Well I have only been playing the NA beta for two hours and I'm going to check it out more although I have to say my first impression is dissapointment. For some reason I was expecting a little more from this. Granted I haven't gotten very far so that could change... I think Aion might be hurt by the fact that FFXIV was announced at E3. I think a lot of people would played FFXI were the wait for this game and now they have a new FF game... I'm going to go back and play some more, and I do realize it's just a beta but.... I'm a bit dissapointed so far.

Good:

Pretty to look at it - visually interesting

The enemies seem a little more difficult right off the bat which I like

It runs well, especially considering all of the people who log in to try it out. It was packed

The quest log. This is one of my favorite things about this game. Instead of each quest telling you to "go northwest of blah blah" it gives you the quest (without any directions) and if you need help you can click on any person or object in the quest to get more information about it and where to find it. It seems simple but it's very nice and smart. Keeps your quest log looking clean.

Bad:

Nothing to really grab your interest right off the bat. I was hoping for more story from the start.

Quests are same old same old.

You're dissapointed in the quests.  So tell me what it is you want the quests to do?

Progress the story along a little more... or give some insight on the world or story.. anything. Just not kill x amount ect. Which a few of those are okay but with the two and now three hours i've been playing it's been nothing interesting at all. I'm certainly not hating on the game, in fact I was very much an advocate of it... we'll see. Besides this is just my opinion.

What do other people think?

First impressions: Insanely great performance. This is lightyears ahead of anything western developers manage. I can have more characters with more variety and better graphics on the screen than in any other MMO I played recently. This puts WoW, WAR and AOC in a truly bad light.

Gameplay is MMO. I dont think at this point there is more to say, the genre is absolutely standardized, and Aion offers a more alive and interesting world than the other big PvE games anyway, so its fine with me.

Char Creation is amazing, character looks as well. This is so far ahead of LotRO, WOW, WAR, that only AoC can roughly compare.

There is one big problem I had: Killstealing. The game bases kill-credit solely on damage done, which leaves the low-DPS supporters in a bad spot, and makes this yet another game where the DPS characters get it all. I seriously dislike this school of design, and would hope they at least implement something like WoW, where the first to tag a mob gets it... its not perfect as ranged is still at an advantage, but I see too many mages waiting for a priest to engage, then steal the mob, to avoid the downtime as they only have a bandage heal.

Sad as it sounds, this issue can be a dealbreaker for me, as I hate MMOs which put the important support and group classes at the mercy of the DPS-classes, because that inevitably not only leads to a lot of jerks, it also usually creates a very DPS-class heavy game environment, in which grouping is hard to do.

It's alright, there's really nothing too special about it so far, the art direction is inspiring.  It's kind of hard to enjoy currently with the way they have set it up.  It has what I like to call TBC syndrome, pack a few thousand people into one area and laugh as they fight for quest objectives, sit in lines for gather quests.  Very congested and hard to enjoy right now.

For me so far it has been Perfect World with the Xmas lights turned on.

Really feels like PW evolved, maybe even PW 2.

Regular character creation screen, reminiscent of Guild Wars.

Character creation has the ability to create freaky alien looking things, no western faces or very few, I didn't like this.

Graphics pumped to the full are quite bland in some areas. Poor view distance.

Fancy scripted emotes based on environment

Combat... I forgot what it was like from clicking on a bad guy and having the PC fight for me. Boring.

Weird Sound effects.

No attempt to hide invisible walls with the environment. I don't mind them but if there is a piece of earth knee high and in a straight line and maybe 10 meters long atleast make that earth higher to not make the invisible wall obvious.

Got to level 4 in 12 minutes then to 10 in a couple hours, so that is what just comes to mind so far, there is probably a better game further on out, but I can help thinking if your not bothered about the Xmas lights then Perfect World is a free game.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Combat... I forgot what it was like from clicking on a bad guy and having the PC fight for me. Boring. 

disable click to move and auto approach... then it won't free like that.

Originally posted by dstar.

It's alright, there's really nothing too special about it so far, the art direction is inspiring.  It's kind of hard to enjoy currently with the way they have set it up.  It has what I like to call TBC syndrome, pack a few thousand people into one area and laugh as they fight for quest objectives, sit in lines for gather quests.  Very congested and hard to enjoy right now.

To make things worse their tapping system is horrible. As a warrior I will attack a mob, knock off about 25% of its HP and have a mage nuke it and get the credit and loot.

There are quests based on the main storyline, its called Campaign. This game was a lot of fun for me, I enjoy it. Besides the starting area being packed, once you reach the end of the tutorial campaign and choose your class it picks up. But I agree on the kill stealing being horrible.. I found myself swearing a multitude of times and spawn camping mobs. It's a good game, and a beta. Get a little farther in it and you'll see.

been playing since release in china have a capped gladiator best mmo made in years get past the newb island before u judge the game, really the story  takes off once u get your wings. I will prolly stay on the china servers cause i like not understanding the genera chat and the english guild i am in is full of non retarted americans which clearly readin this post most of u are wow faanboys and that was your first mmo so u don;t know what a good mmo is. This is a finished game the tagging will never change u will understand why it's like that once u pvp in the abyss.KTHANX BYE

Originally posted by Drago

been playing since release in china have a capped gladiator best mmo made in years get past the newb island before u judge the game, really the story  takes off once u get your wings. I will prolly stay on the china servers cause i like not understanding the genera chat and the english guild i am in is full of non retarted americans which clearly readin this post most of u are wow faanboys and that was your first mmo so u don;t know what a good mmo is. KTHANX BYE

They have a right to their own opinion. The title is "First Impressions". And nice english btw, you deserve to be on a Chinese server, then people don't have to read your grammar.

omg grammer police run who gives a shit how anyone spells it's the internetzzz

Had a few hours of play today. My thoughts:

I like the character creation. Lots of choices for making your character unique.

I really enjoy the graphics. The world looks alive to me.

I loved the fact that there a lot of players and I had no lag. It was fun just trying to see the quest givers with the mobs of people around them.

I have enojoyed the quests themselves so far. At one point I had to take a book to one npc, and decided to see if I could read it, and sure enough I could. It was a 9 page book telling the lore of some harvesters. Was an interesting read. While most of the quests were go kill x amount. I enjoy reading the quests for the lore that they provide.

While I had a few killsteals, I expected it so it didn't bother me to much, with as many players that were there it was bound to happen. I have made 3 alts so far a mage, Warrior and Priest. I had no kill steals as the priest. When I entered a new area i would go around healing everyone, then started for what I needed and it seemed like everyone backed off so I could have the mobs.

I also like that I can buy my spells/combat arts, for higher levels and then be able to scribe them when I get to that level. Saves a lot of time running to the trainers when you level.

My only dislikes so far is the controls. I deactivated click to move now the left mouse button is useless. plus I really don't like having to hit shift+right mouse button to free look while running. I am sure I will get use to it though. My other gripe is the coin. I would prefer having different denominations than just gold.

Over all I am impressed by the polish of this game. I think I will be pre-ordering this one.

Originally posted by Khaunshar

There is one big problem I had: Killstealing. The game bases kill-credit solely on damage done, which leaves the low-DPS supporters in a bad spot, and makes this yet another game where the DPS characters get it all. I seriously dislike this school of design, and would hope they at least implement something like WoW, where the first to tag a mob gets it... its not perfect as ranged is still at an advantage, but I see too many mages waiting for a priest to engage, then steal the mob, to avoid the downtime as they only have a bandage heal.

Ah, you mean like in Everquest, Wow "borrowed" it together with a lot other stuff. But you are right, killstealing is very irritating in all games where you can do it. Something they need to fix.

Originally posted by Khaunshar

First impressions: Insanely great performance. This is lightyears ahead of anything western developers manage. I can have more characters with more variety and better graphics on the screen than in any other MMO I played recently. This puts WoW, WAR and AOC in a truly bad light.

Gameplay is MMO. I dont think at this point there is more to say, the genre is absolutely standardized, and Aion offers a more alive and interesting world than the other big PvE games anyway, so its fine with me.

Char Creation is amazing, character looks as well. This is so far ahead of LotRO, WOW, WAR, that only AoC can roughly compare.

There is one big problem I had: Killstealing. The game bases kill-credit solely on damage done, which leaves the low-DPS supporters in a bad spot, and makes this yet another game where the DPS characters get it all. I seriously dislike this school of design, and would hope they at least implement something like WoW, where the first to tag a mob gets it... its not perfect as ranged is still at an advantage, but I see too many mages waiting for a priest to engage, then steal the mob, to avoid the downtime as they only have a bandage heal.

Sad as it sounds, this issue can be a dealbreaker for me, as I hate MMOs which put the important support and group classes at the mercy of the DPS-classes, because that inevitably not only leads to a lot of jerks, it also usually creates a very DPS-class heavy game environment, in which grouping is hard to do.

post like this makes me  laugh ,imagine when wow got out it was what 5 years ago 

do you know a lot of game that stayed on top for 5 years in america 

i know only one and it wasnt cool looking in those days either its still same look polished but same

look isnt enough to keep gamer in a game in america ,if it isnt blurry like most f2p(silkroad online)

player will like the game ,say in september they corrected the game for anerica ,yes it will happen .you dont put that amount of effort to see wow still beat you in 2014 

can you honestly say that a non american made game will beat wow in america maybe but from what i ear here 

it will be another war,aoc etc

right now the best game i played beside wow is rune of magic ,yes they got querks but they get a major update in september 

aion ,we ll see if it picks up but say they get good  lol it will still have took 5 years just to get a chunk of blizzard player base 

at most they ll get 3 million people in america 

so blizzard would end up with 8 million instead it would still take 2 or tree year for other game comp just to catch up 

blizzard got plenty of time to add say pvp questing and all kind of other goody witch i bet come september they ll unveil just a week before aion or any game get s lunched ,new feature ,you can bet on it

Originally posted by Otiro

I have enojoyed the quests themselves so far. At one point I had to take a book to one npc, and decided to see if I could read it, and sure enough I could. It was a 9 page book telling the lore of some harvesters. Was an interesting read. While most of the quests were go kill x amount. I enjoy reading the quests for the lore that they provide.

 

You can read that book? Damn and I already turned in that quest. Will have to read it on another toon now

:(

yeah i had alot of fun in Aion, preordered from game stop so waiting on my key, think it said i'll have them by the 9th. not looking forward to it being really congested but meh will be nice playing together with english speakers (i HOPE!) but you won't get a full idea of the game till you hit 25 and start goin to the Abyss. lets face it the game is more pvp based than pve, and the Abyss is a blast!

REALLY hoping they added the lore story you get a 10 when you do you class/wing quest. korean version had it but the chinese one didn't wich suced looked very interesting BUT i had no idea what they was saying :( it was like a 5-10 min movie

Got my Ranger to 7 so far, I'm having fun. Another book you can read tells a bit about a lonely farmer that was kinda cool.

Just need to wait a bit for others to get past the starting area and avoid kill stealin. I liked the tasdte of flight in the beginning too. Give one something to look forward too. Are people really so broke thied wait a year + for FFXIV? I think not, this will fill the gap and provide a good bit of entertainment.

Originally posted by VABeachDave

Originally posted by Otiro

I have enojoyed the quests themselves so far. At one point I had to take a book to one npc, and decided to see if I could read it, and sure enough I could. It was a 9 page book telling the lore of some harvesters. Was an interesting read. While most of the quests were go kill x amount. I enjoy reading the quests for the lore that they provide.

 

 

You can read that book? Damn and I already turned in that quest. Will have to read it on another toon now

 

:(

 

Yeah I was surprised to find I could read it. Most quests like that in other mmo's you can't read the book. It is the little things like this that I enjoy. So I'm hoping to see more.

Originally posted by drbaltazar

post like this makes me  laugh ,imagine when wow got out it was what 5 years ago 

do you know a lot of game that stayed on top for 5 years in america 

i know only one and it wasnt cool looking in those days either its still same look polished but same

look isnt enough to keep gamer in a game in america ,if it isnt blurry like most f2p(silkroad online)

player will like the game ,say in september they corrected the game for anerica ,yes it will happen .you dont put that amount of effort to see wow still beat you in 2014 

can you honestly say that a non american made game will beat wow in america maybe but from what i ear here 

it will be another war,aoc etc

right now the best game i played beside wow is rune of magic ,yes they got querks but they get a major update in september 

aion ,we ll see if it picks up but say they get good  lol it will still have took 5 years just to get a chunk of blizzard player base 

at most they ll get 3 million people in america 

so blizzard would end up with 8 million instead it would still take 2 or tree year for other game comp just to catch up 

blizzard got plenty of time to add say pvp questing and all kind of other goody witch i bet come september they ll unveil just a week before aion or any game get s lunched ,new feature ,you can bet on it

 

Trying to make sense of this made me feel like a blind man looking at Playboy magazine.

First off, I'm getting sick and tired of people assuming that every new MMO is after subscription numbers like WoW. WoW is not the norm, companies know that. By your assumption, Aion will attract 3 million subs just from America? So if you take those 3 million, add them to the Aion subs from the rest of the world, plus worldwide subs from CoH/CoV, GW, and L1 and L2, what makes you think that NCSoft cares about WoW's numbers? They don't need WoW numbers to be succesful.

Second, have you even played WoW? PvP questing? It's been in the game since the vanilla days, and even more so with the expansions and areas like Lake Wintergrasp. You make it sound like something Blizzard hasn't even considered for WoW.

I played WoW since release heavily for the last 4.5 years, and still do on occasion, but I still can't stand grammatically challenged fanboys who choose to bash every other new MMO and game developer who's just trying to establish a new product in the genre.

Originally posted by Arkos_Kale

Originally posted by drbaltazar

post like this makes me  laugh ,imagine when wow got out it was what 5 years ago 

do you know a lot of game that stayed on top for 5 years in america 

i know only one and it wasnt cool looking in those days either its still same look polished but same

look isnt enough to keep gamer in a game in america ,if it isnt blurry like most f2p(silkroad online)

player will like the game ,say in september they corrected the game for anerica ,yes it will happen .you dont put that amount of effort to see wow still beat you in 2014 

can you honestly say that a non american made game will beat wow in america maybe but from what i ear here 

it will be another war,aoc etc

right now the best game i played beside wow is rune of magic ,yes they got querks but they get a major update in september 

aion ,we ll see if it picks up but say they get good  lol it will still have took 5 years just to get a chunk of blizzard player base 

at most they ll get 3 million people in america 

so blizzard would end up with 8 million instead it would still take 2 or tree year for other game comp just to catch up 

blizzard got plenty of time to add say pvp questing and all kind of other goody witch i bet come september they ll unveil just a week before aion or any game get s lunched ,new feature ,you can bet on it

 

 

Trying to make sense of this made me feel like a blind man looking at Playboy magazine.

First off, I'm getting sick and tired of people assuming that every new MMO is after subscription numbers like WoW. WoW is not the norm, companies know that. By your assumption, Aion will attract 3 million subs just from America? So if you take those 3 million, add them to the Aion subs from the rest of the world, plus worldwide subs from CoH/CoV, GW, and L1 and L2, what makes you think that NCSoft cares about WoW's numbers? They don't need WoW numbers to be succesful.

Second, have you even played WoW? PvP questing? It's been in the game since the vanilla days, and even more so with the expansions and areas like Lake Wintergrasp. You make it sound like something Blizzard hasn't even considered for WoW.

I played WoW since release heavily for the last 4.5 years, and still do on occasion, but I still can't stand grammatically challenged fanboys who choose to bash every other new MMO and game developer who's just trying to establish a new product in the genre.

 

 

 

Wow, honestly I couldnt even figure out if he was bashing WoW, praising WoW, or bashing other MMOs, the MMO genre, his mother or some random person on the street.  I give you kudos sir for being able to even partially comprehend that mess.

I like it. Sure there is nothing strikingly new or amazing but it is refined to a point of sharpness where this beta puts AOC's retail release to shame.

Some food for thought...

Support Classes
If you are playing support classes fear not. While in the early game it may suck to be you after you leave the newbie island you will be the only class w/ self healing and can in turn solo bosses. I LOLed on my Priest character when 2 peopled died trying to KS me and the others all lost their HP and ended up watching me kill the thing. Offered to heal them so they could give a try but their pride wouldn't help them.

Secondly from what I have been reading at about the mid-game this game becomes very team focused. I saw screenshots of 3 different full parties trying to take out superbosses. Sure the DPS monkeys may rock as n00bs but they try going on without support when the "real" game kicks in then they are gonna be SOL.

Combat
Combat is more than the click then attack. If thats all you are doing then likely you are doing it wrong... or maybe thats how warriors do it but then again thats not different than warriors in any other game. That being said my Scout is barely level 9 and he is already doing complex skill combinations to takedown enemies.

For example to begin a standard battle I usually start with:
1. Hide -> 2. Foused Evasion -> 3. Suprise Attack (Backstab) -> 4. Swift Edge -> 5. Soul Slash (Chain Skill) -> 6. Counterslash (Influcts Stun)

From there I will spam the Swift Edge-Soul Slash combo using standard (dual wielding fast attacks) until I either dodge so I can use Counterslash or used Focused Evasion so I can force a dodge. Either way with a proper setup assuming my backstab hits most enemies will be wiped out.

So I started this thread and said I was dissapointed... that's starting to change. I've enjoyed it more the last few hours I've played. A few points, most of which has already been mentioned.

Your character reacts to the enviorment which is very cool. Like I noticed when i was on the beach standing around my character picked up the sand. Minor but awesome.

Enemies killed in water will float to the top.

The wings are fun ^^

No lag (things took some time to load) but with the insane ammount of players the fact that I wasn't lagging was very nice.

Annoying problem is the loot stealing. Well it's not stealing because it's fair but hopefully they change it to where the person who starts the attack is the person who gets credit for it instead of the one who does the most damage. As a priest I was getting a lot of people getting credit when I had started the attack.

Overall though I'm happier with the game than I was orginally and I am looking forward to playing it over the next few days. So far it kinda reminds me of Final Fantasy XI meets Guild Wars... which is a good thing ^^

Good to see you are enjoying it. I think the game will probaly get alot better the furtner you get into it.

Originally posted by lornphoenix

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Combat... I forgot what it was like from clicking on a bad guy and having the PC fight for me. Boring. 

 

disable click to move and auto approach... then it won't free like that.

Thanks for the tip I will be playing again later today. With this format it has been a while for me.