So I preordered Aion. I’ll confess, I really had no expectation of wanting to play this game, but my gaming buddy, Cal (*waves at Cal*), had expressed an interest in Aion some time ago and seemed intent on trying it, so I figured what the heck. I had some reservations, simply because I’d heard things like “grindfest,” “bots and farmers,” “anime graphics,” etc. The company who is producing Aion, NCSoft, has a mixed track record. I always associated them with Lineage II, which I tried for a grand total of about 4 hours–I just couldn’t get past the graphics style. They also produced the failed Tabula Rasa, which was shut down not too long ago. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t expecting much from Aion.
Part of the joy of a preorder is you can test the game in some of the betas. It’s a good way to get a feel for the game, to offer feedback on any issues that you see, and best of all–if you hate the game, you’re only out $5 for the pre-order deposit from Best Buy. My expectations weren’t very high. I knew the graphics were going to have an Asian feel to them, more anime-ish than I enjoy. I’m not one of these folks who love anime. At all. I don’t get it, but that’s a topic for another day. And graphics whore that I am, if graphics don’t appeal to me, I’m probably not going to play the game (see my reference to Lineage II). I installed the client with some trepidation, and when it was time to create that first character, I held my breath.
And, quite simply, I was blown away.
The character create was one of the most detailed and in-depth that I’ve ever seen. The variety was unbelievable–44 choices for hairstyles, over 15 choices for “basic” face shapes, body styles, etc. And every bit of the faces and bodies are customizeable by numerous sliders. You can truly make an individual, unique character in Aion–from the beautiful to the grotesque or the bizarre. The two races, Elyos (light side) and Asmodeans (dark side), have distinct characteristics–most notably, the Asmodeans have glowing red eyes, clawed hands and feet, and manes down their spine, while the Elyos look like they stepped out of a swimwear commercial for Old Navy. I rolled an Elyos Warrior (more on classes later), and I was able to make EXACTLY what I wanted. That hasn’t happend for me in a game since EQ2, and even then, there were limits. I could literally have spent hours in the character create, just twinking and playing with the various looks and options.
After a great first impression in character create, I logged into the starter zone. Graphically, the world is lovely. It’s a “surreal” feeling world–very fantasy-oriented. If you’re looking for gritty realism, then head to Age of Conan because you’re not going to get it here. However, it truly is well done for the style, and I found it appealing. The starting zone is, in a word, HUGE. It’s expansive and has enormous variety in terrain. I liked what I saw very much. The music is….what it is. I’m not a fan of Asian-sounding music, and that is definately what this sounded like. It’s “pretty,” I guess, but I have a feeling I’ll be listening to iTunes when I play–unlike Age of Conan, where the music is so spectacular that it’s deserving of being on iTunes.
The starter quests were typical. FedEx, kill 10 snarkdoodles, gather ten flowers, find ten widgets. I’m ok with that. For some reason “traditional” has become synonymous with “boring” in the MMO community. Personally, I don’t mind traditional, as long as it’s well done, and Aion has done the quests fairly well. You get tastes of the lore, and the stories are acceptable. If you are one of the folks who just clicks through the quests to get to the “accept” button, then these are going to be nothing special to you. Another thing I noticed is that Aion doesn’t spoonfeed you. In some games, you get little x’s and circled areas to show you just where to go to find what you need. You don’t get that in Aion. You can opt to find a quest giver or NPC by hitting “locate” if you want to, but those folks who enjoy a challenge can certainly head out on their own to find their adventure. Some of the quests simply tell you “in a hard-to-find location,” so you actually have to work at it. I can see this being either fun and challenging–or maddeningly frustrating, depending on what mood I’m in. You also get a series of quests called “campaign” quests, which you are required to complete before moving on to the next set. The rewards are decent, and they are designed in such a way as to let you experience all of the zone you are in.
The UI is vanilla, but it’s well-thought-out. They’ve opted for a traditional look and feel, and it works for this game. One thing that’s annoying me greatly is that I can’t change the opacity of my chat box. I like for my chat box to have a black background all the time, because I find it hard to read text when it’s just shown against the terrain/background. I’ve not been able to find an option to do that, so consequently, chat isn’t easy for me to read. You get typical hotkeys, “K” for your skills, “P” for your persona, “I” for inventory–nothing groundbreaking here, but as I said, it is functional and easy to use.
Combat didn’t impress me at all at first. For the first ten levels, I felt very much like all I was doing was mashing a button and waiting for auto-attack–and I was. The animations are alright, but coming from Age of Conan, where the combat is very interactive from the get-go, and has an incredibly realistic feel, the combat in Aion seemed a bit flat to me. However, I will say that there was great improvement as I passed level 10 and got more skills to use. Aion uses a combat-chain, which is quite fun and simple to use. It reminded me very much of EQ2’s heroic opportunities, except this is for a single player, not a group. You hit a combat art, and then it chains to the next one in the series, allowing you to land a more powerful attack. There is also variety, and you can choose on the fly which skill you want to use for the fight you’re in. For example, do I want to knockback and build hate, or do I want to just whale hell out of it? I think the combat will be involved enough to keep me interested–especially at higher levels with more skills.
Flying. Yes, that’s the thing that supposedly sets Aion apart. And you know what? It kinda does. It was freaking cool to complete the quest and get my wings–complete with a nifty cut-scene of my character flying into battle, looking badass. And although it would be wonderful to fly everywhere, you’re not allowed. Some zones don’t allow flight at all, and your flight time in others is very limited–if you don’t land, your wings disappear and you fall to your death. Not that this ever happened to me. *shifty eyes* However, I understand that flight time is limitless in PvP, though I’ve not experienced that myself yet. Having flight makes questing pretty interesting in some zones–the thing you’re looking for might just be above you. There are also nodes that you must harvest–in the sky. It adds a nice twist to things, and I’m looking forward to seeing this in action in PvP.
Harvesting and crafting. Well, I’m going to have to do an entire post just about this topic, but the short version is that I’m VERY happy with what I’ve seen so far. I’ve been missing “filler” in some games. WAR’s crafting was a joke and an afterthought with no real function. Age of Conan’s has improved somewhat since the 1.05 patch, but it’s still limited. Aion’s crafting system reminds me of the old EQ2 system–where you have to build components in order to make a finished product. It’s extremely involved and fun–and they’ve made it simple enough that it’s not overwhelming. This beta weekend, I think I spent half my time crafting–and having fun doing it–and that says something, to me at least.
I’ll definately be writing more about Aion as the new betas come out. Oh, that’s another thing they are doing the smart way. The betas and “open” betas are being done on weekends, and they are spread out. I think this is a very smart decision, as it will keep folks hungry for more. I know I”m going to be sad when this beta weekend is over!
Overall, my impression of Aion is that it’s pretty, it’s polished, and it looks to have gotten a helluva lot of things right. I’m eager for more.
