I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
And the article left you with qestions. So go dig up the answers instead of going back and forth demanding answers but not wanting to hear them.
Go play the game and find out. Go watch a gameplay video to SEE for yourself. Or, just go hit up the FAQ or Aion section of the forums. Your info is there. Quit derailing the thread with nonsense about PW -- this thread was comparing L2 and Aion.
I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Exactly. But he doesn't want to understand that. He seems to think it read something about PW or any game that offered flight.
So much praise for flight mechanics that are already old. Perfect World has the ability for players to fly, with no timers on flight, aerial combat, and no restrictions on where you can fly. These "reviewers" need to start coming up with better reasons than "you can fly" for AION. The customization? Sorry, Perfect World has them beat there as well. And Perfect World is free. So, what makes AION worth paying for?
its all about the quality of the game aswell, there are many wow f2p clones out there but none have put a dent in wow...it may have features that are in Aion but it is not done well at all. i did not enjoy perfect world
Okay, so you don't like PW. But let's focus on the mechanics. Timed flight with area restrictions is better than free flight anywhere at any time?
How are the mechanics not done well in PW, and how are they done better in AION?
I just wanted to throw out my own mini review of the Chinese beta version of Aion. Just so you know I have several years experience playing World of Warcraft (Given up due to Blizzard’s extremely piss poor customer service). I have also played Age of Conan, Ever Quest II, Dungeons and Dragons on-line, Ultima On-line and Lord of the Rings online. Today is April 20th 2009.
I am currently playing on the Chinese open beta (Yes the Beta servers are still up and running even though the Chinese version is now live). Not sure why the beta servers were left up but I will continue to play until the boot me. I am also using the unofficial beta English patch which is far from complete. I’m sad to say I don’t know what version of Aion this actually is as a lot of the game is still in Chinese so I can’t read the version numbers…
Lastly take into account I still have not hit the higher levels yet so this will obviously not be a complete review; just first impressions.
My system is Windows Vista Ultimate x64. 6 gigs ram. 2 duel core Xeon processors (3.2 Ghz each) and a NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ graphics card. 24” Dell monitor running at 1920 x 1200. I have high speed SCSI hard drives. Contrary to the graphics card and specs, this is not a gaming system. It’s a computer workstation and thus normally is not very good at graphics in 3d. It’s built to handle lots of information very reliably and only with 2D stuff.
Not once has the game lagged out or crashed or given any hint of a hiccup and this is while connected to a the Chinese beta server half way across the world. Stability does not appear to be an issue.
To start of with, the game loaded fine even though I had to down load and patch everything in Chinese (Then add the English patch file). Nice that it was simple enough to do so even without being able to read any instructions. The game does take a long time to load. Unusually long but I suspect it is due to the hard core graphics it uses.
The character creation screen is really nice. There are 23 pre selectable head designs and you can modify any one of the 30+ facial attributes and 13+ body attributes to customize the looks of your character completely. From the number of videos floating around on Youtube with people designing toons that look like famous people (President Obama for example) you can pretty much design any look you want here. You can even select one of several voices for your character but that functionality is not working yet apparently. You can also view what your character will look like nearly nekkid, with average and heavily armored. There is also a random generator for the looks of your character which will randomly choose settings for you. Keep clicking it and eventually you will find one you like. About the only thing I found missing on this screen was a random character name generator. I suspect once the servers start to fill up finding a name not already taken will be a chore. I hope they add this functionality.
The game graphics really are nice. Think of it as a cross between Lord of the Rings on-line world graphics, Age of Conan character graphics and World of Warcraft’s (When not lagged) fluid movements. The game world looks outstanding. About on par with LOTRO, possibly slightly better. The looks of the characters and their animations beat out Age of Conan. Even with all the enhanced graphics, the game is still way smoother then WoW even on a lag free day. If you see still screenshots of Aion, just know that the animations of those screenshots are even more impressive. All the screen shots you see here are with all graphic options turned on. Something I can’t even start to do in WoW or Age of Conan with this computer.
Audio is great as well. I am concerned that the audio pretty much stays on all the time though. I’d rather have it where the music turns off after time and restarts later or when you change areas or actions otherwise I will get sick of it no matter how nice it sounds. Even so the music flows well and the sound effects of the toons are great. Unfortunately many of them are still in Chinese and I can’t hear the final English translation yet.
The attention to detail with the character animations is outstanding. From the changes in eye shape, flowing robes, even the smallest hand and finger gestures for virtually every action. There is a large number of emotes I was able to activate from the emote screen. Unfortunately I was not able to just type /dance /wave etc. as that does not seem to be working yet. I suspect once again due to translation issues. NPCs move around and won’t always be in the same locations.
In game day and night and weather is active and although I did not verify this myself supposedly it affects game play to some extent. I’d like someone to verify this however.
The User Interface is very easy to use and simple. I was up and running in no time using it. Nice to have a simple lock button right on the action bars to lock your action bars. You can also move UI to various parts of the screen. Opening bags and moving things around is very easy. The icons are extremely clear and recognizable. I give the user interface a solid A.
Training new spells is done at the various trainers throughout the world. They sell books you use to learn new spells and abilities. You can purchase these in advance if you know you will be leveling soon and have the money and space.
There does seem to be some type of in game macro and script file language but I have no information on it other then what you can see here in the screen shot. I don’t know if Aion supports any type of addon.:
Gathering in game seems to work well but I think it is way to slow in my opinion. You can see the requestor here in this screen shot. It seems to take anywhere up to 5 seconds to gather an item depending on your skill level. It appears you don’t really just pick it up as you do in some games but you draw the essence out of the items. The animation it does when you gather is really well done. When you gather an item, you gain a small amount of Experience
Quest giver and other NPC markings are above the respective toons heads like in most games. Very crisp and easy to read. Quest turn-in locations are shown on the minimap and world maps with a duplicate mini icon.
The quests are very straight forward. Much of the same variety as you’d find in most games. Collect x number of body parts from x number of creatures, collect items, find certain locations, timed quests etc. There are repeatable quests as well. In addition to normal quests you also have Missions and Work orders. Work orders are crafting quests. Missions are story line type quests and are usually much more involved. The quest text is well written and easy to under stand. I did encounter a few translation issues but those should be worked out soon. In addition wherever in the requestors it mentions a person, place or thing you can click it and it will bring up additional information on that person, place or thing. Also there is usually a ‘Location’ button that when pressed will show the the location on the world map. All the requestors are really some sort of hyper text based as they are all interlinked. It’s really nice. You can track up to 7 quests on the right side of the screen.
Death sucks like usual in every game. When you die you get a nice animation of your character keeling over gracefully as the screen turns and goes dark. You can rez at an Obelisk easily. When you die you actually lose XP. You can gain the XP back by spending cash at a nearby Spirit healer (Not the correct name). You can change the location of your home Obelisk at any time but there is a price to do so.
I only visited a fraction of the world so far. It is huge. I couldn’t really say how large in comparison as to the world in some games but looks to be large enough to keep us all busy for a long time.
The game does have an in game coordinates system but I was not able to find a way to keep the coordinates on screen all the time. Perhaps someone else found a way?
There are Teleporters in various towns and cities. Short range teleporters will fly you to nearby areas. Long range ones will teleport you directly. All for a price of course. Money so far has not been an issue in the game.
The Auction house (Broker as they call it) seems to work well. I had one major issue with it however in that you can only put into the Broker 10 different items (Or stacks of items) at once. Maybe this is a beta limit? I couldn’t possibly see how this could be a real limit. The game would have no economy at all with such a limit. If this is a real limit it needs to be changed fast. Real fast.
OK. Now this is very important: Whenever my character uses bandages to heal herself, she says something in Chinese that sounds like ‘Chicken and peace’. This is driving me nuts. Can anyone who speaks Chinese please tell us what the heck what sounds like ‘Chicken and Peace’ means in Chinese? All I know is I keep getting hungry the more I play and I’m going nuts trying to figure it out!
There are 6 professions in the game (Weapon smithing, alchemy, jewelry, armor smithing, tailoring, cooking and gathering). I tried both cooking, tailoring and gathering. I do not know if there is a limit to how many you can learn. I was also able to learn an additional language although I don’t know what advantage this does for me.
Crafting seems to work well. Only hang up is I tried making some cloth armor items and it would not allow me to do so. No error messages, it just would not allow me to click the Create button. Turns out I needed to be standing next to a Loom in order to make the item. It would be nice if there was some kind of requestor or text in red stating what was missing for me to make the tailoring item. Same thing with food, I needed to be next to a stove in order to do so but there was no indication as to what was wrong, just could not make it.
Weapons and Armor all have manastone sockets, similar to WoW’s gem sockets. Some items have multiple sockets. When you socket an item there is a chance it will fail. If it does fail all existing manastones will be destroyed.
There is a really convenient Lock Action bars button on the action bar itself. Just click it and you won’t accidentally drag icons off your toolbar. Very nice.
As you progress through the game you earn various titles. Each title grants various stat bonuses. You can choose which title to display and when you change Titles you also change which bonuses you have currently.
Each character can set up at any time a Private Store. Just bring up the menu to activate it and select which items you wish to sell and for what price. Also choose some text to display over your character. When you activate this, your character sets up a mini store in game on the spot and anyone walking by can browse your goods and buy things from you. It was very easy to set up and such. The text you choose is displayed over your toon to advertise what you are selling.
In addition to standard abilities (Tossing fireballs and such) you also have chain spells. These are combination spells when done in the correct order have additional effects (Bonus damage etc.). Very easy to use and not at all complicated. Very well implemented.
Combat is quick and very well done. Even though I am connected to a server on the other side of the world the lag was not an issue. The game is very responsive and I suspect will be more so when played on a local server. You really do feel drawn into the combat. Character movement is very smooth. Difficulty was about what I would expect. For a character leveling up I am able to kill any single target of equal level without much issue. Two is a pain but doable. Three is too much. My character is a sorcerer though so all DPS and not much defense. I had just learned the sleep spell (Crowd Control) and what appears to be sort of a reverse blink spell. Even in groups with lots of mobs around and everyone doing various things the combat was simple and fun. Great graphics and no lag that I could see. Character position and facing makes a big difference in this game, especially in 3d combat.
Flying: At level 9 you receive your ascension quest line. Just a couple of easily done quests that automatically advances you to level 10 where you learn to fly (So you basically skip level 9). Flying has a limit to the amount of time you can stay in the air. At level 10 you can stay flying for 1 minute. As you go up in level the flight time increases. I also found several potions and saw some other items that will grant you extra flight time. Flying was simple with take off and landing buttons, also up and down buttons. You move forward and backwards and turn like normal. Anything you can do on the ground you can do in the air including combat.
I have a few gripes about the flying however:
As you go through the world there are some area you can fly in and some you can’t. No rhyme or reason as to why which is which. The icon for flying highlights when you can is you can tell for certain.
As I was flying I kept running into invisible walls. Not sure why. Seems they should just open up the world completely and allow you to go where you wish.
In order to unfold your wings and take off you have to select one icon then you select another icon to rise up. These should be one and the same button. Same thing for down. One button goes down and the other tells your character to collapse his wings. This should be automatic. If you say go up your character should unfold his wings and fly up with one button and if you fly down to the ground it should be obvious you want to land. Shouldn’t have two separate buttons.
I did not do any dueling or pvp. I have no idea what kind of instances the game has at all. The only time I saw the load screens other then game start-up was when I changed continents.
Throughout the game there are numerous short videos that play. Sort of like a cut scenes in a movie. These break up the grind and add a bit to the ambience of the game. I suspect they should add an option to turn those off though as some folks will not like them. Personally I do.
I was not able to find a way to adjust the camera angle via keyboard shortcut. If you know of a way please let me know. If there is not a way this really needs to be added. Having to adjust the camera angle via mouse is cumbersome and slow when you are a keyboard user. I had no problems modifying the keyboard controls of everything else in the game. I saw several posts of people who were not able to reassign some of their side mouse buttons. I don’t have those so could not test that.
At level 10 you choose what subclass you wish to be. There are four main classes and each class has two subclasses. I do not know if there is a way to switch at a later date if you chose the wrong one. The 4 classes and their subclasses are: Warrior (Gladiator and Templar), Scout (Ranger and Assassin), Mage (Sorcerer and Spiritmaster) and Priest (Cleric and Chanter).
There are two factions players can choose from, Elyos and Asmodians. There is also a third computer controlled faction called Balaur. Balaur are basically demons and are intelligent NPCs. They may help or hinder either of the two player factions at any time. Each faction has their own starting area and zones. The Asmodians occupy the upper part of the shattered world while the Elyos occupy the lower half. The Balaur occupy the center area (The Abyss).
Each character also has 5 Stigma slots. Stigma slots may be filled with stones that grant your character an ability of a different class. At level 20 you get 2 slots, 1 more at levels 30, 40 and 50.
Under your health and mana bars (After level 10) you will also see a Divine Power bar. As you combat others you slowly build up Divine Power. When you have enough you can unleash some very powerful abilities. At the levels I was playing at, it took a good 30 minutes or so for me to build up enough Divine Power to unleash an ability so it’s not something you get to use often.
Aion has a built in help system, unfortunately the English translation did not have most of the help system included. There are in game videos as well as text help, none of which is working in English yet. Fortunately the game is so easy to figure out you don’t really need much help.
Aion is produced in Korea so naturally they released it in Korea first. The Chinese market is the largest market in the world so it’s expected they would open it up there next (Already released in China now). Japan is the next release area (Slated for July 2009 or so). Translation to Japanese will take minimal work and all the data centers running the servers in Korea could be used to run the Japanese ones so that’s why I suspect they chose to release Aion in Japan next. They are close enough distance to run them all out of the same data centers. Japan is a large market with minimal work involved.
I suspect the long delay for the USA and Europe release (Sept 2009???) is due to all the translation work to English, re working all the quest lines and recording all the voiceovers. In addition the installation software and documentation will have to be converted as well. The biggest delay in bringing the game to the USA and Europe will be building all the data centers to house and connect all the servers to the Internet. Not an easy task and extremely expensive. I suspect they will need all the cash from the other markets to do so. Those kinds of datacenters are not easy to put together nor cheap.
All in all Aion is a winner. I suspect in a patch or two they will have fixed the majority of the little items and the other translations will take a lot of time but I’m sure they will get it right. It’s amazing this game is already this good and they have not even released it in the USA yet. As far as the lower levels go Aion is already better then the other on-line multi-player role playing games I’ve played so far and they are just getting started. I can’t wait for the finished product.
Now if I could just figured out what that ‘Chicken and peace’ thing means…
NOT MADE BY ME BUT A REVIEW BY THE SAME PERSON WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE
Now if I could just figured out what that ‘Chicken and peace’ thing means…
NOT MADE BY ME BUT A REVIEW BY THE SAME PERSON WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE
If all of that came from the OP i take back what i said about them only taking the "fluff" of this game seriously as the differences between the 2 games.
I don't think anyone said it was the first MMO with flight, rather that it was done well. That doesn't mean Perfect World wasn't done well, just that Aion's was.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Yeah, I think I did look at the article in the wrong light. My bad.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character.
Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does...
I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this.
Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
But you really have to compare Aion with PW as they both have delved deeply in flight. Aion is far closer to PW than it is to Linage. PW runs on lower end machines very well, there is very little lag in the game even in large fights.
Oh and BTW SgtFrog your system is probably better than most of the posters gaming systems on this site. Hardly a good comparison.
Originally posted by NeoDodge In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character. Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does... I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this. Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
Aion character customization. As good as COH is, this is way better.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character. Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does... I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this. Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character.
Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does...
I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this.
Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
Aion character customization. As good as COH is, this is way better.
Note that I don't deny the fact that Aion may offer one to ten truckloads of options more than what CoH has (Having been only mildly interested in Aion up till now, I actually had no idea and must thank you for enlightening me on this, though). I was just pointing at an "inaccurate" statement. Let's sum it up this way : "Quality or quantity aside, there ARE other games that enable players to create a truly unique character, and those aren't all that hard to find". Hell, with enough refreshes, I could probably shoot a screen of the article with ads of both EVE and CoH just next to it !
Oh, and sorry about the author/editor confusion. Didn't know the poster wasn't the writer ^_^'
[EDIT as the post quoted hereafter was posted while I was writing my answer. Anyone knows how to make a quote block, btw ?]
[quote]Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.[/quote]
May I "WTF?" you back ? I honestly see no obvious relation between customizability and cel shading. Semantics aside, well, I have no video nor first hand experience to back it, of course, but please read the article I linked to. It has a list of customization points which you will find informative (if your objective was to actually have a constructive argument in the first place).
I will add that it has recently been announced that players of Champions will be given the option of turning said cel-shading off. The resulting graphic quality will remain subject to personal tastes, but that fact kind of invalidate your statement.
wow, i can't even read this crap. I read as far as the following paragraph, then realized this is anything but an objective editorial.
"....If all it took was stunning graphics, a continuous and in-depth quest based story line, and involved large scale player versus combat then AION just might fill the role of being heralded as Lineage III. However, AION delivers so much more. It takes those elements we love in games and makes them better. No, it does more than that. AION spreads its wings and soars to new heights."
It spreads it's wings and soars to new heights??? /puke are you gonna pork it or play it?
I guess this isn't the site for objective journalism about MMORPG's anymore :-(
I'm not saying the game sucks, or is great, as someone who hasn't played it yet, i don't know., but it does look promising. but OMG put the advertising the banners were they belong!
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone www.spankybus.com -3d Artist & Compositor -Writer -Professional Amature
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character. Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does... I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this. Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
First off, NCSoft owns City of Heroes as well as Aion. Secondly, Aion's customization owns CoH's and Perfect World's. They don't even compare. This is coming from a fan of CoH...Perfect World is just plain laughable. CoH did the uber customization thing long before PW did, and Aion expands on it to blow them both out of the water.
Lets see! :
Size:
CoH - Actually, CoH lets you get pretty small, so they do well here.
Perfect World - Height is barely customizable and the bar doesn't make a huge different from left to right.
Aion - Tiny, Tall, whatever.
Build:
CoH - Once again, CoH builds are pretty varied; you have both skinny and muscular, but you don't have fat. Some might like a girthy character, especially those who are looking to make their characters look like dwarves.
Perfect World - Nope. You can expand the hips and waist, but not much. Not to mention, Perfect World models are third-world compared to Aion
Aion - Fat, skinny, muscular, whatever.
Face:
CoH - One of the few places CoH fails. The faces don't change much. There's some sliders but they don't add anything unique
Perfect World - Actualy does a marvelous job with faces!
Aion - does it better
Age:
CoH - has some older static faces, but once again, you can't edit them much beyond what's pre-made
Perfect World - Nope. You can make yourself ugly if you want, but I've never seen an old toon.
Aion - Yep! Make them young or old. Want a short, young angelic cherub? Sure! Want an old, gruff male cleric? Go for it!
Models:
CoH - Attractive for its time, but showing its age.
Perfect World - Models aren't even symmetrical. This is why animators and designers should know how to draw before entering their field. Believe it or not, it's not actually required. Sad, isn't it?
Aion - Gorgeous, accurate, realistic. Not over muscled, not undermuscled. You'll adore your avatar. In fact, you'll probably spend a lot of time in the first day of the game just looking at yourself. You're that cool looking. Srsly.
Flight: (Not about customization but I'll cover it anyway)
CoH - Has flight and combat flight. One of the first to do this well.
Perfect World - Has combat flight...SORTA. If you attack a monster or person on the ground, you better be able to 1hit them, because if they can't reach you their health will just refill. Furthermore, unless you're a Wing Elf, you can't fly until 30. Oh, and when you do get that flight, it's slow. Really, really slow. Unless of course, you buy a faster one in the item mall >_>;
Aion - You fly by level 10, combat flight is engaging and thorough and you can fight enemies on the ground while in the air. Not an item mall feature! Nope, don't need to spend $50+ to get a faster mount and speed upgrades, future upgrades to your flight speed covered in that spiffy, low monthly fee. As you level, you fly faster and longer. Also, wing upgrades in addition to stones and other enhancements effect your speed and timer. So yes, you need to use your flight strategically, but no it's not nearly as restrictive as people claim.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
very interesting review. i have always followed aion, but unfortunately didnt make it into any betas. however, theres something id like to know about a feature, and im sorry if this question has been answered before.
I played ffxi for over 4 years, and you have the possibility to have several jobs per character. does aion offer such thing, or do u just create a new character in order to play a different job? I would really like the way that Square enix did it in ffxi
lineage 2 had great features for its time, but it still was a horrible and painful game because of the grind. It doesn't matter how many features this game has, it is a korean grindfest at heart... I guess this is the p2p version of the korean grind fest, now with stuff to grind towards! (in f2p grindfests, you grind so you can grind some more)
It doesn't matter how many features this game has, it is a korean grindfest at heart...
This baseless sweeping generalization probably would have carried more weight if you weren't posting on a forum where people are already playing it and know otherwise.
I admire your loyalty to your convictions, though!
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
very interesting review. i have always followed aion, but unfortunately didnt make it into any betas. however, theres something id like to know about a feature, and im sorry if this question has been answered before. I played ffxi for over 4 years, and you have the possibility to have several jobs per character. does aion offer such thing, or do u just create a new character in order to play a different job? I would really like the way that Square enix did it in ffxi thanks for ur answer
Unfortunately you would have to roll an Alt if you would like to play as another class. Although this is pretty standard for most class based games aside from FFXI's Job system which I do love myself.
Off the top of my head I do not know of any other class based games that let your 1 character swap out anytime to other classes aside from FFXI.
Comments
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
There's plenty of other articles around that address your question, as well as an entire section of forums full of people asking the same thing as you. This article wasn't an overview or complete review, just stating it wasn't just a new Lineage. I don't recall them saying it wasn't the next PW or anything, just addressing the issue that the topic states.
And if you haven't played, how can you state anything is subpar? The flight time and everything is part of the mechanics, not a restriction to the game. It fits into the story, and I don't think it's an issue. Plus, higher level your flight time in Abyss really shouldn't be too much of an overall issue like it is early on.
Easy. I read the description of the flight mechanics. That's what the article is doing right? Describing for those of us who haven't played.
And the article left you with qestions. So go dig up the answers instead of going back and forth demanding answers but not wanting to hear them.
Go play the game and find out. Go watch a gameplay video to SEE for yourself. Or, just go hit up the FAQ or Aion section of the forums. Your info is there. Quit derailing the thread with nonsense about PW -- this thread was comparing L2 and Aion.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Exactly. But he doesn't want to understand that. He seems to think it read something about PW or any game that offered flight.
hey wisel, the chinese Clinet of the game is haveing a two week free trial on two servers. why no try the game out and see the difference for yourself
you can find info on the internet on how to sighn up
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
LOL.....got to love the trolling he is doing. If not then he is completely missing the boat.
its all about the quality of the game aswell, there are many wow f2p clones out there but none have put a dent in wow...it may have features that are in Aion but it is not done well at all. i did not enjoy perfect world
Okay, so you don't like PW. But let's focus on the mechanics. Timed flight with area restrictions is better than free flight anywhere at any time?
How are the mechanics not done well in PW, and how are they done better in AION?
I just wanted to throw out my own mini review of the Chinese beta version of Aion. Just so you know I have several years experience playing World of Warcraft (Given up due to Blizzard’s extremely piss poor customer service). I have also played Age of Conan, Ever Quest II, Dungeons and Dragons on-line, Ultima On-line and Lord of the Rings online. Today is April 20th 2009.
I am currently playing on the Chinese open beta (Yes the Beta servers are still up and running even though the Chinese version is now live). Not sure why the beta servers were left up but I will continue to play until the boot me. I am also using the unofficial beta English patch which is far from complete. I’m sad to say I don’t know what version of Aion this actually is as a lot of the game is still in Chinese so I can’t read the version numbers…
Lastly take into account I still have not hit the higher levels yet so this will obviously not be a complete review; just first impressions.
My system is Windows Vista Ultimate x64. 6 gigs ram. 2 duel core Xeon processors (3.2 Ghz each) and a NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ graphics card. 24” Dell monitor running at 1920 x 1200. I have high speed SCSI hard drives. Contrary to the graphics card and specs, this is not a gaming system. It’s a computer workstation and thus normally is not very good at graphics in 3d. It’s built to handle lots of information very reliably and only with 2D stuff.
Not once has the game lagged out or crashed or given any hint of a hiccup and this is while connected to a the Chinese beta server half way across the world. Stability does not appear to be an issue.
To start of with, the game loaded fine even though I had to down load and patch everything in Chinese (Then add the English patch file). Nice that it was simple enough to do so even without being able to read any instructions. The game does take a long time to load. Unusually long but I suspect it is due to the hard core graphics it uses.
The character creation screen is really nice. There are 23 pre selectable head designs and you can modify any one of the 30+ facial attributes and 13+ body attributes to customize the looks of your character completely. From the number of videos floating around on Youtube with people designing toons that look like famous people (President Obama for example) you can pretty much design any look you want here. You can even select one of several voices for your character but that functionality is not working yet apparently. You can also view what your character will look like nearly nekkid, with average and heavily armored. There is also a random generator for the looks of your character which will randomly choose settings for you. Keep clicking it and eventually you will find one you like. About the only thing I found missing on this screen was a random character name generator. I suspect once the servers start to fill up finding a name not already taken will be a chore. I hope they add this functionality.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Mage-Female.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterSelection.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Body.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Face1.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Face2.jpg
The game graphics really are nice. Think of it as a cross between Lord of the Rings on-line world graphics, Age of Conan character graphics and World of Warcraft’s (When not lagged) fluid movements. The game world looks outstanding. About on par with LOTRO, possibly slightly better. The looks of the characters and their animations beat out Age of Conan. Even with all the enhanced graphics, the game is still way smoother then WoW even on a lag free day. If you see still screenshots of Aion, just know that the animations of those screenshots are even more impressive. All the screen shots you see here are with all graphic options turned on. Something I can’t even start to do in WoW or Age of Conan with this computer.
Audio is great as well. I am concerned that the audio pretty much stays on all the time though. I’d rather have it where the music turns off after time and restarts later or when you change areas or actions otherwise I will get sick of it no matter how nice it sounds. Even so the music flows well and the sound effects of the toons are great. Unfortunately many of them are still in Chinese and I can’t hear the final English translation yet.
The attention to detail with the character animations is outstanding. From the changes in eye shape, flowing robes, even the smallest hand and finger gestures for virtually every action. There is a large number of emotes I was able to activate from the emote screen. Unfortunately I was not able to just type /dance /wave etc. as that does not seem to be working yet. I suspect once again due to translation issues. NPCs move around and won’t always be in the same locations.
In game day and night and weather is active and although I did not verify this myself supposedly it affects game play to some extent. I’d like someone to verify this however.
The User Interface is very easy to use and simple. I was up and running in no time using it. Nice to have a simple lock button right on the action bars to lock your action bars. You can also move UI to various parts of the screen. Opening bags and moving things around is very easy. The icons are extremely clear and recognizable. I give the user interface a solid A.
Here is a screen shot of the character screen:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterScreen.jpg
Her is one of just the basic controls:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/CharacterScreenshot.jpg
Here is the friends list (Apparently I don’t have any friends):
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/FriendsPanel.jpg
There are also search panels for groups and guilds and also an in game notepad.
Looting is pretty straight forward with an autoloot option available:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/ManaStones.jpg
Training new spells is done at the various trainers throughout the world. They sell books you use to learn new spells and abilities. You can purchase these in advance if you know you will be leveling soon and have the money and space.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/MageTrainer.jpg
The in game world map is extremely well done. Works very similar to the one in WoW and LOTRO but is much improved over those.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Map2.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Mapandhelppanel.jpg
There does seem to be some type of in game macro and script file language but I have no information on it other then what you can see here in the screen shot. I don’t know if Aion supports any type of addon.:
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Macros.jpg
Gathering in game seems to work well but I think it is way to slow in my opinion. You can see the requestor here in this screen shot. It seems to take anywhere up to 5 seconds to gather an item depending on your skill level. It appears you don’t really just pick it up as you do in some games but you draw the essence out of the items. The animation it does when you gather is really well done. When you gather an item, you gain a small amount of Experience
Quest giver and other NPC markings are above the respective toons heads like in most games. Very crisp and easy to read. Quest turn-in locations are shown on the minimap and world maps with a duplicate mini icon.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/HotNPCs.jpg
The quests are very straight forward. Much of the same variety as you’d find in most games. Collect x number of body parts from x number of creatures, collect items, find certain locations, timed quests etc. There are repeatable quests as well. In addition to normal quests you also have Missions and Work orders. Work orders are crafting quests. Missions are story line type quests and are usually much more involved. The quest text is well written and easy to under stand. I did encounter a few translation issues but those should be worked out soon. In addition wherever in the requestors it mentions a person, place or thing you can click it and it will bring up additional information on that person, place or thing. Also there is usually a ‘Location’ button that when pressed will show the the location on the world map. All the requestors are really some sort of hyper text based as they are all interlinked. It’s really nice. You can track up to 7 quests on the right side of the screen.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Questgiver.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/LordSlut2.jpg
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/LordSlut.jpg
Death sucks like usual in every game. When you die you get a nice animation of your character keeling over gracefully as the screen turns and goes dark. You can rez at an Obelisk easily. When you die you actually lose XP. You can gain the XP back by spending cash at a nearby Spirit healer (Not the correct name). You can change the location of your home Obelisk at any time but there is a price to do so.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Death.jpg
I only visited a fraction of the world so far. It is huge. I couldn’t really say how large in comparison as to the world in some games but looks to be large enough to keep us all busy for a long time.
i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv293/davidmanvell/Sanctum2.jpg
The game does have an in game coordinates system but I was not able to find a way to keep the coordinates on screen all the time. Perhaps someone else found a way?
There are Teleporters in various towns and cities. Short range teleporters will fly you to nearby areas. Long range ones will teleport you directly. All for a price of course. Money so far has not been an issue in the game.
The Auction house (Broker as they call it) seems to work well. I had one major issue with it however in that you can only put into the Broker 10 different items (Or stacks of items) at once. Maybe this is a beta limit? I couldn’t possibly see how this could be a real limit. The game would have no economy at all with such a limit. If this is a real limit it needs to be changed fast. Real fast.
OK. Now this is very important: Whenever my character uses bandages to heal herself, she says something in Chinese that sounds like ‘Chicken and peace’. This is driving me nuts. Can anyone who speaks Chinese please tell us what the heck what sounds like ‘Chicken and Peace’ means in Chinese? All I know is I keep getting hungry the more I play and I’m going nuts trying to figure it out!
There are 6 professions in the game (Weapon smithing, alchemy, jewelry, armor smithing, tailoring, cooking and gathering). I tried both cooking, tailoring and gathering. I do not know if there is a limit to how many you can learn. I was also able to learn an additional language although I don’t know what advantage this does for me.
Crafting seems to work well. Only hang up is I tried making some cloth armor items and it would not allow me to do so. No error messages, it just would not allow me to click the Create button. Turns out I needed to be standing next to a Loom in order to make the item. It would be nice if there was some kind of requestor or text in red stating what was missing for me to make the tailoring item. Same thing with food, I needed to be next to a stove in order to do so but there was no indication as to what was wrong, just could not make it.
Weapons and Armor all have manastone sockets, similar to WoW’s gem sockets. Some items have multiple sockets. When you socket an item there is a chance it will fail. If it does fail all existing manastones will be destroyed.
There is a really convenient Lock Action bars button on the action bar itself. Just click it and you won’t accidentally drag icons off your toolbar. Very nice.
As you progress through the game you earn various titles. Each title grants various stat bonuses. You can choose which title to display and when you change Titles you also change which bonuses you have currently.
Each character can set up at any time a Private Store. Just bring up the menu to activate it and select which items you wish to sell and for what price. Also choose some text to display over your character. When you activate this, your character sets up a mini store in game on the spot and anyone walking by can browse your goods and buy things from you. It was very easy to set up and such. The text you choose is displayed over your toon to advertise what you are selling.
In addition to standard abilities (Tossing fireballs and such) you also have chain spells. These are combination spells when done in the correct order have additional effects (Bonus damage etc.). Very easy to use and not at all complicated. Very well implemented.
Combat is quick and very well done. Even though I am connected to a server on the other side of the world the lag was not an issue. The game is very responsive and I suspect will be more so when played on a local server. You really do feel drawn into the combat. Character movement is very smooth. Difficulty was about what I would expect. For a character leveling up I am able to kill any single target of equal level without much issue. Two is a pain but doable. Three is too much. My character is a sorcerer though so all DPS and not much defense. I had just learned the sleep spell (Crowd Control) and what appears to be sort of a reverse blink spell. Even in groups with lots of mobs around and everyone doing various things the combat was simple and fun. Great graphics and no lag that I could see. Character position and facing makes a big difference in this game, especially in 3d combat.
Flying: At level 9 you receive your ascension quest line. Just a couple of easily done quests that automatically advances you to level 10 where you learn to fly (So you basically skip level 9). Flying has a limit to the amount of time you can stay in the air. At level 10 you can stay flying for 1 minute. As you go up in level the flight time increases. I also found several potions and saw some other items that will grant you extra flight time. Flying was simple with take off and landing buttons, also up and down buttons. You move forward and backwards and turn like normal. Anything you can do on the ground you can do in the air including combat.
I have a few gripes about the flying however:
As you go through the world there are some area you can fly in and some you can’t. No rhyme or reason as to why which is which. The icon for flying highlights when you can is you can tell for certain.
As I was flying I kept running into invisible walls. Not sure why. Seems they should just open up the world completely and allow you to go where you wish.
In order to unfold your wings and take off you have to select one icon then you select another icon to rise up. These should be one and the same button. Same thing for down. One button goes down and the other tells your character to collapse his wings. This should be automatic. If you say go up your character should unfold his wings and fly up with one button and if you fly down to the ground it should be obvious you want to land. Shouldn’t have two separate buttons.
I did not do any dueling or pvp. I have no idea what kind of instances the game has at all. The only time I saw the load screens other then game start-up was when I changed continents.
Throughout the game there are numerous short videos that play. Sort of like a cut scenes in a movie. These break up the grind and add a bit to the ambience of the game. I suspect they should add an option to turn those off though as some folks will not like them. Personally I do.
I was not able to find a way to adjust the camera angle via keyboard shortcut. If you know of a way please let me know. If there is not a way this really needs to be added. Having to adjust the camera angle via mouse is cumbersome and slow when you are a keyboard user. I had no problems modifying the keyboard controls of everything else in the game. I saw several posts of people who were not able to reassign some of their side mouse buttons. I don’t have those so could not test that.
At level 10 you choose what subclass you wish to be. There are four main classes and each class has two subclasses. I do not know if there is a way to switch at a later date if you chose the wrong one. The 4 classes and their subclasses are: Warrior (Gladiator and Templar), Scout (Ranger and Assassin), Mage (Sorcerer and Spiritmaster) and Priest (Cleric and Chanter).
There are two factions players can choose from, Elyos and Asmodians. There is also a third computer controlled faction called Balaur. Balaur are basically demons and are intelligent NPCs. They may help or hinder either of the two player factions at any time. Each faction has their own starting area and zones. The Asmodians occupy the upper part of the shattered world while the Elyos occupy the lower half. The Balaur occupy the center area (The Abyss).
Each character also has 5 Stigma slots. Stigma slots may be filled with stones that grant your character an ability of a different class. At level 20 you get 2 slots, 1 more at levels 30, 40 and 50.
Under your health and mana bars (After level 10) you will also see a Divine Power bar. As you combat others you slowly build up Divine Power. When you have enough you can unleash some very powerful abilities. At the levels I was playing at, it took a good 30 minutes or so for me to build up enough Divine Power to unleash an ability so it’s not something you get to use often.
Aion has a built in help system, unfortunately the English translation did not have most of the help system included. There are in game videos as well as text help, none of which is working in English yet. Fortunately the game is so easy to figure out you don’t really need much help.
Aion is produced in Korea so naturally they released it in Korea first. The Chinese market is the largest market in the world so it’s expected they would open it up there next (Already released in China now). Japan is the next release area (Slated for July 2009 or so). Translation to Japanese will take minimal work and all the data centers running the servers in Korea could be used to run the Japanese ones so that’s why I suspect they chose to release Aion in Japan next. They are close enough distance to run them all out of the same data centers. Japan is a large market with minimal work involved.
I suspect the long delay for the USA and Europe release (Sept 2009???) is due to all the translation work to English, re working all the quest lines and recording all the voiceovers. In addition the installation software and documentation will have to be converted as well. The biggest delay in bringing the game to the USA and Europe will be building all the data centers to house and connect all the servers to the Internet. Not an easy task and extremely expensive. I suspect they will need all the cash from the other markets to do so. Those kinds of datacenters are not easy to put together nor cheap.
All in all Aion is a winner. I suspect in a patch or two they will have fixed the majority of the little items and the other translations will take a lot of time but I’m sure they will get it right. It’s amazing this game is already this good and they have not even released it in the USA yet. As far as the lower levels go Aion is already better then the other on-line multi-player role playing games I’ve played so far and they are just getting started. I can’t wait for the finished product.
Now if I could just figured out what that ‘Chicken and peace’ thing means…
NOT MADE BY ME BUT A REVIEW BY THE SAME PERSON WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
If all of that came from the OP i take back what i said about them only taking the "fluff" of this game seriously as the differences between the 2 games.
My point is the writers' 2 main points of interest were flight and customization , both already done by PW and subpar to PW if the description is accurate. So what did this writer put in the article that sets AION apart? What is AION doing that hasn't been done? That's my question.
Are we reading the same article? What I got from the article was that this was not simply Lineage 2 but a game of its own. That's the title of it, the first paragraph and the closing. Everything in between is stating why she feels it isn't an L2 clone.
I think you were looking for a "Why AION is better than other MMOs" article and that's just not what the article was about. Is it that you have a problem with the writer or simply do not like Aion? Not that we can do much to help you with either of those, but it would help to understnad why you are pitching this completely off topic complaint about the article.
Yeah, I think I did look at the article in the wrong light. My bad.
Think I'll go look up that trial also.
In direct contrast, AION offers so many options at the creation screen; you'd be hard pressed to find another game that enables players to create a truly unique character.
Erm. Really. All trolling aside. Coming from a Managing Editor of a site called "MMORPG.com", that statement is a surprising denial of existence of at least two major MMOs out there for 5 years, and one that will surely come out before Aion does...
I'm speaking of City of Heroes/Villains, EVE Online and Champions Online here. I may be stretching it as far as EVE is concerned -and then again "walking in stations" may multiply the customisation options by ten sliders for all I know- but really, you should give CoH's character editor a try. You CAN make a pixie, an elf or a dwarf too ! And thousands of other things more, may I add. And I hear Champions' editor is devilishly more thorough on this.
Sorry about the "rant". It's somewhat off topic given the title of the article, but then the same title does not invite the kind of generalization that triggered my CoH-fan mutant genes.
This one was done by Seridove, not by Jon.I see your point, though.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I think the game will do very well in NA.
But you really have to compare Aion with PW as they both have delved deeply in flight. Aion is far closer to PW than it is to Linage. PW runs on lower end machines very well, there is very little lag in the game even in large fights.
Oh and BTW SgtFrog your system is probably better than most of the posters gaming systems on this site. Hardly a good comparison.
Aion character customization. As good as COH is, this is way better.
See for yourself.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.
Aion character customization. As good as COH is, this is way better.
See for yourself.
Note that I don't deny the fact that Aion may offer one to ten truckloads of options more than what CoH has (Having been only mildly interested in Aion up till now, I actually had no idea and must thank you for enlightening me on this, though). I was just pointing at an "inaccurate" statement. Let's sum it up this way : "Quality or quantity aside, there ARE other games that enable players to create a truly unique character, and those aren't all that hard to find". Hell, with enough refreshes, I could probably shoot a screen of the article with ads of both EVE and CoH just next to it !
Oh, and sorry about the author/editor confusion. Didn't know the poster wasn't the writer ^_^'
[EDIT as the post quoted hereafter was posted while I was writing my answer. Anyone knows how to make a quote block, btw ?]
[quote]Well i have to say is "WTF are you smoking dude?" In no way is Champions Online customabitlity any way better than Aion's. First off Champions Online is cell shading which does make it look better than City of Heroes/City of Villians but in no way even compares to what Aion looks like. If you can compare them, then list the differences.[/quote]
May I "WTF?" you back ? I honestly see no obvious relation between customizability and cel shading. Semantics aside, well, I have no video nor first hand experience to back it, of course, but please read the article I linked to. It has a list of customization points which you will find informative (if your objective was to actually have a constructive argument in the first place).
I will add that it has recently been announced that players of Champions will be given the option of turning said cel-shading off. The resulting graphic quality will remain subject to personal tastes, but that fact kind of invalidate your statement.
I have a strong feeling I will love this game. Super excited here! Will be buying this one for sure
www.youtube.com/watch
There's a video with korean's 1.2 customization, way more extensive than China's one (1.0)
I have played Aion China Beta till lv 10 and it has great depth in quest and item and the combo system make it fun and interesting
wow, i can't even read this crap. I read as far as the following paragraph, then realized this is anything but an objective editorial.
"....If all it took was stunning graphics, a continuous and in-depth quest based story line, and involved large scale player versus combat then AION just might fill the role of being heralded as Lineage III. However, AION delivers so much more. It takes those elements we love in games and makes them better. No, it does more than that. AION spreads its wings and soars to new heights."
It spreads it's wings and soars to new heights??? /puke are you gonna pork it or play it?
I guess this isn't the site for objective journalism about MMORPG's anymore :-(
I'm not saying the game sucks, or is great, as someone who hasn't played it yet, i don't know., but it does look promising. but OMG put the advertising the banners were they belong!
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
-3d Artist & Compositor
-Writer
-Professional Amature
First off, NCSoft owns City of Heroes as well as Aion. Secondly, Aion's customization owns CoH's and Perfect World's. They don't even compare. This is coming from a fan of CoH...Perfect World is just plain laughable. CoH did the uber customization thing long before PW did, and Aion expands on it to blow them both out of the water.
Lets see! :
Size:
CoH - Actually, CoH lets you get pretty small, so they do well here.
Perfect World - Height is barely customizable and the bar doesn't make a huge different from left to right.
Aion - Tiny, Tall, whatever.
Build:
CoH - Once again, CoH builds are pretty varied; you have both skinny and muscular, but you don't have fat. Some might like a girthy character, especially those who are looking to make their characters look like dwarves.
Perfect World - Nope. You can expand the hips and waist, but not much. Not to mention, Perfect World models are third-world compared to Aion
Aion - Fat, skinny, muscular, whatever.
Face:
CoH - One of the few places CoH fails. The faces don't change much. There's some sliders but they don't add anything unique
Perfect World - Actualy does a marvelous job with faces!
Aion - does it better
Age:
CoH - has some older static faces, but once again, you can't edit them much beyond what's pre-made
Perfect World - Nope. You can make yourself ugly if you want, but I've never seen an old toon.
Aion - Yep! Make them young or old. Want a short, young angelic cherub? Sure! Want an old, gruff male cleric? Go for it!
Models:
CoH - Attractive for its time, but showing its age.
Perfect World - Models aren't even symmetrical. This is why animators and designers should know how to draw before entering their field. Believe it or not, it's not actually required. Sad, isn't it?
Aion - Gorgeous, accurate, realistic. Not over muscled, not undermuscled. You'll adore your avatar. In fact, you'll probably spend a lot of time in the first day of the game just looking at yourself. You're that cool looking. Srsly.
Flight: (Not about customization but I'll cover it anyway)
CoH - Has flight and combat flight. One of the first to do this well.
Perfect World - Has combat flight...SORTA. If you attack a monster or person on the ground, you better be able to 1hit them, because if they can't reach you their health will just refill. Furthermore, unless you're a Wing Elf, you can't fly until 30. Oh, and when you do get that flight, it's slow. Really, really slow. Unless of course, you buy a faster one in the item mall >_>;
Aion - You fly by level 10, combat flight is engaging and thorough and you can fight enemies on the ground while in the air. Not an item mall feature! Nope, don't need to spend $50+ to get a faster mount and speed upgrades, future upgrades to your flight speed covered in that spiffy, low monthly fee. As you level, you fly faster and longer. Also, wing upgrades in addition to stones and other enhancements effect your speed and timer. So yes, you need to use your flight strategically, but no it's not nearly as restrictive as people claim.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
very interesting review. i have always followed aion, but unfortunately didnt make it into any betas. however, theres something id like to know about a feature, and im sorry if this question has been answered before.
I played ffxi for over 4 years, and you have the possibility to have several jobs per character. does aion offer such thing, or do u just create a new character in order to play a different job? I would really like the way that Square enix did it in ffxi
thanks for ur answer
By job, do you mean crafting like cooking, alchemy, weaponsmithing, etc? If so, you can take as many as you want on the same character.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
lineage 2 had great features for its time, but it still was a horrible and painful game because of the grind. It doesn't matter how many features this game has, it is a korean grindfest at heart... I guess this is the p2p version of the korean grind fest, now with stuff to grind towards! (in f2p grindfests, you grind so you can grind some more)
When I'm energetic I'm:
the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
When I'm at default I'm:
WHITE/BLUE
Lol according to this I'm bipolar :O
This baseless sweeping generalization probably would have carried more weight if you weren't posting on a forum where people are already playing it and know otherwise.
I admire your loyalty to your convictions, though!
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Unfortunately you would have to roll an Alt if you would like to play as another class. Although this is pretty standard for most class based games aside from FFXI's Job system which I do love myself.
Off the top of my head I do not know of any other class based games that let your 1 character swap out anytime to other classes aside from FFXI.