Aion

[Taylor-MadeAK]

I found a new drug.



Can't write a review right now, too addicted to WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[Eternimus]

Oh. My. God.

I think that's a sign of the apocalypse. 

No, seriously, Crimson and I were just debating buying that.

So... is it any good?

[Oni]

Well after TMAK left our house that day fox and I ran off to the store and bought a copy

[Eternimus]

Well seeing how it had one of the largest preorder sales in a long time, I'm not entirely surprised.

[Taylor-MadeAK]

It's very well done.  The early game focuses a lot on soloable questing, with group-focused questing becoming the focus at level 15 or so.  PVE gameplay is the watchword in these early levels, but the quests are very well written and don't feel repetitive at all.  They are repetitive, mind you: go kill so many of these things, bring back this many harvestable those things, etc; but the enemies are varied enough and the quest stories are involved enough to take your mind off the fact that you're doing the same kill/collect/runaround quests that every MMORPG has you do.  The quests in an area are also set up in such a way that it's actually hard to find a good place to logoff:  just as you're wrapping up your last few quests in a particular village or outpost, you'll find that you have a quest that sends you through an area that has more NPCs who have more quests for you (as indicated by the blue or yellow arrow over their head, WoW style), so you stop to talk to them and...

...Well, you see what I mean.

Other than that, it's the little things that add to the immersion and fun of the game.  Things like the lack of zone boundaries.  Now, there's a pet peeve for you: I can't stand zone boundaries in MMORPGs, and their presence in FFXI used to piss me off to no end (I eventually learned to accept them as a flaw in an otherwise good game, though).  Aion has it right, though: if you're high up on a cliff and need to get back to town, you don't have to get down the cliff, find a town gate, and walk in.  No, no!  You can do this:









Which brings me to the flying thing.  I'll admit, I was pretty leery of a game in which everybody is an "angel" (or a "devil," if they chose to create an Asmodian instead of an Elyos) to begin with.  In fact, I still have my reservations on the whole Daeva thing, but I've found that my issues with the wings were unfounded.  Once I got my wings at level 10, I found that flight is very well done and not over the top at all.  That is to say that there are limitations on flying, but not so many as to make it feel totally useless.  Not every region allows you to actively fly, but even in those that do your flight time is limited by your own "stamina."  In other words, flying has a timer of 60 seconds on it to begin with, but within that you can do pretty much whatever you want.  Even in zones that do not allow active flying, you can still open your wings and glide from high places just by double-jumping, making those wings very useful after all.  It's also my understanding that flight (and midair combat) becomes a very important gameplay mechanic once a player reaches high enough level to access the Abyss.

That's all the big stuff, though, and I haven't even touched on PvP yet because I haven't had any experience with it.  It seems that the major PvP stuff starts at level 25 when you get access to the Abyss (the gap between the two halves of Atreia, which makes it the natural border between the two warring factions), though before that you can engage in friendly "duels" with members of your own faction. 

But it's the little stuff that adds to the immersion and fun of gameplay in a MMORPG, you know?  Things like how even docile animals will stop browsing in the grass to turn their heads and look in your direction every once in a while if you're nearby, like they're not sure how dangerous you are and want to make sure they know where you are at all times in relation to themselves.  Or how animals that you would naturally expect to be predatory are, in fact, predatory: one of the first things you'll see in the game is wild animals attacking livestock at some abandoned farms in the newbie areas.  That doesn't stop later on, either: you'll see Wild Togs (read: "wild hogs") and Starving Worgs (read: "hungry wolf") viciously tear into each other when they encounter each other at the limits of their respective territories (more often than not, the Tog wins), which is nice when it happens to save you the trouble of fighting your way past an otherwise aggressive critter.  Or the fact that, once you learn their language, you discover that the more intelligent mobs you encounter have some pretty funny sh** to say as you're fighting them ("Aw, kobold didn't get to eat yet...").

The question of the day, however, hasn't been answered:

So... is it any good?

Well, the core game is a pretty standard Korean MMORPG: you have four base classes to choose from, which later diversifies into eight specialized classes based on the four base classes  (Warrior splits into Templar and Gladiator, etc) - if you've ever played Lineage, Lineage II, Neo Steam, or any other Korean MMORPG, you're not going to see anything revolutionary in the character classes in Aion.  The background story of the game world is unique in my experience, and beautifully illustrated by the intro cinematic.  The main story of the game as your character experiences it, however, is a bit cliché: you're an amnesiac Daeva who got hit on the head so hard that it knocked the divinity right out of you and made you human again...yeah.  The game world is breathtakingly rendered (it better be, the game uses the Cryengine), with one of the most interesting skies I've ever seen in a video game (which is related to that intro movie).

Don't take this to mean that I have nothing but glowing praise to say for this game.  It's got its problems, there's no doubt of that.  For starters, the documentation - both digital and hardcopy - supplied with Aion is woefully inadequate, making the learning curve for the new player somewhat steeper than necessary.  I accidentally pressed "U" one time without remembering to open the chat bar first, which opened a window titled "macros" (along with half a dozen other windows before I stopped typing).  That was my first indication ever that there was any kind of macroing at all supported in Aion.  That's just one example.  Who knows how many other features are part of the game's UI that I don't even know about because they weren't documented?

Then there's the RMT spammers.  Dear Gods, the RMT spammers!  They start spamming you with whispers the very moment you login, and they don't stop!  My block list is full of names like "Dfgsdfgdf" and "Jfghkjh," it's that bad.  Even FFXI wasn't like this when the gil sellers were at their worst.  NCSoft needs to take a page from Square-Enix's book and mount a serious campaign against RMT, and do it now!  Because with as out-of-control as it is now at the very start of this MMORPG's life, the player-driven economy is at serious risk.  The value of kinah is going to spiral downward once players start actually buying it from the sites that these spammers are advertising, and I know from experience in FFXI that this kind of downward spiral is extremely difficult to reverse.  In the end, RMT hurts everyone.

The good news is that it appears that NCSoft is indeed fighting the RMT spammers.  When I logged in yesterday, I noticed that the number of names on my block list had mysteriously reduced by half, indicating that at least one GM had been busy wielding his banstick to end the chatter of the RMT spammers and save the value of the kinah.

These aren't things that cannot be corrected, however, so I would definitely endorse Aion as being at least worth a try.

Just make sure you create an Elyos character, Eternimus, even though Asmodae may be more appealing to your dark nature.  Why?  Because Oni is Asmodian.

I'll be seeing you in the Abyss, Oni.

[Eternimus]

Then there's the RMT spammers.  Dear Gods, the RMT spammers!

In the end, RMT hurts everyone.

Let it be forever etched in stone I personally HATE RMTs and will NEVER buy from them. That was one of the things that made me so angry in WoW. That and the fact they've retarded the difficulty on EVERYTHING so more casual players can get into it. A great example is the Paladin's Charger mount. In Classic WoW you had to come up with 500 gold, quest 3 dungeons, acquire several holy metal (Thorium) bars, and be level 60 to get the Charger. Similar requirements for the Warlock's Dreadsteed. Except replace Holy Metal with Dark Iron. It was a status symbol, so much so that once they added achievements it became a "Feat of Strength" achievement. Then they changed it so you could train it at lv 66 without any work whatsoever. Then they changed the price to be a basic training fee, 10g. Then they changed it so you had to be lv 40. Now lv 30. So now not only do you NOT have to work at it, you can just throw a RMT a few bones and poof you have your steed that took REAL players days, even weeks to obtain. Epic level BoE gear that people would spend FOREVER to farm then if they couldn't use it people would have huge bidding wars to obtain that item, and the winner walked away proudly. With RMT's now it's just "Click.. click... oh look what I have."

f*** you guys. f*** you so very much. You should be skinned alive and then made to wade through a swimming pool of salt and rubbing alcohol. Now back to your comments.

These aren't things that cannot be corrected, however, so I would definitely endorse Aion as being at least worth a try.

I'll have Crimson pick up a copy on her way home. If it sucks you'll hear about it before I tear your review apart, I promise.

Just make sure you create an Elyos character, Eternimus, even though Asmodae may be more appealing to your dark nature.  Why?  Because Oni is Asmodian.

Oni... god damn it. You OBVIOUSLY aren't very good at this whole "Gay" thing. Your people are supposed to be the pretty angels. Now I have to decide if I want to side with the attempting-to-look-intimidating gay man, or the attempting-to-look-majestic pretend gay man. I swear whatever side I pick better give me a freaking trident arcing lightning so I can cook the other side.

I'll be seeing you in the Abyss, Oni.

Well good. Slap him around for betraying his nature.

I'll see you fuckers in game. And a warning for the side I DON'T pick... In every MMO I ever play I quickly become a PVP GOD. Prepare yourself to have your FREAKING SKULL FARMED.

[Taylor-MadeAK]

This ought to get interesting.

A few caveats:  

(1) I only picked the side that I did because that's the side that my other adopted bro Rizla is playing.  Even so, I may eventually pick a different server and check out Asmodae.  I have to say, however, that I don't dig horns and grey skin, so there is that going against playing an Asmodian.

(2) I forgot to mention the other thing that pisses me off about Aion: never before have I had to wait 45 minutes to log into a game that didn't involve patching said game.  This game is having a very busy launch week, which translates into standing in line to actually get signed into your server.  Don't hurt me for not mentioning this earlier. =(

(3) Speaking of servers, I'm on Israphel.  I assume that Oni and Fox also chose that server.

(4) Aion has incredible integration with the web.

(5) This particular "attempting-to-look-majestic pretend gay man" has a pretty badass looking character (even at level 18), in spite of the white wings and light skin:

[Eternimus]

You're bottled lightning eh? Cool.

Thanks for the heads up on the server, but that link you posted would have done it all the same.

That web integration thing is nice, WoW does it, there's even a site called WoW-Heroes.com that rates your gear and enchants to calculate what dungeons you can do and how easily. Green on the slider means should be no prob, yellow means you should hunt here, red means it's probably too much for you. I have mixed feelings about those things, it makes things much easier for yourself to gauge, but also more elitist when others do. For example, many people (read: morons with no life whatsoever) consider PVP gear "welfare epics" thinking unless you raid, you don't deserve good gear, and while in some cases this is true cause people honor farm all the time, it's also a poor judge of what a person can do.

I post in Looking For Group channel of chat: "2300 DPS Ret LFG 10/25 Naxx, or 10 EoE." some people will say "2300? f*** let's take him, that's pretty good." some will check Wow-heroes and say "Eh... a lot of PVP gear... but he's just supposed to hurt things, and that's what PVP gear is for, so let's do that." and the elitist asshole group will say "PVP Gear? f*** that sh**, he doesn't know HOW to raid, pass him up and look for more." but what most don't notice is my weapon is dropped only from the last boss in the Arachnid Quarter of Naxx, so I've been there before. It's a nice gauge for an individual to see how well they compare to what the game has to offer, but it's a really weak judge of a character's ability, which makes it annoying sometimes.

And I'm just giving you sh** about your character man. People play what they want, in most cases the look itself doesn't affect your game play experience. You could have him in bright pink and wearing a tutu and I wouldn't give a damn. Make your character what you want. That's what customization is all about. Myself, I'll probably play a femme, since I've come to the realization with my alt on WoW I'd much prefer watching a polygon chick sway her hips for however many hours I am gonna play as opposed to some stocky dude.

I know polygons are polygons, and just that, but you'll never hear me complain about the DOA girls' bump mapping.

[Eternimus]

...man this game takes forever to install...

[Eternimus]

Awesome!

I try to install fresh out of the box, and I get a cyclic redundancy error, signaling a bad DVD!

Now I get to go down and argue with the store to get a new copy, or pirate a game I legitimately bought!

...Odin save you if this game isn't worth it. I trust you but this is getting downright ANNOYING.

[Taylor-MadeAK]

First: FFXI was slower to install, believe it or not, and that's not counting the humongous patch you had to subsequently download.

Second: I got the same error.  I don't know what's up with that second disc (probably the same thing that made only the top half of my serial code get printed - I had to guess at some of the characters), but I solved the problem by ejecting the disc when it asked for the second one, inserting that second disc, and then waiting for Windows to stop spinning that platter before clicking OK in that little window.  Push comes to shove, however, and you just can't get it to work, you can always just download the game directly from NCSoft.  You'll get the option after creating your NCsoft Master Account (you must do this to create your game account anyway) on their web site and activating your game with the serial code that came with it.

[Eternimus]

Yeah my serial is gradually sliding off the paper. Readable, but you could tell a few copies down the line are screwed. I never really had a hard time installing FFXI but the patching was a bitch. And I've tried every possible thing I could imagine to fix this error, I'm stuck dling it I guess. I'll let ya know when it's done... you guys have some extra time to widen the gap between us for now.

[Goman Fox]

I have to say, however, that I don't dig horns and grey skin, so there is that going against playing an Asmodian.

Asmodians just have "pale skin" it's not necessarily grey.  It's just not "normal" skin colors.

But reading through your posts TM, I have to say that you can kinda tell your experience with MMORPGs in the last few years has been pretty limited (not that that's a bad thing).  Having little icons that point you toward completed and new quests is pretty standard nowadays, FFXI seems to be one of the few MMORPGs that likes having its players wander aimlessly, talking to everything they can, to try to find quests.  And since a lot of MMORPGs now tend to base leveling off of questing more than just grinding, the constant leading of quests from one area to the next is pretty normal too, for a well-developed quest-based MMORPG.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not trying to say these are bad or anything, because Aion does this stuff pretty well.  The icons seem to be more subtle, with little blue or yellow arrows, compared to the cartoon-y giant golden exclamation points and question marks that WoW uses.  And speaking of WoW, I hope the initial population of Aion dwindles a little bit after a few weeks, because it seems a few WoW-tards have decided to try it out.  I only say this because Cat told me how he was challenged to a duel last night, and taunted and harassed for refusing.  I also saw a little conversation in a chat log of someone that had obviously lost a duel, saying that the other person's class was "cheap" and blamed their loss on the other person "cheating" by hiding against a wall or something.  I didn't get a chance to see the duel, but it sounds like typical whining from a sore loser.  Sure, every game has players like that, but I really thought WoW dragged most of them out of the other games.

Normal, intelligent people coming from WoW into Aion?  I welcome them completely, because I really think WoW should just be left to the Chinese and stupid teenagers.  Good games deserve good players, and personally, I don't think WoW is really that good of a game (maybe it was in the past, who knows) and the good players should move on to different games that deserve the support.

Like Cat said, we ran out and got Aion right after he dropped off TMAK the other night, lol.  I found it kinda interesting that both TMAK, and a couple of friends of mine ended up on the same server, but was sad that they were in opposite factions.  I ended up choosing an Asmodian, partially because it just appealed to me more, and partially because I thought it would be amusing if Cat and I and the two people we know, went and ganged up on TMAK for some PvP action just so we could tease him about being beaten up by a "pack of fags," lol.  Although if he had Eternimus there backing him up, we'd probably need a whole carton. D:

Aion really has gotten my attention though, even at the medium settings (I haven't tried tweaking it yet) it's a really nice looking game, and the music is pretty nice as well.  I have to say though, I was really disappointed with the sky when I saw it.  I was expecting far more detail than I saw, but I guess that's what happens when choosing performance over appearance, lol.

[Eternimus]

Fox is Asmodian too? Damn man... TM you are totally FUCKED if I decide to go with that faction.

ETA for the game being done is somewhere around Midnight. While that sucks, I suppose better late than never.

Anyhow I need to know what you guys are playing. All who play Aion. Melee DPS, Range DPS, Healer, or Tank, so I can compliment whatever side I pick.

On the one hand, I have a great love of competition...

(As noted from my 0 PVP experience whatsoever in WoW to more than 4,000 kills and enough honor to deck me out in Hateful/Deadly PVP gear within 2 weeks)

...so logically I should team up with TM and STOMP Fox and Oni.

On the other hand, I also have a great love of dark and evil...



...so that makes the Asmodian faction appeal to me.

Odds are I'll just flip a coin.

[Goman Fox]

Cat has had more time to level than I have, he's an Assassin (seems the obvious choice for him, lol).  I'm still a Priest (nothing a half hour of gameplay can't fix, I'm sure) planning to go Chanter.  If you decide on our side, don't feel like you -need- to play a tank or anything though, just play whatever you think is fun, I'm sure it'd work out.  From what I've read on the official page, the Chanter, when properly equipped, can be a "backup tank" so at the very least, they probably aren't so frail they need a constant tank or anything.