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Aion: Comic Con Game Preview
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh submits this overview of NCsoft's upcoming MMORPG Aion taken from time with the game and its Associate Producer Lani Blazier at Comic Con.
As I mentioned to Editor Jon Wood, the difficult articles to write are always about either the games in Pre-Alpha where most everything is still under wraps, and the games so close to launch that NDA has been lifted and most everything has been revealed. Aion falls squarely in the latter. I’ve seen, written and read about Aion since it was revealed to the Western audience at E3 2006 as Aion: The Tower of Eternity, and had hands-on play when it was provided at Cons. So what is it about then?
Aion, the latest title from developer NCsoft is billed as a PvPvE MMO that is being developed simultaneously by both NCsoft in Korea and the US, with Korea being about nine months ahead, and the US version localized as it develops, for the Western market. The world Aion, Atreia, resembles a globe that has been torn in half. The lower half is a lush green world as it receives the benefit of sunlight where the Elyos live. The upper half is dark, cold and arid, the world of the Asmodians. In Eons past, the two halves were joined by vertically by the Tower of Eternity and the Elyos and Asmodians were one people, but when the tower was destroyed in the thousand year war, the factions turned on each other and blamed the other for its destruction.
Read the Comic Con Game Preview
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
cant wait until a month after NA release thats when i always get new mmos this one looks good
Not much new information but always enjoy new articles about what will be the 2009 MMO of the year.
Griefer Heaven?
“If you go about griefing newbies though… you may find that your teleport spell doesn’t work.”
So after you have griefed countless newbies you have to get yourself killed to go home, that is supposed to deter griefers?
Allowing players to appear as if they are lower level charecters in PvP is a bad choice, I don’t’ know anywhere this has worked and it just helps out the griefers.
If anyone who has played the game reads this it would be nice to hear if you think this is an issue or not.
You lose XP/Abyss points when you die, so death is something you would want to avoid. And you can see player levels without looking at their gear.
Don't really think it's going to be a problem.
Good to hear you can see the levels. But does your own death weigh as a deterrent against the large numbers you have already griefed? Or is it not that easy to find a horde of lowbies to destroy anyway?
When you PvP you care more about your abyss points than your level. Since you're higher level, you probably have more abyss points than the lower level victims. So even if they get to die, you risk losing more by dying.
But you realize there are huge penalties to dying in PVP. Noone will want to lose their K/D ratio if they wanted to be high ranked players on the server. You are instantly effected on the K/D scale the moment you start to PVP. And it stays with your character forever. To be higher ranked within the officer ranking you need ALOT of pvp points which is gained through killing worthy oponents that will advance you.
Basically PVP rank is determined on your Abyss points + K/D ratio for the higher ranks. Which will be a crucial component to ANYONE who is serious about being good in this "PVP game". This way only idiots will mindlessly gank newbs without end. Because with PVP being a major component, this ranking is no small thing to alot of people. Or if they don't care at the beginning , they may regret messing up their K/D later.
Although this won'tstop everyone from ganking newbs. I will keep the serious players straight, and the short term people who don't care about ruining a template out of the higher ranks where they do not belong. The last thing anyone wants is a newbie ganker doing nothing but gankings newbs to become #1. No. The people who want to raise their rank will be participating in meaningful PVP, and only gank newbs on the rare occassion for sport. If even then.
And yes, I do hunt newbies for sport once in a while. But it is usually just a split descision thing where if I happen to randomly run across some lowbie leveling, I might mentally toss a coin on whether he gets barbicued.
I had been pitching the question for along time now on whether the armor/stat changing was for any armor. Like a gladiator having gladiator stats on cloth looking armor. Or if it was exclusive to the type of armor that the stats are ment to go with. I am glad to hear that if you are a gladiator trying to apply gladiator level stats, you will half to keep it within the "Plate" category, and so on.
Thats sounds a good system, like you say anyone who is into PvP will want a high ranking, competition is all!
Having played all the Beta events, hopefully I can shed some light on these discussions.
First you do not lose alot of xp doing PVP you lose Abyss Points. Dying from PVE you lose XP and it cost a good sum of money if you are one of those players that likes to charge into a pack of mobs and then die. You will go broke trying to recover from xp loss if you die alot in PVE. So you do need to know when to run as the mobs do not follow you that far.
The xp loss in PVP is trivial and cost one kinah to replace. You do not get alot of XP doing PVP, so most will level doing PVE. The abyss is a blast but you must pay attention at all times. Flying opens up a whole new dimension, that at first I thought it was a gimmick. Once you hit the Abyss you will know what I am talking about.
The game is beautiful and I am having fun, but want to see the whole game with patch 1.5 that is going to be included with the game when it goes live.
Those who think losing abyss points will deter griefers are sorely misguided and obviously have never played Lineage 2.
You don't grief on a character you CARE about...
You have a dedicated griefer alt (or alts) to grief with. So what if it isn't high ranked. That doesn't matter in the slightest to the griefer. You level the alt up to a reasonable level, buy some cheap gear that works good enough (or give the alt stuff you collect on your main) and then go cause havoc with newbies. Oh, so you've gotten those horrible buffs. You either a) log out and play your main or b) let someone kill you, log out, and play your main.
There will always be griefers in online games. I think Aion strikes a balance here trying to place some deterents to the behavior without locking all players down too tight. I'm not really into griefing, I would rather fight a challenge, win or lose, but again I think the penalties are fairly well balanced.