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Aion General Article: Not Just a New Lineage
MMORPG.com contributor Tricia "Seridove" Bennon writes this look at NCsoft's upcoming PvPvE MMO Aion from the perspective of a Lineage II fan.
By Tricia Bennon on May 04, 2009
After pulling the plug on their sci-fi title Tabula Rasa, NCSoft is refocusing and getting back into the game. We already know that NCSoft can deliver a triple A fantasy based MMO title. The question on everyone's mind is: Will AION be fresh and new or will it merely be a Lineage II clone?
;)
If all it took was stunning graphics, a continuous and in-depth quest based story line, and involved large scale player versus combat then AION just might fill the role of being heralded as Lineage III. However, AION delivers so much more. It takes those elements we love in games and makes them better. No, it does more than that. AION spreads its wings and soars to new heights.
Being a dedicated Lineage II player for several years, the one aspect that bothered me the most was the lack of character customization options. For a game offering such an in-depth storyline, it seemed contradictory to doom its players to one of six general appearances.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character. Not only can you alter details such as hip width and select from over 35 different hair styles, but you can actually create a character that resembles a dwarf, elf or even a pixie! In AION, it is almost guaranteed that you will never come across another character that looks exactly like yours.
Unlike Lineage 2, AION provides a relatively safe and conflict-free environment for its players to enjoy. Well, that is...until you hit the Abyss. Not only will the Abyss offer quests ad PvE game play, but this area provides the stage for all large scale player-versus-player battle. As Elyos and Asmodian players battle for domination, ownership of strategic control points is sought. Scattered about the Abyss, these successfully captured control points grant their owners bonuses which help conquer keeps and build defenses. A feature somewhat familiar to Warhammer Online players, the taking of control points will add strategy when engaging in massive player-versus-player combat.
;)
The most talked about feature AION has incorporated into the game is flight. While Linage II introduced flight through the creation of a new race, the Kamael, players found this skill to be very restrictive. Not only was this skill exclusively available to Kamael, but the transformation skill was granted to players at a very high level.
Every player in AION, regardless of class, obtains the ability to fly at level ten. With set timers, players must strategically plan destination routes and actions in flight. Failure to plan ahead can mean a player falling to their death.
While the ability to fly is restricted to certain areas, players can glide in any area they wish. No more epic quests or spending huge amounts of money to purchase a mount. In order to get around fairly quickly, all you need is some great terrain and a little practice. You will be gliding from area to area in no time.
The seamless way flight is interwoven into the game offers a truly unique player experience. Aerial battle, gathering crafting materials suspended high above the ground, and quest objectives perched in areas inaccessible by foot, all mean that players, regardless of play style or objective, will find flight not only useful...but necessary.
;)
Just when you thought AION couldn't pack more into the player experience, it also offers something else to consider: the "E" in the PvPvE warfare promised by AION's creators. The Balaur, demons who reside in the Abyss, stand guard to their territory. If rumors are correct, these NPC characters can be swayed to side with either Elyos or Asmodian players. If this is the case, you could find yourself fighting alongside the Balaur one day and staring down the wrong end of their sword the next.
So, is AION a clone of Lineage 2? Definitely not. AION takes the best of Lineage II and takes off...literally. Taking into consideration the customization of the characters, a continuous and in-depth story line, and the inclusion of aerial combat, this game is far from a clone. AION definitely stands on its own two feet...errr... wings.
Good read, even better game.
Really looking forward to the NA launch.
Yeah after playing the COB for a few levels, Aion takes many game features and makes it it's own. Deffenitely a game worthy to play later ths year.
A very good read indeed.
After playing the CH Closed Beta I realise...
Finnaly! An MMO I've played and still want to play after the first 20 levels. The only MMOs I've really stuck to is WoW and WAR. I'm really looking forward to the release!
See ya'll in game!
I thought the same thing when I played the CB. I usually stick to console and single player games since I find those to be more fun. I player a lot of other MMORPGS and besides having fun sometimes during some PvP or huge raid I just get bored doing the quests but once I played Aion I actually had fun during my entire time with the CB. I enjoyed all of the quests so far and I really enjoyed the combat too. They added some cool elements to the combat system that makes it more fun than any other MMO I've played, including AoC. Your dodge rate increases when you move left or right during combat and theres other rate increases when you move back or forth but I forgot what they were so you're rewarded for staying active during pve and pvp combat instead of just standing there and auto attacking/skill/spell monsters to death like in other mmos which gets pretty boring for me.
Nice read :D
would have been nice to add a bit more detail for those who dont know mush about AIon yet
Right now,
Aion doesn't have any equal rival. It's already delivering in Asia, let's hope it works well here.
Going back through my graphic MMO history, all the way back to Ultima Online at launch, a single game stands out of the pack. It stands out as being the only game I (and my wife, and my two closest real life gaming friends) unsubscribed from prior to the end of our free month.
Now, why did we cancel that game? We cancelled it because it had absurdly identical player characters, because it existed in a strange developer-less backwash of time, two steps removed from the real authors of the game, managed by translators and ill-equipped gms, because it was filled with bot farmers, griefers, and exploiters using mechanics that had been fixed or removed months earlier in the Korean release of the game but were being fixed on the same exact release schedule in North America (fixed is a misnomer, the fixes which existed were being translated), because the economy had prices in billions and trillions of coins after a few short levels, because the crafting - a skill central to an entire player-race - simply consisted of finding a special dropped item, unique to a single crafted item, raising the question of why bother to have crafting when it would be virtually the same to just drop the items....
I could go on, but suffice it to say that there are reasons why Linneage II is my personal worst-ever subscription MMO. People say it has an engaging plot line, but I wouldn't know. I got distracted by the swarms of level 4 guys one-shot slaughtering everyone with level 50 swords, the hordes of bots dominating hunting areas to the exclusion of anyone else, and the general lack of ability to actually play through a storyline.
So, tell me: Does Aion have some of these same problems? How is Aion's economy? class balance? item system? Nowhere in this not-so-thinly veilled marketing blurb for the game did I notice any criticism. Does this mean Aion is perfect?
Great overview of the highlights of Aion! Was happy to see it was from the viewpoint of a veteran Lineage 2 player, too.
Can this whole article be summed up as : It's not Lineage III, it's Lineage II with more character models and flight?
Lineage II has flight?
and it doesnt take 2 months of time played to get from lvl1 to lvl10 in aion like it did in lineage2...if you didn't bot that is
Aside from my curiosity regarding how you were not able to outrun a level 4 with a C-Grade weapon...
Economy - so far lower level items seem to still have use for higher level crafting. This seems to indicate that new players will continually have a market for the goods they harvest.
Class balance - I honestly think there's really no decent gauge of this from the CN release yet. Korean release has 5 months under its belt, so I'm hoping someone who can translate stuff from their forums can post about balance. Class baalance means jack all in PvE but is important for PvP, which is level 20 and up.
Item System - manastones are regular drops and they have differnt bonuses. parry, critical hit, MP/HP, etc. All armour that I have come across so far has one or more slots to stick mana stones on them, allowing people to easy upgrade their armor with stats tailored to their playstyle or character strengths. Armor seems to drop frequently enough that it makes for good sell loot and for decent upgrades to your equipment.
I've been playing COB and I'm currently on the release servers, and I really haven't found any major bugs or glaring faults to the game. The client is stable, I don't feel like I'm grinding, the quests are interesting and the animations/graphics are appealing to me.
There's a lot of little conveneinces to the game. Like WOW, they seemed to take each aspect of the game and say "What will make this more fun for the players?"
Some examples:
Selling junk loot - in most MMOs, you have grey/misc/junk loot. It's the grey stuff that is only there for you to sell and serves no other purpose. When you visit a vendor, there is a "Sell all misc" button that dumps all your junk loot into the sell window at once. This makes perfect sense, since that is the only reason you have it in your bag. It's a logical convenience.
Recall to bindpoint - 20 minute timer. It's a reasonable cooldown in order to make returning to your base quick, but reducing the chance of abuse. No one looks forward to the journey back after doing a quest. There's also no overly long animation/delay to recall. A few seconds and you are whisked to your bindpoint.
Flying - it's not just for travel. Air space has been made useful for travel, PvP, and even resource gathering as aether - a common material for crafting - is found in the sky. Flying is also entertaining, and you can regularly find people using every opportunity to double tap their spacebar to take to flight off of even the lowest of ledges.
Idle Animations - These change based on the region and weather. In the desert, an idling character willdust himself off. When wading, the character will play in the water. When it's snowing, the character will extend their arms and look up and around, appear to acknowledge/watch the snow.
General animations - a nice collection of general animations exist along with keyword triggered behavior. When saying "yes" or pointing or other preset phrases, your character will do the related action and the emote will also be written to local.
Localization is a 'context by context' translation. The developers translated based on the message and meaning of the text as opposed to a literal or 'babelfish' translation.
All in all, it's a very polished and rather entertaining game. If you were put off by Lineage 2, don't let that impression taint your view of Aion. It is a completely different game.
There are only two ways to fly in Lineage 2: 1.) having a strider(55+) and owning a fortress or castle and 2.) going to the new continent and getting transformed to fly over there. In Aion everyone can fly at lvl 10.
Aside from my curiosity regarding how you were not able to outrun a level 4 with a C-Grade weapon...
Economy - so far lower level items seem to still have use for higher level crafting. This seems to indicate that new players will continually have a market for the goods they harvest.
Class balance - I honestly think there's really no decent gauge of this from the CN release yet. Korean release has 5 months under its belt, so I'm hoping someone who can translate stuff from their forums can post about balance. Class baalance means jack all in PvE but is important for PvP, which is level 20 and up.
Item System - manastones are regular drops and they have differnt bonuses. parry, critical hit, MP/HP, etc. All armour that I have come across so far has one or more slots to stick mana stones on them, allowing people to easy upgrade their armor with stats tailored to their playstyle or character strengths. Armor seems to drop frequently enough that it makes for good sell loot and for decent upgrades to your equipment.
I've been playing COB and I'm currently on the release servers, and I really haven't found any major bugs or glaring faults to the game. The client is stable, I don't feel like I'm grinding, the quests are interesting and the animations/graphics are appealing to me.
There's a lot of little conveneinces to the game. Like WOW, they seemed to take each aspect of the game and say "What will make this more fun for the players?"
Some examples:
Selling junk loot - in most MMOs, you have grey/misc/junk loot. It's the grey stuff that is only there for you to sell and serves no other purpose. When you visit a vendor, there is a "Sell all misc" button that dumps all your junk loot into the sell window at once. This makes perfect sense, since that is the only reason you have it in your bag. It's a logical convenience.
Recall to bindpoint - 20 minute timer. It's a reasonable cooldown in order to make returning to your base quick, but reducing the chance of abuse. No one looks forward to the journey back after doing a quest. There's also no overly long animation/delay to recall. A few seconds and you are whisked to your bindpoint.
Flying - it's not just for travel. Air space has been made useful for travel, PvP, and even resource gathering as aether - a common material for crafting - is found in the sky. Flying is also entertaining, and you can regularly find people using every opportunity to double tap their spacebar to take to flight off of even the lowest of ledges.
Idle Animations - These change based on the region and weather. In the desert, an idling character willdust himself off. When wading, the character will play in the water. When it's snowing, the character will extend their arms and look up and around, appear to acknowledge/watch the snow.
General animations - a nice collection of general animations exist along with keyword triggered behavior. When saying "yes" or pointing or other preset phrases, your character will do the related action and the emote will also be written to local.
Localization is a 'context by context' translation. The developers translated based on the message and meaning of the text as opposed to a literal or 'babelfish' translation.
All in all, it's a very polished and rather entertaining game. If you were put off by Lineage 2, don't let that impression taint your view of Aion. It is a completely different game.
Thank you for these details.
My big concern about Aion has always been around whether it would be a grindfest or not. EQ1 bored me to tears with the endless hours spent fighting bats, snakes and spiders. Lineage II irritated me in similar ways. If Aion manages to have all these great things people are talking about while also staying interesting -- and it sounds from the COB comments like they've done exactly that -- then this game looks to be a winner.
Unfortunately yes the article is basically a summation of what has been said for years and lacks the things that mmo vets really want to know about.
But it is a good and visible preview for people who don't know very much about the game, great advertisment.
If the author had gone into the tidbits that to me really sets this game apart the article would have been a lot longer. :P Maybe that's not what they wanted.
There should be no PK at early levels as portals open up in only in higher level areas, (level 25 or 30 or so?) I hear crafting is really fun and while leveling the NPC gives you most of the mats you need to advance so you don't have to harvest like mad to get somewhere.
Armor customization, you can transfer the look of a beloved piece of armor to your next higher level and uglier piece. Cutscenes and voice overs, two things that set any 'asian' mmo to modern western mmos. A music score that'll give you shivers, a world that is unique and gets away from the usual fantasy deja vue.
It's the game that keeps on giving. :P Well so I hope.
I can try to answer some of those.
I've been playing LOTRO since release and I currently have a Level 24 and a Level 27 as my highest level characters. That in 289 logged hours of playing.
I have been playing Lineage 2 since release and my highest there is level 56.
In PotBS, leveling is retarded easy and I have only one Level 50 and two level 26s
As you can probably see, I spend more time exploring the game world and bullshitting in auction houses than I do leveling in MMOs.
In two weeks of Aion I have a level 19 character and have not felt any grind to my gameplay.
As for bats and spiders and boars... Aion does a good job of mixing in unique mobs with the standard fare of panther-like things furry humanoid-like things and insect-like things and such. Seeing the new fauna in a new area is part of the exploration of a new zone. I seem to make a subconscious effort to die to one of everything in an MMO, and Aion offers a wealth of new creatures just waiting to beat me senseless.
"Aion: Not Just a New Lineage"
That's pretty much what they have been saying all along for several years. I'm more concerned about the how the clown farm (NC North America) are going to run it.
The clown farm isn't NC NA. It's NA Playerbase. If they can manage to play just one game without trying to illegally buy their way through it or annoy the crap out of other players for the fun of it, maybe it will do well in the NA/EU market.
Say... I have been dreaming for this feature for years!
Well considering that before they changed the grind some in L2, money was hard to farm with all the bots and early leveling was also hard too. From what i have read and played on COB the grind is not bad and money is easy to make so i don't really see a whole lot of bots making a show in the higher level areas. As to what the reformed NCWest will do, they say they will be vigilate about 3rd party users and have seen some progress in L2, so they should do well enough to keep it under control.
I played the Chinease CB, and found it surprisingly fun, interesting, and full of PVE quests. i got to around lvl 15 by the end and changed professions to a Templar. found it to be a true sucessor of lineage2. the character customization are top notch, i maybe came across one person that had even a small resemblance of me out the whole time i was there. only 1! the quests are fun, enjoyable, the flight is useful, without being overly restrictive, but you do have to strategize how your going to use it, and make sure to keep an eye on your timer. i used some pots to extend my time flying which helps alot.
overall this is a big win for me, ill be playing once it is released. the PVE and PVP are interalaced nicely in the abyss. the quests are fun, the class choices are thought well, with spells, combos, and reactive spells, and counterspells/combos. felt this game was thought out very nicely, and it looks beautiful. i would definitely play this over the long term. I agree with the author, in Lineage 2 the character customizations, or lack there of, really made you feel like a cookie cutter character, and didnt make u feel apart of the larger picture. the pvp was good, but it also was extremely grindy, i didnt mind so much as I had a great time with the community, guild/clan politics/conflicts were off the chain! loved it, fighting raid bosses, pking, and fighting in catacombs and other various places. With AIOn i think they took all the good things of lineage2 and added much more. i think this game will be very successful.
Sow how's the combat sytem? Is it EQ style or something new?
Is it just target, autoattack and press buttons on your hotbar to kill stuff or is there some kind of other twist, like the real time combat in spellborn for example?
What is impressive is how flight isn't just randomly tossed in as a "oh-look.-it's-a-new-feature-we-tacked-on-to-make-this-game unique." When Lineage II opened up some flight to it's players, it was class and race restrictive. I wasn't about to reroll my level 63 SE just to run around with wings. For those who obtained flight through their striders...yeah..that was a goal that MAYBE only a handful of people could grind through leveling their pet and then be the lord of a castle ..sorry..I don't enjoy bleeding eyes :D
In AION, the feel of having wings and flying doesn't seem like an add on. Every aspect of the game incorporates flight...gathering aether in the air for crafting, to getting around (your wings are your mount :D). The game also takes into account the landscape. You can't glide uphill (obviously) but there are a lot of hills and rocks set about on moderately flat areas that allow you to get some height so you can glide. Another thing that is neat is the fact that some areas have updrafts. First time I caught one I was like "YES" I can fly forever...well..till I fell to my death when my timer ran out.
So many games have tried to incorporate flight but used them as travel from one place to another (Warhammer, WoW). The only comparision to how incorporating flight is..would have been if you could have jousted with your horses in Dark Age of Camelot or something like that. The only thing I am really hoping for is wing customization. Since I'm going to spend a good portion of my game time looking at my wings, I am hoping that I can tweak them the way I want them to look.
well kinda of hard to describe. i remember with my templar I had to target and attack my target but it wasnt simple as just autoattacking, as depending on what spell/combo i used dictated how fast the mob went down, such as defense debuff, a stun, then certain times id get hit depending on the combo i used would start a reactive/counter spell/combo such as a shield stun and then id finish him or her off with specific combo/spell. ALso had taunts, for mobs if im in a group, to grab aggro. i wouldnt call it auto attack button mash, but its also not deep either, its in the middle id say. you do have to use some thought/tactics into your fighting.
then you also have secondary combos that follow initial strikes/combos/spells. which i found surprisingly and fun.
well kinda of hard to describe. i remember with my templar I had to target and attack my target but it wasnt simple as just autoattacking, as depending on what spell/combo i used dictated how fast the mob went down, such as defense debuff, a stun, then certain times id get hit depending on the combo i used would start a reactive/counter spell/combo such as a shield stun and then id finish him or her off with specific combo/spell. ALso had taunts, for mobs if im in a group, to grab aggro. i wouldnt call it auto attack button mash, but its also not deep either, its in the middle id say. you do have to use some thought/tactics into your fighting.
Neat.
And I think I read somewhere that the game wasn't going to be a massive x amount of months to reach max level grind.
This might a game worth checking out, even though I'm not a big fan of the anime look. =)
Thank you for the fast answer mate.
Cheers!
Neat.
And I think I read somewhere that the game wasn't going to be a massive x amount of months to reach max level grind.
This might a game worth checking out, even though I'm not a big fan of the anime look. =)
Thank you for the fast answer mate.
Cheers!
i made lvl 15 in about 2-3 days, and i was taking my time frankly. the quests give u pretty decent xp, as well as the mobs. so if you sat for a good amount of hours, u can make easily lvl 10-20 in a day or 2 tops maybe less. its definitely not grindy. not to mention there are some string/chain quests that involve a small story, so it has some interesting reads. and its not really linear as certain quests will lead off, and break off or branch off to certain areas.
Sorry, but I refuse to buy into the hype. I'm not a "hater," but EVERY Korean MMO has the same flaws: they're grindfests, their stories/lore are always ridiculous and catered to emo teenagers,and their graphics are identical, with men always looking like women and women looking like supermodels.
Sorry, but I pass on Aion.
Well your loss if you want but it is not even close to a grind fest.
http://forum.mmosite.com/topics/245/200811/10/206,1.html
so can i say EVERY western mmorpg is like wow?
anyway your loss,
I went through your past 5 or 6 posts to see what you *do* like and it seems to have a generalization-based ardent dislike for everything. Hoping you find something eventually that suits you.
This was really refreshing to read!! I've been peering at Aion in the corner of one eye for awhile now.. I'm playing LOTRO right now and enjoying it, so I'm not in desperate need of a new game, but I think I will definately try out Aion when it launches here... Thanks for the article,, getting more excited because it sounds like this game is gonna have some uniqueness to it!! FINALLY!!
Doesnt seem like much new to me...other then maybe flying at an early level. I'm sure its still the same old MMORPG style game we're all used to.
*taps foot* Still waiting on a company to come out with something we havent seen before... I aint getting any younger. LOL
Ok the only thing that I question Aion on is how long it will take mmo vets to say they are bored when they have completed endgame because Aion other than flight and nice graphics really doesn't bring a ton of newness to mmos. Aion needs to bring something new to the table, needs to have a good community and it really needs to be fun for players to stay interested for the long haul.
Good point. That's exactly why WOW failed.
Is it that you haven't read any of the responses here, or you just don't accept them?
Great link, Sgt! Shows off the character customization and also shows that it's not easy to make a good Angelina Jolie clone no matter how many people try. :)
Making choices and forming opinions without any facts or experiance is generally a great idea!
Yes lets base everything off of wild speculation and heresay!
I mean what is logic anyway...
Aion is a great and unique game, I reached level 10 in Lineage 2 before I got horribly bored, Aion has kept my attention for quite a bit longer and I still can't wait for the NA relase.
Saying that all Korean Grinder games are the same sounds almost racist. I just don't see why people can't just form opinions about things without bringing race into it, yes the game is from Korea, no its not a grindfest.
I was wondering how does this game compares to The Chonicles Of Spellborn?
Can't say play wise but both these games bring many of the same game quailities but i hear TCoS doesn't have the customability that Aion has.
Two totallly and completely opposite titles. Just watching some general gameplay videos will show you the differences.
Spellborn is a niche game, and was created as so. Aion has more commercial flare, of course, and both offer completely different gameplay elements.
Can't say play wise but both these games bring many of the same game quailities but i hear TCoS doesn't have the customability that Aion has.
Spellborn is all about being able to customize your character. The only thing lacking is character creation, the rest of the game is geared towards players being in control and unique. You won't find as many cookie-cutter builds and skilldecks around, at all.
I thought the character customization in TCoS was pretty good. The reason being that it allowed a wide range of customization of the aspects of your character that peopel will actually see and recognize (armor, body style, colors, etc) as opposed to just face which few people, even the player himself, ever see.
So much praise for flight mechanics that are already old. Perfect World has the ability for players to fly, with no timers on flight, aerial combat, and no restrictions on where you can fly. These "reviewers" need to start coming up with better reasons than "you can fly" for AION.
The customization? Sorry, Perfect World has them beat there as well.
And Perfect World is free.
So, what makes AION worth paying for?
A lot of the same issues keep coming up in this thread, and instead of Tricia "Seridove" Bennon doing a detailed write up about the true differences between Aion and L2 they choose to center in on the "pretty" factor for the most part.
L2 downfalls
The Grind- Come on, who wants to spend 2 weeks grinding out 10% of a level just to screw up one pull and lose all your work.
The Economy- We can all admit the prices in L2 were pretty nuts, i mean having to spend part of your paycheck just to advance in the game just to have the chance to break the item.... harsh..
Character Customization- (Covered by Tricia "Seridove" Bennon in the article)
Graphics- (Again covered by Tricia "Seridove" Bennon)
Restrictive movement ( See graphics)
Class Balance issues - Some classes that are much better then others in there respective field, some classes that are soo boring but soo needed you only play them as alts/duel boxing.
Buffs- Ok lets admit it, in L2 the one who had the buffs was the one who won the fight 90% of the time buffs were amazingly huge.
Crafting- Rarely do we see 1 race pigeon-holed into being the crafters, more over rarely do we see crafting being so useless at the same time.
Where Aion learns from Lineage 2
The Grind - The leveling curve in this game can be compared to many to that of world of warcraft, it is not difficult to level at all. Some levels might seem tougher then others, and sometimes you might run through quests faster then you had hoped.... happens in any game at release doesn't it? Between the cut-scenes, the Quests and Missions (yes, they are different) and the HUGE amount of XP that group related quests give you.... this game takes the Grind out of Korean games....
The Economy- Well most people on here will talk with a limited scope of detail on that subject. Going purely off COB and C-Live i can tell you i have had the ability to keep myself well geared (greens atleast) at all times often having to be bought from the AH and still had the funs to pay for all my skills and support crafting.
Gear Customization- The ability to not only take the appearence of any gear you like and transfer the stats of your existing gear. But to dye your armor as you see fit, as well as the ability to socket your armor with "Gems" known as Manastones and Godstones. With the only TRUE risk being the dice roll you take as you put in multiple stones into one piece of gear. If you fail a stone insertion you will lose all previous stones inside the object, the risk is worth it and is also much more acceptable then the Loss of the gear like in L2.
Class Balance- Still a subject that needs to be further looked into. What we can say so far is that all classes are enjoyable to play, are very useful to themselves and the groups they will find them self in. And there is not a class you will find yourself needing but dreading to play or having to duel box.
Buffs- The class balance issue brings us right down to buffs, and the Chanter the source of all the "real" buffs in the game. The Chanter recieves many buffs, 2 of them much like the Cleric are priest related and bonuses to hitpoints and defenses of any person they choose to cast them on, those buffs last 1 hour. The chanter also recieves self damage oriented weapon buffs (much like those of Warcraft's shaman), he also receives Mantras Aura esk buffs that can buff just about any combination of stats in the game with the addition of Mana HoT and Health HoT Mantras (again much like World of Warcraft's Shaman (i.e totems)). The Mantras work much like Paladin from WoW, and have a certain distance to them, tho it's so far been confirmed that you can have 2 mantras up at a time.
Death Penalty- Much like Lineage 2 there will be some Penalty for your death, tho it will not be nearly as harsh. The current Penalty for death in Aion is xp loss that is cureable by "healing" your soul at the npc. The Experience loss is a Set 5% at current tho there is no level loss upon death. So, death is much like many of our current MMO's a walk back to where we were, and some money pissed away.
Crafting- Aion does a good job of putting in a crafting system that is both easy to use and functional. Whether your making multiple potions at once instead of one at a time, a book for your Sorcerer to help your magic damage and accuracy, or simply armor or weapons for you and your friends to help level and PvP.
I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
its all about the quality of the game aswell, there are many wow f2p clones out there but none have put a dent in wow...it may have features that are in Aion but it is not done well at all. i did not enjoy perfect world
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
its all about the quality of the game aswell, there are many wow f2p clones out there but none have put a dent in wow...it may have features that are in Aion but it is not done well at all. i did not enjoy perfect world
Okay, so you don't like PW. But let's focus on the mechanics. Timed flight with area restrictions is better than free flight anywhere at any time?
How are the mechanics not done well in PW, and how are they done better in AION?
Okay, so you don't like PW. But let's focus on the mechanics. Timed flight with area restrictions is better than free flight anywhere at any time?
How are the mechanics not done well in PW, and how are they done better in AION?
The flight experience is POLISHED. The restriction is set in place for lore reasons. If you want to fly 24/7, go play PW. This game isn't build around that concept. Flight is intended as a strategic element, not an end-all or way to travel quickly. Go watch some actual PVP videos in Abyss and see how it works instead of making empty assumptions that derail the thread while you state random facts and questions the OP was never intended to answer or address. I have a FAQ posted up, read it.
Does PW offer massive RVR while maintaining good performance and introduce PvPvE? No? Well, those are what the gameplay focuses on later, not flying all day.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
And the article left you with qestions. So go dig up the answers instead of going back and forth demanding answers but not wanting to hear them.
Go play the game and find out. Go watch a gameplay video to SEE for yourself. Or, just go hit up the FAQ or Aion section of the forums. Your info is there. Quit derailing the thread with nonsense about PW -- this thread was comparing L2 and Aion.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Exactly. But he doesn't want to understand that. He seems to think it read something about PW or any game that offered flight.
hey wisel, the chinese Clinet of the game is haveing a two week free trial on two servers. why no try the game out and see the difference for yourself :D
you can find info on the internet on how to sighn up
LOL.....got to love the trolling he is doing. If not then he is completely missing the boat.
Okay, so you don't like PW. But let's focus on the mechanics. Timed flight with area restrictions is better than free flight anywhere at any time?
How are the mechanics not done well in PW, and how are they done better in AION?
I just wanted to throw out my own mini review of the Chinese beta version of Aion. Just so you know I have several years experience playing World of Warcraft (Given up due to Blizzard’s extremely piss poor customer service). I have also played Age of Conan, Ever Quest II, Dungeons and Dragons on-line, Ultima On-line and Lord of the Rings online. Today is April 20th 2009.
I am currently playing on the Chinese open beta (Yes the Beta servers are still up and running even though the Chinese version is now live). Not sure why the beta servers were left up but I will continue to play until the boot me. I am also using the unofficial beta English patch which is far from complete. I’m sad to say I don’t know what version of Aion this actually is as a lot of the game is still in Chinese so I can’t read the version numbers…
Lastly take into account I still have not hit the higher levels yet so this will obviously not be a complete review; just first impressions.
My system is Windows Vista Ultimate x64. 6 gigs ram. 2 duel core Xeon processors (3.2 Ghz each) and a NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ graphics card. 24” Dell monitor running at 1920 x 1200. I have high speed SCSI hard drives. Contrary to the graphics card and specs, this is not a gaming system. It’s a computer workstation and thus normally is not very good at graphics in 3d. It’s built to handle lots of information very reliably and only with 2D stuff.
Not once has the game lagged out or crashed or given any hint of a hiccup and this is while connected to a the Chinese beta server half way across the world. Stability does not appear to be an issue.
To start of with, the game loaded fine even though I had to down load and patch everything in Chinese (Then add the English patch file). Nice that it was simple enough to do so even without being able to read any instructions. The game does take a long time to load. Unusually long but I suspect it is due to the hard core graphics it uses.
The character creation screen is really nice. There are 23 pre selectable head designs and you can modify any one of the 30+ facial attributes and 13+ body attributes to customize the looks of your character completely. From the number of videos floating around on Youtube with people designing toons that look like famous people (President Obama for example) you can pretty much design any look you want here. You can even select one of several voices for your character but that functionality is not working yet apparently. You can also view what your character will look like nearly nekkid, with average and heavily armored. There is also a random generator for the looks of your character which will randomly choose settings for you. Keep clicking it and eventually you will find one you like. About the only thing I found missing on this screen was a random character name generator. I suspect once the servers start to fill up finding a name not already taken will be a chore. I hope they add this functionality.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Mage-Female.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterSelection.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Body.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Face1.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Face2.jpg
The game graphics really are nice. Think of it as a cross between Lord of the Rings on-line world graphics, Age of Conan character graphics and World of Warcraft’s (When not lagged) fluid movements. The game world looks outstanding. About on par with LOTRO, possibly slightly better. The looks of the characters and their animations beat out Age of Conan. Even with all the enhanced graphics, the game is still way smoother then WoW even on a lag free day. If you see still screenshots of Aion, just know that the animations of those screenshots are even more impressive. All the screen shots you see here are with all graphic options turned on. Something I can’t even start to do in WoW or Age of Conan with this computer.
Audio is great as well. I am concerned that the audio pretty much stays on all the time though. I’d rather have it where the music turns off after time and restarts later or when you change areas or actions otherwise I will get sick of it no matter how nice it sounds. Even so the music flows well and the sound effects of the toons are great. Unfortunately many of them are still in Chinese and I can’t hear the final English translation yet.
The attention to detail with the character animations is outstanding. From the changes in eye shape, flowing robes, even the smallest hand and finger gestures for virtually every action. There is a large number of emotes I was able to activate from the emote screen. Unfortunately I was not able to just type /dance /wave etc. as that does not seem to be working yet. I suspect once again due to translation issues. NPCs move around and won’t always be in the same locations.
In game day and night and weather is active and although I did not verify this myself supposedly it affects game play to some extent. I’d like someone to verify this however.
The User Interface is very easy to use and simple. I was up and running in no time using it. Nice to have a simple lock button right on the action bars to lock your action bars. You can also move UI to various parts of the screen. Opening bags and moving things around is very easy. The icons are extremely clear and recognizable. I give the user interface a solid A.
Here is a screen shot of the character screen:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterScreen.jpg
Her is one of just the basic controls:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterScreenshot.jpg
Here is the friends list (Apparently I don’t have any friends):
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/FriendsPanel.jpg
There are also search panels for groups and guilds and also an in game notepad.
Looting is pretty straight forward with an autoloot option available:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/ManaStones.jpg
Training new spells is done at the various trainers throughout the world. They sell books you use to learn new spells and abilities. You can purchase these in advance if you know you will be leveling soon and have the money and space.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/MageTrainer.jpg
The in game world map is extremely well done. Works very similar to the one in WoW and LOTRO but is much improved over those.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Map2.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Mapandhelppanel.jpg
There does seem to be some type of in game macro and script file language but I have no information on it other then what you can see here in the screen shot. I don’t know if Aion supports any type of addon.:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Macros.jpg
Gathering in game seems to work well but I think it is way to slow in my opinion. You can see the requestor here in this screen shot. It seems to take anywhere up to 5 seconds to gather an item depending on your skill level. It appears you don’t really just pick it up as you do in some games but you draw the essence out of the items. The animation it does when you gather is really well done. When you gather an item, you gain a small amount of Experience
Quest giver and other NPC markings are above the respective toons heads like in most games. Very crisp and easy to read. Quest turn-in locations are shown on the minimap and world maps with a duplicate mini icon.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/HotNPCs.jpg
The quests are very straight forward. Much of the same variety as you’d find in most games. Collect x number of body parts from x number of creatures, collect items, find certain locations, timed quests etc. There are repeatable quests as well. In addition to normal quests you also have Missions and Work orders. Work orders are crafting quests. Missions are story line type quests and are usually much more involved. The quest text is well written and easy to under stand. I did encounter a few translation issues but those should be worked out soon. In addition wherever in the requestors it mentions a person, place or thing you can click it and it will bring up additional information on that person, place or thing. Also there is usually a ‘Location’ button that when pressed will show the the location on the world map. All the requestors are really some sort of hyper text based as they are all interlinked. It’s really nice. You can track up to 7 quests on the right side of the screen.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Questgiver.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/LordSlut2.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/LordSlut.jpg
Death sucks like usual in every game. When you die you get a nice animation of your character keeling over gracefully as the screen turns and goes dark. You can rez at an Obelisk easily. When you die you actually lose XP. You can gain the XP back by spending cash at a nearby Spirit healer (Not the correct name). You can change the location of your home Obelisk at any time but there is a price to do so.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Death.jpg
I only visited a fraction of the world so far. It is huge. I couldn’t really say how large in comparison as to the world in some games but looks to be large enough to keep us all busy for a long time.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Sanctum2.jpg
The game does have an in game coordinates system but I was not able to find a way to keep the coordinates on screen all the time. Perhaps someone else found a way?
There are Teleporters in various towns and cities. Short range teleporters will fly you to nearby areas. Long range ones will teleport you directly. All for a price of course. Money so far has not been an issue in the game.
The Auction house (Broker as they call it) seems to work well. I had one major issue with it however in that you can only put into the Broker 10 different items (Or stacks of items) at once. Maybe this is a beta limit? I couldn’t possibly see how this could be a real limit. The game would have no economy at all with such a limit. If this is a real limit it needs to be changed fast. Real fast.
OK. Now this is very important: Whenever my character uses bandages to heal herself, she says something in Chinese that sounds like ‘Chicken and peace’. This is driving me nuts. Can anyone who speaks Chinese please tell us what the heck what sounds like ‘Chicken and Peace’ means in Chinese? All I know is I keep getting hungry the more I play and I’m going nuts trying to figure it out!
There are 6 professions in the game (Weapon smithing, alchemy, jewelry, armor smithing, tailoring, cooking and gathering). I tried both cooking, tailoring and gathering. I do not know if there is a limit to how many you can learn. I was also able to learn an additional language although I don’t know what advantage this does for me.
Crafting seems to work well. Only hang up is I tried making some cloth armor items and it would not allow me to do so. No error messages, it just would not allow me to click the Create button. Turns out I needed to be standing next to a Loom in order to make the item. It would be nice if there was some kind of requestor or text in red stating what was missing for me to make the tailoring item. Same thing with food, I needed to be next to a stove in order to do so but there was no indication as to what was wrong, just could not make it.
Weapons and Armor all have manastone sockets, similar to WoW’s gem sockets. Some items have multiple sockets. When you socket an item there is a chance it will fail. If it does fail all existing manastones will be destroyed.
There is a really convenient Lock Action bars button on the action bar itself. Just click it and you won’t accidentally drag icons off your toolbar. Very nice.
As you progress through the game you earn various titles. Each title grants various stat bonuses. You can choose which title to display and when you change Titles you also change which bonuses you have currently.
Each character can set up at any time a Private Store. Just bring up the menu to activate it and select which items you wish to sell and for what price. Also choose some text to display over your character. When you activate this, your character sets up a mini store in game on the spot and anyone walking by can browse your goods and buy things from you. It was very easy to set up and such. The text you choose is displayed over your toon to advertise what you are selling.
In addition to standard abilities (Tossing fireballs and such) you also have chain spells. These are combination spells when done in the correct order have additional effects (Bonus damage etc.). Very easy to use and not at all complicated. Very well implemented.
Combat is quick and very well done. Even though I am connected to a server on the other side of the world the lag was not an issue. The game is very responsive and I suspect will be more so when played on a local server. You really do feel drawn into the combat. Character movement is very smooth. Difficulty was about what I would expect. For a character leveling up I am able to kill any single target of equal level without much issue. Two is a pain but doable. Three is too much. My character is a sorcerer though so all DPS and not much defense. I had just learned the sleep spell (Crowd Control) and what appears to be sort of a reverse blink spell. Even in groups with lots of mobs around and everyone doing various things the combat was simple and fun. Great graphics and no lag that I could see. Character position and facing makes a big difference in this game, especially in 3d combat.
Flying: At level 9 you receive your ascension quest line. Just a couple of easily done quests that automatically advances you to level 10 where you learn to fly (So you basically skip level 9). Flying has a limit to the amount of time you can stay in the air. At level 10 you can stay flying for 1 minute. As you go up in level the flight time increases. I also found several potions and saw some other items that will grant you extra flight time. Flying was simple with take off and landing buttons, also up and down buttons. You move forward and backwards and turn like normal. Anything you can do on the ground you can do in the air including combat.
I have a few gripes about the flying however:
As you go through the world there are some area you can fly in and some you can’t. No rhyme or reason as to why which is which. The icon for flying highlights when you can is you can tell for certain.
As I was flying I kept running into invisible walls. Not sure why. Seems they should just open up the world completely and allow you to go where you wish.
In order to unfold your wings and take off you have to select one icon then you select another icon to rise up. These should be one and the same button. Same thing for down. One button goes down and the other tells your character to collapse his wings. This should be automatic. If you say go up your character should unfold his wings and fly up with one button and if you fly down to the ground it should be obvious you want to land. Shouldn’t have two separate buttons.
I did not do any dueling or pvp. I have no idea what kind of instances the game has at all. The only time I saw the load screens other then game start-up was when I changed continents.
Throughout the game there are numerous short videos that play. Sort of like a cut scenes in a movie. These break up the grind and add a bit to the ambience of the game. I suspect they should add an option to turn those off though as some folks will not like them. Personally I do.
I was not able to find a way to adjust the camera angle via keyboard shortcut. If you know of a way please let me know. If there is not a way this really needs to be added. Having to adjust the camera angle via mouse is cumbersome and slow when you are a keyboard user. I had no problems modifying the keyboard controls of everything else in the game. I saw several posts of people who were not able to reassign some of their side mouse buttons. I don’t have those so could not test that.
At level 10 you choose what subclass you wish to be. There are four main classes and each class has two subclasses. I do not know if there is a way to switch at a later date if you chose the wrong one. The 4 classes and their subclasses are: Warrior (Gladiator and Templar), Scout (Ranger and Assassin), Mage (Sorcerer and Spiritmaster) and Priest (Cleric and Chanter).
There are two factions players can choose from, Elyos and Asmodians. There is also a third computer controlled faction called Balaur. Balaur are basically demons and are intelligent NPCs. They may help or hinder either of the two player factions at any time. Each faction has their own starting area and zones. The Asmodians occupy the upper part of the shattered world while the Elyos occupy the lower half. The Balaur occupy the center area (The Abyss).
Each character also has 5 Stigma slots. Stigma slots may be filled with stones that grant your character an ability of a different class. At level 20 you get 2 slots, 1 more at levels 30, 40 and 50.
Under your health and mana bars (After level 10) you will also see a Divine Power bar. As you combat others you slowly build up Divine Power. When you have enough you can unleash some very powerful abilities. At the levels I was playing at, it took a good 30 minutes or so for me to build up enough Divine Power to unleash an ability so it’s not something you get to use often.
Aion has a built in help system, unfortunately the English translation did not have most of the help system included. There are in game videos as well as text help, none of which is working in English yet. Fortunately the game is so easy to figure out you don’t really need much help.
Aion is produced in Korea so naturally they released it in Korea first. The Chinese market is the largest market in the world so it’s expected they would open it up there next (Already released in China now). Japan is the next release area (Slated for July 2009 or so). Translation to Japanese will take minimal work and all the data centers running the servers in Korea could be used to run the Japanese ones so that’s why I suspect they chose to release Aion in Japan next. They are close enough distance to run them all out of the same data centers. Japan is a large market with minimal work involved.
I suspect the long delay for the USA and Europe release (Sept 2009???) is due to all the translation work to English, re working all the quest lines and recording all the voiceovers. In addition the installation software and documentation will have to be converted as well. The biggest delay in bringing the game to the USA and Europe will be building all the data centers to house and connect all the servers to the Internet. Not an easy task and extremely expensive. I suspect they will need all the cash from the other markets to do so. Those kinds of datacenters are not easy to put together nor cheap.
All in all Aion is a winner. I suspect in a patch or two they will have fixed the majority of the little items and the other translations will take a lot of time but I’m sure they will get it right. It’s amazing this game is already this good and they have not even released it in the USA yet. As far as the lower levels go Aion is already better then the other on-line multi-player role playing games I’ve played so far and they are just getting started. I can’t wait for the finished product.
Now if I could just figured out what that ‘Chicken and peace’ thing means…
NOT MADE BY ME BUT A REVIEW BY THE SAME PERSON WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE
If all of that came from the OP i take back what i said about them only taking the "fluff" of this game seriously as the differences between the 2 games.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Yeah, I think I did look at the article in the wrong light. My bad.
Think I'll go look up that trial also.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character.
Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does...
I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this.
Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
This one was done by Seridove, not by Jon.I see your point, though. :)
I think the game will do very well in NA.
But you really have to compare Aion with PW as they both have delved deeply in flight. Aion is far closer to PW than it is to Linage. PW runs on lower end machines very well, there is very little lag in the game even in large fights.
Oh and BTW SgtFrog your system is probably better than most of the posters gaming systems on this site. Hardly a good comparison.
Aion character customization. As good as COH is, this is way better.
See for yourself.
Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.
Note that I don't deny the fact that Aion may offer one to ten truckloads of options more than what CoH has (Having been only mildly interested in Aion up till now, I actually had no idea and must thank you for enlightening me on this, though). I was just pointing at an "inaccurate" statement. Let's sum it up this way : "Quality or quantity aside, there ARE other games that enable players to create a truly unique character, and those aren't all that hard to find". Hell, with enough refreshes, I could probably shoot a screen of the article with ads of both EVE and CoH just next to it !
Oh, and sorry about the author/editor confusion. Didn't know the poster wasn't the writer ^_^'
[EDIT as the post quoted hereafter was posted while I was writing my answer. Anyone knows how to make a quote block, btw ?]
[quote]Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.[/quote]
May I "WTF?" you back ? I honestly see no obvious relation between customizability and cel shading. Semantics aside, well, I have no video nor first hand experience to back it, of course, but please read the article I linked to. It has a list of customization points which you will find informative (if your objective was to actually have a constructive argument in the first place).
I will add that it has recently been announced that players of Champions will be given the option of turning said cel-shading off. The resulting graphic quality will remain subject to personal tastes, but that fact kind of invalidate your statement.
I have a strong feeling I will love this game. Super excited here! Will be buying this one for sure :)
www.youtube.com/watch
There's a video with korean's 1.2 customization, way more extensive than China's one (1.0)
I have played Aion China Beta till lv 10 and it has great depth in quest and item and the combo system make it fun and interesting
wow, i can't even read this crap. I read as far as the following paragraph, then realized this is anything but an objective editorial.
"....If all it took was stunning graphics, a continuous and in-depth quest based story line, and involved large scale player versus combat then AION just might fill the role of being heralded as Lineage III. However, AION delivers so much more. It takes those elements we love in games and makes them better. No, it does more than that. AION spreads its wings and soars to new heights."
It spreads it's wings and soars to new heights??? /puke are you gonna pork it or play it?
I guess this isn't the site for objective journalism about MMORPG's anymore :-(
I'm not saying the game sucks, or is great, as someone who hasn't played it yet, i don't know., but it does look promising. but OMG put the advertising the banners were they belong!
First off, NCSoft owns City of Heroes as well as Aion. Secondly, Aion's customization owns CoH's and Perfect World's. They don't even compare. This is coming from a fan of CoH...Perfect World is just plain laughable. CoH did the uber customization thing long before PW did, and Aion expands on it to blow them both out of the water.
Lets see! :
Size:
CoH - Actually, CoH lets you get pretty small, so they do well here.
Perfect World - Height is barely customizable and the bar doesn't make a huge different from left to right.
Aion - Tiny, Tall, whatever.
Build:
CoH - Once again, CoH builds are pretty varied; you have both skinny and muscular, but you don't have fat. Some might like a girthy character, especially those who are looking to make their characters look like dwarves.
Perfect World - Nope. You can expand the hips and waist, but not much. Not to mention, Perfect World models are third-world compared to Aion
Aion - Fat, skinny, muscular, whatever.
Face:
CoH - One of the few places CoH fails. The faces don't change much. There's some sliders but they don't add anything unique
Perfect World - Actualy does a marvelous job with faces!
Aion - does it better :3
Age:
CoH - has some older static faces, but once again, you can't edit them much beyond what's pre-made
Perfect World - Nope. You can make yourself ugly if you want, but I've never seen an old toon.
Aion - Yep! Make them young or old. Want a short, young angelic cherub? Sure! Want an old, gruff male cleric? Go for it!
Models:
CoH - Attractive for its time, but showing its age.
Perfect World - Models aren't even symmetrical. This is why animators and designers should know how to draw before entering their field. Believe it or not, it's not actually required. Sad, isn't it?
Aion - Gorgeous, accurate, realistic. Not over muscled, not undermuscled. You'll adore your avatar. In fact, you'll probably spend a lot of time in the first day of the game just looking at yourself. You're that cool looking. Srsly.
Flight: (Not about customization but I'll cover it anyway)
CoH - Has flight and combat flight. One of the first to do this well.
Perfect World - Has combat flight...SORTA. If you attack a monster or person on the ground, you better be able to 1hit them, because if they can't reach you their health will just refill. Furthermore, unless you're a Wing Elf, you can't fly until 30. Oh, and when you do get that flight, it's slow. Really, really slow. Unless of course, you buy a faster one in the item mall >_>;
Aion - You fly by level 10, combat flight is engaging and thorough and you can fight enemies on the ground while in the air. Not an item mall feature! Nope, don't need to spend $50+ to get a faster mount and speed upgrades, future upgrades to your flight speed covered in that spiffy, low monthly fee. As you level, you fly faster and longer. Also, wing upgrades in addition to stones and other enhancements effect your speed and timer. So yes, you need to use your flight strategically, but no it's not nearly as restrictive as people claim.
very interesting review. i have always followed aion, but unfortunately didnt make it into any betas. however, theres something id like to know about a feature, and im sorry if this question has been answered before.
I played ffxi for over 4 years, and you have the possibility to have several jobs per character. does aion offer such thing, or do u just create a new character in order to play a different job? I would really like the way that Square enix did it in ffxi
thanks for ur answer
By job, do you mean crafting like cooking, alchemy, weaponsmithing, etc? If so, you can take as many as you want on the same character.
lineage 2 had great features for its time, but it still was a horrible and painful game because of the grind. It doesn't matter how many features this game has, it is a korean grindfest at heart... I guess this is the p2p version of the korean grind fest, now with stuff to grind towards! (in f2p grindfests, you grind so you can grind some more)
This baseless sweeping generalization probably would have carried more weight if you weren't posting on a forum where people are already playing it and know otherwise.
I admire your loyalty to your convictions, though!
Unfortunately you would have to roll an Alt if you would like to play as another class. Although this is pretty standard for most class based games aside from FFXI's Job system which I do love myself.
Off the top of my head I do not know of any other class based games that let your 1 character swap out anytime to other classes aside from FFXI.
Biggest problem for the game is (and will be when released in EU/NA) bots. Korea is full of them, China is full of them, make no mistake, NA/EU WILL be full of them. On top of that, we will have same lame support as ever, if not worse (with closing EU offices/merging to NCWest). I really hope they get themselfs together this time and prove me wrong, but all my previous experience with NCSoft is horrible. And thats coming from a (ex) L2 addict, all the WoW fanbois will proly leave the game once they see the first bot train or hit the lvl 17 mission barrier. Updates are the other issue we will most likely suffer from, it takes them a freaking year to release the game here and we will most likely get 1.01 or something at launch
The other thing that bothers me a bit is the endgame, not only because of the grind (Abyss rank, not char levels). Dont know if the western players are ready to embrace player-driven endgame, look what happened to WAR. And Aion is 'worse' in a sence it has no scenarios, so again the wow crowd will find it hard to adapt. Well, time will tell, lets hope all goes well
Ok the costumization has sold this game to me. I was greatly disapointed in AoC that promished the same but during the beta they turned off most of the costumization because they couldnt get it to work with their poorly made item graphics so in the end everyone looked the same at 5 yards distance.
In Aion it actually look like you can look unique and that is the single most important feature in a MMO for me.
lwww.aionsource.com/forum/general-discussion/9340-first-bots-aion.html
Read this if you do not like bot games
I think the good point here is that Aion feels a bit (just a bit, tiny parts) like DaoC. And so is the endcontent, its all about PvP. Now, ask yourself if you like PvP, would you "ask" about endgamecontent or would you rather enjoy the "epic battles"? I think if a player choose Aion because he likes the Raid/Instance Stuff, doing that on a daily base because it is "his" big love, then he might be wrong in Aion.(Aion is not offering Instance gaming on a large scale like WoW for example, there are some but not that much and even more important, you DONT have to do all Instances before you can participate in any pvp!!) But if you love PvP and siegebattles and choose Aion, you will find your "playerheaven".
Playing in China opend my eyes. A company has NOT to make the wheel new everytime when they do a game, just take the "old wheel" and make it a shiny "alloy rim". And Aion is exactly doing that. It feels great to play, No Grind so far (2 chars lvl 25+) And if you see your first elite mobs, you will see the difference. Fights take a bit longer at all also in PvP, your not 2 hit and death.
I personally cant wait for the release in NA/EU, honestly. I hope that the com which will give Aion a shot has an open mind and if so, they will get a really great game.
[quote]
As Elyos and Asmodian players battle for domination, ownership of strategic control points is sought. Scattered about the Abyss, these successfully captured control points grant their owners bonuses which help conquer keeps and build defenses. A feature somewhat familiar to Warhammer Online players, the taking of control points will add strategy when engaging in massive player-versus-player combat.
[/quote]
A feature that has so far been beyond sub par. What makes NCSoft think they can do this better?
If this game CAN do this, and still have a decent amount of depth (something which WAR) doesn't have, It might take quite a chunk of it's player base.
I have strong feeling this will be another overhyped disappointment...
I strongly doubt it.
I've followed the game for quite some time and had high expectations, and when I finally got to try it the game delivered even beyond my hype. Sure, I haven't tried high lvl stuff yet but so far what I've seen of the game is just amazing.
Everyone should at least try it.
Is it that you do not know it's already been released in two countries, runs stable, has received great reviews across the board and has over a million paying customers....
...or you just don't want to know?
Looking forward to this one. Hopefully they will work out any potential launch issues and bugs with Team Asia doing the "relaese/beta-testing" for us. I will definitely be giving this one a shot.
Darn near as close as you can get right now, yes. Havent had any issues that promted me to call on a GM, the economy so far is great and the character customization is a never-before-seen, you will NEVER see anyone in the game that has a character that looks like yours (I havent) and my character is pretty normal and still I can't find one like him. No bots so far (that will soon change because they are in every mmo).
One of my favorit things about Aion is that you can learn every craft ( you get xp for every item you craft), just like in FFXI. I could'nt do that in WoW unless I had multiple toons and picked a craft I needed for each, I luv it.
Join thier email so you can jump in when they begin open bata....i can't wait to try it.
If they let you construct a toon like COH I will be happy. This picking a toon of dozens is not as much fun as being allowed to play with the aspects of sizing the entire body .
My little one loves makiing the characters more than playing the games. COH is better than SIMS for that with the exception of using Things like Milkshape, SIMPE,Bodyshop. In which I can add options for her. Oh how I would love to use those things in my games.
Okay, I saw the Vidio and i need more hair styles, lol.
If you loved the COH/COV one, you will cry out loud when you make your first toon in Aion. You have zillions of combinations :) Its just awesome. And we know that SWG or Vanguard had many choices as well regarding charakter creation. But that one, is realy top notch.
Nope its a new lineage with Wings. woooooo. Screw Aion that shits retarded.
I hope you realize you just stamped your forehead with a massive L.
First off, NCSoft owns City of Heroes as well as Aion. Secondly, Aion's customization owns CoH's and Perfect World's. They don't even compare. This is coming from a fan of CoH...Perfect World is just plain laughable. CoH did the uber customization thing long before PW did, and Aion expands on it to blow them both out of the water.
Lets see! :
Size:
CoH - Actually, CoH lets you get pretty small, so they do well here.
Perfect World - Height is barely customizable and the bar doesn't make a huge different from left to right.
Aion - Tiny, Tall, whatever.
Build:
CoH - Once again, CoH builds are pretty varied; you have both skinny and muscular, but you don't have fat. Some might like a girthy character, especially those who are looking to make their characters look like dwarves.
Perfect World - Nope. You can expand the hips and waist, but not much. Not to mention, Perfect World models are third-world compared to Aion
Aion - Fat, skinny, muscular, whatever.
Face:
CoH - One of the few places CoH fails. The faces don't change much. There's some sliders but they don't add anything unique
Perfect World - Actualy does a marvelous job with faces!
Aion - does it better :3
Age:
CoH - has some older static faces, but once again, you can't edit them much beyond what's pre-made
Perfect World - Nope. You can make yourself ugly if you want, but I've never seen an old toon.
Aion - Yep! Make them young or old. Want a short, young angelic cherub? Sure! Want an old, gruff male cleric? Go for it!
Models:
CoH - Attractive for its time, but showing its age.
Perfect World - Models aren't even symmetrical. This is why animators and designers should know how to draw before entering their field. Believe it or not, it's not actually required. Sad, isn't it?
Aion - Gorgeous, accurate, realistic. Not over muscled, not undermuscled. You'll adore your avatar. In fact, you'll probably spend a lot of time in the first day of the game just looking at yourself. You're that cool looking. Srsly.
Flight: (Not about customization but I'll cover it anyway)
CoH - Has flight and combat flight. One of the first to do this well.
Perfect World - Has combat flight...SORTA. If you attack a monster or person on the ground, you better be able to 1hit them, because if they can't reach you their health will just refill. Furthermore, unless you're a Wing Elf, you can't fly until 30. Oh, and when you do get that flight, it's slow. Really, really slow. Unless of course, you buy a faster one in the item mall >_>;
Aion - You fly by level 10, combat flight is engaging and thorough and you can fight enemies on the ground while in the air. Not an item mall feature! Nope, don't need to spend $50+ to get a faster mount and speed upgrades, future upgrades to your flight speed covered in that spiffy, low monthly fee. As you level, you fly faster and longer. Also, wing upgrades in addition to stones and other enhancements effect your speed and timer. So yes, you need to use your flight strategically, but no it's not nearly as restrictive as people claim.
Awesome write up!!!! Having played CoX I have to say that yes Aion is better. Champions will be good too but I'm not sure if it will reach the same level. CoH's flight is extremely boring.
That's the thing with Aion and it's flight it's 'new' because it's ACTIVE.
Ok ay, now i want to try Perfect world, lmao.
Okay, I can try it at last:
http://www.fileplanet.com/198837/190000/fileinfo/Aion:-Tower-of-Eternity-Open-Beta-Client-(Chinese)I hope next time mmorpg.com authors will add something new, instead rewriting official press release. You wont find anything new in this article, if ever heard about Aion
Definitely! Try it and let us know what you thought of it.
You just didn't get it did you. There are other articales on Aion that MMORPG.com has done explaining some of the game features, this articale just dispels the myth that this is another Lineage 2 mmo.
Definitely! Try it and let us know what you thought of it.
I will, thanks....but....duh....I just found the Aion download........so it may take a bit for me to try Perfect World. What I should do is set them both up on two PCs and try at the same time...lmao....Would that be Dual-boxing or not, lol.
Sounds great! any news on open beta? :)
sometimes I wonder if the people who write these articles are actually paid to write them.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
After the down load it has a zip exe that will not run and jzip said it can not unzip it.
I can not play.
It's crazy it came with
AION_setup_0_9_5_0.exe
Data.z01 to 03
Data.zip
All this from File Planet
Looks nice, good YouTube video showing off charcter creation also.
There's a long time till Q4 though :(
Are you saying that you feel it is like Lineage 2? Are you saying her information is incorrect?
yeah when I first saw aion I assumed alot, the graphics look very asian game style. after watching video is does look like a good game, not really my type of game but i'm sure it will be popular.
After Aion down load did not work I tryed perfect World.
After trying Runes of magic I was not too sure but then after seeing the way I could make my toon I may just make toons all day. And they have lots and lots of hair styles that do not look like a bad sim mod.
Thank you LynxJSA you did good.
I can just hope that this game comes quickly this year, can't wait any longer!
Are you saying that you feel it is like Lineage 2? Are you saying her information is incorrect?
I'm saying neither.
It just feels like this person has been paid by NCSoft to write this article and we are all being taken for fools
I played this game for about 1 week and a half, on the Chinese retail, for about 100 hours.
Tried many classes if not all, highest level i reached was 28.
PvPvE is a deception.
It's more like PvEvP, or even better, PvE with a lot of Ganking.
Be advised, there is NO PvP in AION.
Sounds rediculous, i know, but its true and makes me sad.
The basic activity in AION is questing and in general PvE.
Then comes crafting which takes away too many hours per day, if you wish to actually make a profit.
And after all that comes the Gank, masked as "PvP".
The loading screens keep informing you with helpful tips, one of which says "The Abyss is open for all players after level 25".
Therefore you'd except you can do there and fight.
Wrong.
Expect to go there and PvE, since the mobs there give most drops and exp in the game, and here's come the best (worst idea ever) :
Abyss monsters give you PvP points, Abyss Points.
Which you can use as a currency to purchase, guess what, PvP armor - designed for those who want to fight.
So in other words, you don't have to PvP anyone, you can just farm mobs for your PvP armor.
Also, in the Abyss, expect to be Ganked a lot.
Expect 3 vs you, 10 vs you, etc etc.
Oh, expect them to outgear you and outlevel you as well.
And then comes the worst part, where you are forced to gank other people in order to kill someone.
I anticipated this game, i singed up on AionSource.com sometime in 2006, but playing it on a live server just made me hate it.
If you like level based, gear based, Ganking, this is the game for you.
Yeah they're going to change a lot of this for the NA release dude don't worry. Obviously you are going to get ganked if you go in at the minimum level. Do you not get ganked being the lowest level in other MMOS?......... But if you were a higher level you could PvP more for all of their keep seige content which is pretty robust and hardcore. There are big battles going on in the Abyss over a keep seige and there are huge central points to take over which will offer massive buffs to your side and will make the neutral NPCs on your side.
the whole article is about character customization......zzzzzzzzzz
Are you saying that you feel it is like Lineage 2? Are you saying her information is incorrect?
Are you upsad???
The fileplanet download didn't work for me either I think it's missing files. However I found another download and that works fine. Perfect World does not even compare to this game. :P
I played this game for about 1 week and a half, on the Chinese retail, for about 100 hours.
Tried many classes if not all, highest level i reached was 28.
PvPvE is a deception.
It's more like PvEvP, or even better, PvE with a lot of Ganking.
Be advised, there is NO PvP in AION.
Sounds rediculous, i know, but its true and makes me sad.
The basic activity in AION is questing and in general PvE.
Then comes crafting which takes away too many hours per day, if you wish to actually make a profit.
And after all that comes the Gank, masked as "PvP".
The loading screens keep informing you with helpful tips, one of which says "The Abyss is open for all players after level 25".
Therefore you'd except you can do there and fight.
Wrong.
Expect to go there and PvE, since the mobs there give most drops and exp in the game, and here's come the best (worst idea ever) :
Abyss monsters give you PvP points, Abyss Points.
Which you can use as a currency to purchase, guess what, PvP armor - designed for those who want to fight.
So in other words, you don't have to PvP anyone, you can just farm mobs for your PvP armor.
Also, in the Abyss, expect to be Ganked a lot.
Expect 3 vs you, 10 vs you, etc etc.
Oh, expect them to outgear you and outlevel you as well.
And then comes the worst part, where you are forced to gank other people in order to kill someone.
I anticipated this game, i singed up on AionSource.com sometime in 2006, but playing it on a live server just made me hate it.
If you like level based, gear based, Ganking, this is the game for you.
You're half right. There is little OPEN PVP in Aion, though there is some. At certain times at random points in the world, portals open to the other side where you are able to freely attack those of the opposite race (i.e., Asmo takes portal into Elyos world, runs around pwning people till he gets pwned, vice versa). The Abyss is where you will get ganked IF YOU GO IT ALONE. There's a reason for this; even though it's a PVP zone, it's not an Arena. There are quests to do, zones to take over, and the Balaur to face off against, it is designed to be done with a team. If you go in there alone, you may get a few people down, but the smartest people will venture into the Abyss with friends and guildmates, as it is supposed to be done.
EDIT: Oh and by the way, the Abyss Armor isn't PVP armor, it's just top tier armor; some of the best in the game. It's not specifically designed for pvpers in mind, those armor sets are designed the get the most out of the your class, which is why they are made available to both PVP and PVE'ers.
Don't be an idiot, you obviously didn't try it. I did the Chinese Beta with english patch, and I never ONCE had to grind up to level 25 (When it ended), it was all quest, and high quality quest at that.
most asian based games that come over to the US fail, so i would not be suprised it this one does...
plus it looks to flashy like im playing in fairy land or some shit
I was 50/50 on wether to try this title, but as of this review, I don't think I'm going to try it. Especially if what you wrote about the abyss is true. Seems like I'll have to forget about this and now wait for Terra Online. At least the video for the boss fight on Terra looks pretty epic, and it's a game for high end pc's. Can't wait to put my new pc together :)
You're half right. There is little OPEN PVP in Aion, though there is some. At certain times at random points in the world, portals open to the other side where you are able to freely attack those of the opposite race (i.e., Asmo takes portal into Elyos world, runs around pwning people till he gets pwned, vice versa). The Abyss is where you will get ganked IF YOU GO IT ALONE. There's a reason for this; even though it's a PVP zone, it's not an Arena. There are quests to do, zones to take over, and the Balaur to face off against, it is designed to be done with a team. If you go in there alone, you may get a few people down, but the smartest people will venture into the Abyss with friends and guildmates, as it is supposed to be done.
EDIT: Oh and by the way, the Abyss Armor isn't PVP armor, it's just top tier armor; some of the best in the game. It's not specifically designed for pvpers in mind, those armor sets are designed the get the most out of the your class, which is why they are made available to both PVP and PVE'ers.
I'm glad you mentioned the rifts.
The rifts :
Portals that reset every 2 hours and spawn randomly at one of the pre-designed places of areas like Eltnen(Elyos) and Moriheim(Asmodians).
Have fun hunting them down, if you want to go to Asmodae and try to kill Asmodians, or vice versa.
It's going to take you days before you know all the possible spawn points, which in a matter of fact lead to different level areas at their other end.
So, you might enter a rift that will take you to a 10 lvls lower place, or a 10 lvls higher place.
Thus, making AION's PvP content very annoyingly inaccessible. (unless ofc you like being ganked in the Abyss, which you can enter at anytime)
Want the cherry on top of the cake?
Here you go : The rifts are in their majority being camped by high levels. You spawn at the other side, take two steps and die.
It doesn't only happen when you go solo, but also with a group.
I did my best to hunt down rifts for a week, sometimes with a group, others solo.
My experience from it, urges me to warn everyone about this.
There's no satisfaction for me in ganking someone with a group of 25 people.
Its the only possible way i could figure out in order to gain Abyss points, to get the PvP armor.
And talking about the armors/weapons/accessories/consumables you can purchase with Abyss points :
You get Abyss points by killing the enemy race, which is called PvP.
Anything you get through the process of gaining points by PvPing, is called -naturally- PvP gear.
Abyss mobs giving Abyss points is a joke if you ask me, farmers do not deserve the best armor around.
I don't mind the Abyss points you get from the infiltration quests, because they require you to kill people.
At least i got the chance to try the game out for less than what the monthly subscription will be when it hits EU/US.
I was given the chance to experience the game for myself and decide if its worth the money or not.
It will probably cost the usual 50 euros per box and 15 euros per month when it comes out in the english version, so if you ask me, this game is NOT worth that kind of money.
If i want PvE i can play WoW.
If i want Ganking i can go back to DarkFall.
You keep running in circles. You call it PVP gear then complain when you can get it through PVE, why is it so hard to comprehend that if this is the case, it is not strictly PVP gear? It would be more accurate to call it zone/reward gear. You get it through ABYSS points, not PVP points, and there are many ways to get points, in the Abyss. I'm not sure how you could possibly explain it further than that.
As for finding PVP unrewarding, that's a matter of opinion, but it's already been explained that Aion is not a PVP game. It's focus is on PVE, that has never been debated, the PVP aspect coming through that select section of the game. WoW is not the only PVE game available, I wish people would stop acting like it owns a patent on Quests or something.
Regardless, there are many people waiting for this game and with the friggin amazing success it has, it's really not worth trying to prove naysayers wrong. The game will speak for itself, and those who want to enjoy it will, and those who don't will miss out. Have fun with dated graphics/storyline (WoW) and the epitome of failure (Darkfall).
From my Chinese retail experience, it is a little easier than Lineage 2.
Crafting wise, every player is able to pick up every main profession there is in the game. Higher end recipes are drops from random mobs (didnt change from lineage days)
Gathering professions are universal across the board.
Aion has botting issues, just like any MMO game from NCsoft thats never going to change. Players won't have a lv50 item however in this game. NCsoft actually made an effort in the main story line in Aion. There are 10 quests for each level in each zone that you go through as you level up. These are the main story line quests and the rewards gets better and better as you level up. There are also cinematics accompanied with the main story line quests to add to the engaging story line.
The economy still sucks, but its an improvement over lineage 2. Aion is a Lineage 2 redone at it's core, but there are significant improvement to make it easier to play and more accessible.
Aion isn't perfect, any game based on pvp has not succeed like wow; neither will Aion.
Fan boys will praise, I enjoy it cause its a none-wow game. :)
Aion sounds like the worst possible game to have someone power level there character for money. It's only sad because you know there will be a bunch of fat bastards paying people over in another country to grind them to lvl 50 without them lifting a finger.. Reardless of the fact that aions deep story and engaging questline is important to the experience..
Lol at ^
It's already widely known that it's not a grind. You may as well start calling Guild-wars the most difficult game to level up in while your at it.
Oh yea another fun fact. Guild-wars is a korean MMO and it's the carbon opposite of a grindfest and may very well be the fastest game to be able to max out in. Also, GW won multiple graphical awards for 2005 for how beautiful it was. And the warriors look like anything but super-models. You might not like guildwars, but it's just one of the examples that completely tears down your statement on your korean bias.
Aion sounds like the worst possible game to have someone power level there character for money. It's only sad because you know there will be a bunch of fat bastards paying people over in another country to grind them to lvl 50 without them lifting a finger.. Reardless of the fact that aions deep story and engaging questline is important to the experience..
yeah the levelling and journey of 1-50 is so fun....why would anyone want to miss it out.
Guildwars did fine in america, and this is likely to take ALOT from the guildwars audience. It's almost assured that aion will do good in the US. Not neccesarily amazing, nor as well as over in the east. But it will do alright at the least. NC-soft is actually one of the few publishers that is very good at marketing into the west. Added to the fact that Aion is made with western audiences in mind and holds true to what all the publicity has been saying. Then it would almost seem strange for it not to do well.
Guildwars did fine in america, and this is likely to take ALOT from the guildwars audience. It's almost assured that aion will do good in the US. Not neccesarily amazing, nor as well as over in the east. But it will do alright at the least. NC-soft is actually one of the few publishers that is very good at marketing into the west. Added to the fact that Aion is made with western audiences in mind and holds true to what all the publicity has been saying. Then it would almost seem strange for it not to do well.
Guild wars is not asian it just published by ncsoft
@denshing
anyway Lineage 1, Lineage 2 and FF11 are three very sucessful asian mmorpg in NA/EU.
We usually get the crap (like Silkroad,shayia ) of asia because they are cheap to buy and publish
they have allot of good games never released here. but L1,L2,FF11 are good example of quality asian mmorg...and now Aion
Thanks for the information. It looks like the artwork and visual design of the game is going to be stunning... but it sounds like many of the aspects of Linneage 2 that made it unplayable for me, especially the unavoidable presence of gold farming bot armies, are going to be all over this game.
You know, it dawns on me that Age of Conan has zero bot problem... I suspect it's because of the non-functional "follow" command. I'd trade auto-following for an absence of bots any day.