Maybe its just me but this type of artwork still facinates me.  I am referring to grinding in one area and having the sky and surroundings go through different color changes in a day and night cycle creating an individual mood everytime I play.  It is not so much as eye-popping but what is called visual stunning and Aion has that only to be refined in later content release and expansions.

I played both a Elyos and Asmodian character to level 10 getting to their starting cities, ascending, and grinding in the first flying area.   I went exploring with my Elyos character and found a tree town/city that was probably the best of that type of fantasy I have seen in both MMO and regular video games.

I have 7.1 sound X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound card and the sound is also very professional and in the 7.1 sound (maybe 5.1 am not sure).  I have some clicks and static at times but it is still good sound.  For a Beta that I just played through that was really well done.

I love what I have seen so far.  Some of the grinding areas may seem tight knit but over time I think it will play out compared to the early starting areas.

I am not urinating on the floor but I am looking forward to the launch when the play time counts. 

They have a hit and though it may not be as big as World Of Warcraft in its early heyday there will be alot of people that will enjoy this game.

Passed on the OB, 9 gigs is a bit much when they only offered 1 mirror to dl from for what, the first couple days of OB? (fileplanet queue was always long and the gamershell mirrors were fairly slow).

*shrug* maybe next mmo that comes out i'll give that one a whirl

Loved the game, made quite a few alts as I enjoyed playing with the character custimization.

been awhile since I had fun on a game. Am really bored with WoW.

Definitely will be playing it. Most likely as an Elyos as the Asmodians race sounds like a butt joke..

Where do Asmodians like to vacation?..........planetary resort on Uranus (yes that was bad but I just had to.)

Originally posted by Crichton

Passed on the OB, 9 gigs is a bit much when they only offered 1 mirror to dl from for what, the first couple days of OB? (fileplanet queue was always long and the gamershell mirrors were fairly slow).

*shrug* maybe next mmo that comes out i'll give that one a whirl

Sign up for the Star Trek Online Beta.  They are taking applications and very early for that matter.  That may be a good sign that there will be a long beta before Q1 2010.  That means fun.  :-)

I was wondering if someone that played CB could tell me whether the game is a persistent World, or is each land  instanced?  I couldn't stand how WAR did that,  I much perfer a world thats more open like WOW.

Forced PVP and very linear play is why this game is a pass. looks pretty for the most part played some of the Beta's which led to my pass decision.

Another pass for me.  Game is far too linear, and Gameguard is the deal-breaker. 

Originally posted by Tinagame

 

Loved the game, made quite a few alts as I enjoyed playing with the character custimization.

been awhile since I had fun on a game. Am really bored with WoW.

Definitely will be playing it. Most likely as an Elyos as the Asmodians race sounds like a butt joke..

Where do Asmodians like to vacation?..........planetary resort on Uranus (yes that was bad but I just had to.)

I'm playing Asmodians because it sounds like it came from Asmodeus, the lord of the ninth layer of hell.

Open Beta started out really rough. Lots of lag, rubberbanding, disconnections, etc. I have to hand it to NcSoft though for finding the problems and fixing them. Then because of the delayed OB playing time, another day was added to OB. I am very impressed with NcSoft of listening to the complaints addressing the issues, and fixing Aion to make it playable.

I'll be there Sept 18th, having pre-ordered Aion. With that kind of company support behind a game, the game will be a success!

I enjoyed it,  the flying alone sold me, and the graphics are impressive to say the least. I'll be there on 20th.

Much like any other MMORPG new to the market, I predict that AION: The Tower of Eternity is going to get off to a rocky start, then eventually flourish into something that many MMO'ers are going to really enjoy.  Sure it will have its set of ranters, flamers, haters, and nay-sayers, but so far the various builds of Aion have been for the most part pretty solid. When I think back on it, I remember another great MMORPG that also got off to a really rocky start, had its VAST share of nay-sayers, and turned out to be the largest, most successful MMOs on the market for a number of years.

The Closed and Open Betas felt more like stress tests, but that was okay with me.  NCSoft seemed to be scrambling to monitor and immediately address any performance issues that players may have had with their servers and new patch content as patch 1.5 was newely introduced to the U.S. audience with Open Beta.  The introduction of the update patch 1.5.0.5 (or whatever that last patch number was... 1.5.0.6?) was a nice addition towards the end of Open Beta, it seemed to clear up a lot of latency issues that some of my fellow Legion mates kept experiencing, although it caused a few issues with some others, especially those in Oceanic time zones.

I was a bit surprised that they kept the level 30 cap in place, since some hardcore players ground those levels out within a matter of two to three days, most likely eager to see new content they hadn't been able to view in Closed Beta, if they didn't already play the Chinese Aion client.  Sadly, they were disappointed.  I'm not too concerned with this myself, I'm glad that there will still be some surprises in store for us all come the 20th, the first day of the Head Start.

While I don't think Aion offers anything really revolutionary, I think NCSoft has done what so many other MMORPG developers have done before it, but in a grand fashion;  Take great ideas and features that exist in other games, and improve upon them within the confines of their game design in such a way that it all comes together in a cohesive environment that has much to offer players of multiple playstyles and tastes.  From the combat system to class design, from crafting and tradeskills to exploration and dungeon crawling, NCSoft has created a game with incredible artistic flair, extravagant detail and given the player enough creative freedom to immerse themselves into the world of Aion in such a way that they will feel as if they can truly individualize themselves in a unique fashion in order to stand out through an incredible character customization system, which seems to be one of NCSoft's strengths.

The combat system and its chained combinations aren't necessarily anything new, but it does allow the player to focus more on playing the game rather than concentrating on the best way to write a cast sequence macro, while also adding a unique flair to each individual class that executes their combo moves.  This isn't necessarily a BIG thing to give kudos for, but not everyone that picks up an MMORPG for their compute is a code monkey, and this makes the combat system VERY accessible.

All in all, I have enjoyed the Aion betas enough to pick up a pre-order and guarantees that I will be one of the fanatical fiends eagerly awaiting my preselected names for my characters on the 18th.

I am in a somewhat mixed bag situation myself.

I enjoyed the game during OB. The European servers didn't really experience the issues the US servers were experiencing, so our experience was quite different and overall pretty good and lagfree.

But, the community during Open Beta was downright horrible. Almost gave me flashbacks to the Darkfall community.

Never seen so much hate, racism, hostility, flaming, immaturity as during this Open Beta on both the forums as ingame.

This is really going to be a dealbreaker for me, if the community isn't going to vastly improve at launch!

The game can be fun, but the community really makes or breaks the game. And if the trend in Open Beta continues into launch, then it is sertainly going to break and hurt this game on the long run!

It's a real shame, that when PVP is playing a large aspect in a game... it somehow attracts the worst people on the internet and people think it's a free ticket to act like a total jerk and every social skill being thrown straight out the window (if these people had any in the first place I wonder).

So ... I will sertainly try Aion, but if the community doesn't improve during the first weeks.... I am out and it's bye bye Aion!

Cheers

I honestly wasn't interested in this game because I'm tied of the whole fantasy setting, but after the open beta I saw enough good that I'm pre-ordered.

First the graphics, very impressive. What was even more impressive is how well it runs on a good system. I was able to play the entire time with all graphics maxed on my SLI system running @100-150fps most of the time and only dropping into the 40-60fps range in very crowded areas. Was dueling all night last day of OB in Asmodian city (forget the name, the V named one) entrance with a ton of people standing around watching, private stores, npcs and game still ran great.

Second character customization. This is the best character creator since SWG. I would have never guessed this by Aions marketing because all the male characters in their ads look very feminine. I was pleasantly surprised to find I could make my avatar look anyway I wanted. You can make very cool looking dwarves, gnomes, giants, elves, humans, etc. and you can make them as ugly or pretty as you like. The armor and weapons are off the charts as far as looks go. Plus you can also make your armor and weapons look like whatever you want. The ability to swap the graphics on a good piece of equipment is a true innovation for this genre. Who hasn't gotten an uber piece or armor or weapon in a previous MMO then said damn, my avatar looks like crap or now I look like everyone else? Now you can get your uber equipment and make it look like whatever you want.

Third the gameplay. While there is nothing particularly new in the leveling process I found it to be polished and fun. I am also attracted to the open pvp aspect of this game. I loved WOW on a pvp server pre battlegrounds and arenas, when there was a real randomness to your encounters with other players. I did see balance problems but all games have these. Clerics are surely going to get nerfed, their about unbeatable in a duel as is. Overall I found dueling to be very fun and the wings add to the strategy.

While I don't like gameguard and it did prevent me from playing till NCSoft patched, it's not a good enough reason to pass on the game. Can't go through life letting paranoia keep me from trying new programs.

All in all I think this game is well worth the $60 pre-order. I may find in a month or two that I am sick of it but if that's the case I still consider it a value. Comparing entertainment value I pay that much for one PPV fight. One night at a sporting event can cost substantially more. So initial purchase plus 50 cents a day for the subscription is inconsequential IMO. I'll probably bail when SWTOR is released or I get into beta, but Aion is worth checking out for awhile IMO.

yesh but with gameguard it will make AION the spore of the MMO world.

Look up gameguard on wiki for the extensive list of applications that are affected by GG. They even block out anti-virus clients, stuff like xpadder (I made a very long and informative post about that), VMware tools, PowerISO (the people who use it legitly like I do to use for VMware and OS customization for businesses), and a long list of others. It also installs as a ROOTKIT! It has allready reportedly damaged people's systems just like the securom from spore did.

I enjoyed it, did'nt have any  issues with gameguard errors and the only lag i had was caused by my internet playing up on me.

Was dissapointed with the lack of areas you could fly in tho, especially considering its the AION thing.

Originally posted by kingkillar

I enjoyed it, did'nt have any  issues with gameguard errors and the only lag i had was caused by my internet playing up on me.

Was dissapointed with the lack of areas you could fly in tho, especially considering its the AION thing.

Well, the first areas have the flight limited, much like in other games, wow for example, to avoid you to fly over content and quests. But later in game, especially since you set foot on the Abyss, flight is completely free, with the limitations ofc of the time you are available to stay up in the air.

So, I did play in the closed and open Beta . . . . and still trying to figure out what REALLY is different enough about AION for me to bother playing more then the month or so I have for free. This is not a complaint per say . . yet . . since I have not gotten to level 20 yet . . But from my POV this has new graphics which are nice but have a limited "ooh ahh" factor . . and effectively the same over all game play as any other MMO out there . . so effectively the same old same old.

But really could anyone give me (and I am sure others) a clue about this? It would be helpful.

 After *finally* getting into beta, I had originally had an issue with unclear instructions for the NCSoft launcher and regions (I'd been stuck on an EU server when I normally get assigned NA) I didnt get to 30, 1 because I was testing the water with several types of characters and 2 because of the late start, I was impressed enough to pre order.

I cannot speak for NA servers but with EU, after the final patch was deployed most of the lag disappeared, after the first issue with authenticating, which was nothing more than lack of information on how to launch, I saw next to no lag and the only gameguard error I got, seemed to be related to when the authentication server was down, I tried later and got in no issues.  Beta I expect bouncy servers and teething issues.... whats important is by the end it seemed to be working fine, but release will be the proof of the pudding.  

My other half and I will be in on the 20th, assuming someone can get us a code on time....... currently we're on "back order" with 4 days to go X-P  No sign of a pre order code via Game 2 days after order, just the back order status.

The annoying thing about this is yesterday our *first* games store (yes we live in the dark ages) showed up as opening this week and have preorder packs available but we've already paid Game for ours yet havent got our code. X-P  Hoping they get their codes by the 21st (20th US time)

Originally posted by Guillermo197

I am in a somewhat mixed bag situation myself.

I enjoyed the game during OB. The European servers didn't really experience the issues the US servers were experiencing, so our experience was quite different and overall pretty good and lagfree.

But, the community during Open Beta was downright horrible. Almost gave me flashbacks to the Darkfall community.

Never seen so much hate, racism, hostility, flaming, immaturity as during this Open Beta on both the forums as ingame.

This is really going to be a dealbreaker for me, if the community isn't going to vastly improve at launch!

The game can be fun, but the community really makes or breaks the game. And if the trend in Open Beta continues into launch, then it is sertainly going to break and hurt this game on the long run!

It's a real shame, that when PVP is playing a large aspect in a game... it somehow attracts the worst people on the internet and people think it's a free ticket to act like a total jerk and every social skill being thrown straight out the window (if these people had any in the first place I wonder).

So ... I will sertainly try Aion, but if the community doesn't improve during the first weeks.... I am out and it's bye bye Aion!

Cheers

This is a shame as I agree with you - bad community = bad game.  On the OB server I played there were a few jerks but they were promptly put back in their box in most cases.  What you say about PVP does tend to be true though (never really notived it, but now you say it is is blindingly obvious) so is a tad worrying.  I think I will give it a go, endure the idiots while Aion is FOTM and hope they bugger off when the NBT comes along.

I have to agree it was absolutely amazing how many racially motivated, sexually oriented, or just hateful things were bounced off channel to channel.  I'm sure a portion of it was random people just wanting to be the center of attention for some sad little ploy to make them feel better about something.  At some point you had to just turn all of them off to escape the stupidity.  Sadly, recent times and the recent generation has just emboldened and encouraged a coolness factor to just be obnoxious and mean spirited just to cause problems or be spiteful.  No one has the right to stop them from saying anything, but the options are given for people to avoid the idiots by ignoring or leaving the channel.  Don't you wish you had an ignore list in real life?  Don't let the bad apples take away from something you were enjoying.  I've yet to find a MMO game that doesn't have turds, it's the way it goes. 

END OF LINE_

~V

---

Originally posted by Kalay

---

Originally posted by Crichton

Passed on the OB, 9 gigs is a bit much when they only offered 1 mirror to dl from for what, the first couple days of OB? (fileplanet queue was always long and the gamershell mirrors were fairly slow).
*shrug* maybe next mmo that comes out i'll give that one a whirl

---

 
Sign up for the Star Trek Online Beta.  They are taking applications and very early for that matter.  That may be a good sign that there will be a long beta before Q1 2010.  That means fun.  :-)

---

Yea I've been waiting for ST:O since 2004 back when Perpetual was steamheading it. I knew it was doomed under them as the years passed on and all we got was the odd screenshot of ingame renders, or an interview here & there. Hopefully Cryptic comes out with something worthwhile, I love science fiction mmos and we are sadly lacking in them in the entire genre.