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Certainly a cut above - Yes.
It's funny how everything devolves into this WoW vs. the universe discussion, as if there are no points or destinations in between.
Like if I were to use Crysis and Killzone 2 as my only acceptable standards in modern FPS (or Halo 3, CoD4, etc.).
God knows there are very good 'lesser' FPS gems out there, stuff like Riddick, F.E.A.R. 2 etc.
And obviously there are lame, poorly conceivved recent FPS games -- standout 'bad' shooters like Legendary or Uwe Boll's Tunnel Rats.
So that's one genre. You play other types of video games, right? Anyway, MMOs. Think of MMOs in terms of the tiers I presented above in another genre, and all the many offerings of that genre.
Aion falls in between Tier 1 and 2. Like those 'very good' FPS games, it's just shy of reaching the peak. Just like those games, it's still very much a member of its genre -- sharing many of the same design cues and mechanics of others in its genre. Like the 'very good' games, Aion demonstrates extremely competent and reliable execution of the core elements of the genre. And unlike the very best, it doesn't quite achieve a mastery that makes it entirely irresistible.
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But it's very, very good. For example, you're seeing outstanding client performance in very large crowds. Aion does not seek to dazzle with glistening normal-mapped valleys like Conan. The game's rendering horsepower goes into tons of players and big terrain, not shader mania (you'll still get some nice bump-mapped armors and metallic bits).
Pretty impressive wide open complexity, and some cleverly-made-to-look-epic architecture that Asian developers are so good at. Intelligent, sometimes spectacular use of colors.
Look, if I fired up Far Cry today and played it maxed out at 1920x1200, it's still going to look pretty damn good. Not Crysis or Far Cry 2 good, but you still see some good power there. You see this terrain and character power in Aion. Older engine or not, it still delivers a pretty damn good looking experience under Aion's art direction.
In a nutshell, Aion's graphical tier could be described as WoW, Guild Wars and L2 merged and given added muscular mass, with a system spec that (like WoW in 2004) plays on anything in 2009..
It's crazy how stable and smooth Aion runs at 1920 x 1200 maxed out, 2x AA. It's like the buttery smoothness of WoW or Guild Wars with plainly superior complexity in the geometry, less (none?) hitching region loads, better LoD, and a more sophisticated lighting model. Easy to see during stuff like time of day changes.
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Enemy NPCs behave as desired, animate very well, and no stupid-looking pathfinding crap or ugly glitching. Very competent.
UI is good, no complaints. You can move it, scale the overall size, add more bars, remove and add tabs, move and place chat windows, stick channels in 'em. The map is a fine fantasy scroll-style map, all quest journal items can be tracked on screens, tracked on map, and a translucent version of the scroll map can be overlayed on the screen. UI buttons, locations and window layouts all check out very well, unlike so many of the sigh-inducing interfaces that come along. Very WoW-ish UI in Aion? Sure we can say that, but guess what? F.E.A.R. 2's interface is pretty similar to most FPS games. Sometimes games in one genre continue to do things one way because those things work, and players approve of them.
Combat is fine. Pace is nice and fast, gets about a zillion times better on the lvl 20- 30 stretch as your character leans into better specialty with the multi-slot stones, stigs, gear/materials that open up. Point being, like the 'very good' shooters that are a cut above the rest, Aion's combat is tight where it needs to be, rewards practice, and clearly 'feels' right (if safe/traditional).
A lot of Asian players like the unconventional NPC stories. Surprised by how good the quest text translation was in the US beta.
>. I see some US beta boneheads are complaining about the translation of items, stat screens, and system messages, which are all using the direct Asian>English patch, while the NPC quest text used the properly translated and re-written text by the US team. The complainers are lumping two parts of the localization process into the same pile. For the record:
System messages, items and names: several files were temp / botched in the US beta weekend client.
NPC quest narrative: Not one spelling mistake, grammar error, nor a hint of Engrish. So the NPC quest text you may or may not read in the US version should be good.
Cut scenes will include brief voice overs, and we'll have the English greetings/emotes/attack voices as all those parts get translated over. NCsoft has a dozen writers translating and re-writing the text... let's hope they invest good English voice overs too, or they will be grilled for it.
So there you have it. Aion is a really competent MMORPG that's not the grand master, nor the big shake-up revelation, but rather a very good example of the current template of the genre - something it shouldn't be damned for. It demolishes the free-to-play junk, and has a place in the tier of the premium big boys if we speak of raw polish level and production values. Withdrawal symptoms from the carrots of WoW, L2, WAR, GW, EQ 2, etc. would be adequately satiated here, and a pretty refreshing theme and visual effort to boot. You might not plan every waking moment of your life around it, but that's probably a good idea. There are other types of video games that should be played. Other genres that may be slightly more progressive. Or not. Sometimes it's perfectly fine to stop and smell the roses for a while, then move along in search of another rose patch to appreciate for a time.
Speaking of which: check out the game-altering stuff from Aion Patch 1.1 and 1.2 that we get in the US version on day 1:
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-discussion/16195-translation-aion-update-1-1-a.html
Comments
What you're saying is that Aion has nothing next-gen. Just the same old stuff. Especially with that dirty grind....eewwwww....
I loved your review, and it comfirms my thoughts.
I don't mean any offense, but your review includes one paragraph about gameplay. Everything you mention is superficial stuff like cutscenes, animations, graphic performance, and lighting. Those things are important and I don't mean to say they aren't, but it does make me realize that during my time in Aion I was impressed with the superficial details much more than anything I was doing during the gameplay.
First of all, thanks for a well thought out review. It's getting a bit rare these days
Interesting point about translations. I wasn't aware that it was being (or had been) fixed in stages. I pointed out in my review that quest text was well done with good story, but tooltips and item names were done poorly with tooltips being almost unbareable at times. I'm happy to know that these things are being patched in for us at launch.
I really do wish people would realize that Aion is doing what WoW did several years ago and that's bring the best of current MMO's to one MMO. There is nothing new or next generation about the game, it is just following the footsteps that WoW did and this is what Aion is looking like the direction it will go.
It's because there's nothing to talk about. This is like the 100th review we've had for Aion. Hence, why I haven't started a review.
Well, not once did I ever mention the word 'grind' -- just to clarify for the TLDR folks. That's your inference.
I'm immune to most sensations of grinding, after a decade of de-sensitization via hard MMO labor, back when it used to be an honest-to-goodness stupid grind. Oh those old, merciless risk vs. reward systems.
There are ample sources of XP in Aion and the quests send you out into the world in a pretty natural and progressive way. Leveling does not weigh on you too heavily: good distro of multi-part quests and gathering. Cleverly spaced out mini climax events. Of course today's standard PVP/RVR grind-o-matic end game applies. It's one of the most useful tools to keep high end players occupied these days. Even the softest of PVE carebear folks hang in the Abyss and get a crack at dungeons.
Well, not once did I ever mention the word 'grind' -- just to clarify for the TLDR folks. That's your inference.
Well one thing you have to do sometimes before you respond to someone is look at their post history....
He seems to like enough things about Aion if you read through his post history.. even says the pvp is fun.
I'd just like a point of reference as to what is not to easy and thus labeled "wow like" and what would not be to grindy and thus called an "asian grind fest".
So really from anyone posting about the game... I would like to hear:
1) Is it fun (this is supposed to be an entertainment product) and if it is fun what do you find fun?
2) Do you not find it fun (relative to 1) and if so why do you not find it fun?
3) If you are going to call any MMO "a grind" please give a reference to what you think would be proper leveling speed (an MMO you think does it right). Thus others can have a reference point to your opinion.
I see so much data in reviews often or just in opinions... but most people forget to mention if they find the game fun...
Honestly I could care less about a lot of these things... A game can have the most awesome looking game world ever seen and the best sound/music ever heard. If its not fun I won't pay to play it after 30 days..
Sorry if this seemed off the wall... I'd just like the focus of discussions to eventually focus on what games are supposed to be... "fun factor".
every mmo from now on will be compared to wow, its the best mmo to date. You can be a wow hater and deny that statement but numbers don't lie. I played the game for over 4 years, and finally quit do to boredom not because the game was bad.
I played lineage for about 2 years before wow release, the grind in that games release was one of the most rediculous grinds in an mmo to date. Aion is nothing like that grind.
Same thing happens everyday, people will always compare good basketball players to michael jordan.
That being said i'm not really expecting something "as good as wow" i personally don't think it will happen for a while to come. However this game is awesome in its own right and i'll def be full into it when its release is out.
Oh one thing i haven't seen anyone mention about Aion is that mail is easy to send and recieve as you don't have to find a mailbox a Shugo comes to you to send or recieve deleveries.
In my experience, I have fallen for Aion, it runs decently on my oldest puter, the story of yourself is opened up over time as you have your memories recalled, cant wait to play more when it goes live to find out more of the story, I havent delved too much into the crafting, I usually dont in any mmo but I may give it a good ol try this go round, It is the perfect game for me as I have to split my time with family, work, kids, and gaming, with Aion I felt compelled enough to log in on my spare moments that i have so sparingly and feel like I acomplished a bit of my charecter building and the story archs, I did manage to get to lvl 16 on the preview as a tank type, did the quests for the special quest only spells, and decked out some armor with different stat stones I looted, theres only one thing I can say is that I WANT MORE of Aion now lol, cant wait for it to go live.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Sorry for posting again, but5 maybe someone whom played the korean aion or whichever ones been out for a bit now, I noticed these awesome huge creatures flying above every now and again, do those eventually become fightable? They look like they would be great raid or full group type monsters. And they look cool as well.
playing eq2 and two worlds
I experienced nothing of the sort. I mailed my gladiator 60k kinah and a Phys Crit Stone, and I spent about 15 minutes on my gladiator trying to get to a Mailbox.
no, those look to be simply backround. like the elephant things in the 2nd zone. you can tell because they are animated differently. I think it adds a lot to the zones, makes them look better and move alive. but they are just a backdrop, not real.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
thank u for the quick reply.
playing eq2 and two worlds
This review, is a great one.
Inspiring pen i should say.
its definatly the best mmo to come out in a long time and it caters to the pvp market so i give it a thumbs up thus far
This post is an example of what I was saying in a post earlier today:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2876907/thread/239102#2876907
Relax man. I may be a newer poster, but I am most assuredly not some marketing dick attempting to do a viral thing. Besides, it's not like I'm painting a perfect picture of the game like a PR ho' would probably do. Mine takes a more realistic angle I hope.
I experienced nothing of the sort. I mailed my gladiator 60k kinah and a Phys Crit Stone, and I spent about 15 minutes on my gladiator trying to get to a Mailbox.
shugo only comes when you send express mail
its more expensive
Dunno about funny but when one game holds about 80% of the market then naturally most things will be compared to it. Like most PC OS are compared to Windows.
Like it, or not, WoW is a giant in MMORPGS and hold the massive majority of gamers so those comparisons aren't going nowhere.
My gaming blog
I experienced nothing of the sort. I mailed my gladiator 60k kinah and a Phys Crit Stone, and I spent about 15 minutes on my gladiator trying to get to a Mailbox.
shugo only comes when you send express mail
its more expensive
Hahahaha
Now this is the kind of polish we are talking about