Any new info yet?

Torak · August 2006

I've keeping an eye on this game a few months now, any new annoucements or new info yet?

Why do I always pick the games that go undercover? Hero's Journey is another game that refuses to put out any information either.

Also, does anyone have some sort of ballpark on a release or beta???

atlaznboi · August 2006

nope no major news yet. according to Gamespot.com, the beta will start near the end of 2006 and a release in 2007.

Kharmed · August 2006

http://www.aionsource.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10

This is a quote from a PLAY magazine article read this and join Aionsource!

Darwa · August 2006

Wanna post a link to somewhere we don't have to register to see?

Zens · September 2006

This is the message so you dont need to register to see it:

Quote:

Aion is one of NCsoft’s largest projects to date. It represents the
accumulated experience the company has gained in its years as a top
online RPG developer and publisher. Its characters and background have
been researched for global appeal, balanced to accommodate players with
different play styles, and its chosen engine technology (Crytek in an
MMO? Yes please!) is beyond reproach. And in response to players’
wishes, each Aion game server will track its own history of player
accomplishments, with major unlockables and one-time events triggered
and saved on a per-server basis. No Aion server will have the same
economy or alliances.

Aion introduces three main factions and a unique “PvPvE” scheme. The
PvP slice involves two conflicting player factions: Angels (The Chosen)
and Demons (The Fallen). The third faction, the Dragons, is a
NPC-controlled element whose purpose is to keep the player sides in
check. Should one player faction become too powerful, the Dragons will
interfere and restore order. It seems as though the Angels and Demons
played some part in imprisoning the Dragons in the Tower of Eternity, a
massive structure at the center of the world acting as gateway to the
Abyss. The Dragons are freed when an epic evil force opens the portal
to the Abyss. How this over-arcing story unfolds will largely depend on
the actions of the player community on each Aion server. Private quests
for groups are being designed with plot and interaction in mind: NPCs
to uncover, levers to pull, gates to unlock and more elements to
maintain high player feedback. The game will also track dozens of
invisible metrics on a per-character basis, gathering details from your
deeds, gameplay style and character advancement choices. In turn, your
character will begin to develop unique persistent traits over time.

To realize such grandiose concepts, the team chose the Crytek engine to
render the Aion world—tweaking the base code to support MMO load
balancing. Imagine Far Cry-quality graphics in a high fantasy MMO
universe, including bump-mapped characters, vast plains, forests filled
with trees and flora, effects like heat shimmer and flowing water, and
a weather system that actually affects player-characters. For example,
using a fire-based spell during heavy rainfall will cripple its
effectiveness, while lightning magic will accrue extra damage. Ground
cover will also affect player movement, so sloshing through a swamp
will be slow going. Why walk when you can fly? Similar to the Gryphon
transportation in WoW, Aion will allow winged Angel and Demon
characters to fly between major hubs. It’s on rails for now, but the
developers are actually toying with the notion of allowing free flight.

Only four of eight base character archetypes (warrior, wizard, healer,
ranger) have been revealed thus far and it’s not clear how the flow of
PvPvE will play out, on a day-to-day basis. Nonetheless, Aion is a very
promising MMO with a great world design and the technology to back it
up. Aion’s Beta should kick-in later this year, leading up to a Q1 2007
release.

Sovrath · September 2006

w00t Torak. You have to play this game.

I will be leaving L2 to give this game a serious try.

IdesofMarch · September 2006

Originally posted by Torak

I've keeping an eye on this game a few months now, any new annoucements or new info yet?
Why do I always pick the games that go undercover? Hero's Journey is another game that refuses to put out any information either.
Also, does anyone have some sort of ballpark on a release or beta???

NCSoft is known for being a bit hush-hush with their games. I would expect this thing to get whored out before release. Release/beta has been rumored to be very tail end of the year, beginning of next year, etc. My personal guess is that you'll see Aion go live in Q2 2007 to get a nice little head start against the huge games set for the end of next year.

Sovrath · September 2006

Originally posted by IdesofMarch

Originally posted by Torak

I've keeping an eye on this game a few months now, any new annoucements or new info yet?
Why do I always pick the games that go undercover? Hero's Journey is another game that refuses to put out any information either.
Also, does anyone have some sort of ballpark on a release or beta???

NCSoft is known for being a bit hush-hush with their games. I would expect this thing to get whored out before release. Release/beta has been rumored to be very tail end of the year, beginning of next year, etc. My personal guess is that you'll see Aion go live in Q2 2007 to get a nice little head start against the huge games set for the end of next year.

Though are we talking Korean Beta or NA/Euro Beta?

I know that they are making this game with the Korean Market in mind and that they tend to finish the Korean version and then translate.

If the upcoming beta is korean then we could expect the NA/Euro Beta months afterward.

Torak · September 2006

We will see Sovrath,

I am definately going to be very cautous of paying for another NCSoft game after they ruined my L2 experience by supporting cheats rather then the legit players following the user agreement, and their practicle of banning players for complaining about bots.

Come play DAoC with me in the meantime.

Sovrath · September 2006

Originally posted by Torak

We will see Sovrath,
I am definately going to be very cautous of paying for another NCSoft game after they ruined my L2 experience by supporting cheats rather then the legit players following the user agreement, and their practicle of banning players for complaining about bots.
Come play DAoC with me in the meantime.

Interesting enough, one of the NC Soft reps (Rockjaw) has stopped by the Aion Source and has made a few posts.

This is one of his replies from a thread where someone wonders if Aion is a Lineage 2 clone:

"The one thing I will say is that (I believe) all of the videos posted so far are taken from E3, 2006.

The build of Aion that was being demo'ed then (including the interface and many other aspects) is not anywhere close
to being the final version of the game. There will be hundreds of
thousands of changes before then, not least changes that will come
about as a result of extensive Beta testing.

In other words, it's really too early to make assumptions about Aion.

"

So if people frequent www.aionsource.com you might get more info as it becomes available.

Sorry Torak, I think I'll just hang with L2 until Aion comes out. Or maybe L3... but it will have to offer significantly different gameplay or graphics that make me speechless. Then again, I'm a graphics whore so there really isn't hope for me.

Greatness · September 2006

Check out This - Someone found some concept art and interview, if anyone can translate, that would be great though.

Kharmed · September 2006

http://www.soulchamber.us/uploads/e00ebba3af.jpg

I guess most of the new information will be released in 2-3 months.

Kaibyaku · September 2006

NCsoft Games are so so, L2 was about there only decent game. But its appauling how many non retail servers there are for it. They need to make some revolutionary games and not be stuck in the past way of mmos, its 2006, the ps3 and wii will soon be released, by then, this old way of thinking will be outdated, I do hope they dont bring this sad way of thinking to Aion.

IdesofMarch · September 2006

Originally posted by Kaibyaku
NCsoft Games are so so, L2 was about there only decent game. But its appauling how many non retail servers there are for it. They need to make some revolutionary games and not be stuck in the past way of mmos, its 2006, the ps3 and wii will soon be released, by then, this old way of thinking will be outdated, I do hope they dont bring this sad way of thinking to Aion.

Guild Wars and City of Heroes/Villians both recieved pretty darn good reviews and both are doing very well number-wise.

Revolutionary games? If you haven't looked around there is nothing out there right now that is revolutionary in the MMO world. There's innovation here and there but nothing is revolutionizing the genre at the moment, so if you're going to point the finger do so at everyone else as well.

And you can't compare PC-gaming (in this case MMO's) to console games. Being a part of both sides and of the latter since childhood I can say they are two different worlds. MMORPG's have a bright future ahead of them and will continue to grow over the coming years.

If you read info on Aion you'll find that it's going to be a mixture of old and new ideas, and for those of us waiting, hopefully we'll have a great game on our hands in 2007.

Kaibyaku · September 2006

Mmm, indeed indeed. Guildwars was a good game. But not much my taste, however, unique, aswas city of heros.
Perhaps im just dreaming of a day where my computer is acctually fun to play with

.

Maybe I am just crazy.

Torak · September 2006

I know what you are saying.

I wouldn't say NCSoft games have been bad. They are the only company that has truely done anything "different" from the EQ model.

The main problem with NC games is they have a limited scope. CoX for example, do missions....period. GW sticks to instances and L2 caters to a specific type of player. In all the cases, NC doesn't really do anything "wrong", they have excellent executions. But because of the limited scope, they get dull pretty quick.

When CoH first released it was like nothing else ever released. You had level grinders and then you had this game that had story arcs and superheroes, instances meshed with a persistant world. Sure it was a level grinder but there was no "go kill 10 rats or dogs", you actually felt like you where playing a "superhero". There was nothing else as well made and exciting out there. Yes, after a few years, it got stale, the MMO community has gotten cynical and bored. MMO companies put out crap game after crap game.

Same with GW. Nothing like it has ever been tried up to that point.

L2 was a very good game and had the greatest potential (and still does) of all of NC's games however they managed to cripple it with the economy and grind (at least here in the west) In both cases, it encouraged a massive third party farmer population. So large, NC lost control of it.

When it comes to "design" for whatever reasons devs have opted to stick with the tired old EQ formula that is over 10 years old. The MMO community is burned out on it. When you look at games released up until 04/05 you can see the devs usually bring nothing new other then a minor variation or refinement. L2 (along with WoW) where released in 04. The dev teams originally pitched their concepts 2 to 4 years prior to that. At that time the MMO industry was small and just starting out. There where only a handful of MMO out there.

Its going to take another 2 - 5 years for this genre to really come around simply because of dev times. 2008 we may start seeing some really exciting inovative stuff. 2007 will be hit and miss. A few new exciting things will happen (I'm in the beta of one ) Some will be same old, same old. Be prepared to see a massive "EQ style" level grinder to release early next year. Its a TRADITIONAL grinder. Of the 2 beta's I'm in right now its 50/50. One old idea, one new.

Games I think might be moving in the right direction

Aion / Age of Conan / Lord of the Rings (yes, I am actually saying something nice about that piece of sh*t company, Turbine) / maybe Warhammer

Games that have nice potential BUT the devs are fumbling around with the game for far to long - Hero's Journey and Darkfall. Devs seem unfocused and confused. HJ has been patting itself on the back over selling their engine to Bioware for the last 2 months....get on with making the damn game already. Darkfall...hmmmm...sounds good, they devs have missed release after release over the last few YEARS. They dont look any closer now then they did 2 years ago.

And a game that will be the same as it ever was - Vanguard. (go kill 10 rats style play) I have ZERO confidence any anything SOE touches, track record just shows it. They can not even maintain what they currenty have. How many MMO's do they currently have in development? 4 or 5? I guess if you throw enough sh*t at the wall something will eventually stick.

Games I don't think will work out - Huxley, mainly because the MMO community does not have that strong of a draw to FPS style MMO's. We have FPS already and they are free to play online. I might be wrong but I don't see it happening for this game. I'm sure it will be a well made game but I smell another AA.

I'm just rambling now lol

VEG5000 · September 2006

I really like the way Aion is looking..from all the info, Video's, pictures and the game engine they will be useing I think it will be the best looking MMO thus far in 2007. Also the Idea of the game sounds great they say that the normal level grinding you find in most korean MMO's (witch dont bother me ) will not be there. also its not only the Korean MMO designers working on AION..there is also the american game designers working on Aion as well so this is going to be very very interesting. NCSoft is the one thats putting it out but it was not all NCSoft who has been designing the game..accually AION was going to be called prior to its name and new touches Lineage Forever but they scraped that and did alot of changes and made it what it is now. looking forward on the final completion of this game to try beta.

Another MMO to me that looks promising is SUN again the graphics are great but not the same as AION. SUN has a little older engine but they push that engine to its max. been playing the KOB of this game and its really interesting in a way. but over all I cant really tell which one I will play in 2007 till I try beta of AION..at the moment my percentage in which I will play is 60/40.....60% for AION atm.

Current MMO: SilkRoad (Free lol) and SUN (for test)

Previous MMO: Lineage 2 (since KOB), WoW for 3 Months

Alcaz101 · October 2006

Does or is Aion going to cost money? Ive been looking around at this game and it doesnt look too bad. Graphics are "eye popping." Reviews for games always say the graphics are "eye popping."

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