Many quests in Aion involve gathering a certain resource. This is another pet peeve of mine, as it means the compulsory levelling-up of your gathering or extracting skill. Although extracting does reward a small amount of XP, it's about a tenth of the value of killing a mob. What's more, it's time consuming – first you have to find a herb/metal/gem supply, then you must extract it, which takes a few seconds but has a chance of failing. Also, your skill only increases every five or so successful extracts.

I must admit, I was struggling with Aion until I hit level 25, which is when characters gain access to the Abyss. Not only does this open up a huge selection of fresh quests, it also brings with it the first instance in the game.

I had three group quests for Nochsana Training Camp when I entered it for the first time. These, combined with the masses of XP the instance provides thanks to the plentiful mobs and the backup of a full party, meant I got through a level in the record speed of about three or four hours. After doing some research and asking members of my legion, it seems that instance grinding is the way to go in Aion, using quests as a filler when you can't find a group or you fancy a break.

However, if you're into your PvP as opposed to PvE, then the Abyss holds more delights for you. There are three sections, upper, lower and the core, which are constantly being fought over between the Elyos, Asmodians and the NPC race, the Balaur. It's unwise to attempt anything solo, especially as a lowbie 20-something character, but Alliances are regularly formed to try and take a Fortress, an Artifact or even just a piece of land, by sheer numbers if nothing else.

All enemies killed in the Abyss, including the ones inside the instance, reward Abyss points, as do all quests. These can be redeemed at higher levels for weapons, armour, accessories and consumables. At level 27 onwards, the only quests left available to me were the ones in the Abyss, which I proceeded to attempt, however, questing in this zone is dangerous to the extreme thanks to the PvP nature of the place. Saying that, it keeps you alert, always checking the skies for approaching threats. Oh yes - you can fly everywhere in the Abyss without any restriction except time. Despite Aion's marketing heavily based on flying, there are very few areas outside of the Abyss where you can get around in the air. Flight is usually confined to major towns and the areas immediately surrounding them.

Other PvP opportunities present themselves back on the ground, in the form of rifts that randomly appear in each zone. These rifts take you through to a zone of equivalent level in the opposite faction's homeland. You get your first quest to go through a particular rift somewhere in the mid twenties. However, particular rifts are intended for certain quests – if you take another rift you have to travel through large areas of enemy ground to get to your desired location – and they spawn very sporadically. In fact I'm still waiting for the rift to appear that will deliver me to a quest NPC so I can turn in a quest I got 5 levels ago.

I've no doubt that, in time, NCsoft will address many issues players have with the game right now. The XP reward for quests is being looked at and I believe more quests are being added. This will flesh the game out nicely, which is what is desperately needed right now.

The first few levels of Aion are a joy to play, hence my previous high score, but the zones lose their appeal from 20+. Gone are the beautiful vistas, the forests and quaint villages of Verteron; large areas in the next two zones are taken up with desert. Quests seem harder to come by, but instances help a great deal with the problem of slow levelling. However, being forced to revisit the same content to take advantage of the better XP isn't much fun either.

Aion has a lot of potential, judging by the early content. The graphics are still stunning, combat is smooth and combos are fun to pull off. The regular cut-scenes involving your character are always cool to see as well. But mob difficulty and low quest XP, no doubt intended to prolong the game up to the current level cap of 50, must put many players off. I don't want to spend 10 hours getting from level 21 to 22, and I don't want to have to grind mobs in order to speed it up. I feel I can't spend the huge amount of time required to improve my professions because it's valuable time lost levelling. I don't want to do quests that force me to level my extracting skill, but I probably have to because it's one of the few quests that are available to me.

These are the main things that took the shine off my Aion experience this time around. I know NCsoft is looking to add many new features such as player housing, mounts and underwater zones, all of which would be welcome, but the current system needs re-working to get away from the grind-heavy attitude it encourages. Luckily, it seems NCsoft is taking steps in the right direction. Earlier today, it announced that double XP weekends for level 1-35s are being introduced until a more permanent solution can be implemented. While this is great news, oh how I wish this had been in force over these last three weeks it took me to get from level 20 to 30!

See how this compares to the first 20 levels in our previous review.

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