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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted by ronan32

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

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

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

Originally posted by GENoverkill

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

?

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted by Sovrath
[quote]Originally posted by GENoverkill

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

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

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

Pros:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Couple of points:

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

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

Play Asmodian, the peseants are even more insulting.

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

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

~nox

I totally agree with Sanya...

I had the same feeling after the first beta weekend.

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

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

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

Otherwise interesting insight.

Review

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

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

Originally posted by ronan32

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Originally posted by micona

Originally posted by ronan32

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

While it is not a necessity, I do have to agree that a loss of xp and dropable loot will definitely add something to the PvP.  For one, people will be more careful about their PvP if they're going to lose XP for dying.  They'll take it more seriously.  And the droppable loot just adds more insentive, making it worth the risk.

Never some MMO made me to be so happy for having local the base of RPG of campaign, this probably goes to not only revolutionize in the quality more yes in the diversion.

Nice preview.

Aion has shown itself worth all the hype, different from many games in the past that had so much hype and zero polishment.

Considering the korean server, they have major content patches every 2~3 months, so the development isn't really slow, which makes me happy, it seems this game is the closest thing to perfection considering nowadays MMOs, and it's not simply "this game has much potential", but rather "this game uses its potential very well".

Originally posted by Sanya

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

Well I disagree, Aion pvp reminds me very much of DAoC, I would have thought you noticed that not to say they have not improved on some aspects of it, but very little difference from my point of view.

I will say this, if Aion can control the botters, this game has the potential of giving Wow a run for it's money.  The only thing I was disappointed with is the extremely short flight time.  Something I hope they address before the servers go live.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

If by very late you mean 12 hours after starting if you know what you're doing, guess you're right.

But no.

Originally posted by Ephimero 

If by very late you mean 12 hours after starting if you know what you're doing, guess you're right.

But no.

No, she obviously played the English client, which doesn't offer PVP at all, since only 1 race is available. How does she come out with statements like:

"Koreans know how to do PVP"

then?

Originally posted by Tekaelon

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

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

 A polished game. Everything works as it is supposed to unlike many other games. The only exception would be pvp but I take people's compalints about pvp with a grain of salt. Hardly any pvper believes pvp is balanced no matter what game it is. Since you have played Guild Wars then you understand what I mean about pvp.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Sanya

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

Well I disagree, Aion pvp reminds me very much of DAoC, I would have thought you noticed that not to say they have not improved on some aspects of it, but very little difference from my point of view.

I will say this, if Aion can control the botters, this game has the potential of giving Wow a run for it's money.  The only thing I was disappointed with is the extremely short flight time.  Something I hope they address before the servers go live.

Dunno on what it reminds you but you are wrong,cuz western pvp always was crap in compare with eastern.

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero 

If by very late you mean 12 hours after starting if you know what you're doing, guess you're right.

But no.

 

No, she obviously played the English client, which doesn't offer PVP at all, since only 1 race is available. How does she come out with statements like:

"Koreans know how to do PVP"

then?

I was replying to your "very late in the game" statement.

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

Lineage was released 3 months after Ultima online. Pipe-dream?

Dude, you sure are on fire today.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

 

Lineage was released 3 months after Ultima online. Pipe-dream?

Dude, you sure are on fire today.

It was released a year later. Go check your "facts".

I wonder how many previews we will have to endure before PvP is mentioned in an MMORPG review. Specially in a game that is advertised as being a PvP game.

Judging from past reviews/previews we will probably see a footnote in the 5th preview or so...

So if it is not evident with my sarcasm, my question is. How is the PvP? Not looking for an elaborate description, as this is a first look, but rather maybe a first impression of the PvP. Are there PvP servers? Can you PvP from level 1? If not, when can you PvP? Do you get exp from PvP? Anything at all about PvP in a you know, in a game that has been advertised having strong PvP elements?

Dunno on what it reminds you but you are wrong,cuz western pvp always was crap in compare with eastern.

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

UO, AC1 Darktide...both harder core PvP than anything in Lineage or GW. Especially GW, just a bunch of arena matches. And they were both around before anything Asian.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

 

Lineage was released 3 months after Ultima online. Pipe-dream?

Dude, you sure are on fire today.

It was released a year later. Go check your "facts".

Ultima online was released on september of 1997, haven't found anything more concrete abut Lineage than 1998, still, your pipe-dream comment was way off.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

 

Lineage was released 3 months after Ultima online. Pipe-dream?

Dude, you sure are on fire today.

It was released a year later. Go check your "facts".

 

Ultima online was released on september of 1997, haven't found anything more concrete abut Lineage than 1998, still, your pipe-dream comment was way off.

Lineage was released in September in Korea, exactly 1 year later. Keep pretending your "3months" is correct though, for your own sake. 

I'm pointing out what a joke that the claim "Koreans know PVP" in this review is, that's all.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

 

Lineage was released 3 months after Ultima online. Pipe-dream?

Dude, you sure are on fire today.

It was released a year later. Go check your "facts".

 

Ultima online was released on september of 1997, haven't found anything more concrete abut Lineage than 1998, still, your pipe-dream comment was way off.

Lineage was released in September in Korea, exactly 1 year later. Keep pretending your "3months" is correct though, for your own sake. 

I'm pointing out what a joke that the claim "Koreans know PVP" in this review is, that's all.

Still missing the link to prove what you're stating. Im not pretending anything, I just wikipedia'd it and that's what I got, in lieu of anything more concrete than 2008, 3 months prevail, if you have more concrete citations about it, feel free to post them.

Again, the pipe-dream comment was way off and I had to step, if you're not willing to take it back, it will only help my cause.

Originally posted by Ephimero
"I was wrong" is too hard to swallow.

That's fine.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

Obviously. If you havent noticed, this site is heavily dependant on adds from MMORPGs and hence they have an invested self interest to give good reviews to those companies. They have to balance it with still being credible to their users, namely us, but since we are paying them zero money that is probably secondary.

After reading their Darkfall preview/first look/whatever I stopped taking MMORPG reviews seriously as it was painting an overall positive picture of a completely worthless piece of crap MMORPG that is decades behind when it comes to MMORPG technology and playability and that review made me waste 50$ on a game that I would have otherwise not bought.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero
"I was wrong" is too hard to swallow.

 

That's fine.

This thread breathes nostalgia, first we start talking about the 90s and the first MMOs, and now we start seeing the oldest and most overused forum troll tricks, still missing the link to prove wikipedia is wrong, tho.

I can't wait for Aion - hoping it will be a blast (never played a NCsoft product before as I didnt like GW and L1/L2).

And in terms of PVP - unless you state that EVE Online is the best PVP MMO game to ever launch, you are misinformed.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Ephimero 

If by very late you mean 12 hours after starting if you know what you're doing, guess you're right.

But no.

 

No, she obviously played the English client, which doesn't offer PVP at all, since only 1 race is available. How does she come out with statements like:

"Koreans know how to do PVP"

then?

 

I was replying to your "very late in the game" statement.

Truthfully Water has had a very vocal and exaggerated history with Aion often negative, ill-informed, and ill-experienced.  Don't really read into what she says to much.  Version 1.0 the cap is 45 and you quest to enter the abyss at 20, I believe we start at 1.2 and our cap will be 50.  So by both measures...you PvP BEFORE even half of the game.

The one thing I can compromise with them about that statement is that the first levels aren't as action packed combat wise unless your a scout really, or flashy as the later levels.  So it can feel like the game drags on with so many quests and small little movie scenes but it picks up and starts to fly by (personally for me it started at 16 with my ranger, 10 with my glad, 1 with my mage lol).  If you refuse to group it may take longer for your class to aquire all the necessary abilities.

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

Originally posted by Ephimero

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

Pros:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Sounds like another item treadmill designed specifically to divide the community between the haves and have-nots. Guess I will keep looking.

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by Ephimero

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

Pros:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Sounds like another item treadmill designed specifically to divide the community between the haves and have-nots. Guess I will keep looking.

You wont have many troubles finding your home considering the last batch of very casual insta gratification releases.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Palebane

Sounds like another item treadmill designed specifically to divide the community between the haves and have-nots. Guess I will keep looking.

 

You wont have many troubles finding your home considering the last batch of very casual insta gratification releases.

 The only thing that gratifies me is a fair fight. I don't need item rewards as a carrot to PvP. I know I'm better off in a FPS for PvP I guess.

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Palebane

Sounds like another item treadmill designed specifically to divide the community between the haves and have-nots. Guess I will keep looking.

 

You wont have many troubles finding your home considering the last batch of very casual insta gratification releases.

 

 The only thing that gratifies me is a fair fight. I don't need item rewards as a carrot to PvP. I know I'm better off in a FPS for PvP I guess.

Yep you answered your own question.  Afterall, we know a FPS is the best place to get "fair" PvP since we all know there are no aim bots or anything like that.

pvp with flight sounds neat but I am no real fan of Asian MMOs.

I'll just wait for jumpgate or Black Prophecy to do all of my flying & PVP :P

 I would be very happy if it isnt a grindfest like Lineage 2.
I want Lineage 2 feel.. like it already seems there is (testing the beta tomorrow) but with western market mmo quests and fast lvling. Then it would be perfect.

I will buy the game but if I feel its a grindfest after some lvls then I will quit immediatly, uninstall it and burn the disc.
 

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Palebane

Sounds like another item treadmill designed specifically to divide the community between the haves and have-nots. Guess I will keep looking.

 

You wont have many troubles finding your home considering the last batch of very casual insta gratification releases.

 

 The only thing that gratifies me is a fair fight. I don't need item rewards as a carrot to PvP. I know I'm better off in a FPS for PvP I guess.

I dont need item rewards neither, I get enough satisfaction after blocking an enemy's instance for 10 hours in this game seeing how pissed they get.

Looks like a F2P game to me, sorta looks like Perfect World.

Originally posted by GENoverkill

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

 

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

Hmm, given that it was released last November in Korea, I fail to see how that makes it 1+ years old already.

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

I was plesently suprised by Aion, I was expecting the typical Asian grind fest but I was confronted by a whole heap of quests, I have the sound off in the game as I listen to music or the Mrs instead but I liked the animations, better than a boring swipe etc. I wanted to see the pvp action but never got that far, as I was only playing the chinnese beta or something then my time ran out, but wat I saw was pretty good. I will try it out when its in open beta if it allows me :)

Originally posted by Oyjord

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

 

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

 

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

Fortunately you have plenty of other "voice" options to choose for your character.  But seeing as you've already made your opinion on all Asian mmo's, it won't matter because you won't be playing it, which in itself is a benefit to those of us who will.

Originally posted by Oyjord

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

 

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

 

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

I initially complained about this too. The voice-overs and las vegas weapon/interactions sounds. But the western localizations are not complete and will be available either in beta or launch. I hope they get it right because I'm looking forward to playing this game.

if you want to "betatest" aion, play Perfect World...Aion is basically a Perfect World clone with pint of Lineage2 mixed in the soup

Originally posted by Ephimero

[...]a 47 can outperform a level 50 easily, but a 42 might not have the same luck as the damage is heavily reduced.[...]

Does this mean that you are pretty much unable to damage much higher level characters regardless of stats and gear? I can understand this restriction for PvE in linear games, since it makes it easier to design a natural progression through areas, but for PvP it is silly. Higher level characters have enough advantages as it is without level differences reducing the damage further.
 

---

Originally posted by Vegetta

pvp with flight sounds neat but I am no real fan of Asian MMOs.

I'll just wait for jumpgate or Black Prophecy to do all of my flying & PVP :P

---

Is this you from another site?

If it is, you sure have a lot of waiting to do. :p

---

Originally posted by NulnHighwayBoy ( VN WAR boards):

last night i patched to 35% said "This is to slow" and canceled the patch

Downloaded ddo beta and played that instead ......

I got great DL speed from turbine but mythic's patcher speed made me feel like I was on dial up....

meh ill get around to patching WAR eventually

---

Was skipping around to check how LOTD was going, saw that and remember your sig. If so, did it ever load up for you?

Originally posted by kishe

if you want to "betatest" aion, play Perfect World...Aion is basically a Perfect World clone with pint of Lineage2 mixed in the soup

Having played Aion and Perfect World recently, I can only assume that you have not done either.  This statement is beyond ignorant.

Having played a bit in the previous beta weekend event, I found the game enjoyable but not too different from the "MMO standard" of gameplay. Then again I didn't get a chance to try out the flying elements yet. And to the author of the article, those are not talking ferrets...they are talking teddy bear hamster gohper thingees.

sounds pretty good ^^ But I gonna wait and see what happens I think,  I don't wanna buy a game to see it's a dissapointment and a waist of money. But if it is really good I might try it a few months after it will launch ^^

Originally posted by Miklos

I can't wait for Aion - hoping it will be a blast (never played a NCsoft product before as I didnt like GW and L1/L2).

And in terms of PVP - unless you state that EVE Online is the best PVP MMO game to ever launch, you are misinformed.

UO PvP was a lot better then EVE ever was/will be. Fact.

I did say, straight up, that I didn't actually get to try the PVP. That is why I didn't review it. This was a first look - what the game looked like at first!

Unless I get to do some PVP, I won't be the reporter who writes the review.

The people I've talked to from the beta assure me that PVP is not an afterthought, and that the class balancing was done using PVP fights as the standard, not PVE fights. And certainly what I saw of the interface and the anti-exploit stuff, it seems to be true.

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Oyjord

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

 

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

 

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

 

Fortunately you have plenty of other "voice" options to choose for your character.  But seeing as you've already made your opinion on all Asian mmo's, it won't matter because you won't be playing it, which in itself is a benefit to those of us who will.

Its hard not to make up your mind if all (or most) Asian MMOs follow the same style.

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by kishe

if you want to "betatest" aion, play Perfect World...Aion is basically a Perfect World clone with pint of Lineage2 mixed in the soup

 

Having played Aion and Perfect World recently, I can only assume that you have not done either.  This statement is beyond ignorant.

Couldn't have agreed more!

I actually think I agree with everything in the preview... that pretty much somes up all the important aspects.. with maybe a slight meniton about combat and how movment is important. Anyway I'm excited.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by velimirius

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

That was Ultime Online, not Lineage, an American company. UO had PVP before Lineage was even a pipe-dream.

So go back and play UO then... Fact is that East is making best pvp games.

Originally posted by Raknar

Dunno on what it reminds you but you are wrong,cuz western pvp always was crap in compare with eastern.

NCsoft had brought pvp to the west with Lineage and GW.

 

UO, AC1 Darktide...both harder core PvP than anything in Lineage or GW. Especially GW, just a bunch of arena matches. And they were both around before anything Asian.

Arena match is player vs plyer isnt it?  thats PvP isnt it? stfu then.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

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

well said

I'm optimistic about this game. Havn't played it yet, mind you...but from what I hear, as long as I can stomach another quest grind (and that remains to be seen) I will enjoy most of the other aspects of Aion.

Anyway, OP...thanks for the information....well written...has us looking forward to trying it.

Originally posted by Oyjord

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

 

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

 

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

In the upcoming patch 1.3 you can disable battle cries... so that shouldn't be an issue.

And I don't get why people hate the exaggerated battle animations... makes you feel so much more badass than Western MMos, in which most battle animations look like glitches...

The dialogue the writer spoke about, "well written" he says. Yes, that scene had such riveting lines such as "Whoa! It's ____".

As usual, a waste of time reading this.

Only thing that worries me about what could go wrong with this game is how NcSoft handles the bot/farmer-24/7 issue that ruined Lineage 2 and they didnt bother much to handle.

If they can handle that, cant see how this game can fail in any region they release.

Originally posted by N1ghtsta1ker

Originally posted by Oyjord

Originally posted by Thradar

 This game looks gorgeous, but that's not enough anymore.  Puddle deep quests, poor translations, and the complete lack of backstory/lore, the annoying battle shouts...immediately turns me off from this game.

 

Ditto.  I rolled a female scout in beta, and though the graphics were nice, I couldn't get over the childish animations and sounds.  My toon would cry like a 10 yr old girl every time she attacked or got hit, and just fighting with my dagger would make animations akin to nuclear explosion.  WTF?  It's just a dagger stabbing a mob.

 

This is very typically Asian.  In Asian MMOs you have all this glitz and glamor, and all of that superficial eye candy is simply hiding uniteresting gameplay.

In the upcoming patch 1.3 you can disable battle cries... so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

And I don't get why people hate the exaggerated battle animations... makes you feel so much more badass than Western MMos, in which most battle animations look like glitches...

You can disable them already and 1.3 isn't even out on the test server.

I must be a terrible, horrible pessimist for this but I translated the review as such:

"Great graphics, no story, no plot, terrible grindy quests from level 1, and horrible dialogue"

Honestly, as much sa I WANT to like Aion and think it's different, it sounds more each day like every other Asian grindfest I've ever played.

Originally posted by N1ghtsta1ker 

And I don't get why people hate the exaggerated battle animations... makes you feel so much more badass than Western MMos, in which most battle animations look like glitches...

So, every time you poke someone with your dagger it should look like they got hit with a fireball? What happens when I hit someone with a fireball??? Is there a thermo-nuclear animation where the entire screen goes white and everyone looks like they're dying?

Really, effects need to be done in the proper context or anything deserving of a flashy animation will simply feel like everything else.

As for PvP, I can't say I approve of harsh punishment for losing. Not only are there many ways you can lose without it being your fault (bad group, lag, getting ganked by several people, etc...), it encourages people to gank and ultimately unbalances PvP. In other words, if you're on top, it's very hard for anyone to compete with you. I mean, let's face it, you're not ever going to be as good as the best players and with an open PvP system that doesn't rank or match you accordingly, guess who's going to be losing their gear?

/quit
 

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

LMAO.

Sanya Weathers is one of the most respected reviewers in the mmo industry. She is also a former Mythic employee and has been managing the Daoc community a few years ago.

She is also very well known in the older games' communities. So when talking PVP Sanya definitely knows what she is talking about.

As for the "being too optimistic" part, Sanya has posted some very harsh opinions on several games in the past and has already proved many times she is telling things as they are

And regarding your CN Aion comment, I am playing CN Aion and for me PvP started in my early 20ies. Level 20 takes only a couple days of gameplay. So yea "PVP doesn't start until very late into the game" is just one more of your well know over exaggerations.

You see, when you have played pvp games for years, have played most if not all of the pvp mmos, you recognize a good game, a game that "has it" within a few minutes. It doesn't take a couple hours to see Aion does have the mechanics other games like i.ex AoC were lacking when they came out.

Originally posted by terrant

I must be a terrible, horrible pessimist for this but I translated the review as such:

 

"Great graphics, no story, no plot, terrible grindy quests from level 1, and horrible dialogue"

 

Honestly, as much sa I WANT to like Aion and think it's different, it sounds more each day like every other Asian grindfest I've ever played.

So you just skipped that whole lower half of the article that said  "don't make the mistake of stopping at lvl 5"  She even gave it  a single solitary line of its own JUST in case people were skimming and it would stand out and get your attention.

BTW Waterlily is correct on the Lineage/UO timeline, I played both actually, UO came out Sept 25, 1997, Lineage came out Sept 3,  2008.  It is  on the Lineage wikipedia page on the right next to "release date"   Other than being correct about the timeline though they're just blowing out thier usual negative Vitriol.   PvP can occur prior to the halfway point in the game as stated before. In the LVL 20 and up zones portals will allow back and forth incursions into each races zones.  The Abyss is also available around that time which is one big open pvp zone like DAOCs frontiers.

Originally posted by BigMango

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

 

LMAO.

Sanya Weathers is one of the most respected reviewers in the mmo community. She is also a former Mythic employee and has been managing the Daoc community a few years ago.

Awesome, and still she fails to answer my question regarding the PVP she was involved with. I'm not blasting her because she makes random statements about Korea and PVP, I would just like it, if for once...reviewers actually were honest.

Aion is a grind, uses a lot of concepts EQ already used, has a very shallow story, only has 2 races and very few classes, still can't manage to outdo Kunark EQ after 10 years and is another Asian regurgitating disgrace for the MMO genre. Not only is the game a grind catering to the lowest common denomitator, a 10 year old, but it's features (PVP) which she raves about, don't even come into the game very late.

She played the beta, which offers no PVP and is reviewing that version and raving about the PVP, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.

A grind compared to what?

From my own experience, I was flying through the levels. I'd say the levelling speed is comparable to WoW classic levelling speed.

Originally posted by beauxaj

 

So you just skipped that whole lower half of the article that said  "don't make the mistake of stopping at lvl 5"  She even gave it  a single solitary line of its own JUST in case people were skimming and it would stand out and get your attention.

No, I read the whole thing. She said that, and then described one FANTASTIC event she had where she got her wings. And then she ends the article. Here's where I'm concerned.

OK, 5 levels of boredom, one awesome scene where I get my wings....then from the sound of it, it more or less goes back to the same old, same old.

She DOES say "many of the later quests were better written"...but how many? 20%, 50%? 80? "And the ones that weren't, I didn't mind as much"? Just sounds like she's glazing over the bad parts a lot.

I guess my fear is that this game will be every other Asian MMO I've played, but will try to use the winged combat system as the one trick pony to set them apart. It sounds like a neat feature, but is it enough to make Aion a different game? I want a chance to play before I judge fully, but I remain a skeptic. I've been let down too many times before.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by BigMango

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

 

LMAO.

Sanya Weathers is one of the most respected reviewers in the mmo community. She is also a former Mythic employee and has been managing the Daoc community a few years ago.

She is also very well known in the older games' communities. So when talking PVP Sanya definitely knows what she is talking about.

As for the "being too optimistic" part, Sanya has posted some very harsh opinions on several games in the past and has already proved many times she is telling things as they are

 

And regarding your CN Aion comment, I am playing CN Aion and for me PvP started in my early 20ies. Level 20 takes only a couple days of gameplay. So yea "PVP doesn't start until very late into the game" is just one more of your well know over exaggerations.

Awesome, and still she fails to answer my question regarding the PVP she was involved with. I'm not blasting her because she makes random statements about Korea and PVP, I would just like it, if for once...reviewers actually were honest.

Aion is a grind, uses a lot of concepts EQ already used, has a very shallow story, only has 2 races and very few classes, still can't manage to outdo Kunark EQ after 10 years and is another Asian regurgitating disgrace for the MMO genre. Not only is the game a grind catering to the lowest common denomitator, a 10 year old, but it's features (PVP) which she raves about, don't even come into the game very late.

She played the beta, which offers no PVP and is reviewing that version and raving about the PVP, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Read the review again and point exactly where she boasts about her experience with PvP, I think she made it pretty clear she didn't get there, but had some people she must trust in telling her the PvP wasn't an afterthought, considering her experience in the industry, im pretty sure she has some trustworthy people when it comes down to analyzing MMOs.

The only hipocrisy in this thread is you talking shit about people's reviews when you didn't make it past the tutorial area.

Originally posted by Xasapis

A grind compared to what?

From my own experience, I was flying through the levels. I'd say the levelling speed is comparable to WoW classic levelling speed.

Excuse me. I don't refer to grind in the sense of a time sink. I refer to it as. "I log in the first time. There's a guy standing there who asks me to kill 10 rats. I do. He asks me to kill 20 wolves. I do. He tells me to go to another guy, who asks me to kill 30 bears...."

I refer to a game where the emphasis is just on moving from one place to another, wholesale slaughtering whatever stupid mob is standing in that place, with no sense of why I'm doing it. The only sense of accomplishment is the number next to the "level" field changing every now and then. A game where you're essentially doing the exact same thing from level 1-whatever, with no different save the numbers and possibly the fact the goblins in this dungeon are blue when the last ones were green.

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Originally posted by Waterlily

Awesome, and still she fails to answer my question regarding the PVP she was involved with.

---

She fails? lol.

It doesn't occur to your that, unlike some of the other posters on these forums, she probably has a life and other things to do than living and sleeping on this forum to answer you?

---

Originally posted by Waterlily

 

Aion ... still can't manage to outdo Kunark EQ after 10 years

---

Please tell me about all these fantasy mmorps that "can manage to outdo Kunark EQ after 10 years". How many are there? Ahhh ok, Lotro is a story based mmo, what else?

Fantasy mmorps are a genre. Like the single player RPGS, FPS games, etc... They all play the same and all use the same mechanics. Some do it better and some do it worse. Fortunately Aion is one of the very few games that actually does do it better.

---

Originally posted by Waterlily
and is another Asian regurgitating disgrace

---

Asia has some of the best mmorpgs. Lineage 2 is still  the mmo I had the most fun in after all these years. GW is also considered as on of the best, even though I didn't really like it.

And now fortunately, we have Aion. You see, not everyone likes wow, EQ and Vanguard. But even though I don't like them it doesn't make them "disgraces" in my eyes. They are good games, just not the style I like.

Furthermore, the western world has 1 game: wow with its 11M players. All of the other games with their 10k to 300k players are nothing. Talk about the "western" genre. LOL, even the westerners don't play them.

Aion already has 3.5+M players in 2 countries only, and growing. Japan is in beta as much as we are, and more are coming. The numers only show the irrelevance of your opinion. Some people don't like wow and some others don't like pop music. Doesn't make them bad.

---

Originally posted by Waterlily
but it's features (PVP) which she raves about, don't even come into the game very late.

---

Where does she rave about PVP? The only thing she says is that Aion does have the right mechanics (many other pvp games still fail to get the basic features after years) and that Koreans (especially NCsoft) know how to do pvp games. Aion does have a heritage and is building on solid pvp experience.

---

Originally posted by Waterlily
She played the beta, which offers no PVP and is reviewing that version and raving about the PVP, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.

---

Just shows how much you know about pvp. To someone who has played pvp games for years it doesn't take a couple hours to see where a game is coming from and if  it does have the basic mechanics or not.

Furthermore she is not claiming to review anything, she is just posting her opinions and what she saw in a "First look preview".

Another great job by Sanaya.  Her impressions mirror my own almost to every detail. 

As far as all these posters arguing about PvP, give it up already!  These impressions were not about PvP but about the begining game.  I am sure we will hear her impressions about PvP in due time.

We really don't know how PvP is going to go at this point.  Most of the impressions I have heard have been favorable and the little I have partook of PvP on the Chinese client has been fast paced and fun.

We will see in due time!

One of the more engaging, well-written reviews I have ever seen on here... honest about how far she got in the game, witty about the whole Free Realms lunacy (that game made my brain hurt real fast), and good sense of narrative in conveying the experience of playing Aion. 

Irrelevant to most, and slightly off topic:  I am looking forward to trying SW:TOR because of Bioware's track record, and because at least there will be no elves and dwarves and such (this coming from a WoW player with multiple 80 toons... love WoW, don't need another one). I'm wishing I believed that STO will be good, but frankly I think the IP is cursed, there will never be a good ST video game.  I am so wishing that the Agency was being made by another company, because it is finally a strong mmo idea set in a non-fantasy, non-horror, non-fake-historical, non-sci-fi world.  Love the idea of operatives reporting to you, working on jobs while you're away.  Love the whole spy thing anyway.  But the info made available so far doesn't seem encouraging, and it kinda seems like it's underfunded and hoping to be profitable through micro-transactions (grrrrr). 

I personally don't crave PvP, mainly because of the people I meet who do.  I am quite sure there are many lovely wonderful people engaging in PvP as their main gaming interest... just don't seem to ever run into them.  I would be perfectly happy with a PvE, exploration, PuG-heavy game that simply had better writing and a setting and backstory and quests that weren't second-rate genre literature chopped up into little pieces with all the good bits thrown away. 

I don't wish to dis hard-working people who spend inordinate chunks of their lives making this stuff for us (and for their corporate paymasters), because I realize they are creating worlds within severe constraints and with inherent problems built in (persistence vs. ability to jump in anywhere; PvP vs. PvE; the "uncanny" problem with realistic character animations; so many other issues).  But I do wish that there were more of a focus on the narrative aspect in some game that also functions well as an mmo.  LotRO is an attempt, but honestly after a while it fell flat for me, it was too connected to an existing piece of fiction to really fly on its own wings. 

Again, I freely confess these are the whinings of a spoiled consumer of other people's art and effort.  And they relate to Aion only in this respect... YAAAAAAWWWWWNNNNNN.  I can't think of any reason to buy one more bright shiny piece of nonsense.  I have that now, it works great, I still play it off and on.  The PvP thing seems to be an eternal quest for a lot of posters on here, and best of luck to ya with that.  I kinda think mmo's could grow up in new ways... not by being more "hardcore" but by being more connected to what makes other forms of storytelling good: writing, setting, character, plotting, ideas, a sense of alternative possibilities.

Peace, y'all.

A lot of comments here suggest that this is another F2P mmo like Asian game that isn't even worth the time will be to install it. Unless you've actually played the game for more than a day, shut up. Aion is by far different than any standard F2P game.

"There's no attempt at even hinting at the backstory (big apocalyptic event, sundered the world, erased your memory - got that from Google!), except that a few NPCs mention that you've lost your memory."

Then you missed something. The game not only constantly talks about the backstory, it also pushes you to the current of talking about working towards saving the towns around you and helping out. Push you closer and closer towards the main point of the whole game, the Abyss.

As for the grind. There is none, if you're grinding you're doing something wrong. In China and Korea you can hit 1-10 in less than an hour and a half on all classes. At most, 2 hours if you're taking your really sweet sweet time. With the US version, the xp requirements is going to be less or quest xp is going to be greater, this was mentioned by NCSoft here and there. So it's going to be even faster to level. You can hit up to 20 easily in one night sitting and once you hit 20, you can start your PvP adventures by taking rifts(solo or groups) and beating the shit out of the enemy while they are trying to level in peace. Once you hit 20, you can pretty much hit 25 in a day or two, depending on how much time you want to dedicate. Remember, the xp need is going to be less than whats in Korea and China, and over there in 1 week there were several high level 30s and a few level 40s. Being in some of the guilds there myself, I watched this first hand so I know its possible.

Now for PvP. PvP in Aion is quite different because a lot of it doesn't just work like other MMOs, 1 class is better than class 2, and class 2 is better than class 3 but class 3 is better than class 1. The game requires skill and lots of it. One thing I noticed on the NA forums was the amount of players thinking that the Chanter class will suck in PvP. You will think quite differently when you see a skilled Chanter take on three players who wrecks them all and is even lower level than them. A lot of fun though comes through flight PvP and with groups. Most of the time if you're PvPing you won't be solo, nor will they. So you and your group need to watch who's doing what, when, and above else, how much flight time you have left :P From personal experience though, I've killed a few hundred Asmods in my time playing now and pretty much every fight has been a different outcome based on various factors. I've also made the mistake of (which a lot of players seem to make the mistake of also), thinking they are safe by guards. The guards are tough and can dish out the damage, but a group of enemies will go ahead and take out the guards and then you. So if you're surrounded in a small outpost you better be ready to fight or sneak away, otherwise you can expect to reappear to the where you were bound to last.

Do want to note: Some battle outcomes do have to do also with gear customization and skill selection, in the case of lets say Sorcs, yes you can dish out the damage but you're a softie. You are to die quickly or are you? A Sorc and gear up for health, lots of health so while they won't be pulling out crazy damage as one that is completely spec that way, they have the ability of taking out more than just one person at a time due to the amount of health they have.

Lastly, a lot of the better gameplay and fun happens after level 20, so these mini preview events suck because you're missing out on a lot. I really wish they would open it up to level 25 so players can really start to see the game for what it is. An amazing MMO.

 Personally, I've played Aion for months and can't wait to play it some more. :)

tbh i think they would have been better off with going for a Lineage 2 with wings. There arent enough classes to chose from, it looks to be "tank" "dps" "healer" etc classes. I dont see much hybrid in there. And although it is my opinion i think the whole "one race on one continent and the other race on another continent who cant talk to eachother" just screams WoW. Although i understand you can go to the other continents and pvp, it just feels over done, hopefully aion is the last game that uses the 2 continents, 2 races, 2 different languages type of system. I may end up playing it eventually but i doubt it. Will have to wait and see if NC West decides to get off their asses and do something about bots and farmers.

EDIT: as for the article itself i thought it was good. Almost made me want to play, but reality hit me when i got to the end of your preview.

Originally posted by Airspell

  Why do they keep letting inexperienced newbs give their impressions of games on this freaking site. 

I really hope you are not refering to Sanaya with this post.  She has more true "MMO" experience than almost any of us do.  What with actually working in the industry and all.....

I don't trust any reviews by anyone who plays Free Realms.

If you're willing to play that "game" for more than 5 seconds, your standards for MMOs are out of whack.

Originally posted by harmonica

I don't trust any reviews by anyone who plays Free Realms.

If you're willing to play that "game" for more than 5 seconds, your standards for MMOs are out of whack.

She plays because she is reviewing it, maybe?  You know, like she stated in the article?  She may like it, she may not, I have not read her review yet, but that is neither here nor there.

So, outside of the pretty graphics, what is in this that's going to pry the 11+ million people away from WoW?  PvP with flight?  Curious minds want to know.  What are the highlights of this game that make it better than WoW?

Since I could only play the beta and didn't have access to max level, I'm excited by the possibility of participating in meaningful and well thought out world PvP, without the grind that is usually associated with games that originate from the east. Airborne fighting is also a nice feature.

Still ... too early to tell, in my opinion.

So in other words Aion is going to be another Lineage just with a sense of flying and Rite of Passage quest that will give you the wings and make you a devotee or whatever they are called on a stage with wings. As Sanya mentiones there is not much of a storyline behind all this. So in other words the whole game is again focused on end-game content and PvP and what happens during the leveling doesn't matter since everyone will rush to the max level as always.

I plan to play this game with my wife, hopefully there is more than just PvP in this game.

Originally posted by tanoril

So, outside of the pretty graphics, what is in this that's going to pry the 11+ million people away from WoW?  PvP with flight?  Curious minds want to know.  What are the highlights of this game that make it better than WoW?

Something new. I've played a good year of WoW before I got bored of it and moved on to another MMO. I still know a few people that play and even when they show me the "new" stuff in WoW at the time of expansions what's the point? You spend a month beating the new stuff and then you are bored again. Yeah so there's crafting, but really everyone is the same in the end. WoW came out in 2004. How many more years can you play the same MMO with the same stuff over and over?

World PvP. I'm not sure how many people here remember the old Tauren Mill raids that were the best thing since sliced pie. There was no instanced PvP crap at the time, it was pure open endless (pointless but fun) killing. Having 100+ vs 100+ battlefield where even good strategies were required than just mindless push with a lot of players.

(this kinda adds to the last sentence) Fortress and Artifact capturing. Defending and taking over artifacts which when used can do everything from wiping an entire enemy army to making your entire group stealthed for several minutes to allow you to flank an enemy. Then you take over Fortresses, which when taken over buff your entire race and open even more fun up. Not only do you have to defend this against your normal player enemies but the NPCs as well. See the NPCs want your fortress and artifacts too so you have to defend against them otherwise they'll smash through the normal defending NPCs and take everything back.

A constant push to force PvP while doing raid bosses. Some require that while one group is raiding, another is defending their back otherwise all it would take is a small group surprising the crap out of the main healer.

No one is the same. Skill wise, you chose 5 skills called Stigmas which can be different than what someone standing right next to you has selected. As I said in an earlier post, you can customize your armor and weapons to give more health, more survivability, or even things like longer flight or resists. Armor wise/crafting. Besides the PvP gear, crafting adds a whole new level of gameplay compared to other games. You technically can make yourself exactly like your buddy but it will be really hard to do plus even if you do, are the stones you put to buff you going to be the same? Most likely not. The best gear in the game is done by crafting which requires a lot of not only taking over fortresses but killing raid bosses to get the best of the best. You have to do all aspects of the game(PvP, raiding, PvE normal gathering) and require quite a bit of time to make the good stuff.

The game requires skill. In WoW, if you've got the armor and the weapons you're going to dominate the players that don't. In Aion, you have can have the best crap from raiding and PvP but if you don't know how to play your class it will take someone who does know how to play a few seconds to destroy you and he doesn't even have 1 piece of raid or PvP gear. I am shame to say I have seen this first hand from time to time. I can do everything right and even be better geared and higher level but they manage to keep me stunned or moved around how they want and I can put up a fight but they kill me and it makes me go :( but that just makes me want to try again :)

If some of you want some spoilers on armor and skills and weapons you can go to http://www.aionarmory.com watch out though, some of the translations are poor but a lot of these, the official translation hasn't been seen, someone pretty much translated from the Korean/Chinese versions on their own.

Originally posted by reanor

So in other words Aion is going to be another Lineage just with a sense of flying and Rite of Passage quest that will give you the wings and make you a devotee or whatever they are called on a stage with wings. As Sanya mentiones there is not much of a storyline behind all this. So in other words the whole game is again focused on end-game content and PvP and what happens during the leveling doesn't matter since everyone will rush to the max level as always.

I plan to play this game with my wife, hopefully there is more than just PvP in this game.

There is storyline and plenty of information to read. Some have the NPCS talking to the point you're like next next next, but that's because I want to level and PvP, not read :P I do have a guildie though that reads everything and he's that weird kinda RP player type :P Not to mention there are cutscenes, a lot of cutscenes where they show you were you need to go and the plot behind your quest.

There is more than PvP in this game but the game really points you to PvP.

Originally posted by Naamah88

Originally posted by Airspell

  Why do they keep letting inexperienced newbs give their impressions of games on this freaking site. 

 

I really hope you are not refering to Sanaya with this post.  She has more true "MMO" experience than almost any of us do.  What with actually working in the industry and all.....

Dunno if Airspell was, but I will. Her review is naive and cheesy, do not focus on the gameplay at all (Class system, Itemization, Level Design, Progression..)

It is only : ohhh it is pretty, the dialog are not too good, and there is not much story, but there was that quest, it was soo pretty and cute, and I had wing like an angel. iiiiiihhh *girly sound*

She says PvP must be cool, because some people told her that? What kind of review is that.

Aion is just another grind fest, with shitty gameplay, shitty itemization, shitty story, shitty class system, focusing on PvP to keep people from noticing that the PvE content is boring to death.

And yes I played the game, and yes I also test every MMO I can (and believe me that's a lot), and yes I also work in the game industry as a Lead Game Designer.

Sanaya review, is just fluff and completely lack any kind of professionalism.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by BigMango

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

.

.

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

 

 

LMAO.

Sanya Weathers is one of the most respected reviewers in the mmo community. She is also a former Mythic employee and has been managing the Daoc community a few years ago.

She is also very well known in the older games' communities. So when talking PVP Sanya definitely knows what she is talking about.

As for the "being too optimistic" part, Sanya has posted some very harsh opinions on several games in the past and has already proved many times she is telling things as they are

 

And regarding your CN Aion comment, I am playing CN Aion and for me PvP started in my early 20ies. Level 20 takes only a couple days of gameplay. So yea "PVP doesn't start until very late into the game" is just one more of your well know over exaggerations.

Awesome, and still she fails to answer my question regarding the PVP she was involved with. I'm not blasting her because she makes random statements about Korea and PVP, I would just like it, if for once...reviewers actually were honest.

Aion is a grind, uses a lot of concepts EQ already used, has a very shallow story, only has 2 races and very few classes, still can't manage to outdo Kunark EQ after 10 years and is another Asian regurgitating disgrace for the MMO genre. Not only is the game a grind catering to the lowest common denomitator, a 10 year old, but it's features (PVP) which she raves about, don't even come into the game very late.

She played the beta, which offers no PVP and is reviewing that version and raving about the PVP, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.

 

Read the review again and point exactly where she boasts about her experience with PvP, I think she made it pretty clear she didn't get there, but had some people she must trust in telling her the PvP wasn't an afterthought, considering her experience in the industry, im pretty sure she has some trustworthy people when it comes down to analyzing MMOs.

The only hipocrisy in this thread is you talking shit about people's reviews when you didn't make it past the tutorial area.

I agree! This guy is Asian MMO hater.  When the game launches in North America...play it enough and then write your own full review with honestly!
 

Originally posted by Naamah88

Originally posted by harmonica

I don't trust any reviews by anyone who plays Free Realms.

If you're willing to play that "game" for more than 5 seconds, your standards for MMOs are out of whack.

 

She plays because she is reviewing it, maybe?  You know, like she stated in the article?  She may like it, she may not, I have not read her review yet, but that is neither here nor there.

She plays Free Realms for her review which is also part of her job??  If you're a game reviewers you play all kinds of games wether you like it or not.

Love the character models. I hope it is a challenge, created for real gamers and not just for mainstream muppets.

Originally posted by SilverArrow5

Originally posted by tanoril

So, outside of the pretty graphics, what is in this that's going to pry the 11+ million people away from WoW?  PvP with flight?  Curious minds want to know.  What are the highlights of this game that make it better than WoW?

 

Something new. I've played a good year of WoW before I got bored of it and moved on to another MMO. I still know a few people that play and even when they show me the "new" stuff in WoW at the time of expansions what's the point? You spend a month beating the new stuff and then you are bored again. Yeah so there's crafting, but really everyone is the same in the end. WoW came out in 2004. How many more years can you play the same MMO with the same stuff over and over?

World PvP. I'm not sure how many people here remember the old Tauren Mill raids that were the best thing since sliced pie. There was no instanced PvP crap at the time, it was pure open endless (pointless but fun) killing. Having 100+ vs 100+ battlefield where even good strategies were required than just mindless push with a lot of players.

(this kinda adds to the last sentence) Fortress and Artifact capturing. Defending and taking over artifacts which when used can do everything from wiping an entire enemy army to making your entire group stealthed for several minutes to allow you to flank an enemy. Then you take over Fortresses, which when taken over buff your entire race and open even more fun up. Not only do you have to defend this against your normal player enemies but the NPCs as well. See the NPCs want your fortress and artifacts too so you have to defend against them otherwise they'll smash through the normal defending NPCs and take everything back.

A constant push to force PvP while doing raid bosses. Some require that while one group is raiding, another is defending their back otherwise all it would take is a small group surprising the crap out of the main healer.

No one is the same. Skill wise, you chose 5 skills called Stigmas which can be different than what someone standing right next to you has selected. As I said in an earlier post, you can customize your armor and weapons to give more health, more survivability, or even things like longer flight or resists. Armor wise/crafting. Besides the PvP gear, crafting adds a whole new level of gameplay compared to other games. You technically can make yourself exactly like your buddy but it will be really hard to do plus even if you do, are the stones you put to buff you going to be the same? Most likely not. The best gear in the game is done by crafting which requires a lot of not only taking over fortresses but killing raid bosses to get the best of the best. You have to do all aspects of the game(PvP, raiding, PvE normal gathering) and require quite a bit of time to make the good stuff.

The game requires skill. In WoW, if you've got the armor and the weapons you're going to dominate the players that don't. In Aion, you have can have the best crap from raiding and PvP but if you don't know how to play your class it will take someone who does know how to play a few seconds to destroy you and he doesn't even have 1 piece of raid or PvP gear. I am shame to say I have seen this first hand from time to time. I can do everything right and even be better geared and higher level but they manage to keep me stunned or moved around how they want and I can put up a fight but they kill me and it makes me go :( but that just makes me want to try again :)

 

If some of you want some spoilers on armor and skills and weapons you can go to http://www.aionarmory.com watch out though, some of the translations are poor but a lot of these, the official translation hasn't been seen, someone pretty much translated from the Korean/Chinese versions on their own.

That's sounds neat and all, but I wonder how it will prevent from falling into the trap Warhammer has fallen into.  A PvP focused end-game relies on the fact that you have enough players on the other side that a) participate and b) give a crap.  If not, then it becomes Warhammer all over again, with all but a few of their servers being dormant. 

How is end game advancement done now?  Can you only get the best gear via PvP? (this is assuming Aion is a gear-centric game).

Originally posted by Sanya

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by ronan32

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

 

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

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

 

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

Err wrong about only UO and shadowbane.

UO, DAOC, PlanetSide, Shadowbane and a couple other US based games were centered around PVP.  SWG was also PVP centric as it's end-game.  Other western (Euro in this case) games that are heavily oriented around PVP were Anarchy Online (endgame is RVR much like DAOC) Roma Victor, EVE Online and now, Darkfall.  I think there were a few others but can't remember them all atm.

As far as the review goes I found it wanting.  It doesn't really tell you all that much about the game but, rather, the writers impression of a very limited subset of aspects of the game.   I can't help but wonder if that's all there is to the game and, if so, is that really worth playing?  Is there a monthly fee?  Is the game RMT based?  Is the combat twitch, point & click, wow style?  DDO style?  Are the quests always 'go kill X get Y' or 'fedex' or are there other types of quests as well?  IE: do they get creative with what you need to do or are the quests just kill or courier with very little variation?   What kind of class diversity is there?  How much customization is available within your class or is everyone in a given class the same as everyone else?  Is there crafting?  Is it any fun?  Is it worthwhile?  Do players need crafters or is the game loot centric?  Is there item decay?  Etc... etc... ad nauseum.  IE: The review is both too short and too focussed on a VERY small number of items.  What there is of it is well written but it's not a very good review.

Great preview, really got a quick feel for the game in a few paragraphs. Looking forward to it.

WoW clone is WoW clone. Aion is WoW clone.

Originally posted by Pezhead

WoW clone is WoW clone. Aion is WoW clone.

WoW is an EQ clone. WoW is a FFXI clone your point?

Originally posted by heerobya

Originally posted by Miklos

I can't wait for Aion - hoping it will be a blast (never played a NCsoft product before as I didnt like GW and L1/L2).

And in terms of PVP - unless you state that EVE Online is the best PVP MMO game to ever launch, you are misinformed.

 

UO PvP was a lot better then EVE ever was/will be. Fact.

Yea sure if you only want simple one-shot kill combat without any tactics, player skills or depth.

In EVE you can 'PVP' without ever firing a weapon and still crush your oponent - because the game has the most advanced economy/crafting system ever developed for a computer game. Fact.

This preview is pretty much spot on to my experience with the last beta event. As a victim of the premature closing of Tabula Rasa, NCSoft has showered me with free trials, beta access, and free months of all their titles trying to woo me back as a customer. I was skeptical as anyone, but hey it was a free look so why not. I found myself instantly hooked, and exploring, all weekend, disdaining WoW and other games for the short time the Aion beta event was going on. I ended up making four characters and getting them all to level 10+, including up to the first flight phase.

I found myself very upset that I couldn't play past the weekend after the event closed, and not wanting to go back to WoW (even though I had missed a day of dailies which hasn't happened since WotLK launched incidentally). Of course this euphoric feeling could very well be lost after playing for a month, as it happens with many MMOs. However, from initial impressions, I really think that NCSoft may havea legitimate hit with Aion. You might think that, being a WoW player, my tastes and feelings would make me not like other games, but that is not the case at all. I have always maintained that, while WoW can be fun and is a great game, it is by far not the perfect MMO for me. Aion may not be either, time will tell, but I know a good thing when I see it, and Aion I think is...

Originally posted by tanoril

Originally posted by SilverArrow5

Originally posted by tanoril

So, outside of the pretty graphics, what is in this that's going to pry the 11+ million people away from WoW?  PvP with flight?  Curious minds want to know.  What are the highlights of this game that make it better than WoW?

 

Something new. I've played a good year of WoW before I got bored of it and moved on to another MMO. I still know a few people that play and even when they show me the "new" stuff in WoW at the time of expansions what's the point? You spend a month beating the new stuff and then you are bored again. Yeah so there's crafting, but really everyone is the same in the end. WoW came out in 2004. How many more years can you play the same MMO with the same stuff over and over?

World PvP. I'm not sure how many people here remember the old Tauren Mill raids that were the best thing since sliced pie. There was no instanced PvP crap at the time, it was pure open endless (pointless but fun) killing. Having 100+ vs 100+ battlefield where even good strategies were required than just mindless push with a lot of players.

(this kinda adds to the last sentence) Fortress and Artifact capturing. Defending and taking over artifacts which when used can do everything from wiping an entire enemy army to making your entire group stealthed for several minutes to allow you to flank an enemy. Then you take over Fortresses, which when taken over buff your entire race and open even more fun up. Not only do you have to defend this against your normal player enemies but the NPCs as well. See the NPCs want your fortress and artifacts too so you have to defend against them otherwise they'll smash through the normal defending NPCs and take everything back.

A constant push to force PvP while doing raid bosses. Some require that while one group is raiding, another is defending their back otherwise all it would take is a small group surprising the crap out of the main healer.

No one is the same. Skill wise, you chose 5 skills called Stigmas which can be different than what someone standing right next to you has selected. As I said in an earlier post, you can customize your armor and weapons to give more health, more survivability, or even things like longer flight or resists. Armor wise/crafting. Besides the PvP gear, crafting adds a whole new level of gameplay compared to other games. You technically can make yourself exactly like your buddy but it will be really hard to do plus even if you do, are the stones you put to buff you going to be the same? Most likely not. The best gear in the game is done by crafting which requires a lot of not only taking over fortresses but killing raid bosses to get the best of the best. You have to do all aspects of the game(PvP, raiding, PvE normal gathering) and require quite a bit of time to make the good stuff.

The game requires skill. In WoW, if you've got the armor and the weapons you're going to dominate the players that don't. In Aion, you have can have the best crap from raiding and PvP but if you don't know how to play your class it will take someone who does know how to play a few seconds to destroy you and he doesn't even have 1 piece of raid or PvP gear. I am shame to say I have seen this first hand from time to time. I can do everything right and even be better geared and higher level but they manage to keep me stunned or moved around how they want and I can put up a fight but they kill me and it makes me go :( but that just makes me want to try again :)

 

If some of you want some spoilers on armor and skills and weapons you can go to http://www.aionarmory.com watch out though, some of the translations are poor but a lot of these, the official translation hasn't been seen, someone pretty much translated from the Korean/Chinese versions on their own.

 

That's sounds neat and all, but I wonder how it will prevent from falling into the trap Warhammer has fallen into.  A PvP focused end-game relies on the fact that you have enough players on the other side that a) participate and b) give a crap.  If not, then it becomes Warhammer all over again, with all but a few of their servers being dormant. 

 

How is end game advancement done now?  Can you only get the best gear via PvP? (this is assuming Aion is a gear-centric game).

In Aion it's really hard to not find people to PvP mainly because the best leveling happens in the Abyss which is as I said before a PvP paradise pretty much. In what I've seen it doesn't take much for a group to grab attention of the other side which then there is spams about PvP in an area. When a rift opens up, entire groups rush out to find it along with a kisk ready to deploy behind enemy lines so even if the rift closes, they can respawn and continue PvPing in the enemies leveling areas. Have played Warhammer myself, I know what you're talking about and I haven't seen that yet but I don't think it will become that way because there is so much pushing for PvP. You really can't stand by and not experience PvP, if you like it or not PvP will come so you best start getting ready for it.

End game is PvPvE so there's a lot to do and everyone goes about it their own way. The best gear in the game known currently is done by crafting and the items to make it require you to take down several world raid bosses, capture multiple fortresses, and gather(or buy) endless amount of special resources scattered around the world of Aion. PvP gear is good, but not great, plus it takes a lot of killing to get PvP gear. You can start getting PvP gear at level 30 and in some ways it's like normal gear but with a few added bonuses, but as I said before, not as good as higher end crafting gear. Armor will have reduction in damage from enemy players, weapons will provide you with a percentage more against enemies and so on.

Gear is a decent part of Aion as it helps you define how you want your character to play out. Do you want to be the tanking caster, or the stunning ranger, maybe AOE ranger, or maybe even the crit happy Chanter. There is really no wrong way to setup a character unless you're putting melee damage on a caster, then you're just an idiot. :P

WoW is EQ clone, Aion is WoW clone, Aion is EQ clone.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Review

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

 

 

Really?

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

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

 Uh...mid twenties is very late into the game? o_O You sure you actually played C-Aion?

Aion looks like a nice game, polished and good graphics. The PvP and PvE seem to have bein spent equal time by the dev fine tuning every aspect and as long as NS cant keep the bots away and keep updating the game it should be sucsefull game. Not a WoW killer but a GOOD game.

I have 1 question tho does any one know the money cost? Is it monthly and if so how much? Or is it like GW and buy the box? Or is it free.

Originally posted by Pezhead

WoW is EQ clone, Aion is WoW clone, Aion is EQ clone.

totally agree all games build on the games that went before .fantasy mmos have similar basic set ups back to everquest and even ultima . wowcraft fans simply think wow is the first because its the first they ve played . i ve a feeling aion may be about to steal some of thier thunder about time too .

Originally posted by archerzz

I have 1 question tho does any one know the money cost? Is it monthly and if so how much? Or is it like GW and buy the box? Or is it free.

$69.99 for the CE, $49.99 for the standard (unless you find a deal somewhere). I keep pretty close tabs on this game and haven't seen an official announcement on subscription fee numbers (but there will be one, it's not like GW) but they've said all along it would be "similar" to other MMOs so...figure on $15 bucks a month.

Originally posted by Sarielle

Originally posted by archerzz

I have 1 question tho does any one know the money cost? Is it monthly and if so how much? Or is it like GW and buy the box? Or is it free.

 

$69.99 for the CE, $49.99 for the standard (unless you find a deal somewhere). I keep pretty close tabs on this game and haven't seen an official announcement on subscription fee numbers (but there will be one, it's not like GW) but they've said all along it would be "similar" to other MMOs so...figure on $15 bucks a month.

It will be $15/month i've read that from an article somewhere don't remember the site (unfortunatley I won't be able to afford that monthly fee atm).  I do wish it was free to play like GW tho XD

I'll be posting a pretty lengthy blog about my impressions from the weekend on Monday morning probably.  I enjoyed hearing your take on it.

Best mmorpg i have played in the last few years. It runs so smoothly, perfect animations, good graphics, nice quests. Just what i expected, a korean mmorpg with story and a questbased leveling.

I am sure that it will also be successful in EU / US.

I've been playing on cn aion for awhile now and i still am really enjoying the game.  Granted, there are a few problems with it, however the bulk of those problems revolves around the fact that i am playing the chinese version.  You might be wondering what that means, exactly.  It's not the language barrier.  Communicating with the chinese and partying up with them is generally no trouble at all thanks to being able to hyper link quests and locations directly off your map or log.  The problem is instead the version the chinese are playing with.

You see, china is still stuck in good old 1.0.  This version if very lax on botting and a bit painful in terms of grinding around level 33+.  That said, i should clarify that i am 40+ on my server.  It wasn't too horrible to get through and just forced me to party up against some elites whenever i could.  However, in spirit of their desire to westernize the game (westerns by large dislike grinding) the content patches which have already been released in korea (and i think taiwan and japan are beta testing those now) add more quests/higher experience for quests, raises level cap, more dungeons etc..etc.. making that grind as painless as possible.  So, if NA releases with its intended patch 1.2,  it won't really be an issue.

As someone who comes from WoW, one thing i grew to absolutely detest in the game is the lack of War in warcraft.  Most of the time is spent shoulder to shoulder with the enemy faction you're supposed to want to do little more than string up and use their gut in your violin.  So, it was a pleasant change of pace to find Infiltration quests in aion.  What are they?  Each side has their own territory in the form of zones. (read more on the lore to find out details)  But rifts open up taking you to the corresponding zone of your enemy.  What's more, you get quests to go over and accomplish something for greater reward and experience (after all, you're being sent way behind enemy lines).  There are also npcs already over there to give you quests.  So, by level 22, you will made intimately aware that there is a war going on that you can profit from if you can live long enough to survive.  How great are the rewards?  By lvl 45 they are top teir. 

Why such good rewards just for Infiltration questing?  Well... if you die over there, you have to go all the way back to your bind point which will not be in their zone.  You'll have to find that rift again and go through (assuming its still open) and try again.  Now, this changes if you have placed an item known as a kisk (think of it as a portal bind point).  Now you can res in their zone and try again.  1 problem... your kisk can be destroyed and they will destroy it if they see it.  It's bulky, glows a bit, not that hard to spot so you and your party (going solo is almost suicidal) had better know of a very good spot to place that kisk for when, you know, a guild gets word your there and decides they want the points from killing you.

These are just a few of the things that i've been finding enjoyable, and i didn't even mention abyss or crits while crafting.

Originally posted by Nytol

Love the character models. I hope it is a challenge, created for real gamers and not just for mainstream muppets.

Exactly how I feel, impressed so far but holding judgement for end game impressions.  Not getting all hyped as I did for Warhammer... :(

1. Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov
2. Robot Series, Isaac Asimov
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep, Philip K. Dick
   
   • Inspired one of my all-time favorite movies, Blade Runner.
   • If you have never seen Blade Runner, you honestly, truly, and seriously are missing out BIG TIME.

 EDIT:  Wooops!  I guess I posted in the wrong topic.  I do this from time-to-time.  These are the books which should inspired or be the basis for a new MMORPG.  In fact, we have had enough elves and fantasies.  It is time to take a sci-fi MMORPG to an new and exciting level.

Consider all the scientific issues we face today from genetically modified foods to cloning to themes of humans v. robots and so on and so forth.  Rich content exists. 

3 days is fun, but too much longer it's horrible:

I played Aion to level 30 (out of 50), I was the leader of a guild of 65 people and pvpd often as well. The graphics and many things about the game are amazing -- and level 1 to 12 is extremely fun. After that, it goes overboard extremely fast:

* The grind is, believe it or not, worse than EQ1. There are not enough quests to go around to keep things entertaining or running around, so eventually (more or so starting at level 15+) you find yourself grinding mobs all day every day

* Starting at level 18+, to get anything done you need a group. Groups aren't always easy to get, even with a guild! Worse than any game I've seen so far, actually. And guess what happens if you can't get a group? You grind, because you can't do any quests.

* Starting at level 20+ you start realizing the game is extremely repetitive and the world is tiny and worst of all, restricted. There is ONE place you have to go for a 10-15 level range, and no where else. There are no options for diversity for hunting/leveling.

* You level VERY slow in this game. Remember the hell levels from former EQ1 before they boosted XP? It's like that. EVERY level.

* You don't get to PvP at all until level 25, which takes a long time to get to. Most people don't want to quit the game until they get level 25 - the build up of suspense to find out that pvp is horrible. The "Abyss" (battleground) is extremely large. Larger than anything you can think of, which seems potentially cool, but honestly for hours of searching usually you find 1 person or so. You can't capture any bases unless you have a death squad of 25 people or so and all geared out and max level. That means no fun pvp goals until you have a hardcore raiding guild and everyone in your guild is max level, which is hard when people keep quitting the game at lvl 25.

* The guild system is horrible. There's a regular, officer, and leader when it comes to ranks. ONLY officers can have access to the bank - normals can't even view it to ask an officer to get something out for them they want. There are no useful guild customization tools when it comes to what members can or cannot do. I also believe the higher level guild ranks should offer more than just level caps past level 3. Even at level 3, offering guild items -- it would be nice if any of them were actually worth getting.

* Many annoyances for pvp -- Spiritmasters can only fly 1 tick away (1 second?) away before their pet poofs. Guess what, when your pet poofs, you have nothing! You can't even use your main dot orbs because it counts as a "summon" and it has to be casted on the ground. ALL other classes can cast in the air. Even further, because pets can't follow you in the air, even if you do have a pet, you get aggro from all mobs around you while trying to do anything. Spiritmasters are 100% gimped in abyss pvp.

* Annoying little bugs that add up to drive you crazy over time, like when harvesting, if you don't wait exactly 2 seconds+ between harvesting nodes, you'll automatically fail and use up a node charge. This is extremely frustrating.  Or you'll cancel a spell and start running, and you'll randomly stop to continue the spell, causing unnecessary aggro. Speaking of aggro, Spiritmaster's pets are idiots. If you walk along the mountain, they'll instead go AROUND the main entrance to the fence just /waving to elite mobs, causing death to my entire party because of my pet w/bad pathing.

* Because again everyone seems to quit at lvl 25, it's really bad morale for guilds. You group with someone since you started the game, become friends with them and group with them all the time, then suddenly they leave! This generally causes a chain reaction. I kid you not, as the leader of my guild, I had about 40 people quit the game (not just the guild) over a short period of time. It's a horrible feeling when your grouping buddies quit. That also means it's hard for you/guildies to get groups again.

* Can we say SPAM BOTS? My god.. I've never seen a game that has more. There's nothing you can do about it either.

* I enjoy solo content, exploration, and going to different places to hunt. I mentioned earlier it's strict on where you have to go and there's only one place. That completely destroys exploration too which is something I always enjoy. In EQ1 again for comparison, there would be maybe 15 places I could go at my level! Some hunting grounds that only a few know about even 10 years later! As for solo content, you can forget about it past level 18.

* Although I enjoy the sound in this game, the repetitive casting noises (which was borrowed from Lineage 2 obviously - was just as annoying) get on your nerves very fast. Instead of having multiple voices to randomly use, it's the SAME sound clip every time you cast the same spell. This gets very old, very fast.

* The guild system is horrible. There's a regular, officer, and leader when it comes to ranks. ONLY officers can have access to the bank - normals can't even view it to ask an officer to get something out for them they want. There are no useful guild customization tools when it comes to what members can or cannot do. I also believe the higher level guild ranks should offer more than just level caps past level 3. Even at level 3, offering guild items -- it would be nice if any of them were actually worth getting.

* Coin quests.. need I say more?

* Want to be unique in the world? It won't happen. Every class gets the exact same skills with no exceptions. No talent tree, no specializations, nothing. You are plain jane in this world.

 The good has been mentioned in above posts already and I won't repeat myself on that. To sum it up though, the graphics are amazing and stunning, customization is fun, it's EXTREMELY fun to level 10, then after that.. it's all downhill from there. So play a free trial to 10, then leave the game before you realize you wasted your time.

I don't understand why this game has so many fans.. it doesn't do anything new other than flying... and the pvp, well there are a lot of better games for pvp, and usually in azn games you have to reach the far corners of endgame (which involves a lot of grind) to get to that pvp.

Though, btw, I wouldn't give NCsoft credit for Guild Wars, that was more of an Arena Net production, and thus it was a lOT more western oriented.

Every other person is a game designer on these forums, hehe.

Originally posted by Xblade724

3 days is fun, but too much longer it's horrible:

I played Aion to level 30 (out of 50), I was the leader of a guild of 65 people and pvpd often as well. The graphics and many things about the game are amazing -- and level 1 to 12 is extremely fun. After that, it goes overboard extremely fast:

* The grind is, believe it or not, worse than EQ1. There are not enough quests to go around to keep things entertaining or running around, so eventually (more or so starting at level 15+) you find yourself grinding mobs all day every day

* Starting at level 18+, to get anything done you need a group. Groups aren't always easy to get, even with a guild! Worse than any game I've seen so far, actually. And guess what happens if you can't get a group? You grind, because you can't do any quests.

* Starting at level 20+ you start realizing the game is extremely repetitive and the world is tiny and worst of all, restricted. There is ONE place you have to go for a 10-15 level range, and no where else. There are no options for diversity for hunting/leveling.

* You level VERY slow in this game. Remember the hell levels from former EQ1 before they boosted XP? It's like that. EVERY level.

* You don't get to PvP at all until level 25, which takes a long time to get to. Most people don't want to quit the game until they get level 25 - the build up of suspense to find out that pvp is horrible. The "Abyss" (battleground) is extremely large. Larger than anything you can think of, which seems potentially cool, but honestly for hours of searching usually you find 1 person or so. You can't capture any bases unless you have a death squad of 25 people or so and all geared out and max level. That means no fun pvp goals until you have a hardcore raiding guild and everyone in your guild is max level, which is hard when people keep quitting the game at lvl 25.

* The guild system is horrible. There's a regular, officer, and leader when it comes to ranks. ONLY officers can have access to the bank - normals can't even view it to ask an officer to get something out for them they want. There are no useful guild customization tools when it comes to what members can or cannot do. I also believe the higher level guild ranks should offer more than just level caps past level 3. Even at level 3, offering guild items -- it would be nice if any of them were actually worth getting.

* Many annoyances for pvp -- Spiritmasters can only fly 1 tick away (1 second?) away before their pet poofs. Guess what, when your pet poofs, you have nothing! You can't even use your main dot orbs because it counts as a "summon" and it has to be casted on the ground. ALL other classes can cast in the air. Even further, because pets can't follow you in the air, even if you do have a pet, you get aggro from all mobs around you while trying to do anything. Spiritmasters are 100% gimped in abyss pvp.

* Annoying little bugs that add up to drive you crazy over time, like when harvesting, if you don't wait exactly 2 seconds+ between harvesting nodes, you'll automatically fail and use up a node charge. This is extremely frustrating.  Or you'll cancel a spell and start running, and you'll randomly stop to continue the spell, causing unnecessary aggro. Speaking of aggro, Spiritmaster's pets are idiots. If you walk along the mountain, they'll instead go AROUND the main entrance to the fence just /waving to elite mobs, causing death to my entire party because of my pet w/bad pathing.

* Because again everyone seems to quit at lvl 25, it's really bad morale for guilds. You group with someone since you started the game, become friends with them and group with them all the time, then suddenly they leave! This generally causes a chain reaction. I kid you not, as the leader of my guild, I had about 40 people quit the game (not just the guild) over a short period of time. It's a horrible feeling when your grouping buddies quit. That also means it's hard for you/guildies to get groups again.

* Can we say SPAM BOTS? My god.. I've never seen a game that has more. There's nothing you can do about it either.

* I enjoy solo content, exploration, and going to different places to hunt. I mentioned earlier it's strict on where you have to go and there's only one place. That completely destroys exploration too which is something I always enjoy. In EQ1 again for comparison, there would be maybe 15 places I could go at my level! Some hunting grounds that only a few know about even 10 years later! As for solo content, you can forget about it past level 18.

* Although I enjoy the sound in this game, the repetitive casting noises (which was borrowed from Lineage 2 obviously - was just as annoying) get on your nerves very fast. Instead of having multiple voices to randomly use, it's the SAME sound clip every time you cast the same spell. This gets very old, very fast.

* The guild system is horrible. There's a regular, officer, and leader when it comes to ranks. ONLY officers can have access to the bank - normals can't even view it to ask an officer to get something out for them they want. There are no useful guild customization tools when it comes to what members can or cannot do. I also believe the higher level guild ranks should offer more than just level caps past level 3. Even at level 3, offering guild items -- it would be nice if any of them were actually worth getting.

* Coin quests.. need I say more?

* Want to be unique in the world? It won't happen. Every class gets the exact same skills with no exceptions. No talent tree, no specializations, nothing. You are plain jane in this world.

 The good has been mentioned in above posts already and I won't repeat myself on that. To sum it up though, the graphics are amazing and stunning, customization is fun, it's EXTREMELY fun to level 10, then after that.. it's all downhill from there. So play a free trial to 10, then leave the game before you realize you wasted your time.

A guild with 65 people that cant get a party done? lol, specially considering most of the elite quests can be done easy with 3 people.

Yeah, the game is not wow, it doesnt hold your hand when it comes down to getting the quests done after certain levels, but stating that from 15 all you do is grind is pretty ignorant, specially when a lot of people can vouch that until level 34 or so you're not forced to grind at all in 1.0, it was your choice, you didn't want to group, you didn't want Aion.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Every other person is a game designer on these forums, hehe.

They sure are and at this point in the gaming world I would not admit it.  With the crap games coming out in the last 3 years.

I can't speak to Xblade's whole list, obviously. But I can refute two points:

"* Annoying little bugs that add up to drive you crazy over time, like when harvesting, if you don't wait exactly 2 seconds+ between harvesting nodes, you'll automatically fail and use up a node charge. This is extremely frustrating. Or you'll cancel a spell and start running, and you'll randomly stop to continue the spell, causing unnecessary aggro."

I encountered neither of these issues from levels 1-10.

Originally posted by rageagainst

I don't understand why this game has so many fans.. it doesn't do anything new other than flying... and the pvp, well there are a lot of better games for pvp, and usually in azn games you have to reach the far corners of endgame (which involves a lot of grind) to get to that pvp.

Nothing against you friend, but you just described the 10million pound retarded monkey known as World of Warcraft, with two exceptions.  WoW doesn't have flying, and they have a joke of a pvp system.

WoW brought absolutely 0 new ideas to the genre, they simply had a phenominal marketing campaign and meshed the best of the existing concepts/mechanics at the time into an already popular and established IP, backed by a massive budget.

Aion may be "innovative" or it may be a "gimmick(sp?)"  but I believe it is going to do quite well.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by beauxaj

 

So you just skipped that whole lower half of the article that said  "don't make the mistake of stopping at lvl 5"  She even gave it  a single solitary line of its own JUST in case people were skimming and it would stand out and get your attention.

 

No, I read the whole thing. She said that, and then described one FANTASTIC event she had where she got her wings. And then she ends the article. Here's where I'm concerned.

 

OK, 5 levels of boredom, one awesome scene where I get my wings....then from the sound of it, it more or less goes back to the same old, same old.

She DOES say "many of the later quests were better written"...but how many? 20%, 50%? 80? "And the ones that weren't, I didn't mind as much"? Just sounds like she's glazing over the bad parts a lot.

I guess my fear is that this game will be every other Asian MMO I've played, but will try to use the winged combat system as the one trick pony to set them apart. It sounds like a neat feature, but is it enough to make Aion a different game? I want a chance to play before I judge fully, but I remain a skeptic. I've been let down too many times before.

Actually she mentions the event happens at lvl 9/10, the statement is in reference to a lot of players these days who get to level 5 or so then declare a game a failure.  There are multiple cutscenes in the game, there are supposed to be Voice overs to go with them when the game goes live.  As for Quests that get better, It really depends on what each person feels is a good quest so no one could tell you what percent are better.  There are quests where you go look for a little youngster's lost pet, and other where you look for an old man's lost pet.  One you find and can bring home safely, another has become a meal.... interesting? depends on the person.

I've played a LOT of Asian MMOs back to the original Lineage and this one is really really not like any of them. Try to get into the beta's if you can, preorder at gamestop etc and just check it out for yourself, you may be pleasantly suprised, I was. 

Originally posted by Xblade724

3 days is fun, but too much longer it's horrible:

I played Aion to level 30 (out of 50), I was the leader of a guild of 65 people and pvpd often as well. The graphics and many things about the game are amazing -- and level 1 to 12 is extremely fun. After that, it goes overboard extremely fast:

* The grind is, believe it or not, worse than EQ1. There are not enough quests to go around to keep things entertaining or running around, so eventually (more or so starting at level 15+) you find yourself grinding mobs all day every day

* Starting at level 18+, to get anything done you need a group. Groups aren't always easy to get, even with a guild! Worse than any game I've seen so far, actually. And guess what happens if you can't get a group? You grind, because you can't do any quests.

* Starting at level 20+ you start realizing the game is extremely repetitive and the world is tiny and worst of all, restricted. There is ONE place you have to go for a 10-15 level range, and no where else. There are no options for diversity for hunting/leveling.

* You level VERY slow in this game. Remember the hell levels from former EQ1 before they boosted XP? It's like that. EVERY level.

etc etc

edited for brevity.....

I gotta ask, what build were you playing? 1.0.....1.1??