Pay-to-win is a term that commonly gets used for MMORPGs nowadays, especially free-to-play ones. There are different kinds of pay-to-win elements in such games, but if this tip is true, then Aion EU might be having a bigger issue. We recently got informed by an Aion EU player that there is a shocking rumor circulating in the game.
Aion EU, published by GameForge has been considered quite a pay-to-win MMORPG, although many don’t blame them for wanting to make money. The following set of information is not based on hard facts, but on some in-game talk and a post on Rainy.ws. We were tipped by an active Aion player that it might be more than possible that a player has spent over €20,000 in the MMORPG to reach the current level cap of 75.
We decided to interview the source of this information and here is what we got from player Tokodbokom.
Thank you for spending some time on answering a few questions for us. We would like to thank you for sending us the news tip. Where did you first hear about this rather shocking rumor?
Tokodbokom: You are welcome. I have been an avid reader of your site, and a loyal visitor in the past. I thought it was a good idea to inform you guys about this. I originally saw this through a blog post on rainy.ws, via Aion Rainmeter’s official site, and decided that it might not only be a rumor. I decided to inform you guys and your readers that this is an existing situation in Aion [EU].
Have you heard such rumors before?
Tokodbokom: Of course. These are natural things in Aion and this blog [Rainy.ws] has been sharing similar information for years, often with proof. Everyone knows that Aion is a f2p game with a cash shop and this brings the p2w feel, and this got stronger over years.
Do you think there are issues on the EU servers with the in-game store?
Tokodbokom: As I am a poor Eastern European, I can only answer of course. And overall, that I have seen worse. But maybe it has become worse since the 5.0 update. I don’t blame GameForge, I blame the developer.
Are there too many advantages that you can buy for real money in Aion EU?
Tokodbokom: From 5.0 any item above level 66 can be sold, both PvP and PvE. You could sell these before, but it was harder and you needed scrolls for it. Now you can gear up extremely fast with the help of your credit card and it will not be different in the future, not to mention the new luna cube system.
Would you like to add anything else?
Tokodbokom: Aion is still a very good game if you can look away from its mistakes. There is an increasing amount these mistakes as time goes on. It is starting to feel like they are trying to squeeze out as much money as possible before the game dies out in the West. This is not a danger in Korea for now. They are okay with farming 0/24 to have fun.
There have been quite a few previous cases of players spending huge amounts of real money in MMORPGs, and this is something that seems to be getting out of control. The post that Tokodbokom mentions states that, “Step 1: wait for next alchemist event, Step 2: spend around 20-21k euro in the shop (exp amulets, tea of repose, stars, reset scrolls..), Step 3: profit… That’s what happened in Antri asmo side (governor).” Apparently, there is more on the issue on rainy.ws, where the admin quotes a forum post, “I ended up spending 103k aion coins on cards to get all 24/24 cards for the top reward,” and adds, “That’s around 4900 euro / $5160. On a sidenote.. someone spent 5k euro and still gets treated like crap by GF.”
The current level cap in Aion is not an easy task to reach, and only a few players have accomplished this so far. According to the post, spending so much can help you reach 75 in 3 days from level 71. If players are not limited at all in spending real money on games, or if they can find ways around the limitations, then it is not surprising that the pay-to-win tag cannot be shrugged off. Aion is fundamentally a great MMORPG, with lots of potential at hand, and having played on the EU servers, I do believe the publisher is not as bad as many players state it to be. Perhaps our interviewee is right in that it is not necessarily the publisher’s fault.
If more of you have info on this issue in Aion EU, feel free to share it with us, either by commenting below or by contacting us via email.
2 comments
Hi, i’m a Aion Player,I play to aion for 3 year and this is not totally real, That some players choose to spend so much money is a personal problem, Aion quietly offers the opportunity to develop the character without spending so much money then, you just need to play, and with time you can have it all. I will have spent 20 euro in 3 years, and yet I have a great competitive equipment and Level 73 of 75 with just over 2 hours of play per day.
you can get from level 69 to 74 without any problems if you spend about 400 euros on the game and got a bit of stamina to grind the instances.
For 1k euro’s im very sure that it would be easy as fk to reach level 75, sure it will take a bit of time and you ve got to be smart to level during xp events to be a bit faster, but overall you dont need more than that to reach max level.
overall if you buy an well geared account for maybe 300, spend another 400 on the game, you can be in the top 0.1% when it comes to equip and level and stuff and have a lot of fun with the game.
no need at all to spend 20k lol… and not sure if that would lead to you getting 75 in 2-3 days, i doubt it, since the most effective way of leveling is thorugh an solo instance, and even there you can only push your xp by so much if you buy all the additional xp items (which would be dumb, since investing the extra aion coins into more reset scrolls gets you more xp for your money, just takes you more runs obviously).