Aion Online Review and Thoughts

NCsoft's Aion has been live in Korea, and other Asian countries, for over a year, where it's become quite successful, but they did extensive changes for the North American market. The game shows much more polish than most MMOs and NCsoft seems to have killed the big bugs. Isn't that a nice change of pace for an MMO?

Currently Aion is 2nd in total number of subscribers only to the 1600# gorilla of MMOs, the World of Warcraft, and it's way ahead of any other MMO. WoW may finally have some competition.

So what's the story about Aion?

A long time ago the world was intact and world peace had pretty much been achieved. The Gods Above (Aion being above all of them) created a race of beings called the Balaur, intended to be the protectors of the people.

This worked fine for many years, but eventually the Balaur got the idea that they should be running things and anyone who disagreed should be disembowled. Naturally, people don't take kindly to the whole disembowling idea so total war ensued, ending in the Cataclysm. The world was shattered, the Balaur were banished, and somehow some people survived.

Thousands of years later the people have evolved into two distinct races, the Elyos and the Asmodian. The physical differences are cosmetic, but the cultural differences are great. The Elyos side is a world of light and the Asmo side is one of darkness. The two sides have actually only recently re-discovered each other and, due to some unfortunate incidents, now actively hate (or, at least, strongly distrust) each other.

And the Balaur are still around, in the Abyss, planning their own return.

Players can choose either Elyos or Asmodian and will eventually, be fighting both each other and the Balaur.

Wings!

Yes, you can fly (from level 10) and it's pretty cool, though limited in time. Air combat is part of the game form the mid-20s and having a flight timer ( starting at one minute) should add an interesting dimension. Buffs, potions, advanced wings, and items will extend flight time and speed, but there is always that timer. Also, you can't fly in all areas, but you can fly anywhere in the Abyss.

And in the beginning (open beta test), there was lag. A particularly nasty form of lag called "rubberbanding." That's where you move forward and bounce back. Repeatedly. It makes it tough to move anywhere to the point that we were making jokes about the "repelling field" around certain areas.

The Devs worked on the issue, changed some of this and some of that, and now the rubberbanding is nearly gone. There's still lag, but it's mostly only in the busy areas and mostly just shows as a general slowdown in anything you do. That's pretty much true with any other MMO. Go to an area with fewer people and the lag goes away.

One trick you can use is Shift + f12, this will makes all the other player pictures disappear. You can see their names, but not their bodies. Their bodies are still there, and can get in the way at times, you just can't see them.

Another is channel switching. Some areas have several channels available, so switching to another may help. Click the up-arrow icon, then "support," then change channel.

Laggy Notes and Rumors

Word has it that Aion is heavily optimized to run on our machines (which seems right) and is more dependent on a serious video card than on serious hardware. For running about and mob mashing it runs on my weak hardware (years old) but slow to a crawl in big battles.

If you're going to be serious about raids or PvP then you should make sure you have, at least, a fairly hot video card. MIne is completely inadequate for anything more than small battles.

Kinah is the basic coin of the realm, whether it's one or a million. No coppers, silvers, or gold pieces here. You can buy buy items for just a few or pay dearly for rares on the Broker, but it's all Kinah.

As you look the mobs you kill you will pick up grey, white, or green titled items. (There are blue titled (and better) items in the game, but they are pretty rare.) The grey junk sells for a surprisingly high amount to the various vendors, so cash won't be a problem. The white and green stuff is all good stuff and is a useful upgrade to someone. If you can't find a buyer it will sell for a nice price to a dealer, but green stuff will usually find a player willing to buy it.

Quests also pay a decent amount of cash, along with experience points, but most of your money will come from selling stuff.

There are three ways to sell stuff in this game, just like most other games:

• Directly to the vendors


• Through the Broker (sort of an auction house, but there are no bids, just buys) - just post your items, pick a price, and they're up there for sale. You can only post ten items at a time, though.


• From your own private store. Yes, you can set up shop just about anywhere, selling the stuff you choose at the prices you choose. Find a couple of nice green bits? Need to go AFK for a bit? Put up a store and see if you get any takers. Pretty cool.


• Of course you can always trade with or sell directly to other players.

Worried about having too much cash? Heh. Don't be. The prices on some items suggests that cash is easy enough to come by, but the fancy wings you can buy at level 30 will cost a cool million or thereabouts. You can also redo your body/face/hair. I didn't check the prices, but the rumor is that it'll make a very small fortune out of your large one. Just to change your hair color will run 650,000 Kinah! Heck, changing your armor color is dirt cheap so why the hair color price?

Aion has an extensive crafting system which allows the creation of potion scrolls, weapons, armor, foods, and more.

The crafting system has a fairly real feel to it, in that everything is done at the crafting labs (different labs for each skill.) There is no "in the field" crafting, though I suppose there might be a portable work table someday.

The available crafts are Alchemy (potions, scrolls, manastones, etc.,) Handicrafting (Jewelry and other items,) Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, Tailoring (cloth and leather items,) and Cooking (foods will buff various stats.)

All the crafts work in much the same way. You buy the skill to start and then you level it with "work orders" received from the main NPC crafter. Work Orders provide a job and most of the materials needed to complete it, you have to buy the rest of the mats.

At skill level 99, 199, 299, and 399 you have to buy the next level of skill. That is, when you hit 99 you pay the NPC a chunk of change and now you can level past 99 and try for 199. How much? Around 24,000 Kinah for 100+ and about 120,000 for 200+.

Craftting does get expensive so you might want to wait until you get a fair amount of Kinah first. The low level items are useful for characters in their teens, so that's nice. The crafted items are better than anything you'll buy from the vendors at that level and are better than most items you'll find at that level. Still, it can be very expensive to make certain things and making the nicer armor and weapons requires some luck.

Here's another lens on Aion crafting.

Solo? Aion is intended to be a teaming game, but you can solo. There are massive fortress battles in the Abyss and you'll want to be a part of a legion (guild, organization) to do those. Solo play in the abyss is fun until a patrol (10 levels higher, from the other faction) comes by and kills you. Unless you're a hot huntering/killing machine you'll probably want to solo elsewhere. Take a look at the abyss gear (in your main abyss fortress) and you might decide that joining a group for abyss play isn't such a bad idea.

What to fight? The mobs in the game have a pretty fast respawn rate and there are quite a few of them, so even though there may be a fair number of people in your area you won't have a problem finding things to fight. use shift+f12 to make other characters disappear or change channels if there are too many people.

When the game launched the lower level areas were pretty crowded. Now that the hordes are blasting up towards 50 (and several are already there) the leveling areas are less crowded and the respawn rate (or mobs and gatherables) is more than adequate.

Traveling on foot? You can actually teleport between the major areas and fly to areas within the same zone. Just talk to the Flight Transporter or Teleport person. By the way, bring money for the ticket. Also available are scrolls that will let you return to certain areas.

The quest log has a couple of nice features. You can check off quests and they will display on the right side of your screen. Also, clicking a quest will bring up a description of the quest with names and items linked. This generally lets you find who or what you're looking for. You can also type /where to find someone, for example /where Spatulos (an NPC in one of the towns.)

The mail. You can mail items back and forth, as you'd expect, but you can only mail one stack of items at a time. If you have several different items you have to send several mails. You can also use "Express Mail." This allows you to mail something to someone anywhere. If they're in the middle of the desert it's cool. A mail icon appears on your screen and if it's an express mail then clicking it causes a messenger to appear and you can take your item(s.)

With the same races and the same character types on both sides it looks to me like PvP should be pretty balanced, class and gear wise. Each character has a role to play and organized groups should do well.

PvP is generally done in teams and the solo PvPer will need to be very careful and patient. It's quite possible, and likely, to find yourself fighting many opponents if you venture into the enemy territory (and you will) and you aren't prepared. Again, flying adds an interesting dimension to PvP combat.

Now you have to maintain 360 degree awareness above, around, and below instead of just around. Assassins can hide and you won't see them, so be careful about where you go AFK.

Each class has their own chat channel so don't be afraid to ask questions and pay attention to what others in the channel are saying. There are a lot of good tips there.

You can also duel with other players of the same faction, and there is an arena system is a free for all set up. You can go in solo or as a team and fight anyone you see.

Tips:

• Get a hot video card
  
• Assume you're going to get killed and decide that it's Ok.
  
• Look into getting a "personal Kisk" which will let you rez in the area of your choice.
  
• Learn your skills inside and out
  

Pretty much the same as any other PvP game (except for the Kisk.)

The only hit I have about Aion is that it's a smaller world than some, so as you create new characters (on the same faction, Elyos or Asmo) you will go through exactly the same leveling grind each time. It will become very familiar. It's all very well done, but still...

I don't know what the end-game is, yet, or how deep it is. Some games have no end-game, some have a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Aion has to offer, but it'll be awhile before i get there. :) Right now it's looking like Aion's End Game is mass PvP to take fortresses from the opposition.

Successful MMOs release regular expansions, and NCsoft has a history of doing just that with their other games, so I expect no less for Aion.

I like this game. It's $50 bucks plus $15 a month, so if that's in your budget then I highly recommend buying it and getting in on the fun.

Am i canceling my WoW and City of Heroes accounts? No. Am I going to play as much Aion as I can? Absolutely.

So grab it now, if you haven't already, and maybe I'll see you in the game.

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