Content feed
Twitter
Flame on.
World of Warcraft and Aion. They share the same relationship the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees do – they are indisputably the two biggest players in a competitive market. And just like the Yankees and Sox there is an intensely heated rivalry between their fans. Drop a post anywhere on the internet with “WoW is better than Aion” or “Aion beats WoW” in the title and watch it light up in flames like a dry Christmas tree. Since Aion debuted in North America in September there have been many salvos fired back and forth between the two giants. Normally I try to don some flame retardant clothing and keep to myself, but the most recent flame-fest has me intrigued, so here I am, entering the fray…
“Aion is hardcore, WoW is EZmode. Aion is better because leveling is harder. Getting to max level takes longer and Aion players aren’t spoiled by having so many quests. You have to grind out some levels, not like EZmode WoW.”
While I didn’t copy that sentiment directly from an Aion forum post, I probably could have. The ideas within it have certainly been repeated to me numerous times since Aion launched in September. The reason I still find this statement so intriguing is because I actually agree with it – at least partly.
Aion classic grind, served in dark.
“Leveling in Aion is harder than leveling in WoW”- I completely agree, in fact I would say that leveling in Aion is much harder than leveling in WoW. I have multiple level 80’s in WoW I have struggled getting past level 20 in Aion. It also took me far longer to get to level 20 in Aion than it did attain the corresponding accomplishment in WoW. But does that mean Aion is better? I can’t make that connection. How do other people? This is my theory: Aion players think that because it is harder to level in Aion than WoW, that it requires more skill, and therefore the game must be more challenging and be more worthy of their time and attention. I would agree with this…if it were true. But something that is hard is not always challenging. Attaining max level in Aion does not require more skill than attaining max level in WoW. Instead, Aion requires more time and more patience than WoW. I will admit it! I simply can’t stand grinding mobs. I hate it. It’s pointless. Aion readers, I challenge you, give me one reason why it requires more skill to pop in a movie and mindlessly grind mobs for hours than it does to complete quests. One reason is all I ask for. Leveling is harder than in WoW, but not because it is more challenging or more rewarding, but because it is longer and exhausting. You don’t need more skill to do it, you need more mental resolve to click “login”, does that make it better?
Spoiled?
“Aion has fewer quests than WoW, sometimes you have to bear down and grind out mobs for experience” – I completely agree here too. WoW leveling is based on completing quests, not grinding. But are WoW players “spoiled” by having quests available to them to level through the game? The assertion seems ludicrous to me. Spoiled by playing a game that is full of content? That sounds terrible. There seems to be some sort of odd machismo here – if there is a lot of grinding it somehow makes attaining max level more rewarding. Why? Is it because you have toiled more? Playing a game without engaging gameplay for levels does not invoke any machismo from me. Quite the contrary, I find it frustrating. Your game developers went through the hassle of creating a whole new world, races, and history and couldn’t find the time to populate it with things to do? It feels flimsy like the skeleton of a world to me.
Oops
Let’s cut the semantics and get to the bottom line. What makes a game good? How much you enjoy playing it. Plain and simple. It’s a game, you play games because they are fun. Can anyone tell me that grinding mobs for hours because there are no quests available to level is more fun than leveling through quests and revealing a rich deep storyline? Anyone? Aion players could have that too, you don’t need to grind forever! But rather than clamor for change this vocal segment of Aion players defend the holes in the game, the gaps in content. Just to spite WoW players? (Face/nose cutting scenario here…) I guess that is ultimately what I do not understand and find so intriguing in this argument.
6 Replies
Global Agenda is better than both.
Ball’s in your court.
Posted on December 23rd, 2009 at 5:10 am
In WoW, you can kill elites all day, not hard, real easy. They’ve nerfed instances to the extreme, you don’t even need to do instances to level, just do RaF and hit 60 in a week.
In WoW, at level 80 purples are thrown at you. You do a few heroics run Naxx, you’re geared.
WoW… World of WARcraft, where is the WAR? PvP servers seem to have the best raid guilds. raid? PvE? There’s not to much incentive to PvP in WoW. Most people would rather raid, even on a PvP server.
World PvP is dead since vanilla.
To get geared in Aion, face it, you have to PvP for the best gear.
Where is this so called grind? Quests seem to last me awhile.
You hit level 20. There’s no way you ran out of quests and had to ‘grind.’
People say Aion takes more skill because throughout the leveling process you are constantly in fear of getting killed by opposing players, well, I wouldn’t call it fear exactly, but you’re always on the look out.
Mobs are way harder, start a Death-Knight in WoW and you can take on 6 monsters at a time, taking 2 monsters on in Aion requires some steady use of heals/cooldowns, IF your class can heal. If not then a good understanding of class mechanics and mangement should get the job done.
Elites are actually Elites in Aion. The term ELITE can’t even be used until you hit HEROICS in WoW.
The time it takes to hit 50 in Aion, after constant attack from Elyos or Asmodians, has you as a battle hardened player who should know their class fairly well. Where in WoW, you just hit 80 to soon to even have a descent understanding of your class. Some people do, but a lot don’t.
Posted on December 24th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Dirka, what you are saying is that hitting a few buttons in a certain order is called skill? I am not saying WoW or Aion is better, because I would have a hard time justifying one to be better than the other. Both games are good MMO’s and both have some interesting points. However, if WoW chooses to have elites solo-able, than maybe there are even harder monsters out there? The term elite means that a mob/monster is harder to kill then normal monsters. Is an elite in WoW harder to kill than the normal mobs? Yes, so it deserves the term elite. Saying that an elite in another game is harder to kill may be so, but that does NOT mean that the weaker mob from the other game is not an elite. The games are totally different, so the content and the ranking of monsters is totally different.
You also say that in World of Warcraft you can get good gear easily. Well thank WoW for being so generous that you dont have to sit at a computer for several hours a day to get good gear like a liveless person would do. Finally a game that allows people to compete with everyone and still keep the border intact that seperates the people who play casually and the people who play hardcore.
World PVP in WoW is not dead. You can still pvp in the open world dude. Dead means it is gone, you can not do it anymore. While I am leveling I can kill alliance and they can kill me. I even have fun doing it. It may be that the world pvp is mostly gone, but the pvp has transferred to the battlegrounds. And I think that it is actually leveling friendlier. Instead of getting beat the shit out of me every 2 secs by a higher level, I can actually finish quests and levelup. So in Aion I had to look around that there aren’t any red names around, the same goes for WoW. It’s idiotic saying that it takes more skill if you have to look around for red names. It is just another feature to the game, and both games have it.
And so what you actually have to pvp for the best gear in the game. In WoW you can get good gear with PvE and PvP. Aion is a PvP focused game. WoW has something for everyone, both the PvP player and the PvE player.
And so we come to your next argument: the mobs are harder in Aion. Oh my gosh, It takes a minute extra to kill a mob. You get twice the xp per mob though. It does NOT take skill to take a monster down in Aion, it just takes more time. And what if you can do multiple mobs at a time. A gladiator can’t, he misses the AoE in the earlier levels. The templer? Oh wait, he cant heal himself. The healing classes maybe? Nope, they are a bit easy to kill. This just means that the way you level is different than in WoW. In WoW you are allowed to be the powerful hero and take on bands of robbers. In Aion you are a powerful daeva who is able to kill other powerful monsters on an equal basis.
What I am trying to say is that WoW is just different from Aion. Aion takes a lot more time per item of doing things. Killing mobs take more time, leveling takes more time, everything takes more time. WoW allows you to level up quick, gear up quick and have fun quick. Aion and WoW are just two entirely different games. Aion may take a little longer, but it is nearly impossible to see which game takes more skill dirka. The skill it takes to compete against other players in a game, is as high as the skill of the other players. And the PvE content in Aion is noticibly(sorry for my spelling ^^) less than in WoW, because Aion is a pvp focused game.
Maybe you are more experienced in Aion once you reach 50. But it just takes a crap load of time to reach 50. During your progress to 50, you learn different skills. When some people get to 30, they think they know how to play their class. I got a surprise for them. The last 20 levels give you a lot of more skills which makes your class play entirely different. Saying that you need to play a lot with your class to understand it better is entirely true. But you can only start to understand it once you can grasp around all its abilities. Which means getting to the end level which in Aion takes a lot longer than in WoW.
Btw Raim, you are right. Everywhere I go on forums, there is always one or two threads about this type of topic. WoW gets compared to everything.
P.S. god, I type a lot xD
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
to comment on what dirka said, alot of what you described reminds me vanilla wow. alot more world pvp, elites were much tougher although it may be a side effect of gear being much harder to come by. there were no BoA items to help you through.
Also exp was alot different, there was no recruit a friend and WoW has changed so much since those days. I agree that it has went towards easier leveling and promoting the more casual gameplay.
I do play wow and never played Aion because most of what i hear its not worth my time, i know what i like and grinding is not one of them. I listen to raim’s podcast and have heard some good things on aion but for me it just doesnt sound like a game i want to play.
As a whole, id have to agree with about everything raim said.
Posted on December 28th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Djaan – you have a rationality not generally seen on internet forums, thanks for the post. I think that viewing the two games as separate entities is the only way really to look at them. To each their own so to speak. The grind vs questing and more casual gameplay.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
You’re welcome Raim;) Btw, I am looking forward to the next MMO weakly. Can we expect it anytime soon? It has been a while since the last one was released, probably got to do with the holidays and all.
P.S.: Happy New year everybody:D
Posted on January 2nd, 2010 at 11:50 am
Leave A Frickin' Comment