AION: Tower of Eternity

[Xion Valkyrie]

Played the Chinese beta for a bit (2-3 hours) using the english patch.

The game is GORGEOUS, especially on the Eylos side.

Huge images:

Spoiler:

You can make some really loli characters if you wanted to...


My char, she's so MOE:


Closeup:


More screenies:

Impressions so far:

Graphics: Beautiful graphics. Probably the best I've seen for a MMORPG. Character models are really detailed and highly customizable. The screenies pretty much speak for themselves. The whole game oozes art style. Animations are well done, plus, there's facial expressions!

Sound: Music is really well done, although the battle music might get old after a while. Sound effects seem okay so far.

Interface: Incredibly modern and streamlined. Has all your standard stuff you'd expect from American games like WoW. Fully customizable keys. Has a compass map, full map, and an overlay map (one of the screenshots above show it). Quests are well organized, separated into Missions/Quests/Work Orders (not sure what the last are). NPCs giving and receiving quests are instantly recognizable. You get the option to flag down npcs and they show up in the compass map with an arrow. If you're near quests arrows will show up on the compass map directing you to them. You can also "check" quests in your quest log, and they'll show up green on the compass map arrows, and also show up on the upper right hand side (really good if you want to prioritize quests and what not).

The best part probably is that every single NPC/Monster/Item/Area is highlighted in your quest log, so you can check click on them and they'll tell you a bit about them, including what drops them (if they're an item) and where they can be located (NPCs/Monsters/Areas). Sort of like a mini-wiki.

Gameplay: Combat seems like your standard affair (pretty similar to WoW). I only played a scout class up to level 6 so far. She has a backstab skill, a main damage skill, a 5 second evasion stance, and a counter skill. Makes fighting decently interesting even at low levels.

Skills look like they level up by usage (at least I haven't found anything to suggest otherwise) and it doesn't look like stats are distributable.

Quests so far have been either kill some monsters or collect some kind of item from a random spawn point. They haven't been that bad so far, most of them just involves getting 5 of something (which is pretty quick). There are also "main" quests called missions, which are multi-part and involve cutscenes.

The English localization is incredibly well done. The dialogue can use a bit more flavor, but is well written and very clear. There's a lot of backstory to all the quests too, so there's a hefty bit of reading for those inclined. This makes the quests at least fairly interesting if you bother to read the quest dialogues.

Also, I've noticed some of the monsters actually does stuff like digging around in the ground, chasing after other monsters, etc, which gives life to the scenery. Also, when I killed a crane in the lake, it's carcass floated to the top, which was pretty cool.

Character Creation: AWESOME. There's 40+ hairs and some default template faces, but every part of the face is fully customizable. Think Oblivion, except really good looking. Body is pretty customizable too, as you can see from the screenies above. You can make some really disproportionate peole though, but increasing and decreasing the head to height ratio.

[Cruiser18]

Ye it's on my watch list as well. I'm keeping en eye an eye on both this, Jumpgate evolution and Blade & Soul, although as far as I understand this game has a far longer history where it's been tried and trued by the asian market.

I just hope it's not gonna be another grindfest.

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by Cruiser18 Ye it's on my watch list as well. I'm keeping en eye an eye on both this, Jumpgate evolution and Blade & Soul, although as far as I understand this game has a far longer history where it's been tried and trued by the asian market. I just hope it's not gonna be another grindfest.

All MMOs are grindfests though.

[Stephen]

Can I play this game now or is beta closed? lol
I'm quite eager just to have a play around with the character creation part haha.
It looks really pretty.

[Wigz]

It looks great. I'm not into MMO games, but I do like their design.

[McGarnacle]

i've become bored of pretty much every mmo i've played, including wow, and although this looks swell, i doubt it would be anything ground-breaking

[Hiltz]

There's been only two mmo games I've been able to tolerate: Diablo 2: LOD and Mu Online. It's all because of the position of the automatic camera. I typically hate having to manually adjust the camera all the time.

I quickly got bored of other MMO games Lineage 2 and Perfect World.

AION sure does look pretty. If it's free and can be played in english, then I'll consider it but I wonder if my old PC can handle it.

[Xion Valkyrie]

If anyone's interested in trying out the Chinese beta for free (you can download a english patch that fully translates it).

http://www.mobiusxp.com/?p=101

[Xion Valkyrie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-2BzE4fqsU

[Bloodstar]

This looks and sounds a lot like a free online game I've been playing recently. And while there are a lot of things that are done well in this game (the one I've been playing, not Aion) it's mostly a jumbled up mess of ideas and stupid gimmicks. There are way too many menus, and it takes way too long to do anything. I can spend hours and hours playing and feel like I've accomplished nothing. Seriously, if this Aion game is anything like the game I've been playing then it's just another pile of crap with pretty graphics.

Btw, that video made me lol

[fast1]

feel like pre ordering the game. is this a good price?

http://www.amazon.com/Aion-Tower-Ete...20391&sr= 8-2

[McGarnacle]

ok that video makes me really want to play this game

[flare60]

The game is pay for play, atlest in korea, and it will probably be so in america and europa as well, nothing wrong with that, especially if they keep the amount of content coming in the same manner as blizzards world of warcraft to justify it.

It looks pretty interesting, but one thing worries me alot.

Its cry engine based, so machines probably gonna have to be EPIC for it.....

[Bloodstar]

Eeew. You have to pay? It looks much too like the many free games on the market to make me think it's good. I could be wrong but... I doubt it.

[flare60]

Well look at it this way, games like world of warcraft give us loads of content and quick uppdates that games that are free usual dont deliver, and quite frankly the price isnt that mutch either, people whine way to mutch about that fact if you ask me, especially when there are good offers for 12 months or 6 months that are pretty cheap for the amount of content your getting.

Ofcourse, if the game isnt delivering the amount of content it should then it isnt worth the pay.

[Xion Valkyrie]

I find the free games that are run out of cash shops are really lacking in content.

Anyways, level 16 in Aion now. It's ridiculously fun. The combat system is pretty in depth, as there's things like jump cancels to get rid of delays for your spells. Also, moving in different directions while in combat grants special stat bonuses, making combat a lot more frantic.

[flare60]

Im wondering though, how heavy end pc would one need for this game ?

[Valcron]

Trying the game out now. Level 3 warrior and level 3 mage. I never can focus on one character.

I agree with Xion on just about everything: The game is amazing. I don't think you need a super beefy computer to play, but higher specs definitely help the pretty factor.

Since I'm low level, I'm still finding combat lacking myself. I'll give it more chance as I play and level up, but so far I'm a bit unimpressed. Combo attacks are nice though.

Also, I have 10MBPS internet speed and a super computer that runs everything on max, but the games still has a 1+ second latency problem. Is that on my side or do others have that too? I hope it's not just me, because I wouldn't think my current setup would allow for any sort of lag currently.

Edit: Also 60 fps too on all max, so there's no lag coming from there.

[Xion Valkyrie]

You're connecting to the Chinese servers, so latency is unavoidable. When the game does come to the US, latency will be a lot better.

Also, depending on when you play, I've had it so that there's relatively little latency.

Edit: China's Open Beta ends tomorrow, so last batch of screenshots.

Spoiler:

[Yukzy]

This game looks hawt