Seems like the more and more people who get a chance to play this game in the Eastern Open Betas the higher the rating it's been recieving and higher the popularity of the game overall becomes on MMORPG.com

 Lately that's the complete opposite of most MMO trends that we have been facing.. As of late an MMO hit's an Open Beta and it's approval sinks like the titanic. The majority of the people here or peeps I play games with who have gotten a chance to play the korean or chinese beta were pleasantly surpised. I was able to play the korean open beta and it was fun but confusing as I didn't have an english patch. This last time around for the chinese beta I had the english patch and me and my roommate played multiple classes to get a feel of it and had a blast.

IMO, Aions biggest downfall is the American advertising. You have no idea how many people i've talked to who have never heard of Aion or think it's a Eastern Grind MMO not even heading our way.  Obviously those are the farthest thing from the truth. all NCsoft needs to do while "westernizing" the game is promote and market the hell out of it. The game itself will take care of the rest.

In both the Korean and Chinese Open Betas I never crashed once. I never lagged out once. I never expirenced serious server lag besides my medium to high ping being im in the US. I never said "wtf this doesn't work" Not once, and I dished some hours into the betas. The combat is smooth, fluid and the animations along with it are excellent.  The game is damn well polished and while it may not have "ground breaking" content in it. There are plenty of areas that will give you /gasps and lots and lots of "ooohs and aaahhs" and even some "OMGS!"

I think my favorite aspect of it so far is, though anyone can solo. There is defently a challange as far as mobs go. Odds are atleast early on a mob 2 levels above you will damn near kill you if not kill you. It's not uncommon for a mob your level to bring you close to half life as well.  So while it's still easy to play,  the mobs should weed out the "hello, i wear a bike helmet and will now roll my face on my keyboard and kill stuff" players.

Aion, in a nut shell, is minty fresh fun.

Good graphics, stable client, fun gameplay and some neat features like the personalized cut scenes and a rather universally well-received character customization system... it's got all the trappings of a good game.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Good graphics, stable client, fun gameplay and some neat features like the personalized cut scenes and a rather universally well-received character customization system... it's got all the trappings of a good game.

Agreed.

Sounds good. And frankly its one of  a handlefall of new  games I'm keeping an eye on (Fallen Earth, Mortal Online, Jumpgate Evo, anda few others). But being that its from NCSoft I have to believe that endgame is mostly PVP which i find mostly boring. Hows the endgame material. And if its PVP oriented, is there a point for the PVP or is it just a equipment grind?

The only flaw in your arguement is this...

In other OB's, they were easily accessable to the US playerbase.  Everyone and their mother would try the game, some with the intent solely to slam it.

In Aion, its not as easy to get into the Kor or Chi OB's and most American's dont want to deal with the hassle.  So really, those trying the two OB's offered so far are those who have some interest in the game, thus they love it.

Now, I say that, and will now contradict myself :P

I am an MMO fanatic.  I had no real interest in Aion, other than it is one of the MMO's on the horizon.  So I went thru the effort to download it and get into an OB.  I was impressed.  I think the game is fun.  Enough so that I am now playing retail Chinese version.

But, even though thats the case, dont expect Aions ratings to stay high or go higher once the US OB comes.  You will have numberous people downing it for no other reason than to keep thier game higher in the standings.

Nice to hear that you're liking the game and that we can all look forward to something new coming out of the east.  On the other hand, as is customary on these forums when someone comes out with a positive review of a game, I feel I have to call you a paid shill.  Surely you couldn't possibly like a game without being paid to say so by the company that created it.  It's not like there's ever been an enjoyable game created.  /sarcasm

That aside, I'm looking forward to the western release of this game.  I'd like to see how different it is from NCSoft's other titles.  The game definitely does seem to be gaining a lot of support lately with the English patch and the Chinese open beta.

Originally posted by kohearts777

Sounds good. And frankly its one of  a handlefall of new  games I'm keeping an eye on (Fallen Earth, Mortal Online, Jumpgate Evo, anda few others). But being that its from NCSoft I have to believe that endgame is mostly PVP which i find mostly boring. Hows the endgame material. And if its PVP oriented, is there a point for the PVP or is it just a equipment grind?

Someone might correct me on this or explain it a little better as I don't know a whole lot about end game but It's classified as "PvePvP" PVP plays a big roll end game in the Abyss where all the pvp action is at. But from what I heard there are a ton of non instance raid bosses in areas and dungeons of the abyss. So it'll require a little bit of both. I think you can unlock dungeons for pve via pvp as well. Again, I'm not 100% on all this.

Also I think in the latest korean patch they added some new end game PVE instances. SO theyre should be plenty of both.

I hate to say it, and generally I never post - but since I've been playing Aion, I've been highly impressed. It has taken several of the features that I loved about WoW, AoC and WaR and threw them all together with a little bit of Lineage 2 wrapped up in it as well. The combat features combo's, similar to Age of Conan while the movement is similar WoW. The castle sieges and fortresses sieges - although I have not been involved in any as of yet, all appear to be similar to that of Lineage 2 - which I loved when I played.

The leveling, although it seems a bit slower than WoW, is no where near Lineage 2 and appears to be slightly faster than Warhammer. As far as population goes, it's packed. Every time I run into quest hub - there are players everywhere, and shockingly enough, there's no hick ups with processing all of the features. The only complaint I've got right now, well two actually, is that there's a slight delay between using skills - but when you're connecting to a Chinese server, that's understandable. Lastly, I hate leveling my character at this time because I know I'll be purchasing the game when it's released in the states and I don't want to put all this work into a character I'm enjoying - just to restart when the game comes state-side.

On any case, if you're wondering how the game is - or if you have any specific questions about it, feel free to message me and I'll try my best to answer it - keep in mind that I'm not an expert though. On any case, I think Aion (although it may not be the "WOW Killer",) is definatly going to be a hit here in the states.

I LOVE this game so far.  Been playing solo with the english patch.  It's fun.  Very fun.  Gorgeous art (i say art, because the engine is outdated and i can tell).  But it looks great nonetheless.

My main is a level 15 gladiator and my ONLY complaint so far is that everyone else around my level seems to be waaaaaaaaay stronger than I am.  Not sure what my problem is.

Oh and leveling feels slowish. 

I hope this game does really well because I love it.

Originally posted by NeoEnigma

I LOVE this game so far.  Been playing solo with the english patch.  It's fun.  Very fun.  Gorgeous art (i say art, because the engine is outdated and i can tell).  But it looks great nonetheless.

My main is a level 15 gladiator and my ONLY complaint so far is that everyone else around my level seems to be waaaaaaaaay stronger than I am.  Not sure what my problem is.

Oh and leveling feels slowish. 

I hope this game does really well because I love it.

Have you filled all of your weapon and armor slots with stat stones (can't remember what they are called).  They help tremendously especially with you being a Gladiator you should be able to rip through anything.

cause unlike recent failures like darkfall this is an actual good game

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by NeoEnigma

I LOVE this game so far.  Been playing solo with the english patch.  It's fun.  Very fun.  Gorgeous art (i say art, because the engine is outdated and i can tell).  But it looks great nonetheless.

My main is a level 15 gladiator and my ONLY complaint so far is that everyone else around my level seems to be waaaaaaaaay stronger than I am.  Not sure what my problem is.

Oh and leveling feels slowish. 

I hope this game does really well because I love it.

Have you filled all of your weapon and armor slots with stat stones (can't remember what they are called).  They help tremendously especially with you being a Gladiator you should be able to rip through anything.

How is Gladiator DPS vs Assassin?  I love my Assassin, but he is a bit squishy.

Originally posted by Az2002ro

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by NeoEnigma

I LOVE this game so far.  Been playing solo with the english patch.  It's fun.  Very fun.  Gorgeous art (i say art, because the engine is outdated and i can tell).  But it looks great nonetheless.

My main is a level 15 gladiator and my ONLY complaint so far is that everyone else around my level seems to be waaaaaaaaay stronger than I am.  Not sure what my problem is.

Oh and leveling feels slowish. 

I hope this game does really well because I love it.

Have you filled all of your weapon and armor slots with stat stones (can't remember what they are called).  They help tremendously especially with you being a Gladiator you should be able to rip through anything.

 

How is Gladiator DPS vs Assassin?  I love my Assassin, but he is a bit squishy.

From my experience in the Korean release, my Gladiator could take out quite a few classes minus the Cleric of course.  Assassins are very squishy but are very formidable if they are well geared and know what they are doing.

Thing's I see that are different between the Korean retail and the Chinese one Is the lack of quest at some of the mid-range lvl's. This will be added later but it don't help us peep's trying to get past these lvl's.

Also content and maps have not been added as of yet, and the creature creator is lacking a few thing compaired to the Korean retail.  I know all these things will be added later but I hope that when the game launches in the west it will already have these things in the game from the get go.

Originally posted by stayontarget

Thing's I see that are different between the Korean retail and the Chinese one Is the lack of quest at some of the mid-range lvl's. This will be added later but it don't help us peep's trying to get past these lvl's.

Also content and maps have not been added as of yet, and the creature creator is lacking a few thing compaired to the Korean retail.  I know all these things will be added later but I hope that when the game launches in the west it will already have these things in the game from the get go.

Somewhere on their website they stated some of the things that would change/not change for the west version and they said that the game would not release at 1.0 for us and they'll try to keep it as far along patched as they can. I'm guessing we will get the game at 1.3 or so. Wasn't that koreas first big content patch or something? Or possibly we'll get farther along, who knows.