MMORPG.com contributor Sanya Weathers takes advantage of the recent NDA drop to tell readers about her experiences with the highly anticipated MMO from NCSoft.

If you take away one thing from this first look at Aion, I hope it's this: Do not do what I did, and switch between Free Realms and Aion in the same playing session. Your brain will explode. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Aion is big in the Far East. Really big. A localized, Westernized version is coming to North America this year. The development team behind the game is so confident they've got a hit on their hands that they allowed people to post screenshots from the beta event two weeks ago, and the NDA officially lifted on June 16th.

Read the First Look Preview

Holly mama, i wish i was faster to sign for a beta test, o well...

WIsh i could skip my work now and try that angel jump on my own )) good article, keep us updated, thanx xD

cant wait. but expect to be disapointed again like all other NC soft titles, seriously they dont hold ur attention for long and content patches are few and very far between.   WoW sets a high bar and aoin is probably not going to hold up for long...  plus you have all the next gen MMO's on the horizon comon !!! blizz new intelectual property MMO (hopefully revealed in blizzcon).  FFIV / Star Wars: The Old Republic/ jump gate revolution / and a couple rediculously good looking asian titles. 

All in all call it what it is L2+graphics and wings... a nice amusing piece to hold u over till the good stuff. or at least till diablo3 ... for the Korean's starcraft 2 is going to be there new crack. OH BTW if u dont know already this games already 1+yr's old , it just takes god darn forever to port shit for North america.

finally a real pvp experience, asians mmo's do pvp the right way.

Regardless of the nay-sayers, I think this is going to be an excellent title.  No it's not going to "kill WoW", but it is going to be good enough to hold our attention for a while.

And Sanya's review just made me want to try it when before I was only moderately excited over the pvp it may offer since it *appears* better than anything we currently have out.

Originally posted by ronan32

finally a real pvp experience, asians mmo's do pvp the right way.

What a ridiculous statement.  Most of their pvp was copied from US games lol.

I think Aion will do quite well initially, that is until the botters take over.  NCSoft has in the past refused to control them and we all know how badly they can destroy any game.

Originally posted by GENoverkill

cant wait. but expect to be disapointed again like all other NC soft titles, seriously they dont hold ur attention for long and content patches are few and very far between.  
 

?

I played Lineage 2 for over 4 years. And Guild Wars for about 2 (still dabble in it).

Besides, it is NOT L2 with wings. If anything, and if one wanted to generalize, it it Lineag 2, Guild Wars and WoW all wrapped up in the same package.

Lineage 2 for the heightened sense of artistic style (with a "similiar" artistic bent in that the weapons and more so armor have a lot of florid detail) and pvp, guild wars because the movement felt a little like GW as well as how the lighting felt, sort of golden light (elyos), some areas, and WoW for polish and how some of the quests were done. Additionally there might be some small graphical simularities as the progress bar is reminiscent of WoW's progress bar.

However, it feels like its own game. If one is tired of standard quests, even though there does seem to be an epic story line, then one might not want to play Aion. Aion is not radically new in any way.

But if one wants a game that has a more rvr pvp system and quests but doesn't want that whimsical WoW feeling then Aion might be right for them.  

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

finally a real pvp experience, asians mmo's do pvp the right way.

 

What a ridiculous statement.  Most of their pvp was copied from US games lol.

I think Aion will do quite well initially, that is until the botters take over.  NCSoft has in the past refused to control them and we all know how badly they can destroy any game.

You are... just wrong, with your first statement. Asian MMOs have always focused on PVP, and the only US MMO to assume PVP was the point of the game was UO. At least until Shadowbane came along. I assure you that no Koreans have ever copied anything from Shadowbane.

However, you're pretty on target with the second comment, at least historically. I do think that NCsoft is planning to take more action this time around. I didn't say it in the review, but there appear to be several tools built into the interface to report/deal with bots.

Aion is the next best thing wether people want to admit it or not. People just love to be anti-NcSoft and be on that Blizzard bandwagon. I'll say it again, WOW was/is good for gaming but we can do better, Aion is better.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

finally a real pvp experience, asians mmo's do pvp the right way.

 

What a ridiculous statement.  Most of their pvp was copied from US games lol.

I think Aion will do quite well initially, that is until the botters take over.  NCSoft has in the past refused to control them and we all know how badly they can destroy any game.

asian pvp is much more hardcore than western pvp. you usually risk losing something, be it items or experience. lineage 2 pvp is nothing like any western mmo pvp. your statement is the ridiculous one.

I want Aion to succeed, but it will take more than wings to get my interest. I'm not an NCSoft hater because Guildwars was a great game that held my attention far longer than anything else. If Aion as simularities to that game I'll have to check it out.

To all those playing in the beta. Outside of wings what in your opinion sets the game apart from what is out there now? 

Originally posted by Sovrath
[quote]Originally posted by GENoverkill

?
I played Lineage 2 for over 4 years. And Guild Wars for about 2 (still dabble in it).
Besides, it is NOT L2 with wings. If anything, and if one wanted to generalize, it it Lineag 2, Guild Wars and WoW all wrapped up in the same package.

Got that right bro! I'm also a long time GW player and Arena's Net has always been doing fabulous jobs with their patches and content updates.
@GENoverkill, you probably never own neither GW or L2 to know enough to talk about them. Imo if you like Disney cartoons you are probably a WoW fan and won't ever like Aion's art style or any Asain style game of any kind but if you're Japanese animation fans then Aion will be the game for ya.

After experiencing the PvP of this game for a while, I can point out the best of it and the flaws.

Pros:

Group dynamics and setups play a really important role, many might fall against a few organized ones, im talking about a game where beating 32 people with 16 is possible.

The PvP is sporadic and well done, you will never know when a group will come after you, so you better be ready for it.

The collaborative efforts have been amazing so far in my experience, you see entire raids of unknow people fighting the enemy just to kick them out of their lands and lots of shouts warning of hostile pressence.

The risk vs reward feels deffinetly right, you don't lose enough to go cut yourself in a corner, but you might feel a slap in your wrist if you die being a high ranked player.

The game breathes elitism, unlike in other games, you don't rely in charts to tell you who is the best, you will notice who is the best.

Cons (gotta clarify, some of these are more concerns about how well the game might do considering the "wester" mindset and not so much of a con to me).

Gear and levels are pretty important, not L2 important, but pretty important, yeah. To make a fair comparision, in L2, at level 78 you got some imba skills, in Aion, there's no that imba skills level, so a 47 can outperform a level 50 easily, but a 42 might not have the same luck as the damage is heavily reduced. For gear, the same, even though Aion offers a huge variety of endgame gear, there are some sets that are pretty hard to get (specially the abyss ones) which will make the difference.

Some people like to move a lot in MMOs PvP, Aion 1v1 is pretty static compared to WoWs, group PvP is a different story, specially since the main targets will always be moving around doing their thing and the enemies have to chase.

The elitism of PvP might be a con for casual people, even tho there are a lot of PUGs for PvP in the abyss which can let some casual people experience endgame PvP, there will be some frustration whenever the elitist guild comes and kicks them all out.

About the preview, pretty spot on from my experience, and pretty descriptive, keep it up.

Hey bro I've recently played the first closed beta of Aion for North America and I didn't get to fly but played up to level 10.  From what I've experienced, if you like GW's combat, skills, animations and characters art then you'll definitely like Aion.  The questing is nothing extrodinary from other persistant world MMOs out there today but they're pretty easy to get into and finding your quest objectives is so easy and simple that it is fun to do any quests.  I strongly recommend that you try out their next closed beta coming up and see for yourself and you'll prob wish that Aion was free to play like GW  is XD

Couple of points:

There is actually a cut scene at the beginning of the game which shows the "dream" you have while napping -- either of your future (Asmodian) or past (Elyos).  It also gives a bit of the back story.  It wasn't in the NA beta version, but it's in the Korean version, and I assume it will be there at launch. 

In the version 1.2 client there is even _more_ character customization.

Play Asmodian, the peseants are even more insulting.

Flight, is really, really done well.  Fly up really high, then hit the space bar to glide.  Now glide close to the side of a canyon or something similar and you will find yourself being lifted up by the updraft!  You can surf air currents in the this game.  My jaw dropped the first time this happened to me.   My only beef with flight is that there are so few places initially that you can fly in.

Unfortunately, the lame quests continue all through the game.  Some, yes are really interesting.  But many are just lame.  The lamest, IMO, is just after you get your wings and become a deava, you are sent to a fort and told to go kill lobsters.

~nox

I totally agree with Sanya...

I had the same feeling after the first beta weekend.

This game is fun, and promisses a lot for the (PvP) future... it might even come close to my good old DAoC PvP experiences, but then with much much better PvE

About the "Eastern thing" to prove yourself. While that is true, having been to Japan I can say they would NEVER be rude to you, no matter was sort of faux pas you make. ;)  For me as someone who once lived in Japan, rudeness is something VERY Western, and I can only imagine an Eastern MMO makes that to heighten the sense of strangeness to the realm.

I smiled at the article, since I just had spent a lot of time in FR myself. All the merry greeting and contratulating is something you really get used to. I am not sure if I want to play a game that constantly bitches at me anymore. I hope it does not last in Aion. There are plenty rude people where I live already, thank you very much.

Otherwise interesting insight.

Review

Anyone following this title for any length of time already knew that, but if you're just now catching on to Aion: Koreans do not do PvP as an afterthought.

 

Really?

Could I ask you what type of PVP you were involved in. Since I played CAion and know PVP doesn't start until very late into the game, I doubt you did any significant PVP at all.

.

.

This review is way too optimistic, but then I expected nothing less, 99% of mmorpg's reviews are too postitive.

Originally posted by ronan32

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

finally a real pvp experience, asians mmo's do pvp the right way.

 

What a ridiculous statement.  Most of their pvp was copied from US games lol.

I think Aion will do quite well initially, that is until the botters take over.  NCSoft has in the past refused to control them and we all know how badly they can destroy any game.

 

asian pvp is much more hardcore than western pvp. you usually risk losing something, be it items or experience. lineage 2 pvp is nothing like any western mmo pvp. your statement is the ridiculous one.

all this make for a better pvp experience rubbish that only your opinion , a good pvp experience does not have to include dropable loot and lost of xp am sorry .

Just bought a retail code from ncsoft shop after playing chinese open beta.

Just give it a shot, you will not be dissapointed.