Aion introduces XP bonus weekends to smooth the curve

You know, this is starting to sound like Warhammer's story. So much hype, and everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon upon release, but now just a few months after, it seems their population is dwindling down. I quit before my free month ran out, making it to 27 before I just couldnt tolerate it anymore. And even with the exp grind being taken care of, what about the insane gear grinds? Simply put, this IS an asian game, and if you dont have a grind with one aspect, you'll have it with another. Then there's the problem of the gold-sinks. I grew out of games like this when I got older and was able to pay for subscriptions. I dont agree with having to tolerate this kind of crap unless it's a F2P title.

On another note, has anyone noticed the News surrounding Aion has died down? We were reading articles on an almost daily basis, but the last month has been very quiet. Very unusual if this game was thriving.

I quit at the end of my free month of play. I had hit lvl 27 on my cleric and the grinding was getting way to boring. I decided not to play anymore at that point. If it had less grind I might would come back. But with guild wars 2, STOR, Global Agenda, and Mass Effect 2 coming out next year, I would have to say a little to late as well. Just my opinion. For those still playing, enjoy.

I agree with Sean on that one,the population is between 35-45 right now and many are leveling alts so the xp boost in the lower levels is to make them reach this level range.

And to those complaining about the grind to 18-20 but sorry guys you've been spoonfed for such a long time that you are slowly unlearning some aspect of MMOs.In fact the real grind starts at level 37,more grouping is needed to fight Elites,repetitive fedx quests.

I have a 47 Templar as well as several 20's... I won't say this is too little too late, but I will say I am disappointed by the lack of 46-50 bonuses. These are the hardest and longest levels, and the levels with the least amount of quests to facilitate them. (3-6 hour instance grinds is not feasible for a lot of people anymore).

The xp weekends are nice, and the Soul Healing and Repose bonuses are golden. However, what most players would like to see are more questing made available to level up. As well as an increase in XP/AP from PvP and Fortress sieges. Three to 7k kinah for participating in a Fortress could easily be turned into a scaling XP bonus. These are in primetime and a lot of people can only play during primetime. So often its a choice between PvP and XP. Make it an easier choice NCSoft.

They're increasing the XP rates for *Everything* early in 2010, this is temporary to help some *Right Now*. I'll take this over nothing.

Aion is a great game. I really hope they sort out the problems they have with the grind right now because its stopping me from playing. People hve been spoiled by WoW in terms of lacking a grind because they tend to take what WoW is now...... and falsley apply it to what WoW was when it launched. People forget that when WoW launched it DID have a grind, sure it wasnt as steep as aions, but it was still close to it. Anyone who rolled horde on release of WoW will vouch for this, not only did every enemy in the game have 30% more HP's at launch and the world was populated by pockets of elite mobs (unlike now) but when you were playing horde and would get to around lvl 35-50 you almost literally had to grind the entire way through. There were no horde quests in searing gorge, only a tiny amount (like 2-3 in felwood) less than 5 quests in azshara, and the horde camp in feralas has been given many many more quests since launch also. From finishing stranglethorn vale almost all the way up to wintergrasp (which had a then INSANE rep grind to access it) and ungoro you were starved of quests and had to grind... you couldnt even grind instances because maraudon did not launch with the game.

I had a reat time in Aion the starting 10 levels were the best i have ever played in a MMO and if the XP was tweaked slightley to ramp up as you lvl im sure i would feel the continuity throughout the rest of the lvling process too. People bash it somtimes, its not too late i will resub in a heartbeat when i hear some decent XP increasing has been done. And it had the best launch of any mmo in the west ever.

I played a toon during beta and before the first major exp boost. And it was true about running out of quests and grinding starting (I stopped at 39).
However, after last patch the exp boost was so nice that I'm 33 and still have a shit load of stuff to do. Unlike on my first character, where at 33 I got bored and pretty much questless.
I'd strongly suggest people to try again, because it has been improved.
What they do need though is to add more rifts or at least more quests to do at Abyss, to force people to stay there so more pvp can happen.
That's my major complaint about Aion. Lack of pvp. Really.

I grinded to level 39 on my ranger before I quit which places me firmly in the "too little too late" group of people. WAR showed that you get one shot, just one, and if you mess it up, you get a 300k playerbase and thats it. Aion had their shot, messed it up, and now instead of having 1 million strong subscriptions and growing, servers are growing quiet, very quiet.
Remember the closed beta's for aion only went to lvl 30 so no one had any idea of the hidden grind which one shot a lot of people.

Also Aion's grind was never about the lack of quests. People had full quest logs but at lvl 30, you gained xp 3-4 times faster grinding mobs in an area then running around doing quests which is a massive oversight.
The guy who runs Curse called it in the first few weeks, leave aion to the die hards and move on to better things.

Im a solo player. All I want from my MMO is a bunch of quests that hold my hand and guide me through the zones, a little skirmish PvP, and some challenging world and instance bosses. Aion pretty much let me down on all those fronts. I dont care how long it takes me to level as long as there are enough tasks to fill those levels.

But being forced into groups for the majority of my quest log, Zerg PvP where no one shows up to defend objectives, and ultra-linear instances with zero creative boss encounter designs and almost no chance at even a basic item upgrade is just not entertaining.

I hit level 31 and had my fill of repeated quests, long directionless grind sessions, boring instances, and an abyss empty of everyone but high-level quest campers.

I just got into the Allods Online CB. Though the stat system is a bit more complex and free form then other games I've played and the game is buggy as hell in some spots it is leaps and bounds more entertaining and story driven then Aion and more polished then Warhammer with the spot-on animation and creative art direction of WoW. Its leveling curve is steeper then Aion (at least in the first 10 levels), but it is far more engaging due to the plethora of quests and varied environments.

Its "Kill 10 Rats" type of stuff, it is not trying to do anything radically different in that area. But where Aion, for all its graphical fidelity, feels soulless; Allods feels alive and engaging. They're certainly not reinventing the MMO, but it will set the bar for F2P. And when your Beta release Free2Play MMO is more fun and more exciting then your Premium Pay2Play Triple-A title MMO...well then you have a serious problem on your hands.

Really shows how extraordinarily arbitrary these xp systems are. If you can just say "well, things are kinda slow.. lets double it?" Why not x10? or x10000000? if leveling itself is not fun, the game is a failure. The End.