User Review : Aion

Aion Review

Aion is the new MMO put out by NCSoft which put out other titles like Lineage, City or Hero’s, Guild Wars and many others. To me their games have always been astounding visual experiences and if you take time to emerge yourself into the story of the game you will find that they put some heart into that as well. The game at first glance to me, looked like a lineage clone with new bells and whistles. I soon found it to be a completely different game that has many features that take it apart from their competition, which we will get to a little later.

The back story is pretty much the usual. At creation you have to chose either Elyos, the light side angels of Aion, or Asmodian, the dark side heathens of Aion. The world was torn in two when the “Balur” which was created to protect everyone and keep the peace actually turned on them and destroyed what was keeping them together. From then you pick from the 4 classes of Aion. Warrior, Scout, Priest, and Mage.

They each have two Professions which is Warrior goes into Gladiator, The Savage fighters of Aion; and Templar, the tanks of Aion. Scout becomes Ranger, the Archer; or Assassin. Priest becomes either a Chanter or a Cleric, and the Mage turns into a Spirit Master or a Sorcerer. Each of the classes has a Role and they are all needed. There isn’t a class that takes preference over another but at the same time they are all needed for certain situations. But with that being said you are probably thinking of what sets it further away from other MMO’s out there so lets get to that.

Aion takes the differences one step further with things such as Stigma’s, The Abyss, and the feeling that the end of the games starts so early. Lets start off with Stigma’s. They are like skill books but you can only have a certain amount of them given your level. They give you class a unique ability such as a Cleric getting an additional heal which you could use as a clutch heal to save your tank in case of a wipe. Stigma’s are also a big role in PVP which currently is mostly world PVP. PVP is a big part of any game for me.

I played Shadowbane for 5 years which was the best PVP I’ve experienced, I played vanilla WoW so I’ve had my bit of battleground PVP and world PVP. Aion really did something I’ll enjoy a lot in “The Abyss”. The Abyss is the level 25+ area where Legions get to fight over towers and artifacts and is also a large questing area for those levels. If your a WoW player think of a giant Strangle Thorn Vale. This is also part of the third thing I really like about the game. It seems like the endgame content comes around the 30’s and 40’s since you can be a force in PVP and be a factor in your legion as well. It is kind of like how vanilla WoW was at 50ish. But I will be the first to say that just because a game has some good graphics and good qualities it does not make it an amazing game.

spiritmaster-of-aion-2009-pc-game-collectors-edition The game has some of its short comings. First we will get some of the givens out. It is an MMO, there is going to be gold spam and ads just like any other game. There is also going to be some PVP imbalances even though I haven’t heard of a lot. But there is some that should have been fixed during the localization beta. If you have played in the beta you can tell that you have to read all of the quest text really well because you don’t get to read it in your quest log. If your quest log doesn’t have a name you can locate and it just says “Obtain the Rod from Monster X” you better hope you have a quest close to Monster X other wise you need a lot of luck to find him.

Another thing is Botters I can understand that NCSoft is not an American company but they can at least have a program like WoW has such as warden that can detect bots and ban botters. I do have to stress that to people though, they aren’t in the US. Blizzard had an easier time since they and the botter companies are both in the US.

I figured this feature should have its own little section. You can fly. That’s right, no need to read that part again. You can fly. You gain access to it at level 10 and as you level up you gain more flight time. You can even get potions that increase your flight time and use Manastones to increase flight time. It comes with a draw back though, you cannot fly in all zones but in the zones you can’t fly in you can glide, which is difficult to get the hang of the 1st time you try it but after the 1st few days of playing you will be gliding for your full flight time easy. I liked the flying mechanics in WoW, Shadowbane, and a lot of other MMO’s but I do like how Aion made it not only a part of getting places to level up and to travel around easier then running, but they made it viable and almost essential to use in PVP.

The PVP in the game is what really brings me to the game. They have a live ranking system like the old title system in WoW, but they also have those rankings for the legions. They have Abyss PVP over towers and artifacts. With all the features they have for PVP it makes it hugely a legion based PVP environment. Which has its ups and downs, firstly; it makes you join a legion which I would hope you already have, having friends you play with in the game just makes it that much better. At the same time, legions with more numbers can just zerg a tower and cap it. I haven’t personally had the chance to fight in any legion vs legion fights and I cannot confirm this but I have been told that the Zerging tactic can’t work. People have told me that if your legion is outnumbered and outgunned that the “Balur” will show up and help out the losing team. If that’s true it means that legions will be forced into making it even fights which if it is true I will love to no extent. Nothing is worse than taking a tower with 6 or 7 people just to have 40 noobs roll in and wipe you with no skill required.

Overall I think the game is worth it. But I’ll tell you what I tell my friends. If you want an MMO like Aion and have the $50 laying around go for it. But if $50 is a little much for you right now just sit back and wait for a free trial!