Eye on: Aion
There’s still so much more to this game I want to write about, and so much more to see once the next beta opens up on July 17th. When the servers went down this afternoon, I felt that I wanted a little more time to see a few more aspects of the game I didn’t see while leveling from 1-20. If the game can get me to want to go back, I think NCSoft has a winner on its hands. I’m not sure how an Eastern-based game will do in the Western market, but I do know that it was enough to make me want to go back to it. My only concern is that the culture of the American gamer may not the same as Asian gamers, and if the endgame doesn’t cater to the NA/EU markets, Aion may have trouble gaining a foothold here. I’m still researching the game, but I’m reading that Aion caters to both PvP and PvE groups.
In my opinion, an MMORPG needs three things to survive: PvP, PvE, and community. From what I’ve seen, Aion’s doing a pretty good job of handling PvP and PvE, I just need to see a good community come out of this game for me to want to go back to it. In this day and age of social networks, I’d like to see Aion or some new MMO embrace the ability to connect people both in and out of the game.
Either way, this game has some serious buzz going for it. I don’t remember an MMO getting this much traction before its official release since the months befor World Of Warcraft’s release. I look forward to picking up my Aion Collector’s Edition when it’s released here in the fall.
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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