Likibiki wrote:
I've read (most of) this thread and I figure I may as well voice my opinion.
Aion's fun... for a few days. Then once you realise that this is basically all you've got, until you unlock PVP at 25 - well, that kinda put a downer on it for me. PVP isn't something I'm excited about, but I'm putting that down to me hating Ballista, so I'd like to try it.
I am not a real fan of PvP at all. I think once you get around level 17 for Elyos race, you realize that there is a quest chain that is somewhat difficult to finish on your own. You don't have to do it, but it sure does grant a lot of exp for it. The Krall Quest chain (Which is 4 quests) offers around 450,000 exp total when done with all 4 quests. It is not something you really want to skip but some people do because of its difficulty to solo early on. You pretty much need a group for it if you are less than level 20 because the mobs you have to fight are level 18 elite mobs. For those of you that don't know, Elite mobs usually are for groups and give out a lot of exp. Usually then can be duo'd with a healer and DD and you gain about 8,000 exp for them if you are the same level as them. Problem is that a lot of those elite mobs link with others so its really good to have a party formed to handle adds. Also, level 25 opens up Training Grounds Instances where you can gain one million exp for the run.
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- So far, my experience with the playerbase? ONE nice person, who, when I asked in the LFG channel, about how I could get a legion and maybe meet some new people, took the time to tell me a few things about the game and said if I have any questions just to let him know.
I don't know about you, but I've had a totally different experience on my server. I see a lot of people asking questions in /say while I am out questing, asking for specifics about quests and they are pretty quick to help out and answer. Also you have random chanters and clerics giving you buffs as they pass by and if you are in trouble while fighting something, they tend to ask if you need help with it. Also, I am the type of person who tries to research before asking a question so that's probably a difference. Most of my questions I usually find by searching aionarmory or aion's main website wiki.
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In XI, I see this ALL THE TIME. Yes, there's the occasional "stfu noob" but in dunes parties, even if you see the (admittedly rare) newbie in a starter zone, people will help. One person out of hundreds... and I've seen others asking in other areas of the world as well, and they just get ignored. This is for a new game, not a game where people have been teaching others how to play for years... in XI, after the space of about 2 days, I had ~10 people on my friend list, a linkshell, and people just seemed... better. (That's not fanboyism, because I wasn't a fanboy in my first few days of playing, was I?)
I think the huge difference is that you have to remember that FFXI relies heavily on social aspects and that you need to form friendships with people in order to get anything done in the game. FFXI requires groups, whereas Aion really doesn't. You could go from 1-50 solo if you wanted to in Aion, and in FFXI, it is incredibly difficult because you would need help for limit break quests and such. Legions in Aion from what I have seen are mainly for events like instances and fortress raids.
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- I'm a bit bored of it already. It seems a bit shallow... there really isn't much to the game, and starting in the middle of nowhere with no back story just made me look at the screen in confusion. "Story led RPG", it says on the box... I haven't found a story yet apart from "you're a raider, now look, you have wings, go kill things". Random quests don't count in that, by the way..
The story unfolds in campaign quests. For Elyos:
You were battling the Baelor in the Abyss and during the battle you got knocked out and you fell back down to the lower half of the world of Elysea. When you woke up you lost all memories of who you are and what you did. When you ascend to become a Daeva(wings), you regain some of your memories. From 11-21 there are campaign quests that you do that deal with Lepharist Revolutionaries and such the story of some conflict taking place unfolds. Just make sure you do the campaign missions because that is where the story takes place. If you just skip and grind grind grind you are missing the story.
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- For such a new game, it's incredibly hard to get started. I've applied to legions, I've asked in game for help, I've asked in game for legions/friends... nothing. Maybe it's my server (Castor), but they aren't a friendly bunch :(
Legions can't really be compared to Linkshells. Though there are very very few Legions that are pretty much just social and for helping out, the majority of them want experienced players for raids and instances. If you need questions asked, it's usually best to ask on the forums.
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- The graphics? Not that great. I've got them on a high setting and often I find myself looking at something going "wow that's one ugly pastel shaded piece of crap". It was rare to find that in XI. For a 2009 game, Aion isn't overly impressive. It's just prettier than WoW.
To each his/her own. I think that the graphics are better than FFXI but to be fair FFXI is running on a 7 year old gaming engine. I think it goes back to the fact that if you have a game that is big on graphics, the PC requirements might be too steep for some players.
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- Channels. There's too many. Yes, you can filter them, but there's too much spam because of this. People will put things in EVERY channel just in case someone's filtered Trade.
There are only 4 channels, I am not sure how that is too many:
1) General Chat for everyone to see hear
2) Trade - so you can trade or buy items from other players
3) Group Channel - to ask for help for quests and look for other players on the same quest you are
4) Class Channel - Channel devoted to your specific job.
There are 4 tabs at the top: All, Chat, Combat, Group. You can modify each tab to display whatever you want. In the Combat tab, I only have group chat enabled so I can see drops, exp, and group chat.
Now if you are talking about the 20 different channels to change to, you have that confused. The wonderful thing about Aion is that if you are in an area that is too crowded with players, you can simply change channels. When you change channels, it's like going to another server. So while channel 1 might have 200 people in one area, going to channel 5 might only have 10 people and it makes it easier to farm or complete quests. There is a 3 min cooldown between jumping channels to prevent abuse from extracting items, but its a very nice feature when you are doing a quest and you need to kill a specific mob. If it's too crowded, change channels and you might find yourself all alone.
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- On that note, the chat bar does basically suck. You can't read it, it goes by too fast, there's too many options/tabs to use to make it worthwhile, and if you try to separate it so that you can see what you want to, it blocks your screen. XI worked perfectly for me, I can't see what would need to be improved.
Chatbar can be re-sized horizontally and vertically. You can change the size of the font as well. Small, medium, and large. If it scrolls too fast, filter out the chat that you don't want to see. If you only want to see chat for your class, then go to the chat options tab and remove channels 1-3 from displaying. It's that simple and it keeps the chat screen clutter free.
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- Titles giving stat boosts. Nice idea, but after seeing the 800th "Settler of Aion" person in 5 minutes, I was a bit fed up of it.
Settle of Aion is the title given to those who order the Collectors Edition. It gives Attack +1, Parry +8, Physical Crit +3. If you don't want to see titles of other players, you can simply filter it out in the game options and set it to hide. On my screen, I only see players Legions.
Edited, Oct 25th 2009 1:15pm by ImmortalAlchemist
