Hehe gotcha. Thx for tips and the answer. May the glhf force be strong💯

Yeah. I'm about to quit too. I can only play casual and it feels like i'm falling behind so quickly. I'm glad they released it tho, it was fun while it lasted

@@silasrossner4861 Sadly I agree with both of you here, the game experience is bad at the moment, especially for casual players. Thats why this was one of the big points I talked about in the video. Don't think it is going to change soon either, but nonetheless I'm hoping 😮‍💨

Yes as mentioned in the video, the game right now is not casual friendly at all. If you go DP in most cases you make a loss of money, so you spend at least an hour ingame to be worse off after that? That should never be the case. I mentioned stuff like the soulsickness which is a pretty big loss of money if you only die once, such a thing is contributing to that hostility, nobody would care about a fail pull that wipes the team if you only had to pay a little amount, I think these are the situations that stick with you over the years. I still remember a sorc in our static back then that was rubberbanding around a pillar, to avoid that rubberbanding, he did go further around it which triggered a mob, he panicked and used the jump back which somehow did go into the wrong direction and led to him pulling another 2 mobs, he then got stunned from the first mob which he shockremoved and then did the chainskill of jumping forward 30meters which triggered another like 5 mobs, in the end we wiped there once but the discord was filled with laughter and a good memory. However in Classic now its like you join a random group and the guy is welcoming you with "if you fail pull one singular mob in the entire dungeon I will kick you, doesnt matter where we are." I think it's just an outdated system with soulsickness which punishes people too hard for simple mistakes that contributes to some of that toxicity. I want to do the lore videos, but its a lot of time to invest and the game being in such a bad state really robs me of my motivation, but we will see 😄

@@Azphelgg Yeahh the ss is one of the most annoying and unecessary things ever, having to wait 4min to get your stats back to normal is a waste of, not only kinah but siel minutes. "I didn't pay for siel energy to wait this long, I have no kinah😢" is something I always say when I rest my char. Omg that story is so accurate, now it's such a worry to not get your pt killed, cause then everyone will blame you, no more laughter or good memories. The good memories I created myself while lvling up and doing stuff alone cause nostalgia. But look, the other day a sin started insulting me for not dispelling a mob, it last a good couple minutes. Me being a noob sorc, I panicked cause I know spiritmaster have the skill but I wasn't sure if I could do anything about it as a sorc (I mean, idk how to play all classes properly and it's normal) but then I realized he was just as noob as I was, maybe worse 🤡he only stopped raging when I turned on my mic and kindly told him to stop being rude cause it was making me sad frfr. This is just one of the many toxic players I've encountered in classic. Also, not playing for 3 days is enough reason to get kicked out of legion there..and I thought I was friends with them leaders 🤡Anyways, maybe I'm too soft, or maybe I just want to play and have fun like any casual player wishes. Aion used to be fun and friendly, what a shame. I hope you do it! I will be here to watch it 😊I really love Aion and I believe you love it just as much.

Yes that is the sad truth. With 2.0 in a month there will be again a bunch of returning players, if the situation until then doesn't change, then I don't see any chance for success.. I'm still hoping for a better path for AION!

I will do an update about this soon, there is some stuff to talk about 😅

😂

Ich verstehe deinen Frust, geht mir leider ähnlich. Mein Tipp: Vorraussichtlicherweise sollte in ca 2 Wochen der 2.0 Patch kommen, schau doch einfach da nochmal bei AION Classic rein ob sich die Situation verbessert oder eben nicht.😄

Yes both reasons you mentioned here: AP-Trade and stigma shards, have made me lose interest in PvP, which is sad because I am a very competitive player, I just don't like BS :)

@azphelgg same. The only hope is that something will be changed when the 2.0 comes, but i doubt it. Unless GF makes something about the issues, the interest will not return

I see what you are saying and I somewhat agree, I was very happy when AION Classic launched and there were so many people around. People didn't leave because of the age of AION, they left because they saw very early on all the nonsense of the game that wasn't necessary, but I think the highlight where most people left was the DDOS-Problem, it is unthinkable of any other game that the game is literally unplayable for a bit more than a week! GF's solution to the DDOS problem was not to take measures against it, they simply said " we are going to wait until they stop", which made my jaw drop, because this is a game that requires you to pay 50€ a month if you want to play it seriously, yet all the problems get ignored, it is ridiculous. :(

Tough question, the soulsickness itself isn't a problem anymore but quna has been introduced into the game which means people directly buy and sell more stuff with real life money or buy kinah from other players with their real money, this leads to a lot of pay 2 win in that regard. Stuff like AP trading isn't that relevant anymore, however bots are still there and in a huge number, you can see like 20 bots teleporting around certain NPC's at all times. So some stuff improved, some stayed the same and some did get even worse. In the end it is your decision and you have to think about what you would like in the game and what downsides you can live with. I personally stopped PvP because of the Pay2win stuff and simply became a casual Pve player and I'm enjoying myself.😉

The sad truth is that if you want to play the game seriously and comfortably you would have to pay 50€ a month. Thats a lot of money, especially if you think about all the problems that are not getting fixed, its crazy.

Yes PvP isn't how it used to be, I really liked PvP when it was low-scale PvP, meaning anything from 1v1 to 3v3 or so. But yea why would you do that if you can just run around as 20 people attacking one person. I don't like this zerging meta but sadly nothing that can be done about that.

In a lot of aspects the tahabata server is the better server, the people playing on tahabata are generally happier. It's simply said friendlier for casual players, which AION in general should work towards.

Yes I feel that. The sad truth is that they are thinking in terms of money, not the amount of players. Why care about the casual players that spend only 15€ month when you can focus on the hardcore players and whales that spend way more than 60€ a month, This is why the game will shrink and shrink in playerbase and with that the pay2win will get more and more. I don't want to be overly negative about this, but that's the route that all such games take, including Retail AION.

In some sense you are right, but many people have a lot of good memories of AION back then, thats why people do return and hope for it to "not be as bad as they remember". A lot of people have already quit and a lot others stopped playing competitively, like myself, I have no interest in PvP if there is pay2win and unpunished cheaters. I will still make content for AION, lorewise for example, to please the good memories I had in this game, but I sadly do not play it a lot anymore.

I understand your frustration, the moderation and support of the game is horrible when you keep in mind that the game costs you 50€+ right now to play it effectively. I feel sad for AION and right now I am only playing very casually because it is in such a bad state, but I want to see the 2.0 update :)

Yes that is the purpose of the miragent or fenris set - a goal to work towards in the endgame. Thats why you had to do so many different tasks which I think is still a cool idea that you have to craft, grind for balaur materials and such, it was never supposed to be finished that quickly, it was a goal for the very dedicated players. However if you RMT and buy hundreds of millions of kinah from other players then all of this is kinda pointless and easy.

Yes this guy stinkable on asmo is a streamer and i think he talked about him here

@@GalaaxXy No no, stinkable is an asmo, I talked about an elyos, but I will not do any namecalling here, Gameforge knows anyway since a lot of reports flooded in back then.

I don't know about that, depends on your gear and if you get invited into groups. For dred you have to organize a group before you go in, most people require a minimum of a +10 weapon (triroan or bakarma) and with that you should win at least 80% of dreds. However if you don't have a +10 trio/bakarma weapon, then yes you won't get invited into groups. In this case you should just do some blue quests and buy the weapon from someone that sells it, because almost nobody does normal runs anymore, it's only sell runs which also require you to be geared. But yes I do agree with you that casual players are not having fun in AION at the moment, it is a horrible experience and nobody should be surprised why so many people left already.

I mean dude ok, the game has been out for more than 2 months now, having 30e by this point is normal. Hardcore ppl have 50e already which is unrealistic for casuals, but full 30e by now isn't that unrealistic if you do dred, arenas, roah asteria and pvp 1-2 hours. Yes it needs 2-3h investment a day, but it's an mmo.

@@MaRaX93 The argument of "its an mmo, its normal that you have to spend 8 hours a day in it" is always bad. The problem that a lot of hardcore players that spend a lot of hours a day in AION do not understand is that the game is not friendly for casual players at all at the moment. If you make it more casual friendly, then casuals wouldn't leave the game so quickly and that would lead to the game itself being healthier and more popular, which is a good thing for everyone and also the hardcore players will always be ahead of everyone anyway, that would and should never change.

@@Azphelgg Ye take what I said, 2-3h, and turn it into 8 hours for comedic exaggeration pretending you addressed what I wrote. Having 30e 2.5 months after launch doesn't require you to play 8 hours a day. The problem isn't the ap, the problem is and always will be kinah because the game was designed so that ppl spend money on the shop. This isn't something Gf can address easily since this was intended by NCSoft and works like that in KR (where all top pvpers rmt, some do it on stream). Think of it logically, unless they accounted for rmt and botting things like tahabata +15 would be mechanics that aren't achievable. Besides this, some casuals hitting a wall and leaving is expected. The sad truth is that no matter what gear they get casual players will always get stomped by a 13 yr old veteran player, this goes for literally any video game in existence. To overcome the skill gap ppl must put hours into the game, just like they would in something more mainstream like LoL or Csgo, and many people are just not willing to do that.

@@MaRaX93 I disagree but I will leave it at that.

I will do an update to this video in a couple days, but yes it is looking bad for the future of AION right now. 😟

I Agree but I fear in a lot of cases it is too late to "fix" the issues, the damage has been done. The question is if they continue to let it get worse and worse.

I don't know what you said or if it got removed by the filter, there is no reason to be afraid of anything but also no reason to be rude if that was the case.😄

@@Azphelgg I was just elaborating on the fact that AP Trading was / is more a childsplay of a problem. The real problem lies with cheating platforms like **"now I write it like an imbecile to not get removed by some kind of filter"** AION--BOT--NET and Shugo...Hacks and sites like Fun++Pay++RU that sells a full e50 geared glad +15 with 4 different sets and baka/tahapole +15 for 2k euros after the servers were on for only a short amount of time. And I for myself see the problems in the fact that Gameforge does no honor their own Code of Conduct meaning their Terms of Agreement and they should have been held accountable for the breakage of them.And they should be put back in line by pressuring them to pay huge fines for that behaviour.

@@Azphelgg Day 3 still got no reply

@@adriankurt1872 You did get a reply, so I'm not sure what you want^^

AION is a very fun game and a lot of people have nostalgic feelings towards it, that's why people want to play AION. But I totally understand the frustration with Gameforge.

is there a video for macro?

Yea sadly the game is in a bad state, 2.0 coming "soon-ish", I will post a video about that probably tomorrow.

Well there is a part you are right with, I have listed many different problems with the game and they play into each other and make the issues worse. The Loottable being bad is one thing, you drop Lv25 golden armor pieces from Lv 50 mobs, it should have been fixed 2 months ago where it already was reported like crazy by ContentCreators, their answer back then was "we know about it and are working on a fix" that was 2 months ago and nothing has changed since then. This problem alone would not be so bad, but having that + 10 other problems just amplifies everything and makes it so much worse that people are really frustrated. Right now it looks really bad and as if they are going down the retail route which has already failed multiple times, putting short term profit over a healthy long term playerbase.

They have already lost a huge playerbase, most of the casuals left already. I personally am usually more of a hardcore player, but in the case of AION I reduced myself to be very very casual just logging in once a day to do dp with my static. And the reason for this is because no work is being put in to stop rmt, bots, ap traders etc, its not fun to farm for countless hours to get like 5mil, while others just rmt it for 5€ and don't get banned for it. It is ridiculous how little work or support they put into a game that costs you more than 50€ a month to effectively play it.

@@Azphelgg They put increased event rate drop..today in D.P 3weapons and bunch od itema

@@dragan6057 Yes I do run it daily, sadly I still didn't have the luck to get my taha weapon, I have over a hundred Taha Insignia... >.

These problems are now a bit outdated but many other problems occured since then 😅

@@Azphelgg The kinah problem is still there but much worse coz they have hidden the majority of the quest markers without any ability to turn them back on. I mean gl affording anything if you are just doing the quests that are shown to you (which is main story and dark blue ones.) Because of this I can't help but think it's intentional to get people to spend. The best way of making money is by spending in the shop and trading coins for it with other players who have more than likely also bought their kinah from gold sellers. If you do want to do the quests then you have to run around to every single npc and check and keep checking.

@@under-dog5390 They had problems with the quest markers showing since the release of classic, I don't think this is intentional but more like they are incapable of fixing it. To fix it, gameforge would have to reach out to NC korea and NC then says either yes they will fix it for them or no it's not worth their effort and it won't change. What I can tell you is that NC does not really care about EU, since the majority of their players and income are from korea, we are too small for them to make a big effort and fix our problems, we simply get the leftover versions from korea and have to live with it. That is how it sadly is. But I do not deny that there are very scummy moves from gameforge that aim to get more people to spend and that rmt is sadly the best way to make ingame money, I do not like this but the punishments are not high enough to get people to stop, so it will continue.

@@Azphelgg That's what I initially thought. I thought it was a bug so I went around searching for a possible fix and found a response on the forums from a moderator that the quests have been hidden by NC. So yeah no side quests.

Hey, this video was a long time ago and many things changed but I gladly will respond to your points! 1. I think you misunderstood me to some extent, because I agree with almost everything from your first point. I agree that a game shouldn't be rushed and you shouldn't be able to reach end level in a couple of days, it should be a journey. But the game should cater to casual players for two reasons, number 1 to gather a bigger audience which MMORPG's should have and AION sadly doesn't. And the second reason is gaming has changed over the years and you don't have such a limited amount of games to play anymore, the hardcore era where people only play one single game is just not there anymore. I personally never played Aion casually before Aion classic came out, I was always a hardcore player, pouring hours of my time into the game everyday, I for example do not mind the mobgrind, I loved to do that. I still remember coming home from school, logging in and farming the water spirits in Eltnen for hours with a friend, just to get the summoning skill book. And this is important: Gamers today are much better than the gamers that played for example Aion almost 15 years ago. They had 15 years of time to learn more about games, the systems and everything. This just happens, I mean look at League Pro's from the early seasons, they were the top 1% players at the time but compared to the knowledge players have these days they are not even in the top 10% unless they have adapted and improved their skill. And this additional knowledge led to the current meta of min-maxing everything. Because of this new way people are playing, the game itself is not comparable to before anymore, you see many flaws and sadly these do not really get fixed in Aion. 2. Soul sickness when this video came out was far more brutal than it is now, you legit had to pay 200-300k kinah for a single death. And this at a point in time where getting kinah was not only hard, but you were also limited to a maximum kinah cap of 2million per day. Not to mention that you had to grind and buy items for the dark poeta entry which again did cost you 500k a run. I mean the game was in such a bad state that if you played the game how it was supposed to be, meaning you run DP every day, you made a loss of 500k kinah every run. But let's get back to your point dying should be punished you say. I partly agree when it comes to other games but in terms of Aion I do disagree. Let's pick another game, like monster hunter if you die on a mission your rewards are getting cut in half - do I think that's good? Yes I do, it punishes the player for dying but it is not that important. Now let's look at Aion or MMORPG's in general, what they want to do is create memorable moments with your friends, guild members or simply strangers. And this is the way I look at this, do you really want a game where everyone tip toes and only dares to attack enemies on their level or below because the punishment of death is too big? Where if a new player joins you to do fire temple for example and he messes it up and gets the group killed.Should he be instantly kicked or insulted because others in the group are now mad because they died and do now have to deal with the harsh punishments of death? Is that really the way you want it? Because that's how it was at the beginning of Aion Classic, "you can't do it perfectly the first time? F-- you and get out". I don't like that, I like the inclusivity more, I remember that I had a blast while doing the fire temple with a new person and we died like 4 times during the run because she kept messing up by targeting the wrong mob, by running into another group of mobs and such stuff. And honestly we loved every second of it, because we didn't take it so serious, because dying once didn't mean that you had to work for 2 days to get the loss negated. So I get that if you are experienced and you want to have deaths matter, maybe the game should introduce hardcore modes but this is simply not possible because of the open world pvp nature of Aion. 5. Bots have been a huge problem in Aion and no it is not like other games, it is sadly way worse. Look at the latest video I posted about Kimeia, I have a time stamp in the comments. This is ridiculous. And to your last comments: I agree, I wish crafting would have a bigger impact and more use than it currently has. About all the equipment coming from crafting, I do disagree because even if it is unrealistic for a wolf to drop a greatsword, the 1% chance of dropping a cool weapon from a random monster makes good memories and therefore I can easily look past that. I do not think that we both disagree heavily on these topics, it is just a difference in details. I the same as you do not want games to just throw stuff at me and powerlevel through the experience, I mean this channel here is about the Lore and story of the game which most people know nothing about even though they played Aion for 10 years. I want the slow leveling up experience, I want to experience the story and be immersed into the game. What I do not want is heavy punishments that are so intense that they create friction between players that you should have fun with.(Like I mentioned before with the soulsickness) Anyway I like these discussions and don't mind a difference in opinions, so even if you completely disagree with me, it is fine. I hope you have a nice day! 😄

@@Azphelgg OK... As far as todays players being better...ill still disagree. Todays gamers just have everything handed to them. I dont just mean gear or items, but knowledge. Pretty much whatever you want to know is available to you. The min/max has been figured out for you. Players today know what gear they should have to max their class out at each level because its widely known and people expect you to have certain gear for certain zones/instances. That doesn't equate to skill. You have to remember. Old school gamers like myself are pushing 50. We dont have the reaction time and reflexes we had when we were younger. Myself I grew up from when gaming was just being born. When you had a table sized machine to play asteroids. I saw the gaming crash and what everyone called the death of gaming. I saw it reborn. I saw the birth of MMOs and ive seen them fall. I came from a time in games where nothing was handed to you. Nothing was explained, and games that were difficult were the norm and not considered an almost separate genre. Aka souls like. So yeah...my kid can run circles around me today, but Ive forgotten more about gaming then he knows...lol. You asked again if I still want harsh death penalties. Yes I do. You mentioned a new person and how they would get attacked for failing. If you know that the game is hard...the mobs are deadly...and death is something to avoid at all costs...then you dont go into the situation thinking everyone is going to play at 100 percent. You pull single mobs, take it easy. Gauge your group and how people do and go from there. You dont jump right into the deep end and expect everyone to be doing exactly whats expected of them from the start. Again your cautious. Something completely lost in most modern games. The fear of death is amazing at creating immersion on its own. Not to mention, take old school EQ. Dealing with death and working together to get back to where you were, to get back to your corpses and get back your gear...at a disadvantage, was great for team building...communication and just making friends. As far as your comments on crafting. I still say you can have all items being player created and have crafting be meaningful, without losing that sense of excitement when beating a major boss or monster. For one, beating the mob is an achievement in itself. You dont need a prize to make it meaningful. But even if you do, you can still have things like bandit dens, with chests and loot hordes. You can still have dragons and monsters who are known to horde gold and items. You dont have to do away with looting completely. It just shouldnt be the norm, and it definitely shouldnt result in items that are better than what a player can produce. Well not in most cases. If you beat some legendary monster who has lore behind them that tells about some legendary weapon they guard. Then maybe. But something like that should be next to impossible. Things that are marked...rare...or legendary...should be just that. Rare and so illusive they might as well be a legend. But my guy is just sitting in Panda so ill stop here. Have a good one...lol

@@Shadownian It is a bit sad that in every comment you make, you have to leave a condescending remark. You would believe that if you are an older person as you said you are, you would be above that and could simply discuss with people and maybe have a disagreement in a civil manner without this condescending behaviour. However I will shrug this off and answer in a normal non-hostile manner: I see what you mean with people back then having to figure everything out for themselves, that is true and that is exactly what made you a good gamer back then. The skill/Mechanics/equipment wasn't that important back then because the people around you had also no clue about how these games work since it still was the beginning of gaming for a lot of people. Back then even if you understood only 30% of the game, you could have been a god simply because the other players knowledge was at 10%. As time went on and people got more experience with how games work, the knowledge of the average gamer improved, then the era of video tutorials began and the knowledge of how to be good at a game improved further. Suddenly everyone's knowledge about the game is at 70% and yea you still have some potential to increase the knowledge above the average people, but the really important thing became the mechanics, the skill to actually outplay your opponents, how you combine all these things. I get it if you say you don't like that people don't have to figure this stuff out and can simply watch a guide on youtube and copy it one to one, but that's the min-maxing meta, most people don't want to try stuff that might not work, because if it doesn't work they are now much weaker than they are supposed to be and that simply feels bad. I personally always disliked the looking up of guides in deckbuilding cardgames, I found joy in building my own deck and finding my own strategy but once you play against others you will see that the top 2 decks online get played by 90% of the people and yea that is something I found to be boring and overtime I kinda stopped to play these games because of it. However you have to see that this behaviour isn't going away, people will use the knowledge of other people to improve and focus on their skillbuilding in another way. In terms of death penalties we simply do not see it the same way and that is fine. I can see that you want a game to be harder and some games do have hardcore modes where one death means delete the character. But this is not what most people want, that's why most games do not take this route. Most people want to enjoy themselves in an MMORPG after a hard day at work and simply do some mediocre dungeons and talk with their friends. And on the weekends you still have the potential to do some harder content, like hard dungeons, challenges or PvP. What I'm trying to say with this is yes a game should have hard content, but it shouldn't be the norm. The norm should be a very casual and somewhat easy gameloop because people don't want to come home from a long day at work and then they get screamed at or kicked from a group because they made a mistake and the group is now mad at them. Many casual people stopped for this reason when classic launched, because the soulsickness was so punishing that people were on edge and couldn't forgive a mistake. I simply do not think that this is a good path to take. Another example is FF14 the base game itself is very easy but you still have for example the extreme trials if you want to go for a challenge with your friends. As for crafting I'm unsure about it, I want it to be more meaningful yes, but every important weapon through crafting? I don't necessarily think so, I think crafting should be the second best weapon and the best weapon should still come from the last boss of the game/expansion. Now about how difficult it should be obtainable, that is a different question. I mean I see that it could be cool to gather very rare materials and then craft them into a legendary weapon, but then many other questions arise. Can only the weaponsmith make this weapon? Does everyone now simply level up their weaponsmith skill to be able to craft it themselves? Or is it a group effort where an entire guild spends gold on one guy that is leveling it up and crafts legendary weapons for the guild? And if so then you are kinda dependant on that one guy and most people do not like that. Again I do not mind such discussions or disagreements, but do refrain from condescending remarks. That helps no one and is only damaging a normal discussion.

​@@Azphelgg OK woah woah woah there. I have no idea what you are talking about. Condescending? I went back and reread what I wrote and I don't see what you are referring to. I thought maybe I wrote something that could have been misconstrued because I was so tired when I wrote that. But I didn't see anything. Maybe something was lost in translation...lol. As far as what you wrote. You mentioned "Hardcore" servers and the like. There are enough games out there that focus on the casual crowd. You don't need a hardcore server, or a casual server. It could just be a game where you know going into it that your in for the long haul. Just like the new EQ that has been talked about will not be going for the casual crowd. Its going for the old school players and that old school mentality that has kept eq running till this day. Personally I think an old school game where the world is its own reward, where levels and gear mean less than the experiences that you have can still do well in todays market. Hell Id bet that alot of gamers are clamoring for it. Todays games have gone so overboard with the casual mindset that games that play themselves is a feature now. I went to PAX East again this year and one of the big games there this year was AFK Journey. A game that plays itself. Its literally its own genre now. Lol. Im not saying I expect anything of Aion. Aion is a decent game, well Aion Classic is anyway. And it got me back into mmorpgs even if its just for a little while. Because even Aion isnt anything special enough to keep players engaged long term. And im sure they will end up messing it up like they did the live servers. Oh and going back to crafting.... Personally I could see a game where, for instance, you have different "classes" but aren't forced into those classes. Maybe something where you can only have so many points to level skills per level and you can choose what you want to put those points into. Say for instance a player who wants to add...dual wielding...but then also add basic healing. They could do that. But if they spread their points across multiple different aspects they will never specialize in any. What does that have to do with crafting? Crafting would be a skill. Something you could play as without needing to fight if you chose not to. Armor smithing or Alchemy could be another skill just like healing magic or sword skills. If you wanted to focus entirely on crafting, you could and those that do would make the best gear. Those people would be known and appreciated for the effort and skill. Because honestly not many players would totally put combat aside to focus on just crafting so those that did would be highly regarded. Just like those who focused solely on one "class" would also be highly regarded for reaching the pinnacle of their profession. Thats just an idea of one way it could be done. I miss when players were, respectful. I remember player EQ way back and when you saw a high lvl player they were respected because you knew the time and effort it took for them to get to that point. Now you just dont see that. For instance alot of what you say keeps falling back to the idea of other players treating people like sh!t. Which is something I have seen more and more of with the younger gamers and the casual crowds. Im not saying thats all you see, but you do see it alot more nowadays. Which is part of the issue when focusing on the casual audience. And I don't mean that to be condescending. Its just what Ive seen and witnessed. But thats just my 2 cents as an old fogie...lol

@@Shadownian I think what you want is too specific and too oldschool that we will ever see that, I know games that have aspects of what you want but not all or multiple of them. For example Aion 2 should be a game without any classes, but it will still be a themepark MMO. What you describe is going more into the direction of an MMORPG in Oblivion/Skyrim Style. The respect that you had when you saw a high level player back then, yea that doesn't exist anymore but it exists in another form through specific titles, mounts, weapon/armor skins that you only get if you have achieved something great. For example in FF14 the Necromancer title, it is something that many people strive for and people do respect it when they see that you do have it. And honestly I like this type of respect more than the respect for simply reaching a high level. If you have a game that takes long to level up, you know what happens? Did you look at wow classic? People found out that the best way to level are dungeons and so they spammed it for hours upon hours the same thing over and over again. Is that something they should receive respect for? I don't think so, that's lame. And one other topic I would bring in here... You say that games die because of casual players and that is something I very much do disagree with. You assume that because games like retail aion are designed to level you up to max level in a very short time, that this is what casual players want. But that is wrong. It is what the company wants. It wants to bring players as quickly as possible into the endgame to make profit off of them. Now how does this work? I remember playing Retail Aion 6.0 a few years back, it promised a new beginning, a new server, a new region and most importantly no pay 2 win. The leveling was so sped up that you could reach max level in a day and every few levels you did get gear gifted to you for no reason at all other than not having to program more loot/stats etc in the game. But then it got spicy, when you reached the max level now the endgame gear progression started where you had to upgrade your gear multiple times to make it epic/legendary and such but the upgrade stones you could get was limited to 3 stones per week. But don't you worry, they had dungeon reset scrolls in the shop so you could get up to 10 stones more per week if you just payed them more money. It was a shitty system that no one liked but guess what, the company doesn't care about what players wanted and look at retail aion now it has 40 players a day on steamcharts. What I mean with this text is simply that a lot of what you say about casual players isn't actually true, it is a lot of times the company that wants you to progress quickly to a point where you can start spending more real money in the game. Also since you talked about EQ a lot, I tried to take a look at it and I didn't come very far. The website immediately introduces you to 3 different subscriptions, 5 different packs and 7 different ingame currencies that you can buy with real money. And at that point I was immediately like "No, thank you. I'm good." I think this is another reason why typical MMORPG's aren't as popular anymore, it is just the moneyhungry attittude towards the players. A 20€ subscription isn't enough, to be competitive you also have to buy the 3 different Battle passes that are in the game, then you have to buy multiple inventory spaces for real money and so on. This is what turned me away from playing Aion on a more hardcore level too, I only play it very casually now because I still make my Lore videos where I focus on the story but I will not spend this extra money for a game service that is the bare minimum. I rather spend my money on some indie games that cost only up to 10€ whilst they also give me more joy than most of the MMO's out there these days.

Many did, which is sad because it has the potential to be a great game. If only it would get the support and moderation it deserves. 😮‍💨