It's been almost a week since I started playing Aion: Tower of Eternity and so, although the full review is probably still a week or two away, I wanted to update you all on how it's going. I'm also going to take this opportunity to call out some of the game's features that, for...
It's been almost a week since I started playing Aion: Tower of Eternity and so, although the full review is probably still a week or two away, I wanted to update you all on how it's going. I'm also going to take this opportunity to call out some of the game's features that, for better or worse, have really made an impression on me. I already posted something similar on my personal blog earlier this week, but while some of what I talk about here will inevitably be similar, I promise not to go anywhere near the cut-and-paste button.
The first thing I should mention is Aion's launch which, at least from my perspective, was an incredibly smooth one. Two days before those of us with preorders were able to get in on the "headstart" early access program, we were afforded even earlier access to the character creations tools so that we could pick out our classes, reserve a couple of character names, and basically be ready to play as soon as the servers went live. I took this opportunity to create an Elyos scout and an Asmodian priest, the former being one of the "good" guys on what ended up being a high-population server, and the latter a "bad" guy on a less popular server. NCSoft was purportedly planning to prevent players from creating certain factions on certain servers if it became necessary to keep the two factions somewhat balanced, but I saw no evidence of this personally.
Not that it's unique amongst MMOs by any means, but creating a character in Aion is more like doing the same thing in an EA Sports game than it is World of Warcraft or any of the other MMOs that I've played personally. After settling on a class and a gender, you're presented with a few dozen preset characters to use as your starting point, and from there you can pretty much do whatever you want. There are dozens of hairstyles to choose from, there are skin tone color spectrums to play around with, and the seven or eight different preset physiques run the gamut from short-and-stout to lanky-and-lean. But that's not even the half of it, because after choosing all of your presets you can enter the advanced customization mode and use sliders to tinker with multiple attributes for facial features, limbs, and the like. The only downside to the character creation is that there are no safeguards in place to prevent people from making freakish looking beings with, for example, tiny heads sitting atop long necks and giant shoulders. Many, presumably PVP-oriented folks are also opting to create the tiniest characters they possibly can, at which point they're dwarfed even by the insects and other small enemies that you encounter in the starting areas.
Questing in those starter areas when the servers went live was, predictably, a little frustrating at times. With so many players trying to complete the same quests, the competition for both enemies to kill and items to collect was fierce. Nothing was taking very long to respawn, but there simply weren't enough enemies and items to go around. Both the headstart and regular launches are out of the way now thankfully, and as players level up at different speeds, so they're getting dispersed. That helps with overcrowding in the various zones that make up Aion's great-looking world, but it doesn't help with the overcrowding on certain servers.
On day one, some players were reporting queue times in excess of two hours, which is clearly unacceptable. I lucked out on that occasion since I was among the first people to log in and I didn't log out until several hours later. I've had to queue on one of my two servers a couple of times since then, though, for around 30 minutes on both occasions. This coming Saturday and Sunday will be the first full weekend since launch, so I'm guessing that once I log in I probably shouldn't log out. Something that's easily accomplished by setting a character up as a "personal store" with at least one item that isn't going to sell in a million years. Do that, and you can step away from your keyboard for as long as you like without any fear of being logged out automatically.
I'll admit that I've done that a couple of times, but for the most part when I've been logged in it's been because I'm busily running around completing the usual assortment of fetch quests, kill quests, and collection quests. So far I haven't had any problems finding enough content in each zone to level me up for the next, but this doesn't appear to be a game where you can afford to pick and choose which quest chains you want to take on since you should really be doing all of them. Not only do these chains earn you plenty of experience, cash, and some useful rewards, but some of them also reward you with titles for your character. One of the early Elyos chains gives you the option to precede your name with the title "Tree-Hugger" for example, and doing so affords you a +4 bonus to accuracy. Similar bonuses appear to be attached to all 50 of the titles that you can unlock, though at level 16 (hey, I have other games to review as well) I only have six or seven right now.
I'm told that PVP content and dungeons don't really kick in until somewhere between level 25 and 30, so I've got a ways to go before I can check out any of that stuff. Level 10 is a big milestone in Aion as well though, because at that point you gain the ability to fly (though only for a minute and in certain zones) and you have to decide which of two paths you're going to take with your chosen class. Having started out as a scout, for example, I had to choose between a ranger specializing in ranged attacks or an up-close-and-personal assassin. I opted for the latter and, without wishing to write too much about how combat works since I already talked a bit about that in my earlier blog (along with a little about gathering and crafting), so far I'm having a lot of fun it--even if the vast majority of my encounters do play out in much the same way. Surprisingly, to me anyway, all eight of the classes appear to be equally well represented right now, though tanks and healers are predictably the ones in demand when the LFG (looking-for-group) and LFM (looking-for-more) messages start flying.
Hopefully those dungeon groups will have room for an assassin when I've leveled up some more, and it'd probably be a good idea for me to get into a guild sometime soon as well. And, with that in mind, I think it's time for me to log in again and get back to stabbing small animals, retrieving stolen items, and running errands for villagers who are too lazy to do anything themselves. Check back next week for another update or two, and in the meantime be sure to check out the new screenshots in the gamespace.
@Bigphun Dude! Why so much hate? That comment you saw wasn't even posted by me! I can't explain it however. WoW is a good indeed but I like RealTime Fight so that's why I thought Aion is RTF but it is not. There is a game called "Blade&Soul" It's been under production for a while now and I await it's release. It is a good game though like Prince Of Persia but online like other MMORPGs. Infact it is an MMORPG.
So I guess this is never actually going to get reviewed and I should just stop checking every week, right?
D'= Aion is such a great game, i thought it'd be getting a Video review!! its been 2 1/2 months! ='[
Its been two months. We might as well accept that the review isn't coming. As a gamespot veteran who's been around for over five years, it really saddens me to see how far this website has gone downhill.
I wonder when the full review is coming out. Or ... did the reviewer give up because the game is a bot-fest? The delay is probably caused in part by the extremely slow leveling you run into somewhere about level 22 and which gets worse from there on up. But then, there are plenty of level 50s in the game and no reason a reviewer shouldn't be at max level by now. Unless he just gave up because he didn't want to face the heat of rating the game a 5.2 or something.
ProTip # 184: When you say you are going to review a game in two weeks, don't wait two months to post the review.
this is acctually getting rediculous Gamespot, where is this review, I was looking forward to it at most 3 weeks after relase, we are over a month!!!! its easily enuf time to have writen a review of this game by now...
I think it's pretty silly that there is still no review as it has been over a month. By this time you may not have gotten to 50, but you should at least be in your mid 30s to 40s, assuming a decent leveling speed, and have plenty of information to talk about. Personally I found this game to be quite fun. I've played many MMOs and while this one does little brand new, what it brings from all the other MMOs are for the most part good and fun and the PvP can be very good, although only time will tell how good it truly gets. I have canceled my subscription although not to any fault of Aion, it's just that I happened upon Fallen Earth which I am enjoying immensely so I'll be sticking with that. If not for finding FE, I'd surely still be playing Aion.
Reviewing MMOs is not easy. If they brought out a quick review, people would say.....lalala how can you have played enough in 1 week? lalala. The REAL game starts at . My 2 cents is that this is a really derivative, average game, the graphics are not that good either, wasted 50 quid. Don't hold you're breath for the review, though by the sounds of it, it may get an 8.5, though it deserves more a like a 7.
PS... Your sight has really fell off! that is why i pay ign for there website and stopped my paid sub to gamespot. oh and since i am trolling what happened to the PC graphic card comparison? That was my favorite thing about your sight. but that was Gamespot FAIL #33. pst if you want a list of all the gamespot FAILS, lol, and Grrrr!!!!
Seriously. More than a month after launch, and you still don't have a review posted? Couldn't they have at least played the Beta? Or if they've given up on the game, at least post that.
..this was posted September 25.. wheres the fuuull review? its been a month.. is that still not long enough? I was actually hoping for a video review honestly =/
Gamespot have to wait and see what every other game site says before they can mirror the opinions to the popular one so they dont say its crap while the other websites say its fantastic and make them look like total morons.
I really don't understand why the full review is taking so long. Its been a month since the game was released and currently play it myself. I'm really interested to know what gamespot thinks, lol you review Lord of the rings online quicker then this. Love the game and hopefully the game will show it's worth in the score :) Hurry Gamespot
So where is the Wonderfull review?You guys are making a new deal with NC to raise the score..this game deserve a 6
As the partial review mentioned the character creation having no safeguards was a problem for me in making the world feel cohesive and real. When you see someone with a huge blue head and pink hair running by it really takes any depth the game might have had with it's artistic style and environments and throws it out the window. While playing the game I felt that PVE suffered at the hand of PVP and suffered a lot. Even thought the artists are really good they can't make up for the lackluster engine and lack of depth of the PVE world.
When Lineage II came out (October 2003) it was at the very top of it's genre in artwork and the best graphics as it was based on a new graphics engine. Aion, while looking good and polished to those who have been playing WOW or EQ2 it is based on a slightly modified graphics engine (CryEngine1,not the one Crysis uses but the one from FarCry1) that came out 5 months after the release of Lineage II (Marh 2004). They have pushed that 4.5 year old engine to it's max, but it cannot compete graphically with the likes of Warhammer or LOTRO which at least the latter allows for very picturesque large natural environments. Besides these complaints, Aion is far too limiting when it comes to flying times and areas for it to be such an advertisement for the game. Flying in this game is in place of a mount system and should therefore be useable to cross the entire world in some altitude-limited fashion (10-15 ft) so one cannot just dodge all mobs in an area. The quest chains and zone size combine to make the leveling experience up to lvl 30 seem cramped and linear.
@khallus I don't know if your post is a reply to mine, if it's not, don't read further, otherwise you better read carefully before throwing "awards"... As I previously said, I played the game using a friend account. Never spent money on this game and after my few days try I'm not going to do it in the future.
I doubt this review will go any further :( I'v been waiting for 21 days for review which having played the game could have written by now :S whats going on? Fantastic game!!
Hmmm...If you dont like eastern style mmo's but you decide to play a game made in the east but translated into english even though for months every gamesite in the world let you know that as well ,then you must be in for an award for sucker of the year and love to throw money down the crapper.
In a hunch, this game is lineage 2's second comming with upped graphics .Alot of the spells and animations seem the same if not identical to those in lineage 2, as for the character models they also didn't stray far. Although the customization is very immense you are left with only one of two races to chose from. The grind has died out in comparison to previous ncsoft mmo's, yet the games visuals are gorgeous and the leveling process is worthwhile. The leveling system again is within reach of lineage 2's class advancement system. All and all outside of the Eula regulation in Korea with gold spammer's Aion is definately an mmo to check out.
I played a bit Aion from a friend account, the game seems solid and polished, but I simply cannot stand that graphic style... Sorry, but I'm western and I don't like manga. Monsters (at least low level ones) are UGLY freaks... give us some rats ffs, those things are ridiculous, even some npc looks like some sort of bloated humanoid cats... nono, I don't like eastern style...
This "under-review" was made Sep. 25th. I doubt all these updates were going when this "under-review" was made. But the main point is this is an Under-review article and it was made almost 2 weeks ago, w/o an update to it. So I'm sure the person that is reviewing does know about these updates.
Wow to the author and to the majority of comments made.. First of all, updates have already been made to the servers inside and out. If you have a long queue time, go to a different server. If you are in an overcrowded area, well obviously you haven't done your homework. I want to rate this entire one-week review as negative as possible for failing. The over-crowded areas can be evaded by simply joining a different channel on the server, look it up. Finally, your private-store remarks. Those have greatly been modified as you can only have one set up for 30 minutes maximum. I've never had a wait time of over 15 minutes when trying to join a server either lol.. your fail internet must be the problem. Anyway, Aion is, above all else, in the top 3 greatest MMO's list of all time for me.
This is a great game, If you like mmo's and you dont try this, you will be missing out on one of the great mmo's to date.
This is the most frustrating game to play because of the players that steal kill all the time, the bad queue times and the gold spammers make it impossible to communicate! It could be a fun game but only if those things are fixed soon. But the way I feel right now If I could get my money back, I would! I love the grind and I love how hard the game is and makes you think. But if you plan to play a Templar be ready for ever jerk to steal kill on ya once you have the enmity!
"If you love to grind this game is for you!!" I made it to lvl 25 in open beta and the lvl caps 50 right? so I was half way there and I did nothing but quests and group quests, no grinding. Whens this grinding start?
the game has autofacing on casts, besides that VERY LAME part of the mechanics, its a sweet game
After a 998Mb download and lengthy install process, the game pops up a message saying "the demo is closed" Buy before you try? Guess advertising isn't really their strong suit.
I haven't played the game so I can't speak from experience, but from what I've heard and read is that this game just doesn't offer anything new in comparison to WoW. I just deactivated my WoW account because it got incredibly boring, so unless theres something enticing about Aion besides the graphics that i dont know about, im going to have to pass.
Depressing how this game has been out for a few weeks and still has no review...I have been playing since the servers went live and I must say, the attention to detail, combat system and graphics are all sensational. For a vanilla mmo Aion is looking really promising however there are some issues with end game content that should be patched in soon. For all you haters out there, give it a chance, it is actually a good game, no one is saying it will topple wow but with proper maintenance and updates it will defiantly be an equally enjoyable game for those that have grown tired of the WoW scene.
Actually, I do enjoy grinding. Helps me unwind after a long day at work. So, uhhh.... Where's the review?
I see what you did there GS; Review-in-Progress: Aion turns out to be R.I.P: Aion well played.
they attempted to make it look nice while being able to run on the majority of user's systems. thats why its "underwhelming considering it's on the crysis engine" the biggest problem right now is the gold spamming, but is easily fixed by right clicking their name and blocking. for those saying there's not a grind, wait till you get to 25. once you run out of quests (which you will) you will be grinding for a few levels. its not bad as i can easily pull in about 500k xp an hour just goofing around. there's an instance at 25 ( actually once you do the attunement quest to get to the abyss ) in the abyss and you can easily pull in 2 million + xp on your first run. i was getting 1.5 million at 28 and the xp you get drops a little as you level.
Graphics are actually underwelming considering it's on the Cysis engine. It definately looks like a new version of Lineage 2. By all accounts i should hate it, but strangely enough I am actually having a bit of fun with this one. it's beter than WOW especially considering it's new, it has potential.
08.10.12 - Downnloaded the game, made all kind off changes in graphics (got a ATI Radeon HD5770) the game is just bugged
