Eliseth

Please. Aion always had bots, even in 2009-2010. The difference is that back then you had an in game report function and GMs that actually gave a nyerk and did their jobs. Bots got reported and banned, as did kinah buyers, and so it never grew into a big problem. (Aion had fantastic and responsive GMs in general back then, you could even report people for trade in LFG chat and they'd get chat muted for a while) There are bots and cheaters in every online game, they always find a way. What matters is whether the company running the game is doing something about it.

Drops are broken in starter zones too, but don't exaggerate. Like Cyfur said, you can easily afford low level stuff off quest rewards and Haramel. If you can't port out of Poeta, you have been skipping content. Same for if you can't afford skill books in Verteron. Play your quests and you'll be fine for a long time, even if nothing drops.

I think it says a lot that even with the NA classic server in such a bad state, it's still so active. The game at its core is fantastic and even in 2023 many are interested in it. But just like people are saying in LFG on a daily basis, if the current situation goes on long enough, the server will die. When noone can socket or enchant anything and stigmas are more expensive than eternal gear, at some point people are just going to give up.

The thing that makes it unplayable the most is definitely the manastone and enchantment stone prices. Even white crit strike manastones are almost 200k. How the hell are new players supposed to socket anything?? As for enchanting, when you get to the point in gear progression where you need enchantments, you just hit a wall. There's no way you can afford it, unless you farm BTHM sell runs, but guess what, you need great gear for that first, and so you're stuck. Also, selling untradeable instance drops is the purest exploit and should never be required as part of progression. If anything, it should be a punishable offense.

Bots are way too common right now and it is definitely disturbing the experience of anyone who's trying to quest normally. There are areas where there are 5+ bots constantly killing everything, good luck getting your quest mobs there. And they're everywhere too. I leveled a character recently, and even in Verteron there were always multiple bots farming around Eninte. Eltnen has a lot of bots farming Lepharist HQ, as well as some loose ones all across the zone. Heiron has bots next to the central hub farming kerubar as well as some farming agrints / rotrons. It's gotten to the point that whenever I see a spiritmaster, I immediately assume it's a bot, because 99% of the time it's true. It's mind boggling that whoever is in charge of this game let it get this bad. Seems like they never actually log in and take a look at their own server.