One month: Aion October community address

by Brooke Pilley Oct 24th 2009 at 4:00PM

Aion has officially been out for one full month and NCsoft just released an October community address in response. The notice reads less like a giant pat on the back and more like a checklist of major issues they are working on, which is bound to churn up speculation about how well the title is doing. Oh, we're sure Aion is doing quite well even though we haven't heard the official numbers yet, but developers usually use these opportunities to shout about their accomplishments rather than their shortcomings.

The top three issues mentioned in the letter are experience curves, client performance, and spammers/botters. Most players will agree that it can feel like a part-time job to level your character at times. Some players have had performance issues specifically related to "Cryssystem.dll." And finally, everyone has been forced to /ignore the odd spammer... or fifty. NCsoft is using this opportunity to yet again tell players they are aware of these issues and fixes are on the way.

We're curious how this may relate to differences between eastern and western gaming cultures. Aion has been released for nearly a year in Asia and yet only the outcry from European and North American players against experience grinds and gold spamming specifically seems to be sparking a change.

Tags: aion, botting, client-performance, community-address, experience-grind, farming, first-month, gold-farming, grinding, nc-west, ncsoft, spamming

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

twist said on 4:22PM 10-24-2009

I'll be amazed if ncsoft does anything about botters, I'm pretty sure that wolfboy01-wolfboy05 and their botting friends are probably still in the same spot as when I quit playing L2 3 months after release.

starzzareblind said on 4:50PM 10-24-2009

They've been pretty good at banning these suckers, and also working pretty diligently at the spam, although they need to come up with a self developed program that isn't gameguard.

Cool about the leveling curve changes, but I think that should of probably made it to live sooner after launch or even at launch.

Leshrac said on 4:51PM 10-24-2009

My sub was up yesterday, I had signed up with a Visa gift-card which I knew didn't have enough money on it to cover the first month's charge. It didn't go thru, I sat and thought about it.......and I'm not going to renew. The game has its moments, but overall I stopped having fun after the first 25 levels. The combat which I loved, and the main reason I was having so much fun, started to get tiresome. TC was a big yawner too, pvp is nothing but ganking.

Dragon Age comes out next week, I'm going to devote some time on that.

Nadril said on 5:12PM 10-24-2009

Of course PvP is just ganking @25.

DeathMutant said on 6:20PM 10-24-2009

Dragon Age. Thanks for reminding me, I have been waiting patiently for it for so long I almost forgot! :-o

iintrude said on 4:59PM 10-24-2009

I too dropped my sub. For me it was a combination of the spammers, but mostly it was the leveling curve. Grinding is not my idea of fun, and the lvl 20 -25 area was terrible for my Temp. If the game cannot be fun during the low levels when it comes to quests, I don't have the time to continue playing in the hope that it will eventually get better. I had expected a more refined leveling experience from a year old game, not to mention fewer spammers/botters.

Nadril said on 5:15PM 10-24-2009

It's good to hear NCSoft is echoing my main concerns with the game. My thoughts:

- XP Curve
I have no doubt that they will really up XP as they've done it in past games. Lineage II C1 compared to C3 is huge. It used to take like 2 weeks to do 1-20 in C1 compared to a couple of days in C3. So yeah, I would expect a decent XP jump in both quests and kill XP which will help a lot.

-Crashing issue
I don't really crash so I can't comment on it, but tech issues are always the hardest.

-Botting issue
Right now it is really out of hand. A specialized "force" for stomping out bots is great if they can do it efficiently. Hearing that /autoreporthunting does something to people after a few reports is good to hear as well, although NCSoft is obviously keeping quiet on it so that the bots can't really figure it out. Still it's good to hear.

Those 3 really were/are the biggest issues with the game. The PvP is a lot of fun, and certainly isn't just ganking as some think. I'm looking forward to seeing some of these improvements.

Leshrac said on 5:50PM 10-24-2009

Oh would you stfu.

Wensbane said on 6:51PM 10-24-2009

Dropped my sub as well, due to the CrySystem.dll problem.

Scarr said on 8:41PM 10-24-2009

My subscription was dropped as well (last week). I'm still playing, but just doing alts ('main' is 32, and parked). Got a 2nd elyos up to 20, and now playing Asmo. I have 5 more days left, and I will not be re-subscribing until high level is adjusted (well, 30+). I'm glad NCSoft has noted they are going to fix it, but I'm not gonna pay more until it is adjusted. There is no end-game worth the 300 hours of grind. Leveling post 30 is boring, so why bother?

However, I am amazed at how much fun I have up to level 30! It truely is a good game... fix the grind!

Tharina said on 12:53PM 10-25-2009

MY ranger is 43 now and I'm loving all aspects of the game,

PvP: I might crash once or twice during a full night of sieges but it's no biggie. I'm always having a blast in the abyss, huge fort battles that include pve aspects are so entertaining and rewarding. Protecting the newbs from getting ganked in the lower abyss is great fun too, I can't get enough.

the bots aren't really that much of an issue for me (maybe that's cause of my level)

The xp curve is fine until the mid 40's then it gets a little obnoxious, although kiting elites for 445k a pop still works, an increase in xp will be the icing on the top for me getting to 50 and starting some epic upper abyss fort sieges.

redrinn said on 4:45PM 10-25-2009

"The notice reads less like a giant pat on the back and more like a checklist of major issues they are working on,..."

What a difference in tone between Aion's monthly community address and WAR's producer letters, with Mythic's patent pending extra helping of '!'s so that us idiots would understand that we were supposed to be excited about bugfixes as content.

Suspiro said on 11:29PM 10-25-2009

I let my sub expire and never activated a 2nd box I bought. Here's hoping things get fixed. Had a lot of fun until I found myself grinding for hours just to level. NCSoft has no incentive to stomp out the botters and spammers. Along with the people quitting, banning the spammers and botters would make their numbers look really bad to the mothership in Korea.

Super Healer said on 9:18AM 10-26-2009

My sub is due to expire in the next couple of weeks and I am undecided at the moment. I am enjoying it when I play but for some reason cannot feel excited enough to actually log on much, maybe because I enjoy PvE more.

I realise this is a PvP game but are there any plans to include more PvE dungeons to endgame in a future patch/content (maybe that will give me more of an incentive to level up!)?