After spending a good eight hours give or take over the long weekend playing the beta, I think I have good idea of what's in store for the future of this game - and it's all good. First, Aion is already in release in S. Korea where it was developed, so that enables the folks at NCSoft to provide the "western world" with a very polished beta version to test. Second, there will be a few comparisons to WoW in this review, so if you're a rabid fanboi - leave now.
When you create your character, you can choose between the Elyos and the Asmodians (Think Alliance and Horde respectively), and select one of four classes: mage, priest, scout, and warrior. All of these classes will be familiar to anyone who has ever played a recent MMO. The beauty of this simple selection system is that you’re able to choose your favorite role without racial/ability concerns and branch out into a more advanced abilities later.
Once you hit level 10, you’re allowed to choose one of two advanced, specializations: for instance, my character started as a Mage, but became a Spiritmaster - which is very similar to the warlock class in WOW in that you have a pet (and much more later). Here's my lvl 10 Asmodian Spiritmaster with her brand new fire elemental pet :) More importantly, at level 10 you ascend to deity status, and gain the ability to fly as you can see below, which opens up all kinds of possibilities both PVE and PVP-wise obviously.
Again, the artwork, character and combat animations, scenery, and music are all top notch, so much so that when I logged into WoW after almost a week of not playing I really noticed the difference in that WoW is far more "cartoony" to me now. Granted, WoW is running on a five year old graphics engine, but I can't say enough about the look of this game.
Perhaps the most significant impression I garnered was that I didn't feel like I was playing WoW or yet another WoW-clone (Hello Runes of Magic - almost criminal how closely that game resembles WoW). I actually had a good time questing, exploring, taking my time and just appreciating all the little extras already built into the game, i.e. most of the helpful/cool functions are already built into the UI without the need for third-party extensions.
Once I reached level 10 I decided to give the Elyos race a spin, and leveled a priest to 10 - which I then specialized into the WoW equivalent of a Paladin. Aion also gives you the ability to earn titles by completing quest chains, and these titles affect your stats, yet another cool feature.
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my play time and am looking forward to the next beta which is supposed to hit the weekend of July 17th. According to the official site, the game will launch sometime in September, so if you haven't pre-ordered a copy and received your beta access key, "off with ya!"
Here's some gameplay footage:
Looks like a promising game! I'm thinking about ordering a copy soon. So far your review is very informative. It reminded me of Perfect World and Warcraft..
Posted by: aion kina | August 03, 2009 at 05:24 AM