Eye on: Aion
Aion is a relatively new MMORPG from NCSoft, the same company that created Lineage II and Guild Wars. Lineage II has had massive success in Asia, but didn’t fare as well in North America. While beta testing Aion this weekend, it seems like NCSoft is trying to learn from their mistakes and bring their new property to North America with more success than Lineage II did. The game uses the CryEngine which was also used for Far Cry, and the result is a gorgeous world that surpasses any MMO I’ve ever seen. Not only is the landscape beautiful, but the character movement and spell casting animations are fluid and extremely well polished. I realize there’s more to an MMORPG than just how pretty it is, but read on if you want to see if the rest of the game holds up.
The game has been doing so well in Asia that it got MMORPG of the Year in Korea. NCSoft must have gotten the idea that localizing the game for North America and Europe would be a good idea and decided to start the port to other languages. On the Aion beta forums, I saw subforums for French and German, so it seems they’re going for more than just English at this point. With the game itself doing so well, it seems like the only thing that NCSoft had to change were the strings used to display text, and the voices of the characters. One thing I never really got used to from watching anime for so many years is the constant over-exaggeration that the voice actors make. The same holds true in the beta version I tested. Since the game has the original Asian voices, the characters have that overdone “karateeeeeeeeCHOP!” to their voice which I don’t think will fly in North America.
NCSoft started doing closed beta weekends in North America starting mid-June. Some people were able to get beta codes for specific weekends, but if you preorder the game you get into all the closed betas. I got the beta code for Aion from preordering the collector’s edition from my local Gamestop. I had to tell the (new) guy behind the counter that yes, you should have beta keys in the drawer behind you, and despite his reluctance to listen to someone that didn’t actually work there, he checked and was actually surprised I knew more about his store’s inventory than he did. I missed Closed Beta Event #2 by only a few hours and had to settle on waiting two weeks for CBE#3 July 2-6 to try the game for the first time. A note about this beta is that unlike some previous betas, this is actually a test of the 1.0.2 Aion client which was released in Korea a year ago. What’s really being tested are the translations, and although I couldn’t find anything official on the subject, I’m betting that NCSoft is testing the reaction to the North American and European markets.
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Comments
I had largely the same feeling from the beta this weekend. I really liked the chain combat system, although I found that it wasn't as responsive as I would have liked. Often I found that I'd be stopped for about a second if I tried to run immediately after casting on my priest (though I did not see this pause during instant casts). Not sure if this was a network issue, but I did not see the same kind of pause on my assassin.
Questing was fun, and although I would have liked a better introduction into the lore (WoW's method is really great), I found the little bit of the story that I did get to be interesting.
I played both an Asmodean Assassin and an Elyos Priest to level 10, and I found both starting experiences to be engaging and fun.
thanks for the review, starman 
Great post on Aion. I am always skeptical on MMOs that emphasize graphics over game play. I can't wait to give Aion a try.
I am gonna be starting to play the beta this weekend and I cant wait…..been playing WoW for 3 years and it is starting to get very stale for me. I am hoping that this will be a nice departure and something fun and new as well.
I played the 4th closed beta, and I loved it. I have played wow for the last 4 years, and I am really excited for Aion to be open.
I'm really surprised you liked the game. In the back of my mind while I was listening to you talk about Aion during World of Warcast that you had caught onto the hype train and was going to be severely disappointed when you played it for real. Let's just see if people can get over the fact that even in the year 2009 MMO's are still stuck with Kill X monster, Find Y NPC quest chains and won't be in such a hurry call it a bad game.
And yes … some of your complaints are standard Korean fare. Koreans seem to have a very very bad habit of punishing players harshly for RNG in the case of manastone failures.
Just glad to finally hear someone making some real noise about Aion. This game crept up on a lot of people, but I take that as a good thing as it seem's to be gaining popularity by word of mouth more than anything, especially among the WoW community.
I took part in CB4 and was pretty blown away. The game itself seems to take all the solid elements from WoW and tweaks them to the next level. yes, this game is pretty, but it's in the details that the game itself shines. The dev's seem to know what matters to a player; things like the dye system and the fact you can swap armour and weapon skins thereby maintaining stats while still looking cool and more importantly, unique. Then there's the combat system – much more depth once you get in to the combo's and using DP effectively. Even the fact I can move my UI windows around where I please without the need of a third party addon is just such a simple but nice thing to have in there!
I do have a few worries about the game though; mainly, is there enough of a would to explore and quest through? Just a casual look at the maps would suggest not. I know this game will be more about it's PvPvE and RvR but I just hope the world itself doesn't just become a series of BG's strung together. Still, I have high hopes for release as in Patch 1.5 alone we are gaining 12 new instances!
Either way, this game will certainly fill my MMO need's until Blizz decide to tell us about their next big thing, 'coz seriously, WoW is just to easy mode these days and Aion, even in Beat, feels more like the good 'ol' vanilla we knew and loved. Keep talking about Aion on the cast Mike, we could do with some decent podcast info about the game!
I'm looking into Aion aswell, I've pre-ordered it as I had no luck winning a beta key from the fansites but I was really impressed. It has a totally different feel to it than most MMO's.
I think it's got the mapdesign of WAR, the UI of WoW, the combos are a wonderful creation which has to be from asia, they love that kind of stuff.
I would have liked it to take a few pages from LOTRO as that had brilliant map design… but then again, I doubt a spaced out design would fit the linear progression of a grind MMO where you don't have to look far to find the quest mobs.
When you figure out how to glide, it's a beautiful thing, it becomes a game within itself.. as you gradually slow down and try desperately to rock your directions back and forward, to find a slight bump or slope and wooosh you're back up in the air gaining speed. I imagine it will be alot funner at higher levels when you can actually fly for longer.
One thing that irks me is the classes aren't explained well enough ingame, you really have to do alot of internet reading before logging in and picking your starting “class”.
There's other bugs which haven't been fixed in forever, like the Spritmaster not being able to use pets in the air, isn't air combat supposed to be a big PVP thing? Couldn't they invent a new flying pet that can only be used in the air to give them atleast a small boost? They can clip your wings though, so they do have a few unfair tricks up their sleeves.
Yay! Thanks Starman.
@eattheirdead