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Another Review, hopefully unbiased
I thought I would take the time to share my thoughts and opinions to the folks here, even though there is a good probability my review will be flamed by fanbois and praised by haters. That said, Im going to do my best to keep this as unbiased as possible, as Aion has alot of potential and really could be a great game given time and patience.
Graphics:
As people have said over and over again, the graphics in Aion are beautiful. Character models are fantastic and animations are crisp and realistic. The zones are beautiful to look at, and the colors are brilliant. NCSoft did a terrific job at creating a world that looks amazing.
Performance:
Other than the occasional lag spike, I run the game on high settings at ~100fps. The lag spikes are due to the large influx of people in particular areas, and will even itself out during lifecycle of the game. The queues, however, are another story entirely. When the game first released, there were upwards of 4-5 hour queues to LOG IN. They knew how many people had pre-ordered, and that was completely avoidable. These days, on the high populated servers during peak times in the US, queues are typically btwn 30mins to an hour...still inexcusable imo.
Character Customization:
First impressions in an MMO are very important, regardless of those who say end game is all that matters. When you first log into the game to make your first character, if you're not dazzled then you can become very biased immediately. Aion's character customization is unmatched by anything on the market currently. There are truely limitless possibilities on how your character appears, and you could spend literally hours making it just so should you choose. Aion truely gives you the possibility to make an in game character look exactly as you do IRL.
Questing:
Unless its a straight grind MMO, which I personally haven't played since Shadowbane, questing plays a huge role in the development of not only an immersive story, but it serves as your main source of XP to gain levels. At the risk of sounding harsh, questing in Aion is straight boring. I've been playing MMOs since original UO, and have played over 30 in between. Aion, blatently, played it safe and did exactly what every other quest based MMO has done. Kill x of this mob, bring me y feathers, collect z of this fruit...absolutely no originality whatsoever. The campaign quests attempt to bring an underlying story to the game, but it just fealt so familiar. I will also touch on grinding later on, but it deserves its own category. That said....
Grinding:
There are so many arguments over the "grind" in Aion, I feel as if I have to pick a side or I'll be chastised by both. The bottom line is, there is a grind in Aion and those who say there isn't are either retarded, or just stupid. These days though, thats not a bad thing. I have to commend NCSoft, because there are some people who prefer to just run around killing things rather than following an organized storyline, and that is a viable option in this game. Grinding plays a big part in the game, as if you're questing a non-campaign quest you get more xp from killing all of the individual mobs in most cases than do you for turning in the quest. If thats not a grind, Im not sure what is ;]
Community:
The community is mixed, and the spammers are intense. The spammers just run rampant and the only way to get rid of them was to block them. That, unfortunately, is a double edged sword because you end up having to unblock spammers in order to block more. There are those who help, and the trade channel is visible no matter where you are in the world (awesome imo, and very handy to be able to shop while you quest), but there are also those who do nothing but flame, bitch, gripe, and talk about WoW. Yes, talking about WoW in Aion. Go figure.
PvP:
In all honesty, this game was built to embrace PvP, and it really is alot of fun. The Abyss is unlike anything I've seen in an MMO to date, and of all the things I did in the game, I think that was easily the most entertaining. The combat system used in the game is also unique, and makes PvP really interesting.
Combat System:
Like PvP, this is definately one of Aions redeeming qualities. The system is familiar, but with a nice original touch with chain skills. Chain skills, for those who haven't played, are basically abilities that become available after you use particular other abilities. They appear next to your character after performing certain abilities and you can typically either click them, or press the associated button. It is very innovotive and a good addition to the genre - I think it will be used again in the future.
Crafting System:
The crafting system is, blatently, more of the same. Gather items, press craft, wait for it to be done. The catch is, you can actually fail at crafting, so you could gather 50k Kinah worth of materials to fail, and still not get a skill up. I guess risk vs. reward comes to mind, but its still very agitating when you find yourself in that position. Again, I feel as if they could have done something different - I have seen very similar systems in many other MMOs, and what is the point in being able to press craft and then go afk for 30 minutes while you make your items? Maybe its just me, but I would prefer a more immersive approach.
All in all, I feel Aion is a game thats far from perfect, but has potential. Unfortunately, for me, it feels exactly the same as any number of other MMOs I've already played and I grew bored of it after about 2 weeks of release, plus several closed beta events. If you are a veteran MMOer, like myself, I feel as if you won't enjoy Aion as much as somebody just getting into the genre. It truely feels like more of the same in its current state. Hopefully this review helps at least one person decide if its the game for them or not - thanks for reading ;]
Comments
I'm sorry some people on these forums are intelligent and can form sentences. Forbid he actually uses this knowledge to write something sensible and in-depth.
As for the review and not the asinine posts. I really like it, it was well written, in depth and didn't focus on too many positives or negatives. Personally, I agree with about everything you said. I really can't think of anything to add to your review actually.
Well, I can. I think SOME of the quests were well written and fun to do. Although, these were really only the low level ones. They degraded the higher I leveled. That or they just got old.
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Telthalion Rohircil - Guardian - Elemandir - Lord of The Rings Online
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== RIP == Torey - Commando - Orion - Tabula Rasa == RIP ==
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Jordaniel Torey - Navy Megathron, Active Armor Tank - Tranquility - EVE Online
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Torey Scott - Rifleman - Fallen Earth
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but I know World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
Great review I am not going to lie.
I am an MMO Veteran for sure, having played every MMO above the rating of 7.8 on this website, and some below that :P. I actually enjoy Aion, if anything just for the wonderful graphics and attention to detail. It is definitely more of the same, although flying does add a new element to PvP that is lacking in other MMOs. The grind is most definitely awfully long, but for one such as myself I find it to be entertaining. I agree with you on a lot of your point, but I am going to stick with Aion. There isn't much else out there for me, I am probably just going to play this until FFIV or SW:OR comes out. Good review though dude.
Only have one thing i need to post on that I see on lots of posts about this game concerning the "Grind." I see that a lot of you guys claim to be veteran mmo players from EQ and the early days or whatever. Will someone please explain to me how the so called grind of Aion really compares to a game like EQ where all you did back then was grind. Or compare it to FFXI which was just like EQ in the fact that you spent at least 90% of your time grinding. Even funnier to me are the L2 players (or so they claim) who also try to complain about the grind of this game. I just find it hard to believe or give any of these people any credibility when it comes to that.
Good review.
Ignore those on this site that just post to try and get a rise out of someone. They fail to realize that even though they may play the game being reviewed, there may be those(like myself) that have not played the game and may actually like to read posts and reviews of a game, so that they can make an informed decision to actually give the game a try or not.
Thanks for your input
Nuich
Sigh .... another day on mmorpg.com, another rude ignorant comment ....
Ps why are you here if you dont want to read peoples opinions , is'nt that what forums are all about ?.
Try bringing something positive to this forum instead of just ignorance.
I could only imagine what a joy you must be to play with in game.
To me a grind made interesting could be found in Asheron's Call 1. There were usually level appropriate - but sometimes stunning lewt - that could be found on standard mobs. And the stats and buffs on these items would be random and therefore unique. There could also be craftable rare item drops, and you could even 'salvage' items and break them down into constituent resources for resale if you wished to. And to top it all off, if you were willing to risk having an item destroyed completely you could even bring it to a crafter for further buffing through the process of 'tinkering'.
Just shopping alone in AC1 was a fun activity.
I've chosen to take a pass on Aion, but I take it it's just more of the same WoW, WAR, Vanguard, etc. type shit. Green, Blue, Purple the same as everyone else's G,B,P. God that system is so unimaginative and dull. No thanks.
what about PvE? Any Large Scale?
Personally I think Aion looks like a shiner version of Lineage 2, with wings. From what I'm hearing its the same grind, with similar graphics. I'd heard rumors in the past that NCSoft actually supported the players of Lineage buying money from outside companies and it seemed pretty true when I was playing, which makes me wonder if the recent "crackdown" on people botting and buying gold is going to last, or if its just a ploy to make new players think their doing something about it.
"Well, I woke up this morning and I wasn't dead. I suppose that means it's a good day."
It is a nice review, but it cannot stands on its own. For that it does not give enough factual information, I think. I can learn what the OP thinks about the game, but the review does does not give sufficient information to form my own opinion. However, since there are already so many personal reviews out there, it is a nice addition.
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Delanor
What they didn't tell you is that its only a 72 hour ban! They will be waiting for everyone on Monday with tons more SPAM!
no, but seriously, AION is not very innovative. Not only L2, but Rohan, Rising Force Online, and TERA are all games very similar to AION. MMO's require so much work and money that only a few good choices are available each year (if that) so people will of course buy pretty much any AAA MMO that releases to try it out. Then they will defend to the death their love of the game. Even if it is only due to the initial "omg this game is different" factor.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I have been around the genre since 1999. I've done my share of grinding in a number of games.
So, what's so bad about Aion grind?
The game is too small, is not very immersive and it just isn't very fun once you hit the mid 30s.
The small size means you will have little variety in what you grind. The lack of immersion in the game world means that the grind feels meaningless. That the game isn't very fun means that there is really nothing fun to do when you have to take a break from the pure grind.
When I'm immersed in an MMORPG, I don't care if there is a long leveling curve to the cap. I don't care if I have to grind from time to time, or even quite a bit. The grind is just a small part of the bigger game.
In Aion, the grind feels like it is the game.
I've tried to be short and to the point, as many people won't read longer posts. That's as simply as I can put it.
It's not the amount of grind, it's the nature of the grind in context of the game as a whole. When I look at the game and the game world and ask "Is it worth spending many hours of my time grinding in this game"? The answer is no. The game just doesn't offer enough to make the grind worth it.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Amusing isn't it? However, I will say that the game does get rather lean with quests towards the higher end which considering how much you can level solely from questing leaves a false impression for those that prefer leveling only from questing, which is still grinding but you know how that goes.
I personally think it's partly Aion's fault for the reason I mentioned above and also simply players being used to how the leveling curve has shortened in games anymore. It's getting ridiculous with mmorpgs. Even games like WoW and LotR that didn't have the hugest leveling curves to begin with have over time lowered this curve while some newer games such as Warhammer and AoC allow you to reach max level in an insane amount of time compared to how it used to be in these games. Of course, if the game has tons to do at endgame then I suppose this isn't an issue but for a lot of players it seems ones that do stick it out besides WoW to an extent (and it has it's complainers too) then their biggest gripe is there's nothing to do or now I get to raid all day long wtf is this?
Sometimes, I wonder if game companies can actually really win any more unless they completely create something revolutionary. Of course, if they do they better still have massive backing because then players will bitch about how the game plays unless it launches just short of flawless or bitch that it's revolutionary but not their type of game.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
This post went about as I expected ;] I saw a couple comments about the review I originally wrote, so that at least makes me feel like the time I spent writing it didn't go completely to waste. To the 2nd poster, you made me lol. I enjoy a good laugh now and then, and that sure did it for me. Thanks ;]
All of the large scale raid type stuff are pvp related. There are instances that are geared for the 6 man parties. However, if you are looking for the massive pve raids this game doesn't have those.
I will comment a little on the grind and quests in the game. My character is level 31 and currently has a full log of quests to do. I'm not sure when that will end but so far I haven't seen the doom and gloom that some people have been spouting. With that said, the actual quests and the travel in the world do feel a lot more grindy than other mmo's I've played. I don't really mind grinding so much but for others it may be a problem. One thing that does contribute to the grind feel are the number of repeatable quests in the game, they are very similar to the rep grind dailies that you had in WoW.