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Aion: First Impressions
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
With the head start already under way, MMORPG.com's Sean Bulger writes his first impressions of the highly anticipated game.
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The latest game from NCSoft to hit the market is the MMO-with-wings, Aion. Set in a world, quite literally, torn asunder, players join one of two factions to participate in an on-going war between an ancient enemy, and each other. While still set in a fantasy world like most MMOs, Aion presents itself with a fairly interesting setting. It also promises high quality gameplay, a lot of polish, and even some intense PvP with a twist.
Of course, many games have promised very similar things in recent years, but such promises are difficult ones to achieve, and more than one development studio has been burned because of that. Having already spent a year in release in Korea and China, Aion has a step up on that, at the very least. However, Eastern MMOs don't always catch on so well in Western markets.
Luckily, I was able to take a peek into the world of Atreia for the duration of the open beta week to get a better feel for the game.
Read First Impressions
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Nice review.
Prolly alot of wow players will be trying this game.
If you want to hire Machete to kill the bad guys, you better make damn sure the bad guy isnt you!
Thanks MMORPG for purposefully being misleading with the title and intro. I was hoping to read someone elses experience during the first day of head start that didn't involve countless angry raging forum posts. But instead you post yet another "first impressions" of Aion that were from the beta.
I agree with Streea, the game isn't out yet so this isn't a first impression of the game. That aside, this article sparked some intrest in Aion for me. It sounds like a pretty solid game. I'll be interested to see what happens when it goes live.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
But it did go live. 2 days early for people that preordered the game.
I am having fun with Aion!
^ I'm not sure you're looking for. At this point what you see is what you get.
I've been in CB, OB, and now the head start. This first impression article is entirely accurate IMO and mirrors my opinion of the game almost to the point that I could have been the writer of this article.
edit: I should add that the new web features are great and help add to the game. If a review is written beyond a "first impression" piece then the website features should probably play a part in the review.
I swore to myself I would stop becoming addicted to MMORPGs when I quit WoW a year or so back. Now I've boughten Aion and I'm loving it.
Ah well. Very fun game with nice graphics, fluid animations and interesting quests with cutscenes.
For anyone that came here wanting to know about headstart, the game is indeed fun...when you can actually play it. A LOT of the server had queues that had players wait in excess of 3 hours, on some servers i hear the wait times were as high as 8 hours. So there were very many people that were promised early access that did not even get to play. NCSoft has not said anything to the people that were misled into paying early, nor have they said anything about situation other than acknowledging that there is a problem. Also the bonus items that were promised for preorders to be available during headstart are not.
So not only did they fail to deliver on the headstart due to their own ineptitude, they also blatantly lied about the bonus item availability.
I have not given up on the game yet, but the article makes it sounds like it's all roses and this point with the current server status I would not consider the game anything but beta quality. Hopefully they will remedy this soon.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
I have to add my two cents and say that I played the open beta and wasn't impressed at all with Aion. Sure, its pretty, but its just the same old MMO that has been done a thousand times with a new face. There's nothing new or innovative or fresh with Aion at all. The quests are 'yawn' like WoW and all the other cookie-cutter "Go kill X number" or "Go collect X number" or "Go deliver this to so-and-so" games we have seen done to freaking death.
Its just another class-based, linear lead-you-by-the-nose MMO that seems to be the industry standard these days. Can't anyone come up with anything new?
Also, if you've played any Asian MMO (i.e. Perfect World, Runes of Magic, etc) then you have played Aion. It has the same feel, same layout of terrain and monsters, same quests, etc. You start out at the same starting area for each of the two factions with every new character (so much fun to raise yet another alt on the same quests), have the same level-based/gear-based design that other MMOs have and combat is also the same.
If you don't like pvp then Aion is a huge let down as they have open pvp past I believe 30, where you have to enter the zones where the other faction goes as well, so you will get ganked and attacked no matter what server you are on. Like role-play? Not on Aion, they have no designated RP server and won't enforce any RP rules at all.
There are also player vendors and anyone who played SWG in the day knows that will lead to huge lag in town clustered with masses of spamming player vendors.
So why play Aion? If you're playing an MMO now, you're probably playing Aion with a different face so don't waste your money if your not impressed with your WoW/Conan/Warhammer/etc game already. You'll find nothing new here. So in short, don't.
Quite honestly its a huge disappointent.
If you aren't actively part of the solution, you have no right to complain about anything.
Most players won't realize the problems with this game until they get to the end game since it is heavily pvp based. It has been proven time and time again that a two faction pvp system just does not work. Eventually one side starts winning constantly and then the other side just gives up. This was even evident in Beta somewhat. The crafting system is nothing more than a basic one. So what is going to occupy players at the end game?
Just watch this game follow the same course as War has. It is a lot harder to satisfy the masses on this side of the pond than on their side.
It is because so many people are trying to play. It happens with every "big" MMO launch.
That is not an excuse, they knew how many people preordered. I udnerstand there are certain growing pains with a new launch, which is why I am willing to give them a chance still, but there is valid excuse for the thorough lack and understanding scalability. It's like they did no capacity planning AT ALL.
Hey, good review. Basically same opinion I got from the beta: Nothing earth-shattering, but still a respectable MMORPG
Yeah i'm thinking you will see that just like Destruction over powered Order in War, Some stuff i have read are showing that to be the case overseas already, on a lot of servers the Elyos is pretty much dead, giving up trying ot fight a hopeless one sided battle.
Some may like that challenge, but frustration pushes people away. They are gonna need to do something to make the Elyos more appealing or the same thing will happen here.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
I preordered the game, Play it, and will continue to play it for a while. BUT, This game is nothing special. it is a cookie cutter game with nothing that realy makes it stand out. Controlls are basic, combat is Basic, Creatures are Basic, Interface is Basic, and Quests are basic.
But what the game does, they do well. few bugs, Smooth, No to little lag, and Good Graphics.
It's NOT a great game, but not a Bad game either.
this is bullsh*t, WAR had specific race/class combinations which was the downfall for the entire pvp system, cuz some classes were more overpowered then others ( which is normal ) but u couldnt pick them on the other side, hence the inbalance on sides
in AION this is no problem, cuz all classes can be picked on either side. end of discussion
this is bullsh*t, WAR had specific race/class combinations which was the downfall for the entire pvp system, cuz some classes were more overpowered then others ( which is normal ) but u couldnt pick them on the other side, hence the inbalance on sides
in AION this is no problem, cuz all classes can be picked on either side. end of discussion
If only it were that simple. One side will outnumber the other. Even with totally balanced classes/races, the side with numbers will win more often. And when one side wins more often, the otherside tends to go elsewhere. And when one side tends to go elsewhere, the other side tends to win more often. And when that side wins more often, the otherside tends to go elsewhere...
Rinse, repeat until server merge.
Quite fun to know that people who have no idea bash it based on negative experience from other games.
Aion has a built-in balancing system where you:
1. Cannot create a character of a faction that is outnumbering the other one at the server at the moment with a 5% threshold. So the biggest % imbalance it can be is 47%-53%. http://uk.aiononline.com/livestatus/server/
3. If this fails, there is the Balaur, the NPC faction, that makes sure, if one side dominates the other, jumps in and helps.
I agree that Aion provides nothing new. Oh wait, it does. People that never played the game, but troll it and claim flying is just fluff have no idea what they're talking about. The need to be aware of the 3rd dimension at all times and actually having to pay attention to "above" and "below" instead of the usual 4 directions adds a whole new twist to PvP.
Another boring mmo with flashy graphics. It seems players will play anything these days just to get their mmo fix because just about everything else has been pretty horrendous. Aion excels because nothing else good is out. It's a one man race to the top. Grats on mmo of the year because nothing else good will release this year. It reminds me of 2007 when Lotro one MMO of the year. Nothing else was good either.
I don't think they've said enough about how the balancing system works. In everything I've read this is only the second time I've read about it.
Well here is my review after playing the game for 2 days now...It Rocks. The servers were overloaded the first day and had a long wait to log in, but after that worked itself out, i have no lag problems and love it so far.
this is bullsh*t, WAR had specific race/class combinations which was the downfall for the entire pvp system, cuz some classes were more overpowered then others ( which is normal ) but u couldnt pick them on the other side, hence the inbalance on sides
in AION this is no problem, cuz all classes can be picked on either side. end of discussion
If only it were that simple. One side will outnumber the other. Even with totally balanced classes/races, the side with numbers will win more often. And when one side wins more often, the otherside tends to go elsewhere. And when one side tends to go elsewhere, the other side tends to win more often. And when that side wins more often, the otherside tends to go elsewhere...
Rinse, repeat until server merge.
Are you sure about that?
http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=109&page=
/carry on
I know you are right that imbalance can be an issue on two faction games, however, I still perfer it to one faction anything goes gank fests. IMHO there are no perfect solutions, all have pluses and minuses. I really enjoyed the two factions in WOW. I had a main on both sides(different servers) and it just so happened that one side alliance was ahead, other was horde. I suppose I will do the same in Aion, lol
I would have to agree, this is usually why PvP 'in' the game world ruins games.
Meh I would just play the game on a private server, they have tons of them with very little bugs, no use getting dedicated to the game then watching it go under.
servers became more stable because there is less people, everyone quit after playing this horrible excuse for a mmo.
I'm a WoW player, I tried Aion, and I'm staying with Wow .