are the same. 

It is not always great to share the same hobby with your dad, son, or mom. We sit next to each other while we play. Let's just say it can get uncomfortable sometimes when one of us screws up. LOL

Well after 4 months of playing everyday I finally made it to Level 32. 

My wife and I started playing a Sorc and Ranger combo on launch, (I've posted about it earlier) it was a blast!  The DpS we could punch out was phenomanal.  However after making it to level 34, my Son displayed a great deal of interest after soloing a Spirit Master to 20 on my Wifes account.

So after almost 2k dollars later and a couple of hours of shopping and updates my Son creates his own SM. My wife and I decide to change class to make for a better PVE matcn. I rolled a Templar and she rolled a Cleric. We are closing in on 35 maybe this weekend?

I was weary at first making the change, but must admit it has been a great experience overall.  We have seen a lot of different content then previous and enjoy the game from a different perspective.

PvP through rifting has been exceptionally fun and we are now all rank 5. We are leveling a decent pace, this is the end of week 3 on Sunday.  We will be looking for a Legion after 35 to join and can't wait to get into the Army Ranks.

Blood for Blood

See you all on Yustiel

Where is the PvP instance? I must of missed that.

Aion could be so much more, that is true. Perhaps someday it will be. However, the game is fun and has alot more to offer then a mindless grind. Just because people are disappointed in a games potential doesn't mean it's not good. There is a difference!

Gold spamming is infrequent, no worse then any other MMO I have played.  The only thing that has happened to the economy is that gathered material prices fluxuate due to lack of farmers.

I can't say there is a huge issue with botting , although when i jump rfts i do commonly find them in obscure areas, but they do not seem to upset flow of hunting anymore. (I personally have never had any problems even at its speculated worst)

The population on Yustiel seems very full, there are always groups forming and lots of people around to chat with on /LFG. The Abyss is very constant at 18% control each side. with the remainder to the Balur.