Aion Closed Beta Preview with Video
Who needs a mount when you can fly. Plus, our armor is shiny and stuff!
Aion, lately, has been the talk of most MMO hoppers, and even some more devoted players. Its game revolves around the two races, and two parts of its world. Asmoade is the world of darkness, where its inhabitants have been covered in darkness, and Elysea, a world bathed in light.
The world itself is a marvel of graphics, using the Crysis engine it greatly surpasses World of Warcraft, and it has an extremely customizable character creation, on my first login the game was absolutely stunning. One thing though, I cant get over is the fruitiness of the game, in a world of death and destruction, you happen to grab a magical falling leaf when it rains. For graphics and video related customization, Aion comes out a victor.
Something i was largely disappointed with is Aion’s no third party user interface addons, greatly reducing comfort in customizable UI, using only a top and bottom UI style, although greatly customizable compared to most standard UI’s in MMOs the game is a big blocky when it comes to smooth UI. WoW’s UI has thousands of addons that can be introduced in minutes, making the game fit for the person who is playing needs as well as their personal comfort. For UI and interface customization, WoW is on top.
It is totally raining and I just got my hair did! Eww!
Game play i found was very, strange, but not new. It felt like playing Tekken with combos. Personally though many have stated RNG isn’t a big factor in this game as WoW is, I’d say it would be more in certain situations. Certain abilities trigger combos, but combos have chances to trigger special combos, a team of two could beat a team of 4 simply because of lucky RNG. Also, when casting one cannot turn, move, or do anything but sit still, giving it a very stationary feeling, and making the game feel controlled and less fun, as well as impairing views of the landscape. The WoW fighting style seems more delicately woven, smooth and free. As for fighting, Aion might be unique, but the WoW stylings are much better in terms of playability.
PvP is the reason i think most people seem to like the idea this game, I’m beta once you get to level 25, they show you how to battle in the endgame pvp fortresses, to capture and hold a fortress, and use artifacts to hold, or turn the tide of a battle momentarily. The idea is amazing, with defenses of the fortress to prevent air based assaults, and so forth, but the idea is largely turned by the fact that if one side has more people, it makes it easier to win, a lot easier. Also, with this being the main PvP endgame outlets, it has 2 hours in between assaults, for all the bases, instead of a cascading cool down of fortress captures, so one is always up for grabs. The game seems more into survivability in PvP rather then burst, making healers essential, and with that it seems NCsoft has given them enormous healing capabilities, being overpowered, in 1v1, but not in group pvp. It has a ranking system like Vanilla WoW, but despite that, most players these days don’t have to have to go on to keep a rank, or have to play a game. The idea of Aion pvp is stunning, but the way NCsoft will implement it isn’t as good as everyone might think.
Leveling isn’t the most fun part in a game, sure, but there is some fun to be had in unique quests, and a number of ways to do something, in Aion this isn’t the case. The leveling is tedious, repeat quests are abundant past level 25, making it a grind of mobs to kill, kill, and rest. The game features campaign, standard, and word order quests. Campaign you mostly need groups for after you’ve done 1/2 of the zones regular quests, giving the game a very boring feeling, hours after hours of grinding for a reward as a level, giving it a tedious feeling, getting old fast. Compared to WoW when the questing never stops, and its important.
Finally, what i think personally is a deal breaker, class customization. The game itself has 4 classes and 8 subclasses, Mage, Priest, Warrior, and Scout, which each goes in Spirit master and Sorcerer, Cleric and Chanter, Gladiator and Templar, Assassin and Ranger, in that order. The customization virtually ends there. Unlike wow you choose your class, then subclass and that’s what you do, that is your solo role. Stigmas are abilities that you can have, that are extra, you put up to 5 in your tree and that’s it. One type of healer one type of tank. This is where Aion really falls down. WoW in class rolls and customization brings more to the table then Aion has in every way so far.
Overall, I think its a great game compared to most MMOs that were going to ‘replace’ WoW, it stumps AoC, and Warhammer, but the structure of the game depends on a balance in people on a server who play, without that it becomes who has more people, not more skill. I think its a great idea for a game, but NCsoft has introduced it poorly. With a few patches and implementations of things maybe the game will feel more content, but for now its another WoW ‘killer’ that will affect the game, but not to the degree previously thought.
