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Aion: Tower of Eternity: The Sights of Aion
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Correspondent Coordinator Vitaliy Dikker writes this report on the visuals in NCsoft's upcoming MMORPG, Aion.
Aion is not just an amazing MMO... It is an incredibly beautiful game unlike any other I have seen before. The level of polish is remarkable and the game itself runs smoothly without any lag or visible glitches on an average system. I must say that I was blown away by the visual aspect of things immediately at character creation. As you can see in the screenshots, the amount of customization detail and options is staggering, but what is even more important is that these characters are stunningly modeled and animated in the game itself. I cannot even begin to imagine the time and resources that have been allocated to make the character models shine as much as they do.
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Read The Sights of Aion
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
The best part about it is we get Ptach all the way up to 1.5 for NA release and that adds even more polish, content and fixes. Character creation even gets way more faces, hair, arm, leg and shoulder length options and more!!
GAME TIL YOU DIE!!!!
Indeed. Nice article and this game is really a good game.
However, the pink hair? LOL
You forget to include some missing graphics. The bot graphics overrunning the game and hampering game play left, right, and center. Guys get real, this is NCsoft here. What evidence do you have that they won't screw this up like they screwed up Lineage 2. Not to mention their recent epic failure of Tabula Rasa.
Note: I'm extremely biased
, but seriously, it's NCbots . . .
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
They published Tabula Rasa, but they didn't develop it. NCSoft is a very capable MMORPG developer. WTH are bot graphics?
You are definitely biased, but I don't like bots or RMT either. They plague every MMO and this one won't be any different. Until developers create a system where they can't thrive they will be there. Maybe you just have rose colored glasses for whatever game you are playing that you don't realize how many are there as well?
Aion really is a AAA polished and solid game. Something we haven't seen in many years. All of the trolling, stereotyping, and doombringing these forums can muster won't stop it from being extremely successful.
@Bureyku
Amen!
Just what I've always wanted! An anime WoW! Now my pastel characters can say hi-ya every 3 seconds! Will there be gratuitous tentacles?
They published Tabula Rasa, but they didn't develop it. NCSoft is a very capable MMORPG developer. WTH are bot graphics?
You are definitely biased, but I don't like bots or RMT either. They plague every MMO and this one won't be any different. Until developers create a system where they can't thrive they will be there. Maybe you just have rose colored glasses for whatever game you are playing that you don't realize how many are there as well?
Aion really is a AAA polished and solid game. Something we haven't seen in many years. All of the trolling, stereotyping, and doombringing these forums can muster won't stop it from being extremely successful.
That.
Aion, the game to rule them all IMHO.
Looks great and it look like it play nice too, but let´s see how great of a MMO this turns out to be ... I keep reading about how stunning the graphics are, and how smoothly it runs, but I really would like to see an article about the gameplay of AION...
Nice article btw, I gotta say, the game does look amazing
"To put it another way, you will not be hunting rats and bandits in this game."
Don't get me wrong, I love Aion. But this statement is completly wrong. Zone after zone, monster after monster, there are so many recylcled models and a very scare monster mix up. I cant remember how many times and in how many places I killed those Farmer/Gatheres/Patrol things.
You have to remember that you have only seen the game to lvl 20 (at least to this point)...
And if you did the questing, then yes, you saw a lot of the Farmers/Gatheres/Patrol things... But that was part of the quests... Compared to other MMOs, Aion has a wealth of content, including a various collections of mobs.
ROFLMAO!
Okay now THAT....that was funny.
Edit: Admittedly, I have a very bad taste in my mouth right now for AION, being that I pre-purchased the game from NCSoft, and was told I would be able to play in the "beta events" weekends, etc., only to find out that they use GameGuard (baaaaaad move, imo) and that, for that reason, or some other unknown reason.....I, and many others, could never even get logged IN to the game to see it.
I requested a refund (I payed through PayPal, which was at least refreshing to see as an option), and NCSoft kindly refunded the game's purchase price. So.....I'm amongst the "I'm going to wait and see how the game turns out about six months after release" crowd.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
If guys developing Aion don't wake up, Aion will be flooded from bots like it did with Lineage II and Aion Korea & China versions that are running few months now.
Pity, because it's a great game and they let it be ruined like that...
First of all, I am a City of Heroes player and it includes GameGuard as well. This is universal on all NCSoft games, and other companies have similar. If they have any additional anti-hack measures on the server side, this I cannot speak of as I do not know.
This article shows the very reason why I feel Aion will finally bring down WoW(which I disdain anyway but I do admit that it has a very strong model based on previous MMO models and a very loyal player base, though I hear word that may soon change). WoW has become stagnate with features that really matter instead choosing to focus on adding quests and a couple new realms instead of expanding character choices. Aion may only have two playable races, but it is unmatched in flexibility. Most MMOs limit classes in each race, where Aion gives access to all 4 base classes at the start and all 8 advanced classes(based on your intial base class, 2 choices per class) at level 9(you get the class change class at level 9.......I do this immediately upon recieving it), to both races. Name one other MMO that allows that. NCSoft is indeed very capable, and I do not feel they have a bad MMO to their name, just unsuccessful ones(again, due mainly to that wretched WoW). Champions Online may be an improvement on City of Heroes, but I am cautious about it. DC Universe Online is my pick in that genre. Aion gets my pick in MMORPGs. I like Stargate Worlds, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Star Trek Online(yes, I am a Trekie and know too much about Star Trek) are my choices for what I like to call MMOSciFiG(Massive Multiplayer Online Science Fiction Game). Bottom line, Aion is an impressive game, far more than any I have seen yet(with the possible exceptions of DDO and Lord of the Rings Online, both from Turbine), but it won't be for everyone, though I think the masses will pick it up, especially casual players which it seems designed for. Hardcore MMOers tend to stick to their established favorite/s quite begrudgingly, though I don't really care for the gung ho types in my MMOs anyway.
A correction on that part. Guild Wars has no Game Guard. City of Heroes has NO Game Guard. Tabula Rasa had no Game Guard. The games with origins in NC Soft Korea, such as Lineage I and II, and Aion, have Game Guard. It is a Korea-centric protection service that is cheap, invasive(any AV or spyware software identifies it as malware), and doesn't work(take a look at the plethora of bots in L2 sometime).
As to Aion bringing down WoW....I don't want any single game bringing down WoW. I want so many good choices that they all bleed off WoW to a one-share. That will be the sign of a healthy MMO genre, not another game dominating the numbers. I hope that Aion, Global Agenda, SWToR and others all have great success. If everyone just looked for a game that was fun to them, instead of looking for the next "WoW-killer", this could be a possibility.
It is always pity to see people posting things that they imagine, without making a reality check first.
Not false at all. Last time I logged into City of Heroes it did have GameGuard, and as for Guild Wars, it was one of the few NCSoft games that I have not tried. It is possible they did remove GameGuard from City of Heroes since. I will double check this as soon as possible. In any case it is a technicality which really has no bearing on the enjoyability of the game. Simply put, you should never be so hardcore you forget to enjoy the storyline(this is going to be something I emphasize over and over since I am a writer.) Playing a game just because it is touted to be better is like going to a bad movie just because your friends do or it has one of your favorite actors in it. They say that you can make a bad movie with a good script but you can't make a good movie without a good script. To me, MMOs should follow this same philosophy and no matter how good the graphics are, if it doesn't have a well developed storyline you just will not get me on board. Many MMOs, in particular WoW, are haphazardly thrown together with a storyline as almost an afterthought. I feel NCSoft has done very well with Aion in this aspect and the graphics just speak for themselves. As far as bots in games, they may be there but I have never really run into any problems with it. If you are online enough to notice, outside of betas, then chances are you need to get out and have a life. No offense, but hardcore gamers who are on the game 48 hours a day just need to get out and remind the world they exist. I will occassionally play in a hardcore style but I do have a real life to balance with and try to keep my play to a few hours a day. Games can inspire, but can also be addictive. The game should never control the player, the player should control the game. I have been doing marathon sessions for the Aion betas because of the limited timeframe. When it releases shortly, I would slack off and get back to my weekends. While people may see this and think it is easy for me to say when I am a casual gamer(which I freely admit), my viewpoint also comes from that as someone who is very much involved in the Entertainment industry in it's various forms. When it comes down to it, working on the voiceover(I have never done this but I do have the kind of voice needed for it) on a game could mean the difference between feast and famine for me. I am explaining this simply so that everyone on this board knows that I approach my analysis of which games I play from an artistic viewpoint, not a technical one, though I am familiar with some technical information as well.
As far as my understanding of the genre, WoW should have never been released. It is a mediocre play experience at best. I feel Aion to be simply superior, and like in nature, it should be the most suited to the enviroment that survives, not the most heavily advertised.
Seriously guys,
Bots overran Lineage 2, any high level dungeon had a substantial (like 50%+) amount of rooms occupied by bots. It was a non-instanced world where bots directly affected your play. I'm sorry, any company that lets bots overrun a game and hamper the game play and then has the gall to tell me they're doing all they can. No way in hell. Bots are in WoW, but Wow has instances which means they don't hamper you that much if at all. EVE has bots but it doesn't hamper you, you barely even see them. In LIneage 2 you can barely even level. I don't know how you guys can get fooled by graphics. Lineage 2 had amazing graphics nad the gameplay was decent but the botting problem was like a tumor on the face and plus the botters destroyed the game by inflating the prices of everything and making it almost impossible to make a decent amount of adena.
If anyone remembers when teon server came out the first day, someone took a picture of 50+ bots in the noob area with names like fdafs and lhajdskf. You can call me biased and that's true, but nothing i say is false. You guys will eat this eye candy crap and then have the bots come in and have ncsoft tell you they're doing all they can and then tell me how you feel when you can't even level anymore because bots take up all the leveling slots.
It is completely and utterly unconscionable to allow that many bots into a completely open world like that. I've never seen bots destroy a game like it had to lineage 2. Now will this happen to Aion? who knows, but seriously, NCsoft can't be trusted to not screw up a game. It's just simple logic ---> non-instanced world = limited places to level = which means that as the bot population go up ---> places to level goes down. The more bots you have, the less you can do in the game.
But truth be told, i'm retardedly anti-NCsoft but they make good games to be honest, i consider them number 2 in making games to Blizzard but they're management is so god awful it doesn't even matter, if you manage the game like crap you may as well have made a crappy product to begin with. It's like buying a ferrari and then treating it like crap, at the end of the day, it will barely work. NCsoft is like a real good looking girlfriend who admits she constantly cheated on her ex-boyfriend before you. Why are you going to be any different?
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Last time I logged in to City of Heroes was last night and there was no change since 2006 that I started playing it on a daily basis.
I am sure you're confusing City of Heroes with something else...
But anyway, if they managed to keep bots away without GameGuard, I am sure that Aion can too.
There are ways to get gameguard to work on any OS/Processor combination right now. There are links and guides all over the forum. I don't mind gameguard, but having gameguard and having bots are two mutually exclusive things. Gameguard is anti cheat, and most of the time bots are ran using a program that generates series of events or keystrokes at a level where it would not be considered a cheat. Almost every game has to deal with them in some way or another, and usually the only defense is to try to monitor repetition, but these events can have randomness thrown into them. Then a GM can go and try to talk to the person, but some of these bot programs let you type in a response if anyone says anything.
It is not just NCSoft games. These programs are used heavily in WoW, and almost any mainstream MMORPG. At least 3 of the people that I know IRL and their guilds share botting programs that they have purchased. They have for a very long time now and have used them to get 1-80. You are just being naive and/or ignorant if you think this only happens in NCSoft games. Lineage 2 did have it bad, but it's game design allowed for it to flourish. Aion is quite different, and we can't assume how bad or how sparse bots will be. We will just have to wait and see.
I agree with the article, though not so grandious about it <_< some things like hillside graphics don't look good...at all, which odd among other things looking fantastic. The wings and various gameplay elements, including skill animations are great - best I've seen in a long while.
The largest worry I have, and I'm hoping its the beta limitations, but it seems that the item supply is sorely lacking on the low end (I hope not the high end). Seeing one white and one green of a given armor type every 5 levels...is very light to say the least. And contrary to posts, there were some latency issues last test...so I'm looking forward to see the next test, get some more time in - I advice all those with interest to do the same
When i played the chinese beta there were items that dropped from monsters that had a lower req then the standard so I think there is more items throughout most of the lvls, though your probably gonna want crafted armor.
Get it through your heads already, the term "WoW killer" is not gonna happen. No game can do this, only WoW itself and time can kill it off. Aion may have gone from 1.0-1.5 but WoW has been out for a long time, so its got many updates and plenty of time to grow.
I'm thinking on playing Aion just cause the graphics are awesome and the PVP is lineage 2 ish, but don't expect different gameplay from the game, its a fantasy MMO, just like all the others. Unless you know a different way to play a Fantasy MMO like FPS style, click to walk, or WASD movement there isn't no change. There's plenty of quests and the grind will be there. You just gotta be enjoying yourself in order to get rid of the grind. If your having fun you don't care about anything else.
I consider Blizzard to be third in quality, behind NCSoft then Sony. This is not the reason for this reply though.
Keep in mind that, as far as item selection goes, they are still putting on the finishing touches and getting ready to ship. If you are beta testing you may, in fact, suggest to the development team to make this addition. Typically though, in most MMORPGs you are limited in Armor and Weapon choices anyway, due to the fact you really do not need alot early on. I am still using much of the armor I gained in the starting areas beyond level 10. The amount of armor you need to select from is dependent on how skillful of a player you are from. Once you get into the two capitals you can always have item colors changed, though it is quite expensive. I currently play an Elyos Gladiator and Asmodean Ranger, aside from my base class characters. The main places they need item shops is in the cities and not the starting areas. Everything centers around Sanctum and Pandemonium.
I did encounter one issue in the game I did not like. Flying(not just gliding but full flight) was a bit difficult and I hated that you had to manually land when you were at the ground. The manual landing felt unnatural to me. Granted this is one thing I would love to be able to do in real life........fly under my own power, nothing between me and the open sky. I just have to be sure not to use wax to hold it together or I would end up like poor Icarus who flew to close to the sun, despite the warnings of his father Daedelus........lol. But seriously, this game allows us to role play something we can only dream of, the ability to fly with our own wings. How cool would that be in real life.
Anyone who thinks that World of Warcraft cannot be overcome is just deluding themselves. Yes, it may be a difficult task, but it is not impossible. Nothing is ever impossible. Remember, at one time they said nothing would ever be better the Everquest, and that has been proven time and again that it has been. The same will happen with World of Warcraft eventually.
I have to admit most people including myself are bored of WoW now and are looking for something fresh or a decent update from blizzard.
Bots are always a problem is asian mmo's especialy the free to play ones. However you should never let someone elses actions degrade your image of a game. Aion is still a great game in all areas, but it is true community makes or breaks a mmo.
We will just have to see but i get a feeling if WoW was being released again in its current state and had a bot problem like Aion people who are disliking aion would still like WoW.
Strange but you get people who just plain hate new mmo's on the market and will pick at the slightest thing.
All I say is why let bots ruin your fun.
Are you sure about this? For all I know theyre just adding some more hairstyles and faces, but I havent heard anything about the other things you mentioned.
(my source: www.aionsource.com/forum/general-discussion/20946-patch-notes-v1-5-update-shadow-balaur.html )