Sunday 19 July 2009

Aion: The Tower Of Eternity


If you are not familiar with this title then you must check it out. Aion is an MMORPG from NCsoft over in Korea.
Aion is very reminiscent of eastern MMOs such as Lineage II and Priston Tale II in terms of features and graphics, but is very westernised in terms of leveling. Instead of the classic grindfest that we have come to know from games like Lineage, Aion presents the user with a large number of easily assessable quests with built-in quest helper that makes the quests quick and enjoyable. My favorite thing about this system is that it tells you the objective and a very nicely written quest text. If you are struggling you can even press names or items within the text to get extra information on where you might find the person or item. This feature means that you never need to go to a third party quest website to get help and it doesn't ruin the quest, it just nudges you in the right direction.
While Aion mirrors Lineage II is such things as large scale PvP castle sieges, in which is pits legions (guilds/clans) two clans against each other over the occupation of a fortress, it also takes ideas from Guild Wars. This is noticeable in the style of legion cloak that legions can purchase for their members and the way the graphics are executed.

What this game does is it takes what all those free to play games wanted to do with their tiny budgets and actually does them. Instead of crumby slow point and click controls you can run around with WASD and jump with space, nothings sluggish it all just works.
You may have guessed by this point that while this game is good, it doesn't do much thats new. The only truly original feature is the wings that your character gets when it hits level 10. In Aion there are no mounts or vehicles, instead in some areas your character can sprout wings and flight around for a set time before getting tired and dropping out of the sky. The lore behind your wings is very cool and this feature brings so much to the game. On a PvE level the wings can be used as transport or to complete aerial quests. In PvP this means that duals and larger scale fights will include plenty of time in the sky. This means that melee classes must learn to flt well if they want to keep up with a tactical ranger zipping around and barrel rolling to keep you at a safe distance. Most instant and melee skills can be used in flight but longer casts can't. This gives flight very different tactical advantages to different classes.
While testing the game I have been playing a Cleric. The Cleric is advancement on the priest class that you can pick on character creation. The cleric is the closest thing Aion has to a dedicated healer class. I tell you this because I have been amazed how much damage my character does. All classes are made to be able solo PvE content as well have a use in PvP solo to mass PvP. What this means for the cleric is that even though it's the healer for end game raids, it is also fine to level and also does well in duels. I have dueled alot of people at level 13 and almost every one of my duels i have won without the need to heal. The same thing works for "Templar"; the tanking class. The templar's defence abilities cause it to be the best in PvP against heavy nuking cloth wearing classes.
In conclusion, if you love MMORPGs or are getting bored of your current one or you just love large scale PvP then Aion is a must. Aion is available on Steam but i would urge you to shop around because i bought it for cheaper from Amazon. If you order it before Monday the 27th of July they will send you a beta key so you can test the game on the weekend of the 31st.

1 comment:

r4 ds said...

I would like to personally thank you for your outstanding product. I can't say enough about mmorpg. I am completely blown away.