Tuesday marked the launch of the first
Aion expansion
Assault on Balaurea.  As a tempting dangling carrot, NCsoft made the expansion
free so there was pretty much no way I could read about all the new features and
not re-subscribe to check things out.  Like many players though, I was a little
apprehensive of some of the common troubles that drove gamers away from Aion. 
Have those troubles improved? Are there new ones?  If you are still unsure if
you should give the game another look, then this is the read for you!

Gold Market Annoyance

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Not a gold seller in sight!

One of the biggest complaints in Aion had been the huge
influx of gold salesmen pimping their black market wares in busy areas and
hogging prime hunting locations for farming.  The good news is, I’m standing in
Sanctum right now near the Hall of Prosperity and there is not one seller up
offering gold. I have also been in game about a week and have yet to receive a
poorly written whisper offering gold or telling me that my account has been
banned (ples go to ripuoff.com/scammer to log in). The bad news is that through
reports found around the forums and through other players, accounts are still
being stolen and stripped meaning that Aion is still a target for these wretched
leeches, just not a primary target these days.

Lag…at the Worst Possible Moment

Lag just makes me cry.  I plop down a good amount of money
for an 18mb line and solid comp setup just to avoid it.  Lag has always been a
problem in Aion for some, and it has improved vastly for me personally.  I do
still get a little bit of that rubberbanding in heavy traffic areas and of
course at those times when I desperately need a clean getaway.  If I didn’t know
better, I might think that lag was an intelligent being just waiting to mess me
over during those pivotal running away moments.

PvP? Where?

Aion is considered to be a PvPvE game, if by “PvP” you mean
being ganked in the back while you’re gathering by a player almost too high
level to even be in the same zone that you are in, and if by “game” you mean
dying…a lot.  PvP in the Abyss is still kicking although not with the same zeal
it had at launch. Rifts have become a game of hide and seek.  No one jumping a
rift is really looking for a fair fight so if you’re on the low end of the zone
then you are almost always a target.  I’d give my first born for more non-rift
zones across all levels with plentiful harvesting nodes and substantial
questing.

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New and hunky event NPC. Pixels never looked so
delicious.

LFG. Umm, Hello?

Population obviously took a big hit shortly after launch
and continued to decline for quite a while. NCsoft addressed this by merging the
servers which helped immensely. It did cause a bit of a side effect; good versus
evil balance was pretty much shot, but that has been remedied at this point
through some diligent work on the part of the dev team.  Populations are looking
pretty good particularly at mid to high levels.  If you log in, you may find
that your characters have been moved around and named weird things but NCsoft is
currently offering free server transfers and free name changes so it’s a good
time to check on your characters and put them where you want them to be!

Pros and Cons

NCsoft West has been really good at listening to the needs
of players, and getting things done.  Improvements have definitely been made
where they can be made, but of course if you hate the imbalance of rift PvP and
the occasional account hijacking, then those won’t likely go away anytime soon. 
It is a good time though to get back into Aion if you’ve been away for a while
with the newest expansion, Assault on Balaurea.  I’m in game checking out the
expansion so be sure to
check back in next week for a full look at what Aion’s
free expansion has to offer players of all levels.