So, I guess this might be a little bit long winded, because, I literally decided to FINALLY make an account, just to post here. Imagine Aion of all things, being the reason I finally make an account.
I have been going through a nostalgia fit, and just spent a few months on classic wow, now I am dying for the real MMO of my childhood, the one I started to play because I was a child and couldn't afford a WOW subscription, the one that got me to be a degenerate open world pvp lover, Aion.
I have noticed that this sub does not condone "non official" postings anymore. However, I also am VERY skeptical of relying on NCSOFT to run the game.
I have a a general question, which sort of is meant for the mods, but might be allowed to be answered by others; if "non official servers" are not allowed to be discussed, where do we safely explore those opportunities? If we are not allowed to talk about anything that is not official, regarding a game where the official version has been historically worse than player ran servers, how or where do we safely talk about non official mediums?
(I'm sorry if this still doesn't fit the rules but I really have no idea where else to ask. I'm not asking for promotion, I'm asking for where to go, to find out what is safe and to get reliable information. I have never played on one of these servers before and I really don't want to hop into any random one that could be malicious. Of course, I am not insistent on playing on something non official, I just don't expect NC to take care of the game better than players would.)
My second question is; if retail is worse than classic, is classic worth playing in NA?
I am dying to play this game again, and a few years back, I gave retail Aion a shot again. I did enjoy myself for a while while I learned the game again. I ran into a sad moment however, when I realized they changed several things, and the whole, "transformation" thing seemed very very very anti consumer. The gear being streamlined was kinda lame. Also I might be imagining it but I think my skills were cut in half.
I remember playing a cleric back in the day, where I chose to run cloth items specifically so I could do more damage on my healer, obviously making solo content faster, but mainly for pvp reasons, because a cleric that could burst, was actually somewhat scary, at least back in the day.
Coming back I found they restricted armor types now. No more silly spell power on my assassin for memes, no more cloth for my cleric, chanter was the only class I played the way it was meant to be played.
After leveling all my characters up and finding that I cant really do any silly off meta stuff, I tried to just play normally. This was then immediately ruined by the new "transformation" system they added.
I don't understand why you would add a system to a game, that fundamentally makes the idea of creating your own character pointless. Not to mention, I had bought outfits in the past. They offered "invisible" transformation scrolls, or something named along that line. Which to me, as a returning player who literally grew up being a nerd ganking in Gelkmaros, seemed insulting because, any outfit I had bought, was not visible, without paying money for those specific scroll things, to then be able to see the outfits I had once paid money for.
I didn't delve into the pve much further after discovering this, because it just annoyed me so much that I refused to explore further. I don't know if its feasible for a f2p player to bypass this, I don't know if the PVE is still any fun, and I didn't even try to find out, if i could even participate in pvp.
All that being said, I would happily play retail if the game itself had some integrity, but I didn't see any. Has this changed since I last tried it out a few years ago?
Then for my final question; is classic NA even worth my time? Would EU classic be worth it despite a ping issue if I am from NA? I was really excited when I heard them announce Aion classic a few years ago, but as soon as I got word they added a battle pass, a VIP sub system, and an RWT to MTX conversion, I was immediately disappointed and NEVER gave it a chance. I would have happily paid a sub fee, just to play, but I don't want to pay a sub fee, in a f2p game, just to have an advantage over others.
I loved this game when I was little, and I really miss it. I really just want to find out how to play it in a meaningful way again.
If any mods have an issue with me asking how to get information on non official servers, I will edit it out if you want. I just want to play Aion again.
I guess you would just deny or delete the post? Idk how reddit works, I just made the account so I could ask here. Sorry if its still against the rules.