The 3 Most Important MMORPGs of 2008 – What Has Become of Them?

AION: The Tower of Eternity

What does AION offer? In the free-to-play MMORPG, four races are in conflict. Two of them are playable, while the others act as NPCs and are important for the progression of the story. You create a hero and explore the world together with players of your faction, complete quests, and fight monsters as well as players from opposing factions in PvP.

The MMORPG aimed to spice up the typical structures of an MMORPG with a special game mechanic: flying. Players learn to fly quite early on, allowing them to access otherwise unreachable areas.

How did the MMORPG perform at release? Alone in the USA, AION was pre-ordered more than 400,000 times and became one of the best-selling PC games of the year at release. After a year, NCSoft reported over a million copies sold in Europe and the USA.

However, players criticized the sometimes severe grind.

How does the game stand today? AION is still playable and is still being supplied with updates that bring new content and improvements. The population has shrunk since release, but there are still enough players in the game world for groups.

In autumn 2018, the MMORPG attempted a restart and introduced changes with update 6.0 that were meant to bring the game back more in line with its early days.

2018 was a good year for AION overall. Revenues in 2018 increased by 35% compared to the previous year. Players can experience a lot of content with the MMORPG and still have fun.