I'm curious as well to know the mechanics of both PvE and PvP. Does it have raid instances like WoW? Aions PvP looks cool because of the aerial battles, may pick it up and it works out well.
I've done all the beta events, including Chinese open beta, and it feels (PvE) very very VERY similar to WoW, almost exact ( Don't flame me! I've played alot of MMO's, I'm not a fanboy ;] ). The only thing I think that will sell me about Aion is the PvP and hopefully a different kind of end-game. Hopefully it will be enough to keep everyone, otherwise - I felt that I was doing the same thing I did in WoW, and WAR, and AoC - but that's MMO's in general, amirite? :]
From ive seen/read/heard (still downloading the chinese client to give it a shot before CB5 NA), there is talk that it will be more skill based, not so much based on gear and all that. China/korean players have been posting on aionsource about there experience and one guy has a Q/A going basically on a superthread that i was skimming through, and with all the information that hes been givin its looking like the PvP system will be similar to the vanilla WoW system. As you kill players based on there rank you get X amount of Abyss points, when you hit a certain # (for top gear/weaps its like 400k) you can use Golden medal of commendation (attained through sieges). Each peice of armor takes around 18-19 badges if i read it right but it doesnt take away your abyss points if i am researching this right. So once you have the points you have to do enough sieges and such to get all the gear. But when your sieging if u die you can lose abyss points, so gotta be careful not to lose too many points when your working on getting your medals.
Yes, you can lose points upon dying. Also, if you kill someone that is higher level than you, you get more points, durr right? Well that person can lose those points as well. This is also from what I've heard, I've also heard that when you buy gear its by Abyss points, so you constantly have to obtain then, which is in contrast to what you said. So, to be honset - I'm not exactly sure how it works! We will know when we get there, I guess :] Again, I only got to ~20 on my Cleric during the betas (been too busy on the weekends with work lately to play during the events) and I wasn't able to see PvP directly. Hopefully it will be good either way.
I seriously hope there are no instances.. They are the devil! And worthless.. And god damn newbish.. And so stupid... And retarded.. And it makes me die inside to play a game that has crap.. And.. wtf..
I think I read on AION Source that the zones are instanced much like AOC which is terrible in my opinion. Hopefully they will keep the character limit high so it's not 10 people per instance like in AOC where half your raid was stuck in another instance. Now if what you are talking about is 'instances' like dungeons then yes I think those exist as well, much like they did in WoW.
I don't mind instance PvE zones. And like you said, if they allow a lot of people in a zone for PvP, then I don't have any problems with that either. Its hard to code / server stability a non instanced huge world.. or IS IT?
They are, but only in the zones for levels 1-20. After that, no more channels/instances. After 20, it gets quite crowded, hehe. At least, in CBT it is
Head's up Aion CBT participants! Large Patch for CBT5. 438MB - and transfer is going sloooooow. Start patching ASAP. Changes being patched in looks to be mostly voice related (which explains the large size). Hmm.. Started to post patch notes, but given the NDA decided that was a bad idea.. yoou can read them on the betaboard. See you guys in game once I get the patch downloaded! --Zy