Aion excited MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch especially with flying and the PvP battles in the Abyss. In 2023, however, the MMORPG is just a shadow of itself. But the new Classic servers offer hope, as at least in Korea, the developer NCSoft has made an interesting decision.
I associate many good memories with Aion. The graphics were really strong for the time (2009) and the battles were action-packed and fun. My highlight was clearly the Abyss mode, in which the two playable factions Asmodians and Elyos fought against each other and for fortresses.
There I could fly all over the map and there were huge, epic battles, similar to Cyrodiil in ESO or WvW in GW2. The twist was that there was a third faction run only by NPCs. It tried to establish a balance between the playable groups, which at least worked in principle.
However, anyone starting with Aion in 2023 is presented with a dreadful MMORPG. In 2020, it got automated battles, where I can set my character a rotation of abilities and activate the automatic use of potions. This way you can level up without being at the PC and easily jump from level 11 to 50 overnight – as I found out in a self-test. Over several days, you can also reach the current max level of 85.
But otherwise, the game presents a rather sad picture:
- The maps are empty
- The chat is dead outside of prime time
- The waiting times for dungeons are extremely long
- A revision of the story has made questing even worse than at release
Moreover, really good content has gradually been patched out, including dungeons like Steelhook and even the Abyss mode, which was at the core of Aion for me.
In 2023 we will get Classic servers in Europe. However, the announcement alone did not create hype for me, especially after the disaster in America. There, the servers were already released in 2021 and it faced criticism for exploits and “accidental” Pay2Win.
But in Korea, the developers have now taken a completely new path. And that is exactly what makes me excited about Aion Classic.
New classes and dungeons that have never existed in modern Aion
Aion Classic is constantly being updated in Korea. A new class, Executioner, and a completely new dungeon have already been released, which never existed in the original version of the MMORPG (via YouTube).
The rewards for quests have also been adjusted, so they now provide more experience, which means less mob grind. In addition, a new auction house has been introduced, which allows trading even with the enemy faction.
Aion Classic is thus oriented in Korea to the model of Old School RuneScape and not of WoW. Instead of bringing the same content again, completely new content is being developed. Aion Classic is currently becoming Aion 2.
And the new version is a great success. In Korea, there are rankings from which you can read the popularity of online games. There, Aion (Live and Classic combined) is currently in 9th place among all games, ahead of WoW, Black Desert, Lineage or Genshin Impact (via Gamemeca). For comparison: In 2019 – before the release of the Classic servers – Aion was not even in the top 50.
Financially, Aion is now doing significantly better than in 2019. The revenue of the MMORPG has nearly doubled, which the developer NCSoft, which now mainly makes money with mobile MMOs, likes.
EU server can learn from mistakes and hopefully brings new updates in a timely manner
Aion Classic could become really interesting. On the one hand, I hope that Gameforge has learned from the mistakes in Korea and America. The bugs and exploits around ingame currency must not be repeated on the EU servers at all. That alone makes it worthwhile to check out the new old version.
And then I hope that we will receive the updates from Korea in a timely manner in Europe and that a completely new path will be taken with Aion Classic – with the Abyss, with new classes, and maybe even with a greater focus on flying.
Because as terrible as modern Aion has become since the 2013/2014 updates, I fondly remember the release version.
What do you think of the development of Aion Classic? Do you like the idea that a completely new path is being taken? Or can you just not relate to the general concept of the MMORPG at all?
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