Posts by Haku

I would also prefer 1.x (1.7 or 1.9) for a few months before going over to 2.0, but starting with 1.2 in 2023 is probably way too rough for the majority of players. While not having to rush for endgame is very good, the lvling grind does feels very stale and unrewarding, and there's only so much side content one can do.

Yes, there are many players who did not experience 1.2 or many who remember it very fondly, but don't forget that many things that made the game exciting back then (exploring new maps, finishing a tough dungeon for the first time etc) can't be recreated, simply because you cannot do those things for the first time ever again.

There are many "hardcore" players who want classic to be as hard as possible so they can get a sense of accomplishment from having the willpower to tough it out, but truth of the matter is this game desperately needs casuals to thrive or we will be looking at one (1) server with 2-300 players max. Gatekeeping phrases like "if you can't stand the grind you don't deserve to play anyway", "if you don't like getting ganked you should just quit" etc may make you feel cool but in reality this sort of attitude just turns away players who could've enriched the server. The pure pve players add life in an mmo, even a relatively pvp focused one such as Aion (and who knows, they might even join the pool of pvp players eventually and add more variety there as well).

The main problem with gold packs was when the VR system became completely broken with the introduction of serums/temperings and apes/omegas. As long as nothing similar happens again, I would also consider that system much more preferable.

Quote from Click

i think you are remembering na with those weekly pink quests for prestige players. otherwise classic always had its own pvp quests... from those open world with killing rank 9 and 8 and all the way up to officers and more... to rift pvp quests and so on. it had plenty of them but also in instances. do more of those in open world and ppl would exploit it with alts and coordinated groups or zergs. and in later updates you had lots of pvp instances with good rewards and lots of maps with pvp spots.

it was really more than you can handle it in a normal person day... it was enough to keep you busy if all you wanted was pvp.

they are already preparing the next update... so 1.5 is not forever... but it will give you the opportunity to get your stuff in order and be prepared for future updates.

No, I mean the system gf had implemented that broke sometimes and needed fix from ncs, it had a few dailies and some weeklies and gave apes and stuff like that. Afaik it was europe exclusive and a very good implementation from gf/ncs.

I know there's the separate daily/weekly guilds for mentors etc (wasn't that implemented with 3.0 though?), but I think it wouldn't hurt to have smth that's not just 1 kill for daily and 5 for weekly, and then only gives you 1 crown as reward. When resources are scarce that's still worth it, but it feels a little underwhelming, idk...

As for exploits, there will always be someone exploiting everything. Ap and later gp trading, kill trading, arena win trading, boss bugging in instances etc... If one was to use that as a reason to remove certain parts of any game, there wouldn't be much left. That's not to say I don't agree with you that it is a problem, but I think in many cases the benefits for the majority outweigh the drawbacks.

If you want to incentivise ow pvp there should be some custom quests, something like the ones implemented by gf in 5.x (forgot their name) for killing x amount of players daily/weekly with some decent reward. Ow pvp always varied, but pre-gp implementation people worried about their ap/rank, and post gp people were too preoccupied farming gp for rank or simply felt like ow pvp was not rewarding enough. Ironically though, if even just half the people complaining ow pvp is dead would actually have gone out and pvpd, there would've been more than enough opponents to fight

5.x siege system felt more rewarding for support classes and made sieges more abt capturing rather than running around in smaller groups farming gp, but every system will always be abused (afk alts everywhere). Idk about other servers but telemachus asmos did more or less not see a single katalam fort until merge (I don't remember if prades pity gift from elyos to combat pvp buff was pre merge or not).

Anyway, would be great if classic eu saw some custom changes such as aforementioned pvp quests. First patch will feel quite bare-bones w/o even dredgion, but as long as it's not completely broken with p2w I'm guessing there will be enough returnees for it to be lively for a while after opening.

If there would be some sort of pvp ladder to further competition when dred and arenas comes that would also be healthy for the server, but it must not be exploitable (don't add reset scrolls for the instances, or at the very least reward elo only for f2p entry count). If pservers weren't such a taboo topic, there are several good ideas that could be copied from here and there.

This is exactly why veteran rewards ended up broken in the end and also why they were a must-have for any active player. I could see GF wanting to adopt this tbh even though it will completely break the server

There should be better ways to give players incentives to leave money in your shop than to break the in-game economy/balance.

The best thing gf could do would be to make an extensive survey to map out why people quit or why they're still playing, what they would be interested in in a classic version and what would be a dealbreaker for them, and so on. Even if only a few 100 players respond it would be easier to map out what the majority think and where it's smart to ask for potential custom changes or at least be aware of the biggest nos for the players.

If pservers weren't taboo there's a lot of information to gather in that topic as well (what players are looking for, what they do or do not like, which patches are most popular, which shop models work and which don't), but I suppose the aion team is not large enough to handle this on top of managing current live patches too.

This is ofc me labouring under the delusion that gf care about the players opinions, which they showed quite clearly they don't when they kept pushing more and more p2w lootboxes in the shop when everyone was saying they don't want them (thanks mookie, it was a good time to quit if I look at what came with later patches).

Still, I'm hoping we will get classic. I want to play the sort of aion where you are equal in terms of attack and movement speed (if legit) and where you can outplay an opponent with more gear than you.

1. Dreds became cross-server at some point under gameforge, I think around mid-end 3.x?

2. It was a mix, but the twinks are hard to deal with for "normal" players since it leaves them at the mercy of other players to come and help them deal with the problem. I'm not sure if handing out free pvp gear is the way to go about it though, but the massive pvp debuff that killed rifting certainly isn't either.

The point about rifting and twinks is going to be a big one for the classic server. Killing rifting killed the game, but when players of the opponent race can effectively lock you out of doing instances/quests on your own home map that's frustrating too.

Quote from Dropkickmurphy

Quote from yoska

Either way, one thing is certain, it will separate the small leftover community that the EU has.

The thing is, that most of the "classic server fans" believe, that AION classic will bring new players and old players back, but I think that is nor true and only personal desire (because those people think, the classic server MUST work).

To be honest, most of us hardcore players who play since years for several hours a day are like drug addicts somehow. And my theory is, a big part of those who broke up with AION mostly years ago, won´t come back for good reason, not for retail AION, not for classic AION, not for any AION.

Second mistake is, that the "classic server fans" believe that most people quittedAION because they didn´t like a certain patch or Gameforges policies. That will be true for a part of the quitters, but in the last 8 years I had many ingame friends, hardcore players, who quitted AION over the years and among them wasn´t a single one because he didn´t like the actual patch of that times. They quitted because of family reasons, job or study reasons, because they got bored of AION or some because they quitted playing online games at all. None of these will return for classic AION.

So you are right (again) yoska, most players on a maybe upcoming AION classic EU will come from actual retail version of AION. Now maybe the "classic server fans" who hate the actual patch will shout "hooray" but wait with your enthusiasm. Dying actual patch servers mean nothing else than Gameforge will have to create more or all financial income with booming classic server and they won´t do this with skins only. They will put any possible items to cash shop, p2w or not, because it will be the only AION income when actual servers are dead. So hf with cash shop classic AION.....

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I have a completely different experience. All (with the exception of a very few, maybe 2 people) of the people I played with through the years since 2011 quit because they didn't like patch content and/or GF policies, myself included. That's ofc also making them wary of a classic server released under GF but it's been enough years for many of us to give it a second try.

I'm quite certain an official classic server will also pull quite a few people from private servers. It will be interesting to see how far the classic server will go, from the looks of things 3.x and 4.x are the most popular pserver patches, but I'm unsure if that's because those are the files they have available that are the least buggy, or if that's the patches people enjoy the most. (I'm not sure how strict the pserver taboo is but if we're not allowed to even mention them pls don't censor my entire post :()

NCS and GF both brought their fair share of p2w, and people's definition of p2w is also a sliding scale. Some might say that anything other than cosmetics is p2w, while others are ok with 100% socketing aids and some consumables in the shop as long as there's no gear in it.

I personally think classic will be good (at least while it's within patches where you could outplay an opponent with more gear than you), though something like rng boxes in the shop with stuff like 10% 10s silence gs will be a major turn-off. Manastone bundles and the like should be confined to events only, and related event items should only be obtainable through actually playing.

Quote from Black

Good. Some things should be more available. I would disagree with scrolls in cash shop (if you get more than the initial ones) but everything else is okay.

Not much you can p2w in this version anyway, besides if they have straight up gear in cash shop or enchanting stones/manastones/relics/medals etc.

The whole p2w started with 3.* when plumes were introduced.

The danger is something like what the VR system turned out to be in the end making a return here, I suppose. It wasn't a bad gesture in the beginning, giving a few relics per character as a thanks for subscribing, but having temperings and omegas available for 8 chars every 6 months was pretty broken.

Plumes/feathers were 4.x items together with temperings/serums and enchantable accessories. 4.7 (or .8?) introduced breakthrough enchanting and omegas.