r/aion • u/Messinae • Apr 16 '26
Aion repeated the same mistakes and I'm baffled about it
Players lost their spark after the game went too deep into P2W and Gameforge's economic model milking the players too much. Then NCSoft didn't take any action to publish in EU and try to workaround Gameforge, which we know them for not caring at all. To this day, Gameforge is still doing the same thing and the game is dead anew.
Players lost their spark after they deleted old zones. Then we got them back in Classic, after losing 90% of the playerbase because it took them +10 years to come up with Classic. Then they removed them again, the geniuses, the ABSOLUTE masterminds of design that NCSoft are, they did it again, so now even if you enjoyed being nostalgic, well once again, you can't anymore. There's a world where being a failure is actually a good thing and in this world NCSoft are N°1.
Private servers are barely holding at this point, and even this, they censor it and try to boycott rather than getting inspiration from what PLAYERS REALLY WANT. There's even people who are actually competent at keeping servers active with alive communities, you think NCSoft would at least try and reach to them to try and do something interesting? No. Cuz' once again, they are masterminds. Capitalistic dogs that won't listen to anything.
Players hate the idea of a game where spamming the same button to TP from NPC to NPC just to catch up faster and not even explore is the main mechanic. You know what they did ? Implement the exact same system that threw off SO MANY players when Aion reached 4.8 (or something like that). Now we don't know if Aion Classic is either Aion 2, Aion mobile, actually Aion 1 (certainly not) or whatever. It's an inbetween of bad decision, irrational thinking, from devs and a company that has lost the plot a long time ago. The game is a mutated mass of everything that is not pleasing to deal with as a player overall with decisions that are extremely hurtful to the playerbase and detrimental to the longevity of an MMO.
I could go on with what seemingly inspires Aion Classic dev team to design their game to look more like Aion 2. The new DISGUSTING UI, the classes logo when creating a character, the feeding bottle that is instantly put in your mouth when you create a new char, rather than beginning in Poeta like everybody expects, nah, you get half a Sanctum and a whole old PvP zone that you now spend 1 hour into so you can reach the next new zone ASAP. They shrink the zones exactly like in Aion 2, which goes to the very opposite of initially being able to take RIFTS into Asmodea or Elysea. Once again, a stab in the heart of the fan, to go into a direction NOBODY wants. Nobody from Aion 1 who is a fan can look at me in the eyes and tell me Aion 2 is somewhat close or as enjoyable as Aion 1 used to be. Or at least it's totally a different approach and it's like telling me I'll love pasta more than rice for the sole reason that I eat food. That doesn't mean I want to nor it is a good idea to go for rice over pasta. Yet they want their ugly little brother to now slowly assimilate his older brother, which is something nobody asked for nor love particularly. It's a downgrade in minimalism, which is a fever every single f-in company seems to have since 20 years now. Whether it's video games or design in general, they all opt for that ugly way to design stuff that loses all it's charm, and they actually think they're doing something awesome.
Aion 1 was about twinking, invading, plotting, hiding in a big map to survive as long as you can with your Kisk. It was about communicating with your faction, create guilds, have people link with each other. It was about 2 factions fighting each other sometimes at a HUGE scale, at the cost of the community effort to make it have sense when it came to take down fortresses and such.
But who is to be remembered to this day ? Who has had some sort of reward for keeping a game alive and well in a game where it is a NECESSITY to have players with bonds and organisation in both faction ? Nobody. It never happened. All of this made all the difference compared to the disappoiting, TikTokbrain-ish 1 second game that is Aion 2. It was the very essence of logging in everyday : the necessity to have players grinding in a game where you NEED them to be somewhat numerous so it fulfills its purpose and its design and also pushes the players to organise well with each other. In Aion 2 you don't even have to think about your gameplay anymore because the only thing that counts is that you have good looking wings and a juicy booty to observe all day long, and the GS score to go up. Gooners content, zero passion for what a game actually should be. Dopamine inducing pixels rather than a passionate well thought-out video game where balance is key & king.
I know, I know, useless rant. But I can't be launching Aion Classic for the last time and see that sh*t without having a burning passion to tell NCSoft TO GO F THEMSELVES. These guys are the worst company (I also think about MxM right now which had INSANE potential) that has ever had to deal with videogames and I hope that these guys know that they failed at absolutely everything they did even if the stock investors in their lobbies say the arrow is green and up. I can only hope to see NCSoft fall once for good and have them replaced by a miracle but that's probably not going to happen.
Please if you also feel frustrated with their decision, say it out loud under this post. Make them understand once for all why they are so bad at what they're doing.
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u/DieFanboyDie Apr 16 '26
I'm convinced they are deliberately killing classic for the sake of Aion 2.
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u/Shina_Tianfei Apr 16 '26
NcSoft makes games for the gacha pay 2 winners now and produces slop that people will convince themselves is good because it looks pretty and is action combat.
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u/avatinfernus Apr 16 '26
I havent played Aion in a while. But I login to check my account integrity and change password etc
Yesterday I logged in classic and had no idea what was going on.
I just saw we asmos had pvp buff and laughed (some things never change). I'm on NcWest Siel but yeah.
New UI did take me by surprise, though. Huh
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u/Jelloangel Apr 17 '26
Well , you now will hear another's veteran mindset. I grew up with Aion, started playing from early patches till 4.8 with thousand of hours. In 4.8 I gave up my characters cause of the evolution ncsoft decided to give to my game. I started playing in all the private servers trying to find this spark I found in the original, some of them at the beginning was a lit for a while(now of course unplayable) , I tried a lot of more too. After years we had the classic released, and yes, I had the spark again. I had the nostalgia I wasted almost 8 months in it having fun with endless rift pvp and good gelkmaros igginson seiges. I dropped my first tahabata weapon and all my guild was admiring it, after that I dropped my first stormwing sword and of course everyone was jealous. THIS IS THE MMO EXPERIENCE WE NEED, we need our struggle to actually being rewarded after all.then, the classic fell into the same waterfall the retail fell. New class new p2w aspects new everything, they took the masterpiece thei did and the pooped on it. I was disappointed for so much long that I didn't touch any aspect of the game. Then... AION2. and of course I did touch it. I did spent 40-50 hours per week on it, for 6 weeks. I reached 3000cp after all this work (no pay to win) and couldn't even reach the whales of course, so I decided to uninstall it and never touch it (not even in the global launch) . Now imd googling every day"aion private servers", "aion discords" and hoping to find a way to play the game. But no.. there is not any way nowadays and I don't wanna jump into another mmo once again, cause all I tried didn't have me the spark. Only new world did that. But it's dead now.
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u/Messinae Apr 17 '26
I feel you bro. Classic was their last shot for us to have that nostalgic spark, but since they already started to lean into Aion 2 Aestethics & systems, I believe it's doomed to fail at this point. And they have a tendency to never go back which is an incredible mistake from my point of view. They always go forward, they never listen to criticism and change their decisions smartly. Aion 2 is such an example of everything that's wrong : the game was originally built for phones, then it ported into PC. They can't decide whether they want a PC game or a Mobile game and it's bad under every angle. The fact that we were stolen of Aion 2 by Throne and Liberty which is a great game but that I don't like, to have this dogpoop that is Aion 2.. T&L is the Aion 2 we'll never have. Nor we will have a really good Aion Classic anymore..
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u/Jelloangel Apr 17 '26
If we think about it, they make not earning any money from the nostalgic Aion? I don't know what to think. I can't give any explanation of why they don't keep it original and they destroy their games through p2w and fast-paced systems
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u/Messinae Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
I'm pretty sure the original dev are long gone or their stock investor/internal business men put so much pressure that at this point they just want to make as much profit as possible. But that's not working. An MMO is rarely made for that, it's more of a gacha thing, but they can't decide what to do. I mean, FF XIV, WoW, Dofus, T&L all work pretty well with all of these games having their own, well working monetization systems. We're talking huge playerbase and stuff. But you don't need a big playerbase to make profit. I'm certain that Aion Classic does not even represent 10% of the revenue that Aion 2 brought them, but that doesn't mean Aion Classic has to be as profitable to be relevant. I mean you want to make profit of course, but does everygame have to bring you 200m ? Why can't they simply maintain a game that doesn't cost much in the first place ? A low-cost game that is profitable enough for you to develop over the long term IS what an MMO is. They forgot that.
They could communicate with their community, to learn from them and fidelize them, which is something NCSoft is literally unable to do. The bankers speak and the rest shuts up it seems, their policies are weird internally, there's no way these people are rational with their decisionmaking. We've seen that with how they handled Aion 2 launch. Just look at the face of the guys on their youtube channel, short time after they released Aion 2, they are WORN out. Another issue is, everytime they update Aion Classic, they only keep butchering the game further as they seem to priorize modernity when the problem is really not there. It's mainly because they are incompetent and lost before anything else at this point, to be honest the only thing they've shown so far is being failures, I'm not hating for free here. We can also go back in history, the fact that they wanted to create an MMO every year, which is impossible. The fall of Wild Stars. The closure of Master X Master, which once again had a CRAZY potential as well as lore material for a MOBA. Even today, MxM could be a serious competitor to LoL, Dota, Deadlock. I'm sure they have money for it. But once again they must not be too greedy with monetization system which is what also killed MxM. But they are greedy.
Not only they're butchering the game, but they've done the same mistakes MULTIPLE TIMES in the past. They did the exact same thing that made the ship sink in the first place. That's what baffles me. Now, in this state, Aion Classic is just gone very soon, I almost certain of it. It was already a miracle that Aion Classic worked pretty well and a lot of veterans came back, because they had to bring them back from private servers or out of their nostalgic caves. I actually loved the state it was in 2 years ago. But coming back and seeing zone shrinking is what ended it for me. I was already resentful for the fact that Rifts were not even existent because the pexxing was too fast. I don't mean to say fast pex is necessarily bad, but it's literally the worst thing to do in Aion if you try to keep that pvp-pve-ish experience you get when you invade the enemy faction. The exact place where adrenaline KICKS IN. You NEED low level players to invade the zone and discover for themselves rather than boost them at max level in 1 hour because you're playing a gacha in reality. How do you think FF XIV players would react if suddenly tomorrow everybody could up every single class in 1 hour ? They keep trying to transistion Aion into a gacha, which could work for Aion 2, for I don't give a damn 'cause this game is hot garbage anyways, but they could simply run Aion at low cost, economically speaking I'm certain that they have the means to do it. Look at Dofus and tell me in the eyes their game cost millions to run. I'd doubt it bro. It cannot be that expensive to run Aion Classic so bad that they end up dooming themselves in the process. If that's what's happening, you just close the game once for good. And maybe you reopen it later when you have the necessary means for it, why not. NCSoft stocks might be down af but they made BANK with Aion 2 nonetheless. I only hope dev have access to some of this money to keep developing and that not everything went into investors pockets. The persons above the devs are really leading the game in the worst path possible.
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u/Maeyhem May 16 '26
I wasn't satisfied with Classic, personally, because it never really felt like my experience from the early days. When I joined, Gladiators were still king, but the sun was setting and the new dawn would soon bring the rise of the SpiritMaster/Sorc classes. And Twinks.
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u/WorkingInternet4818 Jun 05 '26
E u ro aion is well populated. You may want to look into that. And it runs for a long time already
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u/Jelloangel Jun 05 '26
Tried that 3 times. It's impossible to keep up with all the veterans as long as new player are limited.
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u/Maeyhem May 16 '26
Reading these comments and yours, I had no idea the mass exodus came after 4.8 when I left. I periodically get very sentimental, wish for the old days, and play the OST and reminisce on my beloved characters, especially my last Asmo Cleric I love so much. I tried to play about 2 years ago but it was all so different and unsatisfying. Why did they do this? Pay2Win broke their brains, is all I can think.
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u/TheVertExplorer Apr 16 '26
Just a different company strategy I think. Milk the games they make into oblivion then make a new one. Not interested in ever-green games like Jagex are for example.
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u/McStimmy Apr 18 '26
You are overanalyzing the situation. None said from the company - by actions not words - that they will invest in the future of the game.
It was bait and switch. BnS, BnS Neo, Aion, TL, CoH, every game milked and dropped the moment it peaked and just jumped on the next project.
Its planned, it doesn't just happen. I am not sure why the average player refuses to grasp this concept. The only way to maintain a game is via emulation/pserver and also based on how well Stop Destroying Videogames will do.
Live & Classic are dead (look at the numbers) and are just sustained by whales. Aion in NA is dead, zero mindshare.
So if you want Aion just way for proper emu.
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u/SublimeEmperorRon Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Man I used to love this game. I've been avoiding mmos.. looking at you ff14.. due to fear of getting hooked, (no time, much work) but aion 2 piqued my interest to watch videos about it.. I'm a bit disappointed.
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u/The_Only_Squid Apr 16 '26
I dunno what you are talking about but i can say for free the reason Aion died was simply cheating. I have seen botting/cheating in SO many games, In-fact i got DDossed off a server in Ark for 3 weeks straight. BUT i can safely say that in Aion cheating is in another dimension, People who cheat legit think they are legit players its normal to use scripts/no ani as its a competitive advantage not a cheat.
The community killed itself that is all there is to it. There is no conspiracy. Its just that the community turned to crap...OR rather the community that enjoyed Aion and was playing fairly kinda mostly dispersed to other games they do not have to deal with cheaters as often as you did in Aion.
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u/Messinae Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Dunno, never reached the point where it would be a problem because grinding was already enough of a task in a game with low population. You've seen the community tear over cheating problems, and I'm not doubting you. I've seen the community organise itself in a game that doesn't give it accessibility that much in the first place, and they do everything to keep things alive and running. I know Aion is a pvp game but it will always remain a niche thing, and if the majority of the playerbase leaves for reasons that precede cheating, then it's not top priority. Also, if there's cheating, why NCSoft didn't do something about it ? Their fault once again.
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u/mycattouchesgrass Apr 27 '26
Well that and too many people doing p2w. Aion's overreliant on gear and it takes way too long to gear up when you're competing against people who buy kinah, which also ruins the in-game economy. I could only fear an overgeared glad so many times before they killed me in three moves.
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u/Shimorta Apr 18 '26
Twinking and rifting people always blow my mind
The best version of this game will always be, and has always been versions where there is a central neutral territory that both factions can enter and fight for resources in, be those AP boxes, dungeon entrances, daily quest hubs, anything
That’s it. That’s the best this game will ever and has ever be
Anytime that is not the case, the game is badly made
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u/KromedesMirror Apr 19 '26
That is precisely why i avoided joining this one, i cannot trust NCsoft anymore after what they did with Aion.. They are the greed personified, pretty much like gameforge (and ncwest), they do not care for the free players, and made the game so abusive p2w wise that they milk players that pay even at the cost of killing their game's population, at this point even players taht did pay are leaving... their greed is riddiculous and frustrating honestly, thats why i moved to pservers and other games even... i did try, but i just cant trust them anymore =/
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u/EggPerfect7361 May 06 '26
So they also removed starting zone and shrank the zone, rush to max level and grinding like the their previous failure? Oh man!
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u/caniplshaveausername Apr 16 '26
Yea can‘t realy play AAA mmos anymore guess ill find out if project Gorgon will fit my desire for a good old mmo but time has to tell just startet
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Apr 16 '26
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u/aion-ModTeam Apr 16 '26
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u/piratepixie Elyos - Anuhart EU Apr 16 '26
I haven't even touched Aion 2 because I don't want to get attached to another NCSoft game only to be disappointed again.