Returning player with some standard questions

[Koute-KT]

Hello, I'm planning on returning to Aion and I wanted to just do a fresh start.  I played since it's launch in '09 through the years quitting around the time 4.0 came out.  I mained Chanter and Cleric, I'm not too concerned with what my class choices will be since from what I seem to have gathered some info on how the classes have changed since, of course I've popped in now and then just to see how stigmas changed, etc. I'm not entirely caught up so any information would be extremely helpful.

I know there's going to be trolls so I'm just going to say now, I don't care too much about the state of the game or how you feel its boring at end game.  I loved this game and still do and I definitely don't have the time to go as hard as I used to for PVP.  I'm an official adulting casual now, so let me have my nostalgia.

With that being said my biggest concerns is server population, ability to find groups, and class solo-ability.  I know NCSoft still has a LOT of issues and the game is old, etc etc therefore I know some servers have better populations.  I don't want to log on to a dead server, basically.  I want to be able to find groups, do dungeons, join a legion, whatever. There is nothing more infuriating and depressing then you are leveling up or just logging on to play and it just consists of refreshing a dead LFG window for over an hour.  And finally, class solo-ability. Cleric used to be the reigning supreme solo class for certain dungeons which made leveling up a easier, you could sell loot, etc.  Is this still the case? I'm in a bit of a toss up between Cleric and Chanter only because of familiarity and I thoroughly enjoyed them PVE and PVP.  But I also kind of want to try something ~new~ this time since, I might as well you know? I was looking at SM or Bard as alternatives. I've played every single class in this game thoroughly at some point except gunner/AT of which I have zero interest in, so this is kind of a tough cookie for me.

 

Anyway sorry for the long read, much appreciated if you read it through!  

[lKei-DN]

yep! this a casual game now... no more hardcore stuff, you could even play this 2-3 times a week, uhhmm about the server population i think the most populated is the DN(factions are kinda balance a little bit) and also KT, don't go to EK it is pretty dead. Welcome with hugs 

[Vantheria-DN]

10 hours ago, Koute-KT said:

I don't want to log on to a dead server, basically.  I want to be able to find groups, do dungeons, join a legion, whatever.

Avoid EK; it's dead. DN is more Asmo favorable, KT is more Ely favorable. Both are about equal in overall population.

10 hours ago, Koute-KT said:

And finally, class solo-ability. Cleric used to be the reigning supreme solo class for certain dungeons which made leveling up a easier, you could sell loot, etc.  Is this still the case?

For leveling now, all instances are solo. As in, the yellow campaign quests are all meant to be done by yourself. You can do them alongside a friend for companionship, but to actually enter the instances (Taloc's Hollow, Bakarma, etc), you must be by yourself. Leveling is insanely easy now. You can get from 1-80 in a day if you truly want to do so. Any class can do it just fine. Granted, it will always be nice to be able to heal yourself, but it's really not necessary as the lower mobs just aren't that hard to deal with anymore.

[Polychrome-DN]

I was in your shoes about 2 weeks back. Unfortunately a lot of the nostalgia areas are gone. Apparently there was some cataclysm or something and a good number of zones were "destroyed". A lot of the old leveling/quest areas are entirely missing. I've been doing a bit of experimenting with alts and there isn't much other than the old odium vs. odella quests. You're not going to spend hours or days at a particular camp with a bunch of NPCs. You're going to spend a few minutes, an hour at most. Heck, I don't even know if the old group areas still have instances to go after.

The remaining game pretty much rapidly p-levels you to 80 (it's VERY easy soloing) and then sticks you into Lakrum, where there's a fair amount of group instances and only one fort to seige. It's busy enough that the artifacts change hands constantly, and when they change hands a bunch, there are mini solo instances that go up for *either* side to grab. People seem to be willing to grab you for PuGs when going after artifacts, so if you start attacking one you may find yourself randomly grouped and going on an extended PvP spree. (I admit, when this happened to me, I got lost on the way to the other artifacts. ) 

Also they just (like a few days ago) added new content to the remaining older areas. So if you feel like "that was too fast" when you hit 80, you can later go back for more to do with the Pandora missions. Since they're doing this, my personal hope is that they'll eventually pull an Everquest 2 and revamp the missing areas with new, high-level content.

I've found myself alting a lot more than I used to... just trying everything out.

[Eowein-DN]

As for finding groups and doing dungeons, its pretty good overall, you will always find groups for instances in the LFG during pretty much all day, specially in peak times. Entering a nice, active Legion is pretty easy as they are always recruiting, so you will have even more people to do dungeons.