I am a: Quirky sysadmin. Geek. Gamer. Comic fangirl. My little space, my home on the interwebs. I blog about personal stuffs, work, various coding projects, and anything else I feel like.

I may reblog this to my gaming blogs later, but starting here for now …

I had been resisting, until last night — I agreed to try Aion 2 when it releases for NA/West. I held out as long as I could. Really. Truly! :P

I’ve been looking over videos and snippets of the Korean and Taiwan developer live streams, and various articles about what’s been teased so far, and it looks interesting. I have a few thoughts to share on the matter:

Factions

After playing games where PvP is not based on factions, but rather by server or guild/clan membership, I much prefer those. I foresee balance in Aion 2 becoming an issue like it was for Aion 1. That’s one thing I love about Guild Wars 2 is that no matter what race/faction you play, you can play together with all of your friends in every mode.

Opposing factions is so last century, and I will absolutely die on this hill.

Open world

The play videos so far look a LOT like what Revelation Online was like when it first released. Yes, being able to fly everywhere will be nice. And it looks like we’ll have mounts from the start, so that will also be nice. Having to swap servers or channels constantly is annoying.

I do wonder how they are going to handle looting, gathering, and the like? These things were not shared in the original Aion like they are in other games. For example, in Revelation Online and Guild Wars 2, if you beat on the world boss, you got loots. No ifs, ands, or buts. There was no loot/boss/kill stealing. And gatherables in most open world games nowadays are open to all players (as opposed to whoever gets there first and snipes it).

I’m not looking forward to having to fight for resources and loots.

Underwater combat

If it works like it does in Guild Wars 2, that would be fantastic! But I won’t hold my breath. Will there be skills specific to water? I seriously doubt it, but definitely interested to see how this will work. And if not, then is fighting in the underwater environment any different to fighting on the ground or in the sky? (and if so, how?)

Gearing

In Aion 1, crafted gear was initially purported to be the best, but quickly became too difficult to acquire or make due to the output being soulbound only to the character crafting it rather than account bound or unbound for passing to the intended character (or selling for profit). Gearing up was mostly only via PvP and/or PvE, with the later being tedious AF.

I am NOT a fan of grinds!

The aspect of solo dungeons and the like with varying degrees of difficulty is interesting. Guild Wars 2 is good for solo play and it would be nice if Aion had a healthy balance of group vs solo content available as well.

Lore

One article I read said Aion 2 is a prequel set 200 years before the fall of the Tower of Eternity. But folks on Discord are telling me that it’s a sequel and it’s 200 years after the events of Aion 1. Either way, the whole factions thing doesn’t quite fit right IMO. Prior to the fall of the Tower, Daevas were neither Elyos nor Asmodian. We were all the same race. If memory serves me, following the Aion 1 v5.0 release, Asmodians experienced some sort of “fast evolution” and suddenly looked just like Elyos again.

BLEH No thank you.

I love lore and stories, so I am definitely interested in seeing what kind of lore is written for A2 and seeing where the story is going. It looks like PvE-wise we’re battling gods and dragons (much like Guild Wars 2).

Massively Monetization, aka “Pay to Win”

I’m not opposed to monetization and cash shops. I’m a ‘Fashion Wars’ player through and through, and love the Guild Wars 2 gem store for skins and ‘quality of life’ items. I can buy gems with real world money and convert to game currency via the gem store. Guild Wars 2has no gold seller spam that I’ve ever seen, and botting isn’t outwardly obvious. I mean, I know it goes on, but it’s not as easily seen or as blatant as in Aion 1 and other MMOs.

I don’t approve of true pay to win shops. Revelation Online NA took a massive drop in players within 30 days of their cash shop opening. The game was confirmed dead within mere months — which is a shame because it was beautiful and had some really promising lore. Plus, I loved how you could save character creation profiles and have the same look for all of your toons, or swap/trade those profiles with friends!

I may whale from time to time in a game for skins and pretty things, but if I have to pay out to even have a prayer of keeping up (much less getting ahead), I won’t stay.

Nostalgia

I remember how Aion 1 made me feel as a new player during the closed betas, then public betas, then release, subsequently followed by the first couple of years after release. SO much excitement. I want that feeling back. So I agreed to give Aion 2 a try when it drops. But my gut is telling me that I’m going to regret it. :/

Let’s hope I’m wrong…