I may be trading WOW for Aion, as my german buddy is totally fried on WOW, and we want a game with bodies that we can both play on the same server …
EVE Online is ok, but for just random fun, it isnt really a game, it is more an exercise in either tactics or logistics. There really isnt the equivalent of going out and killing cute furry critters, and dancing in the streets. I want a bod, not a pod =) WOW is still fun, but as I said, Chris is burnt out on WOW and really won’t play it any more. There are other MMORPGs out there, but either we cant play on the same server, or it looks like a cutesy little chinese cartoon with twinkly music and butterflies and unicorns … and I absolutely hate the little elfie twee girly crap.
I’m not too interested, frankly. While I haven’t played it, all of the previews I’ve seen for it (such as this snarky one) show it to be a transparent WoW clone with finer graphics. I’ve heard tell of winged aerial combat, but not whether it’s any good. I haven’t heard anything one way or the other about any of the gameplay, in fact, which is odd considering how many posts by Aion proponents I’ve seen on various boards.
Not really a WoW clone save for the generic fact that any fantasy MMO is going to look somewhat like a WoW clone due to WoW’s immense popularity.
If it’s a clone of anything, I’d say it’s more of a DAoC clone, with a lot of modern refinements.
I had commented a bit more on the previous Aion thread, I haven’t gotten a toon past what I got to in Beta yet–so I still can’t comment much on aerial combat since you don’t see it until beyond where I am.
It’s a Korean MMO, so feel free to expect a lot of gameplay elements that are clunky, terribly slow and/or needlessly punitive. They eat that kind of thing up over there for whatever reason.
That said, it’s a really good game, atleast so far (got a Chanter up to level 19). Yes, it does feel a lot like WoW, but since WoW is pretty much the best the genre has to offer that’s just a good thing.
The combat is fairly fun with the chain skill system (combos, basically: use this skill, then you can use this one) and the crafting system is interesting. There does seem to be quite an emphasis on group quests and as an asocial loner I find that kind of a drag. It’s supposedly soloable to the level cap, though, you’ll just miss out on all the rewards from the group quests.
Like all MMOs, I am going to wait for 3 months, read their forums, and wait another 3 months before making up my mind. My current MMO obsession is LOTRO and with Mirkwood expansion coming up I may not need to switch after all.
I’m enjoying Aion so far; not sure how much I’ll like it when I get to the pvp areas, but we’ll see. It’s a nice diversion from WoW, but if you’re really enjoying your current MMO, you probably won’t find Aion interesting. If you’re getting bored or burned out, or at a point where you have nothing to do outside raids, then you may enjoy Aion if you’re looking for a multiplayer game.
Flight is interesting, but limited, so I don’t see aerial battles being a huge part of the endgame; certainly a factor, but you won’t be spending all your time in the air. If you’ve done a lot of underwater fighting in other games, you have an idea of what flight combat will feel like. The major upside for melee characters is an auto-move-to-target similar to DAoC, which should make flighted combat less of a hassle.
As of level 18, I’ve only had a few group quests, and although I did run them with some friends (several from my WoW guild have been playing Aion when not raiding), they felt skippable in terms of character progression (also, the rewards aren’t as good as the dropped green that’s rather easy to come by anyway). Is it a next-gen MMO that will blow your mind the way WoW probably did if you were an EQ vet? No, but it is still fun and has the bonus of having good character models and animation (much better than WoW, imo) while following the standard MMO formula.
I absolutely love the character graphics … my character is beautiful!
I have noticed as a chanter the heals over time suck ass … and the basic healing and mana pots are about useless unless you are under level 5. I decided to again go with alchemy to see if the player made pots are any better.
I absolutely HATE the going AFK people setting up shop to sell. Use the damned auction house or set up OUT OF THE WAY. Many of them are blocking questgivers. I have reported several of them [to come back a bit later and see them gone]
On the plus side, gold is amazingly easy to come by. I think I had close to 20K gold by the time I hit level 10.
I’m very leery of Aion and just about any MMO originating out of Asia these days due to GameGuard. I don’t like invasive rootkits. NCSoft has said they’ve dropped GameGuard from Aion, but it’s clearly not what they want, and they reserved the right to re-implement it later. Screw that.
A patch has been applied today to fix that; private stores now have a 30 minute timer, after which an inactive character will be disconnected from the game. I think 30 minutes is too short, and they might as well just do away with the feature, but it’s definitely something that needed addressing, given the queue issues. Either way, the AH is better for buyers, so I’m happy to see private stores won’t be as viable.