I can only speak for myself, but my reaction is, "It's asain" which for me immediately makes me move to the next thing. I have never played a asain made mmo and enjoyed it, more than anything it's the asain art style, which makes me want to vomit, repeatedly. (Vomits just thinking about cat/bunny ears/tails on every damn character.) And don't get me started on how much they LOVE genderlocked... everyting.
Same here...
I believe lots of people, who are not asian, are turned away by these things. Although i'm starting to notice more and more love to asian style from younger western audience.
I tried to ignore that and check it out and see if I liked the game play, but I couldn't.
The giant swords and shoulder pads that would impale your head if you raise your arm
The voices of the female characters when they were fighting (I dk why Korean women sound like p0rn when fighting, Euro-American and African women sound, like they are fighting)
The fluffy things all around
50% of things were purple
I couldn't take it sorry.
Plus I was promised flying and it was time limited even after I got the better wings.
That is why I ignore Aion.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
That's about as much as it takes in any other serious MMORPG out there to get top gear. Vanilla WoW took me 6+ months to get full T2ed with raiding three times a week in a 40 man raid. And we took on ONE dungeon every week (BWL).
In EvE to be able to play major roles in 'endgame' PvP you need to spend at least 30 mil+ SP which equals 6 months no matter what you do ingame.
And in Aion, you don't even NEED these sets to compete. You need them if you're an e-peen loner lookin for 1v1s, bcoz u no dats wher teh skillz at...
If you get a nice guild and a roamer group for PvP or raid for keeps you will be fine just flowing with the zerg...
Again, I don't play Aion nor am I endorsing it, but your arguments sound like "The game is crap because it doesn't give me the stuff I need to be special-uber-OP for free"...
M
I can see you don't play Aion, otherwise you'd know that without proper gear you are pretty much an outcast in PvE and PvP. Most people won't group you in PVE, in PvP you'll die so fast that it's often over before you even realize you got attacked. Thus we are talking about the gear that you need to be able to farm for the gear you will be able to compete with. After you got the latter you can start with the e peen version.
As for vanilla wow, I am not sure why it took you so long. My brother was fully geared with the best stuff in about 4 months after WoW release while still getting good grades at his law studies. If that was possible in Aion nobody would complain.
|| Languages for gamers: http://gamerslingo.com /where God ERROR: Target could not be found /target Believer /skill science You missed your target since Believer ignores science /skill logic You missed your target since Believer traded all his INT for faith.
Well, if only Aion had a real PvP focus and if the developers had a stance (i.e "we stand by our decision to make of this game a PvP game"), I would probably still be playing the game. But this is not what happened.
The ironies in this statement speak volumes but a short answer can be that:
They did stand by it... It killed your game.
As you said, people interpreted PvPvE as meaning PvE at will and PvP at will. The way this was meant to be interpreted was PvPvE in the abyss, i.e. 2 factions PvP and 1 faction E (in the abyss). With minimal research about the game, people would have seen that rifts were a big feature of the game (rifts are what allow you to go to the ennemy land - to "gank").
The aspect of rifts didn't get missed, The understanding of being able to be attacked by those players was the issue that the devs left out. The devs original explanation for the Rifts was to spy/scout the enemy areas and that you could be attacked. Rifting to the Abyss was Open PvP. Obviously, this was not the entire truth.
In any case, to cut a long story short, you make it look like all PvE players left the game and the PvP crowd lived happily ever after,
Hmm, I wonder how I did that? I certainly didn't say that. Perhaps you are projecting. Given the horrible imbalances of class/item/armor/ weapons, low item drop rates, and a small amount of quest content per level; Even a PvP player leveling up would have had a "tough row to hoe".
but apparently only the "carebear-est" of the carebears left the game (or probably the PvP players did not gank enough PvE players),
Aion lost a very healthy chunk of it's player base in November and December of 2009.
since a few months later, they started preventing rifts (so no more ganking) and the patch content was strictly PvE oriented (extra dungeons and crap like that).
In January 2010 Aion added a nifty "tell us why you are leaving form" when people unsubbed. This is where AionWest got their feedback.
Which was clearly done to catter for the PvE crowd (you).
In short, The crowd that left touted these things as issues.
Of the 14 people that travelled to this game with me, 13 had left by this point. 12 of us played Darktide in AC, 13 did RvR in DAoC and later WAR, 2 of us did the Faction conflicts in AC. And, of course, Open World and BG's in WoW. All but one of us (my wife) had spent more than a decade in PvP zones, servers, matches, and/or conflicts both open world and instanced.
In short, you don't know what crowd I belong to...What you do know is that I disapprove of "ganking". Aion's version offered no risk or challenge to the person doing it. It wasn't PvP, it was just griefing.
Also, the PvP equipment was easier to obtain with almost pure PvE grind.
That seems fair given that the PvP gear was horrendously overpowered. Bet the folks who forcibly de-leveled their characters weekly so they could continue to hunt lowbies in their relic gear got mad about it though.
Problem is PvP players got annoyed (so loads left), PvE players thought PvE was not that great (so loads left). So they lied to everyone (or rather, they did not chose to focus properly and completely on PvE or PvP).
Here's the conclusion I arrived at some time ago... Aion made itself out visually to be like a Korean interpretation of FFXI but with more meaningful group PvP. They underestimated the fact that Westerners tended to lean toward the "ganking" (not clue why you used " " for this term) game and had to compensate for it which really didn't affect their Korean audience much but damaged their NA audience entirely.
Had they noted that the game was Open World PvP initially, they never would have gotten the subscriptions at launch. Had they placed controls on the players ability to gank others in open world earlier they might have kept some of those subscriptions.
Well, if only Aion had a real PvP focus and if the developers had a stance (i.e "we stand by our decision to make of this game a PvP game"), I would probably still be playing the game. But this is not what happened.
The ironies in this statement speak volumes but a short answer can be that:
They did stand by it... It killed your game.
As you said, people interpreted PvPvE as meaning PvE at will and PvP at will. The way this was meant to be interpreted was PvPvE in the abyss, i.e. 2 factions PvP and 1 faction E (in the abyss). With minimal research about the game, people would have seen that rifts were a big feature of the game (rifts are what allow you to go to the ennemy land - to "gank").
The aspect of rifts didn't get missed, The understanding of being able to be attacked by those players was the issue that the devs left out. The devs original explanation for the Rifts was to spy/scout the enemy areas and that you could be attacked. Rifting to the Abyss was Open PvP. Obviously, this was not the entire truth.
In any case, to cut a long story short, you make it look like all PvE players left the game and the PvP crowd lived happily ever after,
Hmm, I wonder how I did that? I certainly didn't say that. Perhaps you are projecting. Given the horrible imbalances of class/item/armor/ weapons, low item drop rates, and a small amount of quest content per level; Even a PvP player leveling up would have had a "tough row to hoe".
but apparently only the "carebear-est" of the carebears left the game (or probably the PvP players did not gank enough PvE players),
Aion lost a very healthy chunk of it's player base in November and December of 2009.
since a few months later, they started preventing rifts (so no more ganking) and the patch content was strictly PvE oriented (extra dungeons and crap like that).
In January 2010 Aion added a nifty "tell us why you are leaving form" when people unsubbed. This is where AionWest got their feedback.
Which was clearly done to catter for the PvE crowd (you).
In short, The crowd that left touted these things as issues.
Of the 14 people that travelled to this game with me, 13 had left by this point. 12 of us played Darktide in AC, 13 did RvR in DAoC and later WAR, 2 of us did the Faction conflicts in AC. And, of course, Open World and BG's in WoW. All but one of us (my wife) had spent more than a decade in PvP zones, servers, matches, and/or conflicts both open world and instanced.
In short, you don't know what crowd I belong to...What you do know is that I disapprove of "ganking". Aion's version offered no risk or challenge to the person doing it. It wasn't PvP, it was just griefing.
Also, the PvP equipment was easier to obtain with almost pure PvE grind.
That seems fair given that the PvP gear was horrendously overpowered. Bet the folks who forcibly de-leveled their characters weekly so they could continue to hunt lowbies in their relic gear got mad about it though.
Problem is PvP players got annoyed (so loads left), PvE players thought PvE was not that great (so loads left). So they lied to everyone (or rather, they did not chose to focus properly and completely on PvE or PvP).
Here's the conclusion I arrived at some time ago... Aion made itself out visually to be like a Korean interpretation of FFXI but with more meaningful group PvP. They underestimated the fact that Westerners tended to lean toward the "ganking" (not clue why you used " " for this term) game and had to compensate for it which really didn't affect their Korean audience much but damaged their NA audience entirely.
Had they noted that the game was Open World PvP initially, they never would have gotten the subscriptions at launch. Had they placed controls on the players ability to gank others in open world earlier they might have kept some of those subscriptions.
from your answer I can note you are not sure on waht you are talking about and know little, but carry on
Going to admit that i was maried to WoW at that time and yes i...cheated with Aion (
She was a mistress full of passion and rough xxx but the long sessions to get anything done weared me out and i left her alone...without a note....
Yes i feel guilty about it pls dont rub it in my face ^^
Seriously tough Aion had some wicked stuff in the game, but the strange vieuw on balanced pvp from NCsoft combined with the massive grind to get stuff done made me return to carebearing wow again.
Also the music was fantastic and the 1st time i enterd the Abyss and tasted the pvp it was insane compared to WoW / Warhammer.
But the RNG in Aion broke any fair pvp and some classes like the Sorc with 4 CC spells + 2 shot combo was to much to take Aion serious.
^ - just one expample out of the many i can give !
Still when i think back of Aion i have fond memory's of most parts of the game
if NCsoft made it less of a grind and more and better focus on PVP it could have been so much more then a shallow grind till your eyes bleed pvp mmo.
I hear its a carebear game now where people farm forts and stuff like that for Abyss points and that only a few hardcore pvp'rs are still alive in AIon.
Aion is just one of those games I looked at and passed by. It looks pretty but game has to be more than pretty graphics .User reviews that i read just didn't make the game sound appealing but since reading your post it sounds like it would be worth giving it a try. Thanks.
I played it early,before 2.0 i think. I quit because of rifting. I'm not the best pvp player anyways, but then it was twinks and the stealth classes just ambushing the new players to farm them for abyss points. I got to 31, and just had it and left.
Even before that it was bad. It was a grind to get from level 1-10, and I say this as someone who maxed 4 jobs to 75 in FFXI pre WOTG. It wasn't just a grind, it was a soulless one. My chanter just kept a hotkey rotation to solo mobs with little variety/ Back then I hope you liked the myau, because that was one of the main enemy types you ground on in the game. The rifting though made the grind a pain in the ass, and that's what emptied the game out.
The PvP players who bewail it don't realize that we didn't mind losing, but the way Aion was set up (tiny zones, choke points) made it hard for new players to escape farming. Even the guards back then were little protection, and players got tired of answering constant calls for help.
Aion didn't just kill the desire for it, it killed any desire for me to play a NC Soft game.
Originally posted by manny702 Well i always see alot of post of peeps asking what game's to play or if they should play rift or WoW wtf why dnt people see aion? I mean ive been playing the game for only like 3 weeks and am level 31 and am having a blast of a time best game in my opnion
Aion was great at launch, and I lasted a year.
People haven't ignored the game at all. It was packed and you missed the party. NCSoft moved too slowly to make the changes people asked for and we all left (most of us) for other games.
It's much improved now but usually once people leave a game, they don't come back or if they do they don't stay for any length of time.
Most games get one shot to get and hold subs. If they blow it, it's gone.
Some mounth ago i downloaded the trial version. You must register before and not after download. Ok, registered, downoaded a small file, launched, starting a big download (a zip or rar big file was a so stupid idea? I hate downloader).. Afeter few minutes:
Error - try again - Error - try again - Error (etc for thousend times).
Aion forum -> search for error -> a lot of topics, no answer. Uninstalled and forgotten.
Because Aion is a very Asian MMO, with all the problems of that genre. RNG on enchanting above certain threshold, a lot of farming/gridning, boring skill system, rather limited classes, pretty much all the things that back in the days made Lineage2 a rather annoying game to play...
Because Aion is a very Asian MMO, with all the problems of that genre. RNG on enchanting above certain threshold, a lot of farming/gridning, boring skill system, rather limited classes, pretty much all the things that back in the days made Lineage2 a rather annoying game to play...
Aion and Lineage 2 don't really have anything in common apart of both being asian mmorpgs. Aion is far more of a WoW clone then the open pvp mini sandbox named Lineage 2.
|| Languages for gamers: http://gamerslingo.com /where God ERROR: Target could not be found /target Believer /skill science You missed your target since Believer ignores science /skill logic You missed your target since Believer traded all his INT for faith.
It is less of a grind, but still has the player exiting rng features with item socketing and crafting.
NC's answer to this was the 100% proof items in the cash shop - on top of p2p - says it all.
A latest forum post has a player failing over 20 times to get the required gear item purely because of the rng. He has spent months and all his in game currency, with his last attempt on borrowed currency from an in game friend - which he now has to go and grind for to pay back.
I played for a year from start up. There are players who have hacked, swapped abyss points with the opposite faction, and who will now one shot even reasonably geared top level characters.
Judge's verdict - stay away from this swamp of vindictive soul sucking p2p and cash shop misery.
Well i always see alot of post of peeps asking what game's to play or if they should play rift or WoW wtf why dnt people see aion? I mean ive been playing the game for only like 3 weeks and am level 31 and am having a blast of a time best game in my opnion
Aion was great at launch, and I lasted a year.
People haven't ignored the game at all. It was packed and you missed the party. NCSoft moved too slowly to make the changes people asked for and we all left (most of us) for other games.
It's much improved now but usually once people leave a game, they don't come back or if they do they don't stay for any length of time.
Most games get one shot to get and hold subs. If they blow it, it's gone.
Could not be more true! I know there are quite a few of these games. But, the one that always comes to mind about this subject is Asheron's Call 2. Damn near unplayable at launch and by the time it was playable, the exodus had already happened!
Aion is on my don't touch list for one reason. Sub model with cash shop! Absolute no-no (in my book) for MMO's.
I played Aion at launch and then quit after level 40 or so because of being bored with the grind, the shitty community at the time and generally everyone I knew leaving.
I've thought about going back to it several times now, but well, I don't know... I heard the game improved a lot, but there's so many other games coming up in the near future that I'm looking forward to more.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
A latest forum post has a player failing over 20 times to get the required gear item purely because of the rng. He has spent months and all his in game currency, with his last attempt on borrowed currency from an in game friend - which he now has to go and grind for to pay back.
This was definitely one of the main reasons why I quit as well.
Grinding "blood of the whatever" (don't know what it's called again) for hours in the Abyss was bad enough without failing your craft and having to start over again. Especially when several of your friends got the damn thing right the first time and you keep failing out of pure bad luck.
Then the same thing goes for the idiotic gems that erased all the ones you put in if you ever failed.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
It is less of a grind, but still has the player exiting rng features with item socketing and crafting.
NC's answer to this was the 100% proof items in the cash shop - on top of p2p - says it all.
A latest forum post has a player failing over 20 times to get the required gear item purely because of the rng. He has spent months and all his in game currency, with his last attempt on borrowed currency from an in game friend - which he now has to go and grind for to pay back.
I played for a year from start up. There are players who have hacked, swapped abyss points with the opposite faction, and who will now one shot even reasonably geared top level characters.
Judge's verdict - stay away from this swamp of vindictive soul sucking p2p and cash shop misery.
I always thought that particular mechanic reminiscent of someone putting nuts in a vice and viciously turning the screw and not getting any satisfaction out of it. Well to each his own I guess.
Because Aion is a very Asian MMO, with all the problems of that genre. RNG on enchanting above certain threshold, a lot of farming/gridning, boring skill system, rather limited classes, pretty much all the things that back in the days made Lineage2 a rather annoying game to play...
Aion and Lineage 2 don't really have anything in common apart of both being asian mmorpgs. Aion is far more of a WoW clone then the open pvp mini sandbox named Lineage 2.
Erm. No. On game mechanics level It has plenty in common. From the class system (basic class split into 2 advanced classes), weapon enhancing system (anything above +x has chance of failure), the overly random grind for drops for quests, etc.
Sure some of those things were eased for the western audience, but the general idea remained the same, it's a thing common among many of the Asian mmos, including the F2P clones that all originated from L2's engine.
It is less of a grind, but still has the player exiting rng features with item socketing and crafting.
NC's answer to this was the 100% proof items in the cash shop - on top of p2p - says it all.
A latest forum post has a player failing over 20 times to get the required gear item purely because of the rng. He has spent months and all his in game currency, with his last attempt on borrowed currency from an in game friend - which he now has to go and grind for to pay back.
I played for a year from start up. There are players who have hacked, swapped abyss points with the opposite faction, and who will now one shot even reasonably geared top level characters.
Judge's verdict - stay away from this swamp of vindictive soul sucking p2p and cash shop misery.
I spent around $5,000 getting my character to be an elite assassin...
Comments
the only reason I don't plays is the opne pvp. Im not big on pvp tbh
Hello. I got one simple answer to this question. Is payable!!!
LeroiV
I tried to ignore that and check it out and see if I liked the game play, but I couldn't.
The giant swords and shoulder pads that would impale your head if you raise your arm
The voices of the female characters when they were fighting (I dk why Korean women sound like p0rn when fighting, Euro-American and African women sound, like they are fighting)
The fluffy things all around
50% of things were purple
I couldn't take it sorry.
Plus I was promised flying and it was time limited even after I got the better wings.
That is why I ignore Aion.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
No exploration, hotbar combat, etc... in other words, wow clone... Sorry, boring.
the end game grind (try to reach max lvl....) and the rift debuff introduced some time after lunch killed it for me.
otherwise, nice game.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I can see you don't play Aion, otherwise you'd know that without proper gear you are pretty much an outcast in PvE and PvP. Most people won't group you in PVE, in PvP you'll die so fast that it's often over before you even realize you got attacked. Thus we are talking about the gear that you need to be able to farm for the gear you will be able to compete with. After you got the latter you can start with the e peen version.
As for vanilla wow, I am not sure why it took you so long. My brother was fully geared with the best stuff in about 4 months after WoW release while still getting good grades at his law studies. If that was possible in Aion nobody would complain.
|| Languages for gamers: http://gamerslingo.com
/where God
ERROR: Target could not be found
/target Believer
/skill science
You missed your target since Believer ignores science
/skill logic
You missed your target since Believer traded all his INT for faith.
from your answer I can note you are not sure on waht you are talking about and know little, but carry on
Going to admit that i was maried to WoW at that time and yes i...cheated with Aion
(
She was a mistress full of passion and rough xxx but the long sessions to get anything done weared me out and i left her alone...without a note....
Yes i feel guilty about it pls dont rub it in my face ^^
Seriously tough Aion had some wicked stuff in the game, but the strange vieuw on balanced pvp from NCsoft combined with the massive grind to get stuff done made me return to carebearing wow again.
Also the music was fantastic and the 1st time i enterd the Abyss and tasted the pvp it was insane compared to WoW / Warhammer.
But the RNG in Aion broke any fair pvp and some classes like the Sorc with 4 CC spells + 2 shot combo was to much to take Aion serious.
^ - just one expample out of the many i can give !
Still when i think back of Aion i have fond memory's of most parts of the game
if NCsoft made it less of a grind and more and better focus on PVP it could have been so much more then a shallow grind till your eyes bleed pvp mmo.
I hear its a carebear game now where people farm forts and stuff like that for Abyss points and that only a few hardcore pvp'rs are still alive in AIon.
One hell of a mmo it was tough
Why do people ignore AION??
because it's not GW's
Perhaps because after 10 zillion crap Korean Grinders they are extremely burned out on the whole Korean look?
Aion is just one of those games I looked at and passed by. It looks pretty but game has to be more than pretty graphics .User reviews that i read just didn't make the game sound appealing but since reading your post it sounds like it would be worth giving it a try. Thanks.
I played it early,before 2.0 i think. I quit because of rifting. I'm not the best pvp player anyways, but then it was twinks and the stealth classes just ambushing the new players to farm them for abyss points. I got to 31, and just had it and left.
Even before that it was bad. It was a grind to get from level 1-10, and I say this as someone who maxed 4 jobs to 75 in FFXI pre WOTG. It wasn't just a grind, it was a soulless one. My chanter just kept a hotkey rotation to solo mobs with little variety/ Back then I hope you liked the myau, because that was one of the main enemy types you ground on in the game. The rifting though made the grind a pain in the ass, and that's what emptied the game out.
The PvP players who bewail it don't realize that we didn't mind losing, but the way Aion was set up (tiny zones, choke points) made it hard for new players to escape farming. Even the guards back then were little protection, and players got tired of answering constant calls for help.
Aion didn't just kill the desire for it, it killed any desire for me to play a NC Soft game.
For some odd reason, although it looked awesome (masculine way of saying pretty, I guess) - in my subconscious I saw it as Lineage III.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
People haven't ignored the game at all. It was packed and you missed the party. NCSoft moved too slowly to make the changes people asked for and we all left (most of us) for other games.
It's much improved now but usually once people leave a game, they don't come back or if they do they don't stay for any length of time.
Most games get one shot to get and hold subs. If they blow it, it's gone.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Some mounth ago i downloaded the trial version. You must register before and not after download. Ok, registered, downoaded a small file, launched, starting a big download (a zip or rar big file was a so stupid idea? I hate downloader).. Afeter few minutes:
Error - try again - Error - try again - Error (etc for thousend times).
Aion forum -> search for error -> a lot of topics, no answer. Uninstalled and forgotten.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
Because Aion is a very Asian MMO, with all the problems of that genre. RNG on enchanting above certain threshold, a lot of farming/gridning, boring skill system, rather limited classes, pretty much all the things that back in the days made Lineage2 a rather annoying game to play...
Aion and Lineage 2 don't really have anything in common apart of both being asian mmorpgs. Aion is far more of a WoW clone then the open pvp mini sandbox named Lineage 2.
|| Languages for gamers: http://gamerslingo.com
/where God
ERROR: Target could not be found
/target Believer
/skill science
You missed your target since Believer ignores science
/skill logic
You missed your target since Believer traded all his INT for faith.
It is less of a grind, but still has the player exiting rng features with item socketing and crafting.
NC's answer to this was the 100% proof items in the cash shop - on top of p2p - says it all.
A latest forum post has a player failing over 20 times to get the required gear item purely because of the rng. He has spent months and all his in game currency, with his last attempt on borrowed currency from an in game friend - which he now has to go and grind for to pay back.
I played for a year from start up. There are players who have hacked, swapped abyss points with the opposite faction, and who will now one shot even reasonably geared top level characters.
Judge's verdict - stay away from this swamp of vindictive soul sucking p2p and cash shop misery.
Could not be more true! I know there are quite a few of these games. But, the one that always comes to mind about this subject is Asheron's Call 2. Damn near unplayable at launch and by the time it was playable, the exodus had already happened!
Aion is on my don't touch list for one reason. Sub model with cash shop! Absolute no-no (in my book) for MMO's.
I played Aion at launch and then quit after level 40 or so because of being bored with the grind, the shitty community at the time and generally everyone I knew leaving.
I've thought about going back to it several times now, but well, I don't know... I heard the game improved a lot, but there's so many other games coming up in the near future that I'm looking forward to more.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
This was definitely one of the main reasons why I quit as well.
Grinding "blood of the whatever" (don't know what it's called again) for hours in the Abyss was bad enough without failing your craft and having to start over again. Especially when several of your friends got the damn thing right the first time and you keep failing out of pure bad luck.
Then the same thing goes for the idiotic gems that erased all the ones you put in if you ever failed.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I always thought that particular mechanic reminiscent of someone putting nuts in a vice and viciously turning the screw and not getting any satisfaction out of it. Well to each his own I guess.
Erm. No. On game mechanics level It has plenty in common. From the class system (basic class split into 2 advanced classes), weapon enhancing system (anything above +x has chance of failure), the overly random grind for drops for quests, etc.
Sure some of those things were eased for the western audience, but the general idea remained the same, it's a thing common among many of the Asian mmos, including the F2P clones that all originated from L2's engine.
I spent around $5,000 getting my character to be an elite assassin...