07/29/2010   Games, PC   4 Comments

Aion wants you back. No, really. They’re desperate.

Aion announced earlier this week in a news update that they were going to automatically reactiviate all accounts for the weekend, and offer a double XP reward event as well. They originally had also offered free character transfers since merging

This is semi-exciting news for anybody who had been toying with the idea of playing again. Even I was tempted, if only for a  stark reminder of why I quit in the first place.

AION hasn’t crossed my mind since I rage quit a after level 10; i had made a scout and upon choosing my destiny as a ranger, found out that the mechanics were horrible. Everybody kept saying “oh they get better after 20″ and such, but 10 levels of suffering is hardly worth it, IMO. How can one justify that? A delicate leveling bracket (10-20) being insufferable is worthless.

I’ve played a lot of MMO’s of different kinds, and for a combat mechanic from one class to cause me to pretty much quit the game entirely is pretty bad. I usually just switch classes and start over. I mean, level 10 is nothing, right?

My leveling experience aside, I’ve heard nothing good about the end-game past 30. It becomes a grind for levels and gear, worse than anything many players have experienced, and the pvp is completely lopsided since server merges downed the maximum realms to 5. I don’t even know where my useless ranger is at this point.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in picking the game up again, this weekend is the golden ticket. The biggest let-down is that they dropped the free server x-fers for the time being, making any re-activated accounts who have no clue where their toons are now (like myself) can’t move over to a server with friends. Go figure.

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  • Pity

    I distinctly remember all my sick nerd friends saying “We’re glad you’re playing WoW again, but we’re all quiting for Aion”. TEN days later the same friends are asking me for an invite to a VoA group, bickering amongst themselves about the time they wasted.

  • http://musesdice.blogspot.com/ Entropicurity

    I’ve been lurking a bit on the various forums and reading reviews of the different aspects of the game, and although I have seen some good reviews (being that the game is VERY beautiful, and has some really nice graphics) the gamplay itself has been rather horrible, and the grind even more so.

    As far as the Vanilla MMO stuff that some companies are running right now, I find that there are some companies that take the normal standards to new extremes, “Oh, you’ll get to the good content in a good 10-20 levels, till then you just have to pray for the best!”

    I’ve never really understood the point of the grind, although I can understand that a game isn’t a game without a little bit of grinding, I just expect that when I grind I’m doing more than just trying to level, or if I’m trying to grind over a period of a couple of hours in order to take on a new boss or unlock more skills.

    But having to grind through 10 to 20 levels, each level taking a good grip of hours in order to achieve, it seems like a total waste to me. If I’m paying a monthly fee to play the game, I expect to be able to get into the content I like within a reasonable amount of time, where the challenge is on skill, not on my patience.

    Congrats on the 100th post by the way! :D

    • http://izziebytes.wordpress.com izziebot

      I’m not gonna lie, Aion is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played and the character creation system was amazing.

      That said, I’m pretty sure the most fun I had in Aion was making ridiculous looking characters like Bonquisha.

      The grind is ridiculous because it’s an asian game, and for whatever odd cultural reason, asians love to grind. I mean, most Final Fantasy games and other Asian RPG’s for the console are pretty grindy, too.

      Unfortunately that system gets lost in translation when it comes to the west. Even though western gamers are just as likely to spend hours playing, they don’t want to grind so they get fed up and leave.

      The 1-10 experience in AION is pretty awesome, actually. But after that, it gets miserable, ok for a bit, then absolutely dismal. Bad design which is why the game is dying.

      And thank you, good sir! :D

  • http://izziebytes.wordpress.com izziebot

    lmfao, sounds about right to me.