Sometimes those fights end in defeat, but I don’t find them annoying like the avoidable deaths when you charge into yet one more fight, this time with low health because you’re on a roll and forgot you’re not really immortal or even invincible.

But like this time, those seemingly unwinnable fights can be won if everyone keeps their head and remembers how to milk the most out of their class during “crunch time”. I did like how your new found friend messaged you to acknowledge that he should have been a little more careful in that zone with those Mobs.

The normal questing areas are more in-line with other AAA MMOs. But yes, the death penalty is stiffer than some games and people are paying the price for throwing themselves against the wall repeatedly. Again, I think that’s fine since it’s a choice. If you can’t solo it, by pass it or group up.

Personally, I’m enjoying added thrill when I’m roaming in more treacherous zones. The other night I made a 15 minute trek out to a new area. I shouldn’t have been going there yet – level is too low. I made the decision to make the run anyway just to see if I could collect more quests with common/shared objectives before killing the mobs.

I died a few yards from the NPC when my too low of a level aggro’d several mobs in the zone. I let out a growl over vent but what could I be upset about? I knew I was taking a risk so I wasted 15 minutes walking there and my death sent me back to where I was hearthed. The next day I made the trek in one piece because I knew in advance that the last leg of the journey had a patch of mobs that I would have to craftily fight my way through, which i did

So I don’t think it’s too old school or a big deal. You have to watch what your doing in certain zones. No one thinks anything of having to be careful in a 5-man or 10-man dungeon right? You can’t roam around willy-nilly. You have to watch for patrols and re-spawns. Some of the Aion zones are like being in Zul’Gurub or Ahn’Qiraj. i think that’s fun.

@Bhag – I’ve noticed the game doesn’t do very nice screenshots. I don’t know why. I haven’t seen any options for controlling the quality of output. The atmosphere and the imagery is stunning – if you like that sort of thing. :-)

Everyone keeps saying how beautiful it is, but either it must just not be to be to my taste, or else it looks much better in-game than in screenshots and videos. Then, WoW turned out to look immeasurably better when I actually played it than I had expected. If they ever get to a free trial, I’ll take a look and find out which it is.

The thing that does really surprise me, though, is how old-fashioned many of the game mechanisms sound. From the slower levelling to the densely packed, aggressive mobs to the zone sweepers to the harsh (by modern standards) death penalty, to the long leashes and trains, it all sounds remarkably like the status-quo pre-WoW. That would be nothing surprising for a niche game, but for something reckoned to be the next multi-million sub MMO it seems very odd.

Of course, all MMOs start off much more unforgiving of error and incompetence than they end up, as it becomes necessary to draw new subscribers from a wider pool of potential players, who are less fanatical about the game and more likely to give up as soon as things don’t go their way. If Aion can attract and hold a really large player-base ( near to 7 figures, let’s say) for a year or more, and not sand off the hard edges, then it might have an impact on future MMO design.

Big “if”, though.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the first 10 levels and the newbie experience but I keep hearing so many good things about the rest of the game that I’m keen to stick it out.

I agree with you about the quests and exp too. I think getting a nice dungeon group going is better than quest grinding.

@Rob – Yes, I’ve been using the work order system. It’s very similar to EQ2′s implementation. However, you still have to provide a base regent per combine, which is something like having to supply fuel in EQ2 except these regents can get a little expensive over time. Regards, I like the crafting. I like that i can harvest all and do all professions but can only master one. this is very similar to EQ2 which has my favorite crafting system.

@Pan – thanks. I’m enjoying myself. Only wish I wasn’t going out of town next week. I wanted to get into the 20s and Abyss with the gang I’ve been keeping up with so far.