Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog: Comparing Aion vs. WAR
Pheace
Member Posts: 2,408
Many of you may remember Keen and Graev. He used to blog about WAR a lot. Now he's trying out the "beta" weekends for the NA Aion and he made a comparison between his experiences there and his WAR experiences.
Comparing Aion vs. WAR
The third week of Aion Closed Beta testing is well underway and I am once again playing, against my better judgment (burnout, y’know), and having fun. I was asked during the last beta weekend to write up a comparison of WAR and Aion. Occasionally I do receive requests and I always try to answer them in either their own blog entry or by incorporating them into another. The request came with a specific list of criteria for comparison and it appears to be comprehensive enough. I’ll edit it only slightly to avoid being redundant in my answers.
Before I begin, let me tell you that I can not give you a definitive answer on some of these because I have not been able to see the whole game. Know that what I write comes from a certain perspective gained from beta. I would encourage anyone who has played Aion in the Chinese or Korean versions to comment where I am unable.
Graphic & Animation / Style
Both games use a stylized form of graphics. WAR went for a gritty look and Aion for the more rounded and softer (dare I say Eastern) look. Having to compare the two very quickly, Aion’s graphics are much better – style aside. The animations in Aion are also much, much smoother and show quite early on how they are much more polished and incorporated into the game, such as combat. When choosing which style is better, that has to be left up to the individual’s preference. I don’t mind either.
Texture
Both games have great textures in some places and poor textures in others. In WAR you’ll see muddy textures on occasion and simple textures quite often. In Aion I have seen a great deal of muddy/poor to no texturing at all on some cliffs. Certain walkways and paths also lack decent textures. On the other hand, there are times in WAR and in Aion where the textures are very well done and you can’t help but stare a second longer to appreciate them.
Landscape
I’ll consider this as a general approach towards creating an atmosphere and toss in general appeal of the world around you as you explore and experience content. WAR suffers from forcing the player down very specific paths, almost ushering you to the next location. This is accomplished by using impassable objects, terrain, etc to ensure the player is going in the predetermined direction. Aion does the same thing, at least early on from what I have seen. While both games have a linear path of progression, Aion does have the advantage of flight and better graphics to simulate that lush landscape, forest, lake, and scenery that will naturally immerse the player far easier than WAR.
Frame-per-second
It’s not even close for me. Aion’s performance is nothing short of stellar. I can easily maintain 70+ frames even with nearly 50+ people visible at one time on my screen. There are places in the world where I have maintained 90+ frames. The only time I ever felt my frames actually drop was this third weekend when I logged into Pandaemonium (Asmodian capital city) right as the servers came up. It stuttered for a few seconds while loading all the people rushing in then it returned to being smooth. WAR is a laggy beotch. The performance by comparison is atrocious.
Smoothness in large scale PVP
I have not done the Abyss yet, so I can’t comment on castle sieges. I can say that in the Arena when we had 30+ people fighting together it was smooth as can be. While not the ideal setting to test “large scale”, it’s still a step above WAR’s performance.
Smoothness in Keep / Fortress Siege (assuming AION got some kind of castle siege)
Aion does indeed have a Keep sieging feature. I won’t be able to test it until the next phase. This question will be answered for you then.
CC impact in group PVP
In both games CC is prominent. Aion has DAOC’s level of CC – a lot. It will make or break your group’s ability to succeed. Just like in DAOC, when a group that knows how to maximize their CC comes against a group that doesn’t, the better CC’ers can take twice their numbers. This is what led to the success of the 8 man teams after players decided that zerging wasn’t fun. I hope to see the same thing in Aion. Additionally, there is a different between ‘annoying CC’ and CC that makes sense. WAR has the three difference CC timers and the disables and so on. Aion has roots, sleeps, snares, polymorphs, etc. I’ll comment more when I do sieges, but it feels less annoying already than WAR CC.
What WAR did right compared to AION
This is tough. I don’t know enough about Aion yet, but I do know that WAR is often criticized for getting nothing “right”. Public quests are arguably a good addition to the genre, but as WAR has shown they are over used and act as replacement for real content. I will say that WAR made an effort to ensure that their focus (RvR being accessible, even at level 1), even if a wrong focus, was accomplished. It’s easy to jump right in to RvR regardless. I also like WAR’s guild system; sure it could use improvements to how guilds level and the rewards they receive, but the leveling of guilds was nice. Aion only has 3 guild levels and you buy them.
What AION did right compared to WAR
I think we’re going to see Aion’s PvP play out much better. Their Abyss vs. T4 is going to show up WAR in a big way if anything I’ve heard from friends is true – remember, Aion has been out for 8 months in Korea. Why will it show it up? Because it’s not about gathering points for domination flips to get to a capital city. It’s not about flipping keeps for gear, flipping them for renown, or really about this arcadelike production of PvP…. it’s simply about fighting your enemy. The Balaur (3rd faction, NPC) will add an interesting element to the PvP that will make it just that much more dynamic. You will still earn points, and lose them too, in Aion for fighting so players won’t feel like they’re doing it for nothing. These points are then redeemed for gear and other things. It’s like DAOC’s realm rank system in a way. I think the irony here is that Aion will be closer to DAOC than WAR.
World PVP (random pvp) fun
WAR did not have this, except on ORvR servers. Even there, the random world pvp was nonexistent. People simply did not go into each other’s PvE areas because being in the RvR area was 10000x more rewarding. Guards everywhere and the funneling of players in certain directions that I spoke of earlier only compounded the lack of random world pvp. Aion might have the edge here with rifts which open in one side’s area and lead to the other side. Players can jump through these rifts and enter the enemy’s PvE area and fight them in their own land. They are open for a certain period of time and their appearance is random (although I’ve hard players figured out a system to predict them?). This could lead to great world pvp where you’re never truly 100% safe.
PVE Questing variety and fun
I don’t LIKE questing. I feel that it is overused, simplistic, mind-numbing, and a shortcut. This applies to both games. Both of these games have simple quests where reading them won’t matter because the description just says “Kill 8 of this” or “Get me 10 of those”. Both games have their occasional gems, but overall it’s a system that I wish would just go away. Aion has “missions” which are like an epic storyline for you to do throughout the leveling process (and perhaps beyond?) that will provide decent incentives/rewards, some story, and an underlying purpose for each region you visit. It’s a step up from the mundane, but still falls short of what quests should really be all about – the QUEST, not the chore. Luckily you can avoid questing in Aion altogether and grind if you like, because it’s just as effective to level up if not better later in levels.
Hows the End Game?
No idea. I’ll get back to you on that in a few months. I do know that PvP is the main focus of the game because it is at the center of everything. There are also dungeons and big boss encounters. How it compares to WAR, only time will tell. I do hope to find out if Aion has gear progression though. I haven’t heard anything about a “ward” system or a “you must do this to do this” step. Hopefully it does not exist.
These are two very similar games in theory, yet very different in practice. Hopefully my answers were what you were looking for and give you a sense of how the two games match up. I would be happy to answer additional questions in the comments section if I am able. If not, maybe those more experienced would be willing to lend a hand.
Edit: If anyone knows what the quoting format is here ... 
Comments
I'm only going to enumerate a couple of things wrong wtih this, this is of course assuming you enjoy PVP:
1) Animation / graphics style / texture / landscape: Noone cares.
2) What WAR did correctly: /join That's bigger than public quests, or saccing a city, open groups is revolutionary and noone mentions it.
3) World PVP: Don't complain about no world pvp and then roll on a regular server. There is a reason why regular servers are so popular, most people (probably including you, yes you, reading this post), don't want ORVR. They think ORVR = gankfest and pick another server, so this isn't something you can complain about because you don't support the market anyway. (I play on Dark Crag, in case anyone is curious).
4) Lots of CC: Noone likes CC. This is why world of warcraft is also known as world of fearcraft / roguecraft. People HATE not being able to move or use abilities. It's why WAR has a much more simplified CC mechanic. It's why I think most people will also hate aion, you'll get jumped, CC'ed the entire fight, and die. In general, the idea of being able to somehow automagically disable an opponent so you can beat on them for an extended period of time, without fear of retribution, is tired. It's an idea that is great when you are playing D&D and fighting NPC's, because NPC's don't complain (hold person anyone?), it's not ment to be fair, you are supposed to win. However, it's an entirely different ballgame when you apply the same mechanic against players. It's tired, and it shows up in spades in every single asian MMO.
While I'm on this tirade, let me sum of every single asian MMO from now till the end of time, along with why AION will fail like every other over hyped game.
1) You want aion to succeed simply because you are bored wtih whatever you are playing. It won't. Neither will champions online, crimecraft, the agency, jumpgate evolution. Noone is really putting any real effort into the market, and it shows.
2) Every single asian MMO can be broken down to this: Grindfest. No / limited "quests". Ridiculous drop rate to handle inflation (because they have never heard of a money sink). Severe death penalty, but will "encourage" pvping anyway. They all have the exact same UI, including graphics. Don't believe me? Compare lineage 2, RYL and Archlord. It's as if someone is selling an MMO SDK and they all buy from the same vendor. Combat can be described simply as button mashing. Actually, I can simplify this:
Street Fighter + 3D + Persistence = Every Single Asian MMO.
" 4) Lots of CC: Noone likes CC. This is why world of warcraft is also known as world of fearcraft / roguecraft. People HATE not being able to move or use abilities. It's why WAR has a much more simplified CC mechanic. "
Say what? One of the biggest complaints you read *about* WAR is it's CC.
I also won't argue Asian mmo's tend to be grindfest but Aion, coming from the people who play it, is nowhere like that. It *is* a little slower than WAR but nowhere near what the older MMO's used to be and certainly not where Asian MMO's tend to be. It's commonly referred to as a more 'Western' Style levelling type in an Asian MMO.
That's what I am saying, NOONE LIKES CC. So a game that has a ton, will flop (e.g. Aion).
It's possible. I can't say I really have any idea where Aion will go for the western playerbase.
Whatever happens though, I do pray that future MMO's take their strides in performance to the same level as Aion seems to have. That's one of my main gripes about most MMOs and I hope future MMO's start at performance and then go from there instead of the other way around.
I do believe Aion could hurt WAR though, more or less depending on it's success.WAR can't stand to lose that many players anymore, and Aion seems to be drawing attention from a fair number of WAR players (on the Vnboards anyway).
"I think the irony here is that Aion will be closer to DAOC than WAR."
This right here sums it up really.
Since the beginning, Aion was meant to cater to both the Eastern and Western market.
It has the pretty eastern graphics of L2, easy PvE quests and easy-to-use UI from WoW (with some cool cinematics and voice-overs for the Missions), PvP system which is very close to DAoC. It takes the most successful things in other games and stuffs them in one big package.
Overall I think Aion is a much better game, feels more complete, abundant in content especially after the announcement that it's launching with the newest patch, quite polished with responsive combat, has great performance that scales extremely well, meaningful crafting etc. and it's also got much better PvP than WAR. I'm sure WAR will keep it's fair share of subs, but it's got to improve quite a bit to retain them.
GG Mythic. I give you until January.
You've been out for almost a year, you have probably in the neighborhood of only 200K customers, and you have crippling lag. WTF? How is that even possible?
This thread from the Dark Crag server forums on the official boards says it all and backs up most of what this review says by different posters:
I think if Dark Crag folds, this game is over.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I do not like the character looking in AION or FFXI. Perhaps all the characters looks too teenager or early teen's type. And, it looks stupid if the character have wings.
Besides, most Asian game makes female character too sexy with too little armors or whatever I think it loses the culture of game.
I prefer a matured game or real game type. Or the character could be like Pirate of Caribbean Online, or WOW type or LOTRO type.
That's what I am saying, NOONE LIKES CC. So a game that has a ton, will flop (e.g. Aion).
I'm not sure what solar system you live in, but there are TONS of people who love CC. It's a big part of WoW even. Imagine PvP arena without CC (snares, cripples, polymorph, etc)?? All you would have is some mindless DPS and healing running for hours, because there wouldn't be any tactics or strategies involved. Most of the strategies used in PvP (in ANY MMO) make use of CC in one form or another. I'm guessing you do not PvP at all, in any MMO, otherwise you wouldn't be making such ridiculous comments.
blaa blaa blaa. at least aion is actully fun wow is boring
And again, disregards the fact that WoW itself is a copycat of previous MMOs, but made so carebear easy that every 8 year old and his grandma have at least a full tiered lvl80 character.
No thanks.
blaa blaa blaa. at least aion is actully fun wow is boring
If Wow is boring to you, Aion will be super boring. But you "realise" that after your free month will be up.
Welcome to the mmorpg hopper race of the last 3 years.
Wow man you kind of sound like my little sister. I mean when the hell did you get so bitter? Who gives a crap if other people jump from game to game, and only play for 2 or 3 months? Most single player games that are 50$ have an average of 8-12 hours playtime and people love them. So we get 100-300 hours out of an MMO and quit and hop to the next one and you get pissed at us for it? I mean seriously take a step back man. If I love MMO launches and want to spend my 50$ on every MMO that comes out and love it for 1-2 months then I guarantee you i'm getting my money's worth.
If I find fun in every MMO that comes out for X reason that doesn't mean that everyone else is going to enjoy the same things. If I want to come talk about what is fun in a game to me then I will do it. Who the hell are you to tell us on a gaming forum that we can't talk about the good things in a game regardless of the bad? People on this site just want to be all emo and angsty and shit and talk about the negative in everything and most of you have become blind to the fact that there is fun to be had in every single MMO out there whether it is 5 hours worth or 5 years worth, and none of you have any business telling others that the fun isn't there just because you are so jaded you can't see it.
^---What Electriceye said.
EE, you just saved me a whole lot of typing.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
This is right on target. I am that person when I look at the last few years. After a lengthy stay in EQ and WoW, nothing else has been beyond 3 months. I should start a support group.
I shudder to think of all the $50 I've spent to buy the client for MMOs, then the guilt of resubscribing to get "value" out of that initial purchase. Or the justifying your purchase by comparing one game to the next, inevitably siding with the game you are going to or just did drop $50 on.
It does make me agree that the debate is, ultimately, meaningless. The differences end up being minimal--graphics, sound, etc--but the core experience is exactly the same. The debate won't end though, because the forum community essentially replaces the game community since people spend more time here complaining about the games than playing them.
Dude people hop because they like MMORPG's, but not one good game has come out worth sticking with in like 5 years. Everyone has hope that some new game will be like that first one that captivated them, but instead the greedy publishers and unpassionate devs put out crap so people go in excited, have some fun, get bored because the game is weaksauce, and leave. If a dev made a decent game people would stick with it.
Still everyone has the right to play every MMO they want. You shouldn't get so worked up about it. MMO's success is based on sub retention so hoppers may skew the numbers a bit at the start, but in the end it's all the same.
Damn you are confusing me. Yes if a dev made a good game people would stick with it. If they make a bad game people leave and the project ends up failing. This is common sense. I don't get what your goal is? Are you trying to save us from wasting 50$? If so save it.. people are stubborn as hell and make their own opinions. What you say will never change them. Are you trying to persuade the game companies into making good games? Believe me they are failing very publicly and devs know this. An MMORPG brings in revenue via retained subs. If they don't make good games they don't make the money. Producers of games like Star Wars the Old Republic talk openly in interviews about where Funcom screwed up with AoC and where Mythic dropped the ball with WAR.
If you're not familiar with his posting history, he considers WoW the MMO and any game released after that pointless.
I'm glad that the world doesn't think this way, else we'd end up playing Dicu MUD (in the era of text RPGs) or Everquest (in the era of graphic RPGs). Luckily, developers still produce games. They may not have a wide appeal, but there is certainly more variety now than five years ago.
Is this another "We are the wow, all resistance is futile" from you Zorn?
You know, it would be hilarious if we could actually meet for a coffee or a drink and discuss these things. It would certainly have the potential for some amusing arguments IRL.
To the Op........well written, mostly unbiased (realistic and blunt is better I think) write up......there are a couple of things I might at another time have happily debated, but as usual....the attempts to hijack, derail....and or simply toss fanboi or hater OPINONS full of jaded banter like monkey wrench's, have somewhat succeded in what you tried to share with your community. I look forward to a follow up after you experience the aspects you were not able to m8.....GG o/
Hehe, you have a point there, Xasapis.
I've always wondered what a person who could play Warhammer from beta, to release to current day almost a year later and despite all the physical evidence, still thinks it's the best MMO ever made looked like IRL.
I've already seen the original O.J. murder jury trial and I certainly wasn't impressed. I've always wondered if they played Warhammer as well.
"TO MICHAEL!"
If your character in AION is too "teenager looking" or "early teen" or "too sexy", it's no fault of anyone's but your own and your imagination, or lack of one.
This on the other hand, is not anyone's fault:
"TO MICHAEL!"
I am interesting in Aion, not going to lie. I recently came back to WAR cause of the re-enlistment 10 days free and I really enjoyed the game through the first Tier of content, but then in Tier 2 the pace of leveling and advancement slowed so much you really got to see the "grind" for what it really is in that game.
Also the population, even on one of the highest population servers, in Tier 2 was abismal in comparison to Tier 1 and Tier 4.
But I just don't see Aion offering anything different.
To me, it'll be a prettier WoW with more customizable characters, limited classes, leveling to max through PvE questing and mob grinding and dungeon runs, then PvP siege warfare and further PvE raiding.
Pretty much WoW with a bit of DAOC thrown in, with much better graphics.
Is this a bad thing? No, I'm sure it'll hold my interest for a month or two maybe even more. Aion is definitely doing a lot of things right with the total polish and attention to detail etc.
But I'm still waiting for the revolution.
I think it's going to be either The Old Republic due to the emphasis on story development and dialogue.
Or it's going to be Final Fantasy 14 due to the lack of tradition leveling / experience point system but instead something new and different.