Being in quarantine, I started checking my folders for no apparent reason, and you know, I came across ‘Aion’. OMG… Viewing screenshots, I felt great nostalgia for those good old days.
Aion is one of the most beautiful computer games in the MMORPG genre that I have ever played. More precisely, this is my first game of this genre.
I remember how I chose a race of Asmodians without giving it a second thought. They attracted me their unusualness, wrapped in mystery, demonic look unlike the Elyos with their arrogance and imperial bearing. They just looked like ordinary people. Next to ordinary.
I must confess I have always liked to have beneficent influence, so my first character was a cleric as he had skills of HP restoring.
As soon as everything began, it was extremely fascinating: that mystical atmosphere, wonderful background music with a beautiful singing voice at times, burning desire to complete the most difficult quests as soon as possible, for example, get rid of the Black Claw Elites, and learn some new skills like Resurrection or Flash of Recovery. It was so nice to see a dead player, heal him and get a deep gratitude from him. I think many people understand me well, especially Clerics and Chanters, and now Bards as well.
To be perfectly honest, I was not quite a skillful player in the early days to demonstrate my healing skills in practice because there was a strong desire to learn to stand up for myself than heal. I was motivated only by my wish to get… Nevertheless, I become quite a good healer with Benevolence by trial and error. I even remember it was possible for very few people to defeat me, except for Spiritmasters with their Fears and Assassins with their Stuns. You must admit that it is so pleasant to gain a victory. It concerns everything.
Unfortunately, there appeared to be less interest in this project with each update, and it was extremely frustrating because the spectacular game turned into a sad trash which differs in no way from other MMORPG games. I was under the impression that the person, who was responsible for the project development, just killed it.
The first thing, that I was upset, is receiving a lot of XP and gifts. Instead of raising the maximum level, the developers could remove all sorts of items and gifts that contribute to the rapid development of the character as well as return the original complexity of the quests and missions. Try and remember how people got Fenris or wings of the Circle. It was vitally needed, but now you are getting such a lot of experience, so many things became useless.
I think any kinds of players are much more pleasant to enjoy the gameplay when you need to make every effort to receive a reward. They have a goal. If they want to have a high-level character, they will do it themselves without any help. It is worth nothing that the very first players achieve everything themselves. For example, in Verteron, you cannot imagine how good it was to eliminate the monsters at the Tursin Garrison as most of them were elite, and it was not possible to go alone. Or the Fire Temple, full of a great number of monsters, with Kromede bristling with life to defeat which we must have got into the full group. Now two characters can do this. No adrenaline.
The second is modern items, tainting the fantasy atmosphere. Instead of creating motorcycles, making Gunners and Aethertechs and so on, they could create, for example, Masters of hand-to-hand combat like in Blade & Soul. By the way, I do not know so far who copies who because I have a huge suspicion that Aion and ArcheAge have the same ideas at times.
The third is ubiquitous rifts. I understand well that they have to be, but not everywhere.
For example, it is much better to remove any rifts in Inggison and Gelkmaros, when level 50 is reached, you will get permission to go there as it used to be and you should possess the two fortresses to have an entrance to the Silentera Canyon to visit the Beshmundir Temple or get to the enemy territory. They should also return negative effects to any rifts and set a level limit as it used to be. The level 65+ character has nothing to do in the initial locations and vice versa.
The fourth is Newcomers’ Server. Most of the players are just sitting there to get the maximum level, and when you decided to teleport to the enemy territory, you can see only tumbleweeds. What is the use of having enemies then?
The fifth is Abyss. This location is losing its meaning with each new update: if earlier people were going to the sieges, dungeons to earn some Abyss points, and then it lost all sense of its existence in the last update. It is worth noting that we do not have the equivalent of this wild location with its mysterious battle soundtrack in other games. I was impressed by Frozen too, but it does not mean that we got to cover everything with ice.
The sixth is skills. They should return a complexity of the skills development, the cost of ancient stigmas, and their former system one. Players used to have a goal to earn kinah, which were deleted as far as I know, and Abyss points to get skills. Coins, medals and so on were personal. The players are now taking everything on a silver platter. That is not interesting for anyone.
The seventh is a Soul Healer. They should remove all his ability to the blessing and regaining the HP, MP and flight time. It is sufficient that players can regain their recoverable experience. People sincerely used to ask Clerics and Chanters, especially the last one with his Blessing of Stone, to buff them, and now pay no attention.
The eighth is a storyline. They should return the previous one, so that players have an opportunity to go to the dungeons again, for example, the very same Fire Temple or Alquimia Stronghold to get uncommon skills. Now many important moments are flying by if they were not deleted yet, of course. Recently they made a group entrance to the Haramel and Kromede’s Trial. Like Edie Britt said: ‘What the hell you have been smoking?’
The ninth is minions. Instead of making them, it would be better to create a well-designed system for domestication of wild animals as they promised. It is much more useful and interesting. Instead of it they made transformation into Minions.
The tenth is equipment. They should remove the use of high-level equipment, its complete destruction and a 100% gain by magic stones. I think, many people remember when they inserted them into equipment and kept their fingers crossed. It was a sort of mental stress, you know. There is also need to rework the system of enchantment jewelry as the careless localizers put it in the game shop for real money at a high price, thereby destroying the game balance.
The eleventh is initial locations. They should return all of them because players should perfect the tactic skills of the chosen class as well as the attack zone in previously inaccessible locations Theobomos and Brusthonin. The twelfth is locations. They should return Sarpan and Tiamaranta as well as North and South Katalams. If they made a decision to get rid of those locations later, during the course of events in the Atreia history, they could deny the high-level characters every possible opportunity of teleporting there. New players do not know who Tiamat is.
They could create an open world and a wide stretch of water to make people set out on incredible adventures on open spaces of the huge world with powerful raid bosses and fierce sea battles.
As stated above, as a result of the advent of the open world, they could add peaceful areas for building of houses, it is precisely that building of houses which is of interest to us, and not buying them at an auction, in which you can set, for example, tables for crafts, and in the surrounding area you can grow materials used in them, for example, having collected seedlings or seeds in the wild using Essencetapping or Aethertapping. It is also necessary to develop a system of trade in order to earn money through the delivery of commercial cargoes.
Develop a system of raising the level of the legion, improve graphics and game mechanics. In other words, instead of creating a lot of second-grade projects, it would be better to do one, but great. How long are the Linage and the World of War Craft on the market? People are still interested in.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that most of the changes, like I said, were taken from ArcheAge, for example, hairstyles, the same skills of the High Daeva that in the above-mentioned game are called Ancestral levels and skills, and Archeage, in turn, created fly gliders in the form of wings.
I think a partial destruction of the game began with version 3.0. We all know about the existence of the so-called Master server, which is not available in many countries, but this is not what players need.
About one of the last updates, it is better to stay silent because most of the content was removed, simplified in the extreme, there was created a powerful Dragon Lord Ereshkigal, but pretty soon you have to kill her. Is it over? Of course not, now there is the next stage of mixing with ArcheAge: they created a location in which it is necessary to care for environmental protection, and in Aion it is a location with the laboratory polluting it.
I think if the developers were truly interested in developing their magnificent project which they killed, then it would have a great success. But now it is, like I said, the next sad trash.
