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SIMILAR GAMES
Soul of the Ultimate Nation
Genre: RPG
Publisher: Webzen
Developer: S-Studio
Release: 22 September 2009
Genre: RPG
Publisher: Webzen
Developer: S-Studio
Release: 22 September 2009
Aion First Impressions
by Marissa Monera - IGN.com | 23 September 2009 12:00Where's the grind?
Yesterday marked the official North American launch of Aion, NCsoft's much-awaited fantasy MMORPG, but for those who had preordered the game, it really started on Sunday, September 20th at noon Pacific time, when the servers opened up for the preorder headstart. With the servers up and running since then, the opening day transition was smooth and effortless, and somewhat anti-climactic.
Having had a glimpse of the game during one of their beta weekends, I knew I wanted to play it at launch. So Sunday dawned and I felt like an MMO junkie, watching the clock like a hawk until the appointed time. The kickoff was prompt and logging in was relatively problem-free, but the newbie area was already crowded by the time my character woke up in the game. By 1PM, all twelve servers were registering high populations, some with login queues indicating up to a 3-hour wait. Considering that NCsoft had pegged their preorder figures at close to 400,000 by late last week, this was hardly surprising. What's causing people some concern is that up until last night, the queues remain and the situation seems to have worsened. As NCsoft tries to find the balance between alleviating the server load and diluting them too much in a game where population imbalance matters, two additional servers are due to be launched this weekend and the capacity per server has been adjusted as well.
So what is it about Aion that has made it one of the most highly anticipated MMOs this year? The game has been running in Korea for almost a year now and its success there has ironically caused some people here to dismiss it as just another Korean "grind-fest", in reference to the fact that games which feature repetitive mind-numbing tasks in order to advance (ie. "grinding") seem to be popular there. But it looks like the developers have taken pains to adapt the game to local preferences. Whatever they did, it seems to have worked because those who managed to get their hands on the game through their beta weekend events and at tradeshows gave glowing accounts of it, thus building up the hype. And does it live up to this hype? Having logged at least fifteen hours of game time since launch, here are my first impressions of Aion.
If the classes sound pretty basic, character customization is definitely not so. Just to give you an idea of the degree of customization available, there are over 40 different hairstyles, more than 20 face types, color palettes for hair, eyes, lips and skin color, and sliders to further customize the little details - face shape, forehead, eye height, etc. The same thing goes for physique. You can select your body size (from tiny to large) and then use sliders to adjust your height, head size, neck, legs, etc. Although everyone is technically the same race, the character modeler allows you to make dwarf-like or elf-like characters, and markings like moles, scars and tattoos are also available. The amazing thing is that you can actually zoom in and see all these details on your character in the game.
Getting into the game, my Elyos warrior wakes up to a beautiful pastoral setting. It's raining and as I take a few seconds to look around in awe, my character holds out her hands palms up and then pulls out a large leaf umbrella to shield herself from the rain! Cute touch. The game looks pretty even at the lowest settings, but at max it's simply gorgeous and more importantly, it runs smoothly as well.
The first few quests serve to familiarize you with the controls, combat and questing. If you substitute kobolds with striped kerubs, and wolf tails with snuffler tails, you get the complete picture. At least in the beginning zone, the game does a good job of moving you from one area to the next as it reveals your character's true nature as a Daeva, born to fight against the evil Balaur.
Combat is typical of most MMORPGs. You learn class-specific skills by buying skill books from a trainer and reading them. Once learned, you can bind a skill to a slot on your action bar and execute it by pressing a hotkey. Some skills are only activated as part of a chain of skills but unlike other games where you have to discover the different combinations, you can see all the possible chains in your skill book whether or not you have already learned them. The animations are rather flashy and casters utter some gibberish while firing off their spells, and yet the combat feels responsive.
The final quest you get in the newbie area sends you off to your capital city, in my case Sanctum. There you are given your wings as you take your rightful place amongst the Daeva, complete with a little cutscene starring you. Flying is a little overrated. There are only certain areas you can fly in and you have a flight timer, initially set to one minute. If you happen to be way up in the air when the time runs out, you'll fall and most probably die. Death, by the way, is punishable by experience loss but you can buy back the lost points from a soul healer. Of course all this is based on my limited experience as a Daeva who has never gone to the Abyss, where all the fighting on wings takes place.
The ascension opens up a whole new world in Aion. For the first time, you gain access to the various crafting trainers, allowing you to finally make use of all the raw materials you've been gathering from the start. In crafting, you can be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one. It's too early for me to make any sort of conclusions about the crafting system but so far, I haven't had to make any useless stuff just to level up my crafting. Also, Aion has a nice feature that I've only seen in other Korean-developed MMOs so far - the ability to set up a personal store anytime anywhere. So if you're out in an outpost where there's no NPC trader or even on a roadside in the middle of nowhere, you can sell your goods while you're away from the keyboard.
As my Daeva warrior starts a new life, there is much to explore and more to discover. When people talk about Aion and what makes it different from the multitude of MMORPGs out there, they always cite flying and aerial combat. But that doesn't come until much later and certainly doesn't explain the level of excitement that the game has generated. If you think about it, flying aside, Aion is rather standard for an MMO. But I think what sets it apart is polish, that same elusive quality that had previously been a Blizzard monopoly. Perhaps having launched in Korea almost a full year before its North American launch has made this level of quality possible. Or maybe the developers have simply taken all the features we've ever wanted in all the existing games and bundled them into this neat package. Whatever the reason, the game has been fun so far and in my book, it definitely lives up to the hype.
Supplied by IGN.com
