Official Aion thread (Visions update)

even though I've since quit Aion something today popped up that may just get me to resub when it comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8

Essentially the idea is that apparently NCSoft is fully reworking Aion.

* Major Graphics Overhaul: DX10 included

* Player Housing

* Combat Revamp: The game will play out more like an action game (think Blade & Soul)

* Weather System Revamp

* Swimming

* Under Water Environments: Players will be able to explore new under water cities, dungeons, and quest hubs

* User Generated Content Expanded: Players will be able to post writs on boards through out the world.

* Quest System revamp: Many, many, many more quests and story-line quests are being added

* New Classes (Supposedly, according to the Korean forums)

* 2 new weapon types: Whip & Crossbow

* New Skills for every class

* New Zones

* New Monster and NPC AI Revamp

* Mounts: You can tame your own mount out of various creatures in Atreia, one of which is a Chocobo-Esque bird, you also will be able to ride with 2 people on some mounts!

* Revamped Sieges

This is a list of what is currently translated from the Korean forums.

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What is AION?

NORTH AMERICAN OFFICIAL TIF SERVER: Zikel

EUROPEAN OFFICIAL TIF SERVER: ?

Post Launch Game Review:

Aion's is coming up on it's 1 month anniversary for it's NA/EU launch, and I thought it was about time to give a post launch review. Unlike reviewing the past few MMOs I have waited this time. I've done levels 1-41 so far (cap is 50) and I've seen a good bit on what the leveling is like. Please do keep in mind that I have not witnessed or taken place in any end-game activities yet and will not be reviewing that portion of the game. I'm here to review the leveling part and all of the activities that come with it. With that out of the way, lets start.

Aion is a good looking game. Really, it is. I just want to get this out of the way at the start because no matter what way you look at it Aion drips and oozes with style, flare and has a very specific style it is aiming for here. While the game has a lot of Korean and eastern artistic inspirations one may be surprised at a lot of the quite western stuff that has been thrown into the game. Characters, for the most part, can look either western or eastern in style -- mostly due to the fantastic character creator which I have gone over in the past. There are a lot of strange quirks and artistic elements in Aion, however, that many western players may find odd or off-putting at first. For example the Shugos, Aion's primary merchants race, are very eastern in style and will probably throw off players not used to that sort of style. However it's all done with great artistic talent.

The animations in Aion also look fantastic. Playing my Assassin I've witnessed a lot of jawdropping animations in which other games would be jealous of. The downside to some of the more complex animations, however, is that you get the inclusion of a slight "Channel time" after using the skill in which your character performs his/her animation. While attack speed does effect the speed of animations (which can make them look ridiculous with certain buffs up) it still can make combat, at times, feel a bit clunky while on the move.

Armor and Weapon graphics look great as well. Most of the gear you get is very stylized and has a great eastern flare to it in many cases (such as huge [wagon] great swords). One of the nicer things about Aion is the ability to both dye gear and "remodel" your gear, the later a feature I want to see put into all modern MMOs. Remodling your gear happens once you hit level 30, and the basic idea is that it allows you to make one piece of gear look like another. Say you've been using this bad [wagon] looking sword for a few levels now. I mean, this thing has badass written all over it. You then get an awesome upgrade, one that no sane person would give up on. There is an issue though -- it looks like crap. (This doesn't usually happen, I find most weapons look awesome but everyone has their preferences) Remodeling your item would mean that while you sacrafice (lose) the appearence item you also get to make your new weapon look like the old one, a very awesome feature. This also allows players to map their armor pieces to clothing, which gives some awesome control over how you look.

The item remodeling feature and result

Graphics aren't everything though, and this being an MMO a major part of what may make or break the game is it's combat system. Aion makes use of a unique "Chain" system in which, in laymans terms, makes it so that certain skills can only be used after others. Take, for example, the assassin's skills "Swift Edge" and "Soul Slash". Swift Edge is a Chain 1 skill and Soul Slash is the Chain 2 skill. For me to use Soul Slash I would have to use Swift Edge first. What is nice about this is that it allows the developers an animators to put in some really awesome animation chains for a skill chain, but it also gives another interesting balance aspect of the game. For example if I were to get stunned right after using Swift Edge I would only have about 4 seconds to use the next skill in the chain, and being stunned I may not be able to use it at all (And the chain would go on CD). This means that several powerful, or useful, abilities may be on a Chain 2 or Chain 3 of a skill chain, which gives skilled players a chance to react to this.

As I already mentioned the skill animations, at time, can be an issue during moving combat. One of the assassin chains, as an example, only works when the assassin is standing still. This took me a while to figure out as there is no real clear answer as to why this wouldn't work, and it would be nice to get an idea on what skills would/wouldn't work during movement. The good thing is that these skills that don't work well while moving are few and far between, the assassin really only has that one chain.

Flight is another interesting thing I should point out, and one may beg to wonder why I want to talk about it now of all places. Well the reasoning is that Flight is not a primary travel mechanic but a combat mechanic. While you can use flight for travel, and will often in the abyss, flight's primary reason for being in the game is as a PvP tactic. Players have limited flight time in which they can upgrade through gear (manastones, armor or upgraded wings). The purpose of this limited flight time isn't to piss you off but to ensure a sort of balance in PvP. While I'll go more in-depth about flight during PvP later I will say that sometimes combat can be a real hassle for melee in the air. Part of this is simply due to the nature of it all, but it would be nice to get a bit of breathing room or help during flight, as if you have problems getting some skills off during movement they are all but almost impossible in flight.

The nice thing about combat though is that there are a lot of abilities one can use and a lot of abilities you will be using. Aion certainly does not have you using a rotation consisting of 5 abilities, and most classes have a great variety of abilities at their hands for various situations. I find, on my assassin, I use almost all of my skills on a consistant basis, which can be a lot of fun. Of course the only issue to this is that if you are like me and keybind, be prepared for a keybinding nightmare on some classes. Let me put it in a way words cannot describe:

I use all of these skills. Keep in mind that many of these skills have a couple of other skills in their chain as well, which brings the number of skills up to just a staggering amount. It's been quite a challenge coming up with useful keybinding for my skills, and I still have another probably 3 or 4 skills I'll have to hotkey, at least!

The leveling in Aion is probably the one area I have the most issues with. Levels 1-20 in Aion are, by far, great examples of how the leveling should be. They have a great split between campaign quests and normal quests, and in general quests are written fairly decently and give a good bit of XP. During these levels there is very little if no "grinding" on mobs. The problem with Aion is that the higher level you get the less quests you will be finding around your level. 20-25 I was able to find a few quests, but I spent probably half of my time grinding. 25-30 was around the same, except that it went fast due to having the Abyss just open, having the first instance open to me (Which gave a ton of XP) and just in general grinding on the high xp abyss mobs. 30-35 wasn't terrible with quests actually, and I found out I skipped a ton of 34-35 quests which I later found. (This is something that I must stress, please look up quests on something such as Aionarmory to see what sort of quests are available to you so you don't miss any). 30-35 also involved a lot of grouping, I did a bunch of the campaign quests for both Morheim and Belusian and got a ton of XP That way. I also did more grouping stuff with the other instance that had opened up. 35-40 had me, for a large majority of it, grouping up and killing elite mobs for both campaign quests and just XP. This was actually a really fun part of the game, as the campaign quests really proved to be a challenge and it felt great to get the campaign chain finished.

Speaking of quests, they are split into two different types -- Normal and Campaign. Normal quests are what you would expect from an MMO where Campaign quests are much more "epic" quests that give a lot more XP for completing them. In general finishing all of the campaign quests in an area gives you a nice reward for the last one, for example finishing all of the Morhiem campaign quests (and area which was 20-35 for campaign) yielded a nice blue weapon.

As I was saying though this is a game where you want to make some good friends. Not only because solo grinding is incredibly boring but with a proper group in the correct areas you can get some incredible XP. Another problem with leveling has to be how varied the quest rewards for XP were. One of the nice things about WoW was some sort of standardized XP for the level you were doing, where as in Aion it seems like the XP they give you is just pulled out of a [bleep]ing hat. One quest you pick up at level 40 may give a nice cool 1 million XP (where it's about 35m to level 40-41) and then the next one you grab might give you 250k? Sure, some of these quests are harder or easier than others, but some of the rewards simply just don't make sense. The nice thing is that NCSoft realized the error in their ways, and in the next patch (1.6) they are planning on normalizing and increasing a lot of the quest XP. I really hope that this is an overall change and not just a higher level change, but I also hope that the patch finds it way to the US shortly. Either way probably the best, and most fun, way to get XP in this game is to go out with a group to various elite camps which have nice world bosses scattered around and a ton of mobs.

All this being said though I still feel like I should level. Consider it a bit of a commitment, maybe, but the other portions of the game (which I will expand on) just make it worth it in the long run. The leveling is certainly one of the weakest elements in Aion to-date however.

The PvE in Aion is an interesting affair, one that brings back a lot of old school ideas while also using more current methods as well. The game has it's instances, the first available to players at 25, but those in general only have a chance for loot. The last boss in Fire Temple, a level 30 instance, can drop a nice yellow (the Aion equal of an "epic) weapon, but it's a very low drop rate. Players coming from other recent MMOs such as WoW will probably get frustrated with this mechanic, although the purpose of many of these instances is for the XP -- the loot being a nice bonus if it happens.

Where the real good loot comes from, however, is the games numerous world bosses. These can be anything from just normal named mobs to huge raid bosses requiring multiple groups to kill. While some world bosses are pushovers and essentially loot pinatas others I have witnessed drop top Legions quickly. Many of the world bosses take a lot of add management and aoe heals/awareness, and there are a lot of world bosses that have yet to be killed on my server even though we have many in their level range. World bosses can be scattered either in leveling zones or in actual elite camps, which gives an interesting choice of options for players. One of the nice examples of a world boss area is Mist mane Village, a level 35-40 area full of elite mobs. In here are a staggering number of world bosses who are capable of dropping yellow gear, and drop it much more frequently than any of the instance bosses around that level. I've seen several yellow pieces drop from these bosses (mostly to other groups ;_;) and the competition for some of these bosses are big. Of course in these areas most of it is PvE competition, but those who are bloodthirsty would also be glad to know that there are a lot of world bosses scattered around the abyss as well. These too are very dangerous and take some focused groups to take down, but they also may be contested between factions and PvP is expected to happen over them. It brings out a really cool element to the game and world bosses are certainly one of the nice features in Aion.

The PvP in Aion is something that I could probably write a novel about. In short, Aion has some of the best PvP I have witnessed thus far in an MMORPG. For those who have played Lineage II the games PvP combat is very reminiscent of it, and is very fast paced and brutal. Players need to have excellent reaction skills and need to have an understanding of who they are fighting against to win. The games group PvP is another interesting element in its own, and while the "zerg pvp" might get old at times (when it is 150v150 players) the game strives and lives on very solid 6v6 action with roaming around the abyss.

Balance in MMOs is always a tricky feature and many MMOs try and complete the impossible by balancing classes for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, large group pvp, ect. This is something that is impossible, and NCSoft knows it. The classes in Aion are, for the most part, all balanced around group PvP. Every class has a role in group combat and unlike other MMOs which may try and blend roles into a standard DPS/Heal/Tank triad Aion gives each class their own sort of "thing" to do. If I had to give a class role out to everyone I would have to say it would look like this:

Cleric: Primary healer of a group, also useful for certain debuffs.

Chanter: Secondary healer, Secondary DPS, buffer and debuffer. These guys do everything and just sort of meld into whatever group they are in.

Assassin: Stuns on the target and high melee DPS. They are primarily the guys you want when you are having a fight on the ground.

Ranger: Burst DPS and an instant snare. These guys are the kings of the air alongside sorcs.

Sorcerer: High caster DPS/Burst DPS and a CC class (root, sleep, tree). These guys are, as stated, the king at air combat.

Spiritmaster: In a way these guys can be thought of as "Anti-Air" cannons. They have an ability "clip wings" which takes off a chunk of flight time off the target. Their primary function is crowd control and debuffs.

Templar: The tank, their primary function in a PvP group is to pull the kill targets that over-extend. (Think WoW death grip).

Gladiator: Front line melee DPS, they can take more of a beating than assassins.

The nice thing is that there are a lot of ways you can look at a group, and there isn't one "end all be all" group combo in which everyone wants to use. For example a favorite of mine in the past has been Cleric,Cleric,Chanter,Assassin,Ranger,Templar although playing a Cleric,Ranger,Assassin,Templar,Chanter,Assassin group was also a ton of fun. In general the big thing you want in a group is at least one Cleric/Chanter and then a melee DPS, a puller (Templar, although not needed) and a ranged class that can CC or snare.

Despite all of the focus on group PvP though a lot of solo PvP remains fairly balanced. While you shouldn't expect to win versus all classes (Assassin vs SM or templar is a death sentence sometimes) class skill often comes into play. I will say that at times I felt like my class was holding me back in certain fights, but this again is a bi-product of them just not focusing as much on 1v1 combat.

Consumables are also another large focus and important aspect to Aion PvP. Players should be expected to have Flight pots, healing pots, mana pots, Remove debuff pots, scrolls, food buffs, ect. at all time. This helps stable out the economy and gives a demand for items. It also gives another strategic edge to the game as knowing when, and what, potion to use at the right time is crucial.

I really have to say that the PvP in Aion really does just make me excited and, as I said, I could talk for hours about strats and PvP techniques.

One of the things NCSoft has touted is the idea of "PvPvE". Now I will say this out front, they are correct in labeling this a PvPvE game. However please do not get the wrong idea about this. This does not mean it is a game for both PvP and PvE players, I do not think it is. You have to enjoy PvP to really get into Aion as the games PvP and PvE content often melds together and intertwines. A good example about this would be fortress instances. The taking of a fortress is largely a PvP matter with a bit of PvE thrown in (to take over a fort you need to kill it's owner, which is a huge raid boss). The nice thing about owning forts, however, is that the side that owns it are allowed into said forts dungeon. On the lower floor of the abyss, for the lower level forts, these instances are a nice way to farm for some abyss points with a daily lockout. They are a really nice incentive for the faction to work together as it gives everyone access in that faction, not just the legion that owns the fortress. Later fortress dungeons in the upper abyss (lvl 50 forts) have some instances which are timed. At the end of the instance you are given a score based on how fast you cleared it, and based on your rank it gives you (S Rank, A rank, B, C, D, F) you get a certain amount/type of loot. This gives an awesome twist to PvE content and makes these runs more interesting than just a plain dungeon run.

The term PvPvE can also be attributed to the games third NPC faction, the Balaur. What is neat about the Balaur is that they seem to have a mind of their own -- much like a real faction. They will capture artifacts and fortresses at seemingly random, but they also serve as a nice balancing tool to possibly help out one side or another. The nice thing is this isn't just some Gimmick, as I have seen the Balaurs ship the "Dreadganon" storm several fortresses owned by the Elyos and Asmodians so far, and I have to say it is quite a sight to see. This ensures that even if one side is consistently holding all of the fortresses the Balaur will make sure that there is still some competition by attacking those fortresses. It's a good way to hopefully help with the tough balancing act on PvP servers.

In the long run I think Aion is a game worth playing. What it means to you, however, really is entirely dependent on what you enjoy. If you are a heavy PvPer I would recommend this game. If you prefer PvE but also like to PvP now and then I would say to at least check it out. If you are primarily a PvE player, while I would like to tell you to at least try the game and see if the PvP doesn't reel you in, it may just not be the game for you. Aion is a game for those who enjoy a good mix of PvP and PvE content, and don't mind having a lack of quest content in the leveling areas (but a huge abundance of content at 50). While Aion has its problems, mostly rooted in the dull leveling (at times) and sometimes fidgety combat animations, it is easily one of the most solid MMORPG releases in the past couple of years. If I had to predict I would say that given the game some time to grow, and also time to adapt to a western audience, and we will have a game capable of challenging the large MMOs out there. That being said Aion does have a road ahead of it and this will be paved by just how well NCSoft can adapt to a western audience, how well they can deal with any gold spam and botting problems and how good their GM Support it.

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Alright, my impressions from the open beta.

The first things I want to get out of the way were the issues. I do want to make it clear up front that, yes, there were a few things that NCSoft dropped the ball on. Depending on how lucky you were depended on how much it would effect you. These are the main issues I experienced:

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  . Lag. The lag, for many players, was terrible for the first portion of the beta. My roomate reported having a latency of, I kid you not, 112 million. This stemmed down to an issue with several providers that the connection was going through to, and NCSoft scrambled quickly to try and fix it. Luckily I, personally, only had bad enough lag that the game was unplayable for about a day but I knew a few players who were quite unlucky. The biggest issue though had to be that all out of the rest of the beta I, for the most part, had a pretty bad ping. Not something that made the game unplayable, but something that made PvP iffy at times. I was running around 300-400ms for a large portion of the beta, although near the end I was getting around 150ms which was a good improvement.
   
   
   
  The good thing about this is NCSoft has been doing a good job at performing server maintenance and I have high hope that any issues will be stomped out for the few unlucky players.
   
   
   
  . Quest Shortage. This might not be as bad as it sounds, so hear me out. Around levels 22-25 there is a seemingly small amount of quests around, which lead to a good chunk of grinding for myself and other legion members in those levels. One of the things I noticed, however, was that there are a lot of gathering quests, and I do think that the grind would be kept to a minimum if you not only make sure to keep your gathering up to date, but kill anything you see on your way (and way back) to doing quests. Still levels 22-25 were certainly some "hell" levels, which is too bad because once you hit 25 you get a ton of quests. Granted at that point I was quite in the grinding mood (both options, quest and grind are pretty decent choices) and I just sat around and killed Balaur for a bit.
   
   
   
  . Low level balance. This is the last issue, which might not be too bad depending on how you look at it. The big thing is that scout classes, currently, really suck to level up to 16 or so. It may just be due to their archetype (rogues in WoW were a pain in the [wagon] to level at the lower end as well) but they really have issues sometimes. Assassins, for the most part, can fare fine. They have to heal after every mob usually, but they kill at a decent speed and fare well for themselves. Rangers, on the other hand, are pretty damn hard from 10-16. For the most part a lot of rangers will just go melee mode, due to not getting any real good DPS bow skills until 16.
   
   
   
  The tradeoff of this, of course, is that Rangers and Assassins are probably the two fastest leveling classes later on. My assassin, by the time I had hit 25, was a killing machine and the rangers in my legion were the same.
   
  

Onto the good stuff though, I'm sure you guys are wondering about the entire experience.

For the most part I started off just leveling solo. I had been through the starting area a few times now, and it was to my surprise that I still was just as interested in doing the quests as I was before. They have a good way of gripping you, and it felt like it was done well. Once I hit around level 13 or 14, however, I got into a group with a bunch of other legion members. We went off and just started to swarm quest areas, killing mobs at an incredible speed (we had a tank and 5 DPS in our group) and just getting through quests in no time flat. I was actually happy that grouping seemed to be viable XP if you did it right, as we had no downtime killing due to having a ranger in our group constantly pulling more to us. This also helped solve a lot of the issues with scout classes at lower levels, as we had a lot of backup. I should also say that it was a blast leveling in a group like that.

Fast forward to the next day, and a lot of us are around 17-18 or so, and we decide to go ahead and start doing black claw quests/grinding. This is an elite camp of mobs, probably around the size of an instance in WoW (perhaps something like Wailing caverns size, but open ended). In this place were numerous group quests, campaign quests and (most importantly) boss monsters to kill. The bosses here were just named elites, but the upside is they dropped nice green loot, and we were able to gear out a lot of our legion members. Finally near the end there is a level 19 boss who will drop a few pieces of blue loot (a ring and a belt) but also some of the best weapons you can get at level 20. We farmed him for a while, hopping channels and having a blast.

As I stated before the 20-25 experience was actually really difficult due to me not having gotten up gathering at all, so I had to skip a lot of quests and grind a bit. The good thing is that we usually had groups going on in the Legion, so you could almost always find someone to duo/trio with and get a good xp/hr rate.

Levels 25-28 for me were done purely in the abyss. The Abyss is just an awesome place, it looks amazing, it is packed with difficult foes and (of course) the PvP is always good. Sadly not a lot of players had made it to 25+ in the OBT, so it was a little emptier than it should have been. Still we were able to find some good fights, and I was able to get some incredible solo fights going on (more about that later).

So I'll split off of the general overview of went on and talk a bit about the PvP that I experienced. For the first time I managed to get some great experience in Aion PvP. The first type of PvP I encounted was what is called "rifting". The idea is that rifts will open up connecting enemy lands together, and players are able to use these rifts to get into enemy territory. Our first rift group was a bit of a failure, we had gone through the rift, set up our kisks (which are mobile spawn points with limited uses and a 2hr time limit) and went out. Sadly we had gotten overrun by a large amount of Elyos (around 15 to our group of like 8) and couldn't handle it.

Our later rift runs were much more successful though. The last one we had we managed to kill around 34 players within the timespan of half an hour, and we fought a few battles in which we were out numbered. It is a blast just roaming through their territory, watching out for guards and towns and just hunting unexpected Elyos. Of course in a fashion true to our last run we ended the rift by getting trained by what had to be a good 24 players (we brought along 7).

[hide=Outnumbered!][/hide]

The next form of PvP was the abyss. As a group we didn't get into too much combat in the abyss, mostly it was just fending off against gankers and the like. The big difference in Abyss PvP to rift PvP (and which makes it much more difficult) is the addition of flight. Adding in this entire other dimension is an incredible strategic change, and there is a lot to consider (especially with having limited flight time). This sort of thing I felt really added to the PvP, although it was also a source of frustration for me as an Assassin due to a couple of my core skills not working while in flight.

The biggest highlight for me, personally speaking, had to be my 1v4 fight I had. Let me lay out the story for you. It was me, a level 28 assassin, versus a ?? Assassin, a ?? Spiritmaster, a ?? Sorcerer and a ?? Templar that ran into the fight half way through. (The ?? are due to not knowing their levels, although all of them were at least 25+). What happened is that I actually got pretty lucky and managed to gank the assassin first and kill him before the sorc/SM noticed me. At that point both of them rushed at me, and I went after the sorc taking him out quickly. The spiritmaster tried to kite me but was too stupid to pull out his wings (he would have gotten me probably if it was for that) so I got him, and then during a lot of this time the templar was beating on me. I actually flew off with the templar on me (I was at low HP and had no potions on CD) but made it out alive, killing 3 of the 4 players.

To really show how big a difference it makes in skill, I later fought just the sorc one on one and lost. (it was close, but still). The key for him was to keep in the air, a key factor that he had not done in the first fight.

Abyss points are a big influence for PvPing, and by the end of the beta I had gotten up to "Soldier Rank 6", which was around 11,000 abyss points. The nice thing is that the game really pushes this PvPvE ideal, as you get AP by killing mobs in the abyss, by questing in the abyss and by killing players. Players, obviously, give some of the best rewards next to quests, and monsters give a little bit. It all balances out nicely and gives players a choice in how they want to get AP up, all while forcing them to stay in the Abyss where there is the danger of getting ganked at any time.

The final bit of PvP we had was just dukeing it out in the city coliseum. This is a large area which is set to PvP free for all, giving players a chance to try their skills against others. We went there on the last day of the beta and it was packed, there was probably a good 25-30 players there all fighting at once. What was fun is that there were several guild groups out there (including our own 6 man team) and we had constant fights over supremacy in the coliseum. This was my first time really experiencing some hardcore group PvP tactics, and I have to say that there is a lot to think about and a lot of skill involved. On numerous occasions my legion, <Element>, managed to actually clear out the entire coliseum, until we would have another major guild all join forces and come in to stop us. Things got very interesting once another guild, full of level 30's, came in and started the fun. Most of the people in my group were in their mid 20's, myself being the highest level at 28. Still we managed to focus down a lot of their members and had some pretty even fights.

It really went to show how great this game is going to be for mass PvP. We had a huge blast in the coliseum and probably stayed there for a few hours PvPing. It really was some of the most fun I have had PvPing in a game in a long, long time - and it's group dynamics totally trounced that of any other MMO I have played to date. One awesome example of group dynamics at work was the kind of synergy between myself and my groups Gladiator. I have an ability that is an "ariel stun", which I can put the enemy up into the air and stun them for a period of time. The gladiator also has this same ability, but on a much longer CD. However he also has an ability which activates whenever his target is in an ariel stun, which does a ton of damage and crashes them to the ground. We got great at me setting up this stun, then him crashing her to the ground and myself backstabbing (surprise attack) the enemy for a large amount of damage. We got a lot of awesome KOs that way and managed to turn a few heads.

Finally, some pictures from the OBT :).

[hide=Legion /taunt][/hide]

[hide=Me drooling at the lvl 50 abyss gear][/hide]

[hide=Shot of our legion emblem (Third level 3 legion on Asmodian side!)][/hide]

[hide=Boss from level 25 abyss instance][/hide]

[hide=What me and my roomate plan to look like on launch (2x assassin)][/hide]

[hide=My (very badass looking) Assassin][/hide]

[hide=Legion chilling in Coliseum][/hide]

and, the best for last:

[hide=WTF?][/hide]

[/hide][/hide]

This looks pretty amazing. Nice job on getting in to that beta :thumbup:

I think we're both lucky we got a beta key Nadril :lol:

I can vouch for what he's saying. We had a few duels just to mess around(and he won barely most of the time) and did some quests and stuff together. It's pretty good fun.

I think we're both lucky we got a beta key Nadril :lol:

 

 

 

I can vouch for what he's saying. We had a few duels just to mess around(and he won barely most of the time) and did some quests and stuff together. It's pretty good fun.

pft, barely? First duel I wiped the floor with you (granted I was 2 levels higher). :P

This looks pretty amazing. Nice job on getting in to that beta

Yeah it was real lucky. Second I saw I could get in (due to an mmorpg.com forum tip) I started screaming at ultima on steam GO HERE AND SIGN UP SIGN UP NOW [bleep]ING AION BETA WAGGGHHHH!!

Day 2 and I'm mostly just experimenting with some various classes and such to see what I like. I don't wanna burn my self out to quick, especially since the beginner levels are pretty much all PvE, where as 20-25+ is a ton of PvPvE.

This looks like alot of fun, it's been a while since I've played a new MMO. When does it officially launch in the U.S.?

September 21st (or around that)

You will have to pay right?

Yes.

Looks better than WoW!

Course I'm not the biggest fan of MMOs (I play RS, but not much). IMO, MMOs sort of ruin the sense of invdividuality in a game.

Looks great.

Too bad I still don't have any money and I probably can't persuade my parents for a monthly subscription.

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PvP video from the first western OB event, so it's level 20 max. (This isn't me, but it is the class I'm going to play on launch).

I've got a few pics from all my adventures:

[hide=High-res images]

There are some hilarious transformations in this game. Cornstalks, Wolves, etc... and a goddamn dragon :lol:

My character, in all his cool-looking glory, with a pair of awesome swords for an assassin(due to high crit rates, etc. and there are +crit and +evasion "runes" in my gear, which increases my evade and counter rate, and my criticals, which are powerful on an assassin, for instance.)

Small example of one of the cooler enemies I've seen so far. And wielding some crappy sword and dagger.[/hide]

While we're showing off characters this is mine so far in OB:

[hide=High-res images][/hide]

:thumbup:

Looks better than WoW!

 

 

 

Course I'm not the biggest fan of MMOs (I play RS, but not much). IMO, MMOs sort of ruin the sense of invdividuality in a game.

That's because it is better than the World of Warcrack :lol:

Just watched a few gameplay videos and the game looks brilliant. I'm really loving the UI.

A few questions though, it might not be very clear now since it's in beta, but what do we know as far as end-game content goes? It seems to be mostly centered around PvPing, but will there be PvE such as instances etc, as well? And what's the game-world like, is it linear (like Guild Wars) or is it open with exploring possibilities (like WoW)? Also are the non-city areas instanced? Basically what I want to know is whether there are any similarities between Aion and Guild Wars, since, well, the art-style looks very similar. It's a stupid question I know, but I just gotta know before I get too hyped up for this game. :P

The end game seems to be focused largely around the idea of PvPvE. Pretty much that means that a lot of end game content is in the Abyss, a large zone in which there are not only a lot of quests for leveling (starting at 25) but more group encounter stuff and bosses. Of course it's open to both factions, so PvP naturally happens there. I believe there also happens to be castles and forts in the abyss, which are a key for PvP.

I do believe there are some instances in the game. One I know of was added in patch 1.5 (which Aion will be launching with) which is a fortress dungeon. I can't remember but either it, or another dungeon, will be a timed run -- so think of something almost like ZA from WoW. You will get a rank depending on how quickly you beat the dungeon, which will determine the quality of the loot you will get. I'm not sure how focused the end game PvE is going to be, I'll be honest and say I really haven't bothered to research it myself.

The game is split up into zones from what I have seen so far. It doesn't really feel that way due to the nature of the games world but you won't just walk from one end of the world to the other. However the zones are quite massive. The earlier leveling zones (1-20 I understand) are actually split up into channels in order to handle an influx of new players and also because they don't involve any PvP at all. From what I've been told all zones after level 20 are only composed of one channel so there is no hiding from a player. However there are still plenty of exploration possibilities despite of all of this, I think, especially with flying being crucial in a lot of the PvP centric areas.

A lot of this is mostly just from reading up though, as this focused beta was only a 1-20 experience. And it does bare a strikingly similar art style to Guild Wars but I can't say that they are too close to each other gameplay wise.

In all honesty if I had to compare it to a game I would say that it feels a bit like a mixture of WoW, Lineage II and DAoC. A strange combination I know, but while it's not the most unique game on the market by any means I also think it is one of the most polished to be released here in the past 3-4 years.

Seems like an excellent game I would obviously get when I get ma new computer.

Though, Nads, remember darkfall? ;)

Looks better than WoW!

 

 

 

Course I'm not the biggest fan of MMOs (I play RS, but not much). IMO, MMOs sort of ruin the sense of invdividuality in a game.

 

 

 

That's because it is better than the World of Warcrack :lol:

Man how many games did they say the same thing about. I'll wait a couple of months after the hype dies down to see if this game is good or not.

The thing different about Aion is that it's been out in Korea for a while. Age of Conan, Darkfall - they were both starting fresh. Aion should already have most of the bugs worked out and stuff, unlike most newly released MMORPGs.

I don't feel like looking myself, but what do the Koreans say about the game? Surely there are some detailed reviews out there already.

This looks great.

Unfortunately, I will probably never be able to escape runescape's clutches, and nor do I wish to.

Though, if I do find the secret to being able to handle two MMOs in one lifetime, this would probably be the second.

Seems like an excellent game I would obviously get when I get ma new computer.

 

 

 

Though, Nads, remember darkfall? ;)

What? Darkfall was a buggy mess. I haven't encountered a single bug in Aion over the entire beta weekend because it's been out for a year in Korea.

Seems like an excellent game I would obviously get when I get ma new computer.

 

 

 

Though, Nads, remember darkfall? ;)

 

 

 

What? Darkfall was a buggy mess. I haven't encountered a single bug in Aion over the entire beta weekend because it's been out for a year in Korea.

I should read more. :wall:

I just skimmed through and didnt see required specs and all, and the official site is taking WAY too long for me to open and its making me lag too much, edit OP for? :P

I dont think I will play this, or any other mmo for that matter.

:lol:

I dont really want to pay the money and runescape already [bleep]ed me up in school (thank god only either grade year.)

I don't know what the recommended specs are.

I like the look of this. I might try it out when it is released if WoW doesn't announce an expansion next month.