lvl 40

[Gatz]

One thing is sure tho...when i reach max lvl the abyss will become my home.

[eVenom]

I think that I would rather have stigmas have minimal effects in combat and such; this way, not everyone will be using the same stigma combo for each class, and most people can be unique and not be pressured to use a stigma simply because the next person is.

[Zanion]

Originally Posted by Gatz

One thing is sure tho...when i reach max lvl the abyss will become my home.

till than you'll be homeless ?

Originally Posted by eVenom

I think that I would rather have stigmas have minimal effects in combat and such; this way, not everyone will be using the same stigma combo for each class, and most people can be unique and not be pressured to use a stigma simply because the next person is.

i totaly agree with you evenom,people should be as unique ingame as they are in real life and being unique adds another aspect in pvp

[Grobyc]

Originally Posted by eVenom

I think that I would rather have stigmas have minimal effects in combat and such; this way, not everyone will be using the same stigma combo for each class, and most people can be unique and not be pressured to use a stigma simply because the next person is.

But then that makes me wonder how useful Stigma really is. It is very difficult to make something useful but not overpowered or underpowered, even more difficult when you factor in other variables like combinations of other Stigmas. If Stigmas only have minimal effect, then it may as well not be there. If Stigmas have a huge effect (which is difficult to determine at times), then everyone would use it. And to adjust those that are overpowered will upset the community because let's face it, those that are overpowered won't be easily achieved or obtained and I won't be happy if my hard spent time/money is being thrown into the trash. Class balance has always been and I think always will be an issue in any game that contains PvP. Stigma is just another variable thrown into the mix on top of gear, class, and variable player skill. I expect that Aion is going to have a lot of issues in PvP before it gets smoothed out.

[Chrysanth]

Wow didn't really start until you hit max level and started to raid. Saying you were level 70 (or 60 back in the day) meant nothing seen as 90% of the population is max level too. It's about your raid progress (guild dependant) and your gear (also guild dependant). In the end the 'best' wow players were the ones who got into a good guild and were prepared to sit for hours each night figuring out raid bosses. This in itself is a grind, just not for xp, for gear.

I expect Aion will be the same in principle except the difference is the pvp in aion actually means something (not the weak instanced pvp of wow). We will all hit max level in a few weeks and then the game will really take off with the politics kicking in.

[Nzo]

Hopefully it takes at least 4-5 months to hit max level.

[Destero]

Guess that depends on your gameplay. But I saw someone mention (don't remember who or where) that it should take about 2 months of gameplay to reach max lvl. Though I don't know what kind of gameplay that person meant ^^'.

[eVenom]

Originally Posted by Nzo

Hopefully it takes at least 4-5 months to hit max level.

Yum. Let's spend out lives playing this game aswell.

[Shmak]

Gotta love these people complaining about a couple months of character development. Obviously they never touched EQ1 or L2. Those games took years to max out your first char. Its no wonder the same people turn around "Omgz leveling doesn't mean anything anymore!" Please save the griping. As hard as it is to understand, the longer the game takes, the more worthwhile the end seems.

Botting, Powerleveling, and other design flaws aside, players will respect a long leveling process. If the game is fun, the leveling process is pretty irrelevant. You only get into problems when the reward cycle is too far skewed to one side. WoW and L2's rewards are end game focused, hence the pling/botting. EQ was the reverse - its beginning and mid game were fun, but the end game content was bugged and crappy until months or years after it went live (for every expansion, not to mention the original end game, which was also buggy as hell).

[eVenom]

Originally Posted by Shmak

Gotta love these people complaining about a couple months of character development. Obviously they never touched EQ1 or L2. Those games took years to max out your first char. Its no wonder the same people turn around "Omgz leveling doesn't mean anything anymore!" Please save the griping. As hard as it is to understand, the longer the game takes, the more worthwhile the end seems.

Botting, Powerleveling, and other design flaws aside, players will respect a long leveling process. If the game is fun, the leveling process is pretty irrelevant. You only get into problems when the reward cycle is too far skewed to one side. WoW and L2's rewards are end game focused, hence the pling/botting. EQ was the reverse - its beginning and mid game were fun, but the end game content was bugged and crappy until months or years after it went live (for every expansion, not to mention the original end game, which was also buggy as hell).

It only matters what people want; I don't care if it takes years to max out my character; in fact, I don't want it to. If NCsoft saw that most people wanted to take years to max their character out with higher-than-average-play time, then they would make it like EQ, but they didn't. And no, the longer the game is doesn't mean it will be better. WoW was horrible for than, just completely horrible. All I did was grind rep after rep, and it didn't work for me. So NCsoft is trying to make the game appeal to the biggest audience it can, and I doubt that audience wants to focus on 1 character for 3 years. Hey, not that it's impossible; with a few expansions, they could pull it off, but by that time I'd have multiple characters. So let people wine and complain, because these people shape the market and fuel the demand for a new generation of games.

[Shmak]

My point was not that long play time is better. My point is not that Aion should be EQ. This sentence was overlooked and possibly under emphasized:

If the game is fun, the leveling process is pretty irrelevant.

My point is that the audience doesn't know what it wants.

People say they don't want it to take to long to level, yet they want to play an MMORPG that never ends. People say that leveling doesn't mean anything, yet they want shorter leveling time to further reduce it to nothingness. Giving the audience what it wants is like giving the spoiled child candy.

The only reason people want shorter time leveling is because leveling in most games is a grind. Solving the problem is making leveling NOT A GRIND, not making leveling shorter.

[eVenom]

Aion has stated it will not empathize grinding because of quests, and if you think of killing in the abyss as not-grinding, there you go, another option. Yes, people don't seem to know what they want; NCsoft or other gaming companies will never make everyone happy, but they have to try and reach those whose voice is either overwhelmingly heard or are asking for something that suits the companies interests as well. Alot of people just want to rush to the end game content, which to me is odd, because the best part of the game is reaching the end. I also think that Aion's leveling seems decent as it right now, though I have no experience in game so I wouldn't know, but we still don't know anything from levels 40-50 yet.

[LethalGT]

Originally Posted by Zalunaya

"It's not the destination, but the journey", you said.

This is what I like about offline games...all the game up to max level is fun; the quests are interesting, there's a story going on, etc.
In online games the quests are stripped to 'kill X amount of ____' or 'bring me back some hides(which turns into kill X amount of monsters). Guild Wars showed some improvement, but still, the storylines got boring after twice through since they stay exactly the same each playthrough.
I'm hoping the quests in Aion are different; in fact, it was people saying how the questlines were funny and interesting, and the video of your character turning into a parrot to spy on pirates, that attracted me to the game at first. Also, the multiple forms of customization(your character, your armor, weapons...skills, to a degree)...helped show me that Aion has a chance to restore my faith in MMOs...
(Yep, I've basically quit all my MMO games 'sept Guild Wars(PvP only, most of the time now)...otherwise it's Wizardry 8 and Daggerfall)

--Also, the more PvP content, the better IMO, because fighting people is sooo much more interesting than fighting the computer's (limited, unfortunately) AI. I mean, it's never the same thing twice. Even if you fight the same person a couple times, it's likely they'll change their tactics next time around.
But yeah...some people don't enjoy PvP as much as me, but I hope that they understand why it's important to others.

Wewt Morrowind. Yeah I agree, MMO's are just the same boring *** smut now a days. Guild wars isn't even an MMO, it's in it's own category.

[Decipher]

I think they will do the same as WoW

Start the lvl cap low, as someone said it was 50, and raise it as expansions are released.

and anyway, I think there will be enough end game stuff to keep people entertained. Like me Im pretty sure I will hit the max level quite quickly. Since I honestly dont really have much of a life. xD

[Xerish]

Originally Posted by Shmak

Gotta love these people complaining about a couple months of character development. Obviously they never touched EQ1 or L2. Those games took years to max out your first char. Its no wonder the same people turn around "Omgz leveling doesn't mean anything anymore!" Please save the griping. As hard as it is to understand, the longer the game takes, the more worthwhile the end seems.

Botting, Powerleveling, and other design flaws aside, players will respect a long leveling process. If the game is fun, the leveling process is pretty irrelevant. You only get into problems when the reward cycle is too far skewed to one side. WoW and L2's rewards are end game focused, hence the pling/botting. EQ was the reverse - its beginning and mid game were fun, but the end game content was bugged and crappy until months or years after it went live (for every expansion, not to mention the original end game, which was also buggy as hell).

THank you, this has been my beef with all recent games. AoC level 80 took less than 1.5 months to hit 80 on a casual play basis. Every time i see people whinning about taking "OMGZ 3 months to level! that is too long" i just laugh. You do not have to just grind to top level. if the crafting, questing, mid level raids, events and other items of the game are interesting enough. One thing i hope they incorporate is the TRUE rare and named mobs. I always had fun camping rare spawn mobs who dropped even rareer loot, gave somthing low paced to do if you did not feel like grinding and gave you the opportunity to get some good lewtz heeh. Every mob having the chance to drop top notche items is a huge pet peeve of mine.