Aion reveals a new trailer for Empyrean Calling

Is anyone currently playing Aion?

How is it doing?

This actually looks like a really good update, although I haven't played Aion since a few weeks after release, when the grind was just unbearable. It got to the point of repeating the same daily quests for four days in a row just for one level.

Nice preview trailer, don't know if I'll return because while I enjoyed the pve I just couldn't get into the pvp for some reason. It felt like something was missing but I can't identify it, strange thing is if it there was a pve server (minus the abyss) I would return... go figure.

I'll probably end up waiting for 3.0 before I return. I still have a fondness in my heart for Aion, but so far I haven't seen anything that made me really want to come back.

Tried to lookup my character on the myAion thing and noticed there are only 4 servers now. My old server isn't even in the list, let alone my character.

Looks cool. Will probably resub for a month. Aion is a game I've always wanted to like...but the 'this is great' feeling always fades too quickly.

First, that video isn't really new, it just now has English instead of Korean text, and was released over 3 months ago. Like the actual patch, they are just now getting around to 'westernize' it. At this rate they'll probably get around to the 2.6 patch a few weeks after 3.0 goes live on the Korean servers.

As to mergers, while the big one happened awhile ago, they just finished off Nezekan by merging anyone that was still left on it into Zikel. Most Elyos fled to Siel or Vaizel during the free transfers once the Ely PvPers left (from lack of Asmo players) and the broker market crashed (that is what drove my Ely to Siel, as I have Asmo friends on Vaizel).

As to Zikel's population (my main server) it is hard to tell, at least on the Asmo side. Sometimes its seems pretty busy, others rather empty. The broker is fairly strong, but higher end items are becoming harder to find and there are fewer items overall on it from what I can tell. Prices on gatherables are rising fast, which is a worry, as I saw the same spike in prices and lack of items on Neze just before the end.

I enjoy Aion and think it has some of the smoothest combat, fun skill combos, nice explorable areas, and graphics of any game out there. But NCWest either can't or won't run the game as it should have been from the start. Quite a few of the worst NCWest people are now gone (thank goodness), but it looks like they'll never get the PvP right. This is partly becaue the 3rd AI faction (Balaur) has never worked properly as a 3rd faction, and there was nothing in place to keep server imbalance from happening.

I think the Korean devs realize this and are moving the game more towards being PvE heavy, rather than fixing or redesigning the PvP aspects. Or maybe they are making some major changes in 3.0, at least they seem to be hinting that both Asmo and Ely may be working together in future, so not sure where they intend to take the game.

Still, with all of Aion's problems, I'd honestly rather pay to play it each month than play something like Rift (generic fantasy MMO is generic) or WoW, even if they were totally free. And I've got GW1 (and eventually GW2) as my co-main MMOs to play no matter what. };-p

It's great that the korean version of the game is thriving so they can put a lot more resources on developing and improving the game but they are largely focusing on the wrong aspects, hopefully the 3.0 version will focus even more on pvp.

The game would have been a contender with WoW if the Koreans (who are so hot to westernize this game) would get it through their heads that Forced PVP and a grind based progression system isn't what the western audience wants.

But that looks like a great update for their insanely huge Korean base which is all that has ever really mattered to Ncsoft anyways.

Their videos have always been very good, but they have a history of doctoring their videos. For example, take their pre-release videos of the acrobatics performed during aerial combat. NCSoft eventually admitted that it wasn't an actual part of the game regardless of looking as though it was performed in-engine. You can't believe a thing that you see from them.

The game itself was a grind fest, its few redeeming qualities greatly over shadowed by NCSoft's complacency toward the legion of bots & spammers.

/soap box on

It's all a little ironic. Pre-release we had statement after statement about how the game definitely wasn't going to be a grind. The reality is that it's very much a grind. Then they made several statements about how they were banning the bots and "taking it seriously" (etc etc), but the same bots with the same names existed on our server for months (from pre-release to launch), as did the guilds which were comprised entirely of bots.

Aion's biggest problem is NCSoft. Sell it to a company that will actually make good on their statements and Aion would be a fantastic MMO.

Yeah, I'll always be a little bitter over this one. I was so hyped for Aion until its reality set in. Nothing meaningful will ever change for this MMO until it's no longer NCSoft that's in control.

/end soap box

Forced PVP, and no PVE endgame content, a raid is not one boss

Israphel has a very healthy server population. The grind from vanilla 1.5 is gone now. They increased XP from quests rewards that it's ridiculously easy to level compared to before. This is PVPVE game though, so if you want to just PVE and avoid any PVP than this may not be for you. There are some zones that are strict PVE that the other faction cant get through. After that it's open world PVP like WoW. People that still enjoy this game enjoy the PVP.

I am greatly amused by how the comments seem split between those who think the game should focus more on PvP and those who hate the "forced" PvP.

Just goes to show... ya can't please everyone. Which, naturally, is why the devs have been focusing on PvE content to the detriment of all those who think the current system is not conducive to good competition.

Me, I just take the game as it is, rain or shine. I mean, really, it's very simple - if it's fun, it's fun, if it's not, let it rot. PvE or PvP, I'll play anything if it's good, simple fun, and Aion has managed to engage me longer than any other MMO I've ever played, past or present, so surely they're doing something right.

Yes, I am not a fan of the ridiculous quantity of RNG in the game, nor of some of the class balance issues (*coff* BoQ *coff*), and the sieging tends to be hit-or-miss more than half the time, yet somehow I just can't bring myself to really hate the game. Probably because I've spent upwards of 3,000 hours on the damn thing.

I'm not sure what I was getting at here... Um, I'm looking forward to 2.5? Yeah, that's it. Heh.