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Impressions and Reflections after playing Closed Beta Event (no NDA breaking info)
FIRST
I'm only level 13 and I'm having a blast so far during this weekend's NA/EU Beta event. The gameplay and graphics just feel refreshing.
As soon as I saw how amazingly good the character model graphics were; I thought oh noes, here comes a lag fest. However I kid you not... On a mid range gaming box: Graphics settings mostly high or close to high, tons of people all running around the ONE beta server, and I have not had really ANY lag at all during this beta weekend event.
The other thing that I am enjoying is some of the new skills/attacks being "chain skills." For whatever reason it just feels both more fun and makes playing a bit easier.
SECONDLY:
Here is where I'll split my audience into hating me or really agreeing with me lol. As a long long long time WoW vet, I went back to play 10 days of Warhammer as I was once again bored in WoW. Here is what is SAD to me... =( Guess who does keep sieges better imho??? That's right, World of Warcraft.
Warhammer has fun RvR and Scenarios where you can even level and gain money, big thumbs up. However once you break into a keep, SINGLE CHOKEPOINT SINGLE STAIRWELL AHHHHH!!! My guildies tell me that all keeps have that flaw atm. That plus player collision (i like the player collision as a whole) = stupid boring standoff.
Wintergrasp you kill 10-22 players which gives you a buff/rank to allow you to go grab a catapult or a seige vehicle and help your team break into the keep and capture the relic. ALL WALLS AND TOWERS ARE DESTRUCTIBLE; MULTIPLE ENTRY POINTS!!! Also a small force of defenders can break off and take out some towers to the far south of the map to reduce their defense time for victory. HOWEVER, the problem here is only one zone like it and battles ever 3 hours ish only.
WHY did I bring that up??? / BEFORE YOU SHARPEN YOUR PITCHFORKS!!! (btw if you can prove me wrong on anything I said, I don't mind, I like to learn stuff.)
Because Aion has been soo refreshing and fun, and because of this --> http://www.aiononline.com/us/game_guide/what_is_aion/pvpve.html I think this game could do very well and even be great.
1) good fun questing and interesting gameplay without dealing with griefers.
2) interesting always going on world pvp action without choke points and without waiting 3 hours per battle.
3) the idea of a 3rd npc faction that can fight against you, your opponents or everyone is just really cool.
I guess only time will tell... Please do reply with your feedback and comments. ^_^
Comments
IMO, this is the cornerstone of the entire game.
Even though the graphics overall are really good, character models are especially good, and the overall looks of the game and it's art is beautiful, the game runs extremely well with huge numbers on the screen, even if you have everything cranked up.
It's refreshing to play a game at launch (this version was the one Korea had only a few weeks after release) where everything works, there are no performance issues, no crashes to desktop, no memory leaks, no slideshows, and no lag.
In addition, the graphics scale very well, so even when someone doesn't have the decent PC required to run AIon on max, it looks good on low/medium settings.
I agree with most of your post, but this quote was especially important.
IMO, this is the cornerstone of the entire game.
Even though the graphics overall are really good, character models are especially good, and the overall looks of the game and it's art is beautiful, the game runs extremely well with huge numbers on the screen, even if you have everything cranked up.
It's refreshing to play a game at launch (this version was the one Korea had only a few weeks after release) where everything works, there are no performance issues, no crashes to desktop, no memory leaks, no slideshows, and no lag.
In addition, the graphics scale very well, so even when someone doesn't have the decent PC required to run AIon on max, it looks good on low/medium settings.
I agree with most of your post, but this quote was especially important.
Put that in red because I see a lot of people forgetting or not knowing what this game is about. RvR battles WITH NPCs interfering. Take Conan, oh sure awesome graphics mostly all around, but on how many computers can you run it, and run it well?
Unfortunately until the day we can both have awesome and detailed characters and environment running well together I think this game does a good job of compromising. Well the ground textures and rock faces are pretty simple and seem really bland next to mmos where you need to downgrade your graphics to run a raid (EQ2), at least you get the important things well highly detailed.
For example I think I would have enjoyed Vanguard better if there has been less grass and no trees moving in the wind but the character models they had in early closed beta... Matter of opinion of course on what you would rather have more attention given to. I'll always vote PCs personally.
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Yes pal, here you go for some comprehensive information, if you don't mind spoilers: best of AION starts at LV25
edit: also don't miss this one: Experiences so far from Korean Aion lvl50 Assassin.
See, I want to like this game but currently, I can only play the game for 1 to 3 hours before it CTD with access violations on a random .dll file (cryanimations.dll, cry3dengine.dll, and some other .dll). I have sent in tickets and reports on the issue with no luck on the fix. Lots of people said the 9.5 catalyst drivers fixed their problem but does not seem to do anything for me. No idea what the issue is...
Just an fyi, access violation is just another word for segmentation fault.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
Bummer you were having issues. I suppose it's a little late for this now, but did you try updating direct X and installing your latest video drivers in that order? Over in nvidia land no problems here at all. Also double check for dust/heat issues as well just to be safe. ><
Yes pal, here you go for some comprehensive information, if you don't mind spoilers: best of AION starts at LV25
edit: also don't miss this one: Experiences so far from Korean Aion lvl50 Assassin.
The first I already read through, thnx for the other one. Hopefully the NA release will go well and the PvP scene turns out to be fun, meaningful, and ongoing. 8)
Bummer you were having issues. I suppose it's a little late for this now, but did you try updating direct X and installing your latest video drivers in that order? Over in nvidia land no problems here at all. Also double check for dust/heat issues as well just to be safe. ><
Dust could definitally be an issue. I know heat is not an issue but dust could be.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
IMO, this is the cornerstone of the entire game.
Even though the graphics overall are really good, character models are especially good, and the overall looks of the game and it's art is beautiful, the game runs extremely well with huge numbers on the screen, even if you have everything cranked up.
It's refreshing to play a game at launch (this version was the one Korea had only a few weeks after release) where everything works, there are no performance issues, no crashes to desktop, no memory leaks, no slideshows, and no lag.
In addition, the graphics scale very well, so even when someone doesn't have the decent PC required to run AIon on max, it looks good on low/medium settings.
I agree with most of your post, but this quote was especially important.
This is what I'm waiting to see. People's definition of "huge numbers" seems to vary. I haven't been able to find a video that had a legitimate 300+ players fighting in RvR, to see how it looks (and taking the Fraps factor into account).
As in a few other games, a lot of videos make the 200-300+ claim, but when you take a look, it's really somewhere between 40 and 100 players in the area fighting. That's a pretty big difference.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
maybe a bit off topic but the whole NDA thing is realy utter BS. No way they could trace anyone that deceides to break it .