Aion Review (PC)
Aion seems to be thriving, the servers are at decent concurrency levels, there aren’t overwhelming server problems, and most players seem genuinely happy with the game. China can’t add servers fast enough and North American and European sales have almost reached a million.
Really it appears that the Aion launch (in North America) was not only successful but also quite smooth. Not something very many MMORPGs can boast. (To be fair, it was also not as large of a lunch as some previous games have been, plus they launched in Korea and China before they did here. Clearly that gave them an excellent opportunity to work out some kinks.)
And though I may be finished with Aion, I’m extremely glad I tried it. Much of my playtime was quite enjoyable. It just turned out to not be for me, which is fine. No game can appease everyone’s needs.
So I’m closing out the Aion book with a proper review. =)
Release date: September 22, 2009
Website: http://na.aiononline.com/
Developer: NCSoft
Platform I played on: PC desktop
My Aion Diary is a pretty decent description of the game and my experience.
Game play
At its core Aion is a standard MMORPG (massively multiplayer role playing game) – character creation with race and class. Skills are learned after gaining experience, which is earned through questing and the slaying of monsters.
Even the controls and interface are very familiar. This makes the experience easy to fall into for an experienced MMO player.
Combat, while still standard auto attack (modal combat), has a few different features. The most prominent is chained spells, where a follow up spell has a chance of triggering after its predecessor is cast. It is an interesting mechanic and worth experiencing.
And of course the flying. Reach level ten, earn your wings, and fly around the lovely world of Atria.
World and Story
The planet Atria was broken into two halves after a huge cataclysm brought on by hate, prejudice, and mistrust. The inhabitants of Atria colonized both halves, one side, Elysia, filled with sunlight and splendor, the other side, Asmodea, filled with shadows and strife.
Two sides locked in an eternal struggle for domination over the remaining world of Atria.
Graphics
I think that the graphics were the biggest draw for me. Up until now I hadn’t taken the opportunity to play one of the more flowery looking MMOs out there (like Lineage or FF).
The characters are extremely attractive and the world is filled with radiant colors (even on the dark side) – its beautiful.
It was the beauty that blind sighted me with the whole hard-core PvP thing. I just assumed that something this effeminate looking wouldn’t be so focused on it. Sure fooled me. =D
Player vs Player (PvP)
The PvP in the game reminds me a lot of Dark Ages of Camelot. Early levels are gained in safe non-PvP areas, but once higher level, characters graduate out of the safety of PvE into what Aion is calling the Abyss, a PvP zone that pits one side against the other.
Siege-able fortresses reside in the Abyss. These are controllable by Aion’s version of guilds. A controlled tower will provide many desirable features to that faction and guild, hopefully encouraging players to hold onto a tower as much as possible.
PvP participation is rewarded with points. These are used to determine rank and buy special PvP gear. But take note that your death will cost you points, and the higher ranked you are, the more points a single death will cost.
Things that bothered me
-Loss of exp for dying.
I’m not sure who thought that returning to such an archaic practice was a good idea, but somehow there it is. Dying in PvE or in PvP results in experience loss. Oh you can buy some of it back, but frankly the whole experience is infuriating!
-Can’t rotate while casting.
This may seem trivial to most people, but coming from World of Warcraft I spend much of my casting time looking around. In Aion your character can’t so much as rotate a fraction lest the cast be canceled.
This also means that while flying you may not move to cast. Which means that if you are playing a spell caster you are doing very little moving at all. For me it begs the question, why fly at all then?
-Limited flying time.
There is a fatigue timer for flying. It starts at one minute and I assume it extends beyond that, but really having a limit on how long you can fly is just a huge bummer.
-Boring quests
The quests in this game are about as unimaginative as I have ever seen. The most banal compilation of collect these five items and go talk to this person.
-Sitting down for regeneration of health and mana.
Reminds me of the worst of EverQuest. Not as bad as staring at my spell book, but still sitting down, that is the best they could come up with. UGH!
-PvE is completely unbalanced.
PvE seems completely incidental in this game as the characters when leveling up are so disparate in their ability to survive.
The only reason I can think of to have such an obvious imbalance is that the game balance is focused on PvP, which inevitably messes up the PvE side. But since the game is about PvP, they don’t really seem to care that about it.
Game finished
Aion’s progression is rather fast and I felt very much like I came away with a decent understanding of the game. But I am sure that Aion, like most MMORPS, is completely different once the leveling cap is reached. Since there is only PvP to be found at the end, I stopped playing soon after my curiosity (and sense of duty) was sated.
All in all I am glad I had a chance to play the game. Parts are definitely enjoyable, but the game seems like a throwback. I still have hope that the MMO genre can move forward someday. =)
Mood Progression
Last Thoughts
Its official!
“Your game account for Aion has expired due to payment failure or cancellation.
If you would like to continue playing, you may reactivate using Account Management at http://us.ncsoft.com.
We hope to see you again soon!
- NCsoft Team”
