The initial version of their Bot reporting function was hardly effective, mostly due to the limitation of only 1 report per 30 minutes. So they needed a system which encourages players to report more bots, but at the same time avoiding abusive behaviors on legit players. With the latest patch from 21. January 2009 they provided an interesting overhaul to their current system.

It has yet to be seen on how effective this new system will work out – but it looks much more promising than the old system!

Translation: Automatic Bot Penalty System Information
Source: http://aion.plaync.co.kr/board/update/view?articleID=18&page
21. January 2009
Special thanks to Chae Young for helping with translation.

[Bot penalty system changes]

1) “Automatic Bot penalty system” has been improved.

- Original: You can only report 1 player every 30 min
- Change: Now you get 10 report points, so you can report up to 10 players using the “Automatic Bot report” function!

  1) Every 30 minutes you will get 1 additional report point up to a max of 10.
  2) If logged out you will also accumulate report points up to a max of 10.
  3) You can view your current status of your report points by using the ‘/신고횟수’ command.

2) In order to further avoid abuse the following restrictions have been added

- Original
  1) In order report the same player again you need to wait for 30 mins
  2) You cannot use the report function in the 2 major cities
  3) Once you have been applied a penalty stage due to accumulating reports, you can’t report other players anymore.
  4) You cannot report the enemy race

- Additions
  1) You cannot use the report functionality in abyss
  2) If you have reported a player, you can’t report the same player again for 30 mins, including:
    A) Using a different character on the same account
    B) Different account on the same IP
    C) Players of the same guild

3) The restrictions when entering a penalty stage have been further increased

  1) When entering penalty stage 3, forming parties is not possible anymore
  2) If you are in a party when entering stage 3, the party will automatically be disbanded

Automatic Bot Penalty System explained

1) How to use
  - Target a player and use the “Bot report” Button from the skills window
  - Target a player and enter the ‘/자동사냥신고’ command

2) Depending on how much reports you have received you will enter different stages of penalties
  – The penalty stages automatically decrease when you are not reported for a specific amount of time (offline times do not count!)
  – If more and more reports are accumulated the penalty stage will increase

3) You can check your current penalty status by using the ‘/제한’ command

To proof myself on what I am trying to say with my above paragraph, I need to explain a bit more about the differences in XP/mob rations from current MMORPGs.

As in every MMORPG you will get XP for killing a mob. I would say that this is nothing new and has been done in almost every level based MMORPG I know of. The only difference between the games is actually on how it gets calculated !
E.g. in Final Fantasy XI you always got 100 XP for killing a monster that is the same level of you, regardless of your current level. That means that an increase in the XP you need for a new level will directly affect on how long it would take. So if you needed e.g. 1.000 XP to reach level 2, you would need to kill 10 mobs of same level. But if you are moving from e.g. level 10 to 11 which required e.g. 3.000 XP you would have to kill 30 mobs of the same level as you – still this does not include parties or the fact that in FFXI you couldn’t always defeat enemies of the same level as you, once you reached higher levels (so you were forced to kill lower level mobs during soloing which actual gave even less XP per mob)…
However most other MMORPGs employed a different system… each mob gives a specific amount of XP, the higher the level of the mob the more XP you get. Now it already starts to get tricky to actually judge the grind level of a game by just some numbers, above all because we really don’t know on how this scales up during your advancement in levels. You may get 100 XP for the mobs at level 1, but you could also get around 2.000 XP for mobs at level 10 already. This ratio is also totally different in every MMORPG you will encounter – and then just think of  all the different calculations for parties, mob/character level delta modificators or on how long it takes on average to kill a level 1 or a level 10 mob etc. etc. etc…

Well I guess you can already see on what I was trying to demonstrate to you. Correct… you can’t determine the actual grind of a MMORPG from just a XP chart, especially when you don’t know on how the XP is calculated. So since I am pretty sure not all of you are interested in some more detailed math lessons today, I will just leave this information as it is and continue with the actual XP progression of Aion

Aion uses the same XP acquisition schema I showed in my second example above… the higher the level of the mob gets, the more XP you get. This is already a good thing, since in Aion you can always defeat higher level enemies the higher you are, thus acquiring more XP in around the same amount of time (a mob of same level as you or 1-2 levels above should never be a problem).

With this information the XP chart actually doesn’t look so bad anymore, but we still need to know on how exactly the XP of each mob level scales in relation to your own level… actually I can’t give you exact number’s here, but what I can tell you is that a Level 35 Mob gives around 14.000-18.000 XP, while a mob at level 25 would give around 6.000-7.000 XP! So when looking at the charts, we can definitely see with increasing level it indeed gets more difficult (simply due to the fact that the mob XP doesn’t scale up as much as the xp you need for your next level). Yet not nowhere as bad as it looked like when you were just looking at the XP numbers alone ^^

Still I don’t think that even this information gives anyone of you a satisfied answer on how the grind feels in Aion. We still haven’t even counted in the fact that each quest you do actually gives much more XP because for most of them you actually need to gather or kill something – all which gives you additional XP too. Just think of a quest where you need to collect 12 snake eggs and in order to find them you need to kill, let’s say around 20 snakes… 20 snakes alone would give around ~350.000XP already at level 35 .

Hence I for one conclude the much more interesting and meaningful evidence about the grind shouldn’t be the numbers nor the amount of time you need to level… the true question should be will you enjoy the journey? Is there enough motivation for you to get to the max level? Or how boring will be the grind?

From my own experience, I can assure you that level 1- 20 will mostly feel like you are questing in WoW. You should always have enough quests and missions to get to the next level and there will also be enough rewards so that you have plenty of motivation to move on. After level 20 it’s almost the same, you will encounter new areas, getting new quests, maybe doing your first quests in the enemy area or in abyss etc. and you should almost be able to hit level 30 without any kind of too repetitive grind. If you are a pure solo gamer and can’t accept any type of party or party quests nor do you want to enter abyss, it may happen that at around level 25-30, you may grind yourself 1/4 or 1/2 of each level just by completing some type of repeatable quests (coin quests for example – you collect coins and can exchange them into a random item). After around level 30 you will recognize that the quests alone don’t bring you to the next level anymore, except you have some parties, doing some crafting (craft XP) etc.! Although especially for a common solo WoW player it may start to feel like a grind now, even though it’s nowhere as bad as it would ever get in a game like Lineage 2, Silkroad or RFOnline…! Moreover once you are around level 32-34 you will start to do your first instance. Since I for one don’t like the solo grind that much too, I choose the path of farming the instance for better equip and my first yellow weapon (sadly I still haven’t got it yet – too unlucky). Indeed with the instance you will get plenty of XP, so you can easily make it up to the late thirty’s, just by partying with other players. Oh some of you may still have the erroneous belief that if you are a ranger you can never get a party. All I can say is, that I am a ranger myself and I still doing a lot of instances  every day with just random parties. It never takes me longer than 5 minutes after asking for a party to get an invite. Lately I am usually getting an instant invite after my typically “37 궁성 파티 구해요 (37 Ranger LFP) shout . And that’s also in non peak times – so don’t worry here. Anyhow where I really see a problem is the summoner class, I have yet to see one summoner in any of my parties. So I am really not sure about this class but they are definitely in need of changes there (it remembers me a bit of the poor warlock class in the beginning of WoW).
Now regarding the last few levels 40+ I am pretty sure it will take you some time, especially if you are a casual gamer and you don’t like to grind on mobs for too long. However with a good party and the 2nd instance which awaits you it’s still nothing near comparable to any of the known grind games! Also just remember by that time you will already have many different choices on what you can do in the game. Crafting, doing instances with your friends, pvp in abyss, invading or doing some quests in your enemies faction areas together with your friends (very fun and exciting!) etc. !

All in all it’s nothing to worry about that yet. I am also pretty sure by the time the game arrives in Europe, they have already added several new quests which will help you to reach the level cap with even less ”grind”

Nevertheless since the creation of MMORPGs we always had to work for being in the tops, we always had to invest time to be stronger than the other and isn’t that actually what a RPG game is all about, what we all love so much about this genre? Otherwise we would still play a simple shooter or something different, wouldn’t we? Therefore in order to reach this goal every MMORPG will always need some kind of grind. If it’s the grind to do quests or instances, the grind to get up the pvp ladder, the grind to get a hero, or the grind to get a specific item which differentiates you from someone else… every game of this type will always confront us with the evilness of “grind“, and everyone of us will have a different motivation and a different endurance to bypass it and reach their own goals, but only the game itself can determine on how exciting or boring the grind will be seen by its players.

With these words I want to finally close my 3rd blog and hope to see you again in my next…

Luckily that is not too hard to explain…

First I never bothered much about the opinions on Aion… some may remember my little review I wrote on the English Aion Fan site AionSource as well as my posts there (you can find this review in my blog now too). I mostly just posted about my experiences within the game or on the things I encountered, and maybe answered some of the communities questions. Although today something really strange happened and it was the main reason why this blog is now alive…!

At around 10:00am I got an email from an austrian friend in my office, he is currently a WoW player and doesn’t know english very well and he never heard much about Aion too, except from what I told him or what he read on the german fan-sites.

So how could this email drive me to create this blog you ask?

Well listen… in this email he sent me a link to Elliots latest Blog entry (Aion too hardcore or too soft? You decide) and some other major concerns about Aion. First I was a bit confused because, well he can’t even really read english and I was like how he knows about Elliots blog and most of his post!?! I was very curious now so I didnt hesitate to call him. On the phone he explained me, that he has just visited some major german fansites and many of them were in rage because they wrote things like -> “Omg we knew it, its another L2, game is just a grind, typical NCSoft etc. etc. look here is link to source…..“… ! At this moment I realized the power of a single person on the net . My first thought was: Oh yeah I remember Elliot, and while I didnt agree with many of his posts, I never thought that his translations could have such a big impact on the overal “mmorpg” community. So during my lunch break I decided to google around a bit and find out about the misery Elliot… it didn’t take too long and I came across some interesting stuff. Several fan sites have already adopted elliots blog and most of his translations were seen with dark eyes. It was like the devil in person who came down to all the aion fan sites and brought the evilness about the game upon them. Locked threads, upset Moderators, deleted posts and angry Administrators etc. etc. ! All in all a very fun situation, especially because, well… it was just 1 person. He further has never played the game by himself?

So how comes people are giving him so much creditability – and why so much hate?

To explain this I guess we need to dig a bit deeper into the presence of the mighty Elliot! Elliot is a long time member of AionSource, he is always kind enough to translate stuff directly from the korean sites. Also he is a passionate WoW player, something which seemed a bit controversy, since we all know about the great wars on the net between different MMORPG game players, don’t we ? However, all in all at this time everyone was happy and content. Later after the launch of the korean Aion, more and more news appeared. Aion was highly successful in Korea, it even beat the World of Warcraft open beta launch, they had more than 220.000 simultaneously users online etc. etc. People were amazed by the success and were happy to hear that it is so successful there. However, soon after that the first negative posts regarding Aion appeared on the net (there isn’t a good side without the bad isn’t it?)… most nicely translated by Elliot and posted into the different communities. From that point the overall happiness seemed to fade away from the poor forums and the big battles between the Aion Fanbois & Elliot Fanbois started to fill the sky. On one side Elliot, he appeared as the Hero who brings us the truth about the game from the east and not just the “flowers”, and on the other side, the people who couldn’t understand on how just 1 person can bring so much negative information’s about Aion in such a short amount of time (he must be WoW fanboi !!!!! – some people cried)… !

 What happened to all the satisfied players? Whats with all the people who praised the game so much? Are they just playing the game maybe (after all its brand new?) or did they finally disappear and hide in little holes because the game was such a failure (who would want to admit that)?

So sooner or later Elliot needed to defend himself, since all he pretended to do is translating posts from the large korean fansites and forums – sure he can’t deny that he also added some additional salt and pepper in his posts with his own added opinions…, but hey he is still the good guy who just wants to tell us on what we can expect and moreover on what Korea is talking about this game – sadly he never found something good about it !

So who is right now? What is going on? Are all the good dreams of our Aion fans now shattering because of Elliot, who seems to be the dark knight of the truth?

Well, to answer this question I will have to say that I don’t think that Elliot is exaggerating in any way (even though some call him a WoW fanboi…). I am sure that the posts he translates are valid in their own way. Maybe he is just unlucky with putting his own opinions into the news – changing the news to something contradictionary than the original author ever wanted to say? Moreover the problem is that some of the added cynical comments are sometimes just plain wrong, which discredits the value of the post itself (and thus creates even more rants throughout the community…). Or maybe the critics come mostly from hardcore players who have a completly different point of view regarding Aion? – Who knows? – Even though I am sure that he doesnt do that intentionally, its really difficult to add personal opinions especially if you have never played the game yourself. All his opinions are based on the things he read.

But do you think that’s the sole truth?

Is this really something you can build all your further assumptions on? I myself dont think so… but in the end its up to the reader to decide on what to get out of the information’s and what not and maybe exactly that’s is also the reason why I took the time to create this blog.

I really want to advice everyone of you to make your own opinion about the game before you judge about it too much without ever having played it. Its just not fair, not to the game, not to the developers and not to the community. I for one think that with Aion they did such a beautiful and detailed masterpiece which everyone of you should get the chance to try it out yourself and judge by the time you are able to. There will never be a perfect game, and even thou Aion will have its downsides, don’t be deceived by the things you encounter in the net, be patient and give it some time, you will be amazed on what you see… I can assure you – but never expect too much

With this words I want to close my 2nd blog and hope to see you again in the next one, which will be about Elliots Blog regarding the XP Acquisition Chart of Aion (Aion too hardcore or too soft? You decide), and how the grind really compares to WoW or Lineage 2 – maybe I get the chance to ask some of my Korean friends too about this (those are already 40+) :)

Take care everyone,
LD

During the last few weeks many of you have followed the development of Aion. Many of you are eagerly awaiting the european/north american release. Even though the english informations are sparse, more and more rumors, facts, translations etc. are appearing throughout the net. Let’s face it, the game has already been released in Korea and finally we are able to get some new informations directly from east on what is going on with Aion, on how it appeals to the casual and hardcore players and a little insight on how good or bad the game really is.

Since most of us can’t judge it by themselves yet, except those who have already played it and made it through a major part of the game. So we are solely dependant on every news we can find. Sadly there aren’t many koreans who are translating information to english, so we are in a quite bad situation right now. All we can do is, listening to the few people who have played it or to the few people who are translating stuff from korean fan-sites of Aion etc.

I’ll try my best to enlighten the community with the dark and the light side of the news about Aion. If you are interested to read more about my intentions to write this blog, just head over to my 2nd one -> Elliot under fire?