Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

This weekend marked the first double experience weekend for Aion and even while I write this I'm counting the moments to when I can get back in game and make good use of it.  I don't think that the boost to experience could have come at a better time and even with the few mild complaints amongst the community with the usual /easy_mode fears, I definitely think that NCsoft made a good call.

Nothing is worse than playing a game for hours of your day and logging out feeling like you accomplished absolutely nothing.  With Aion's partial lack of quests beyond the early 20s, the average player can expect to spend at least part of their time grinding out levels and this becomes much worse if a player doesn't live for dungeon runs.  While grinding kills is a common pastime for some players and popular in Asian games, for most North American and European players, it is most definitely a burden that we don't wish to carry.  The obvious, and most welcome, solution would be to add more content to cover these content holes.  That takes time to develop content though and players needed a boost in moral now.

NCsoft gets this, thanks goodness, and even though double experience weekends is clearly a bandaid for a fairly profound problem, doing something is always better than doing nothing and this signals a very bright light at the end of the tunnel.  Does it put the game in easy mode? Given how long it takes to level in Aion, I certainly do not think so.  The double experience events over the next couple of weekends will get players into new content, and regular intervals of the event will give discouraged players a reason to log in.

Has the double experience event been a blessing or is this one step closing to nerfing a challenging game? Join the discussion on our forums!

~Savanja
Aion Site Lead

Is double experience not quite enough? If you have a Lodus amulet in your inventory, use it! This nifty little thing gives you a 20% experience gain increase for mob kills and it stacks with the double experience that you get during the double XP weekend events.  These are perfect to use while grinding mobs, or even better to use with dungeon runs.

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• NCsoft Offers Five Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - A little something for every fan of NCsoft's game lineup.
• Announcing Double Experience Weekends - Aion players get a big boost to their experience gain.
• Refer a Friend Program Launches - Get your friends to play Aion and you can earn free game time for yourself!

If you have questions, comments or suggestions for our newsletter please feel free to drop me an e-mail any time!