MultiMacBox23
05-23-2009, 08:21 PM
Been poking around the world in the new NCsoft game Aion.
Pretty good game so far, havent touched my wow accounts in a few weeks now. I've just been solo-playing a few of the different classes.
I'm 100% sure that this will replace wow for me when it is released in the NA/US market.
--Random brain-leak blurps below--
* Graphics are really nice, they are using a modified Crytek engine to run the game. Zones are beautiful & diverse. Characters are modeled VERY well, and have a nice/smooth feel to their movements. i've tried playing alot of the other mmos out there either the character animations bugged me (guild wars) , or the world environment was blah (lotro), or the graphics were just to unimpressive (most all Free2Play MMOs with the exception of Swords of the new world)
* Soundtrack is INCREDIBLE, i paid for the collector edition pre-order, that comes with a CD with the original soundtrack to the game.
* Chain Skills! After completeing a stdard attack, a secondard attack opens up. for example in warcraft if you mage cast fireball, then fireblast would become available. or if you cast frostbolt, then a frost nova with knockback would become available.
To cut down on clutter for the action bars, if you have fireball in slot-2..... after you cast fireball, slot 2 would change into fireblast. so you could just spam 2,2,2,2,2,2 and it would auto complete the chain/combo for you. It will also place a clickable
button for the next available chain in the same general area as some of the ArcHUD/IceHUD warcraft addons place their status bars.
* You gain your wings/flight at a very early level, flying is a very integral part of the game.
* I've played the first 12 or so levels and they go by really quick, without grinding so far. I'm actually worried some of my quests will go grey before i finish them. The quests genres are the usual. Collection, delivery, kill. On collection quests, drop rates are fairly high. I havent complained yet about when a item is going to drop.
* All trainer skills are taught by books, kinda like the warlock pet grimores back in the day.. you can by them ahead of time so that when you level they will be in your inventory and you can right click them when you are of appropriate level to use them.
no more hearthing/flying back to the trainer every level.
* Quest log/tracking system is nice. it will track as many quests that will fit on the right side of the screen. each one tracked has a clickable button for "remove from tracking", or "open quest log entry for this quest" Anytime you pick up a quest item, it will do a small on screen notice of what you picked up, what quest it was for, and how many more you need.
* When you complete a quest it will mark the turn in point on your map so you dont have to go looking it up again. All NPC names, and Zone locations in the quest log/descrption are clickable and will bring up a small history box about them, and if that doesnt help, the history box has a "locate" button you can press to mark a waypoint marker on your map for it.
* Has both the standard map screen, or a diablo][ type transparent overlay map.
* When you move to a new zone, or subzone you can click on a obliesk item to set your "Bind Point", when is where you will hearthstone to, or resurect to when you die. this does cost gold (100g to 300g) but just to give you an idea, by the time i sold all my grey vendor trash at level 9, i have about 9k gold.
* there are flight masters & flight points. also teleporters to main cities are usually bundled with them too.
* vendors have a 1 click "Sell grey item" type button
* you get 1 backpack, but you can pay to have it "expanded" to a larger size
* character classes Scout which later specializes either ranger (hunter) or assassin(rogue, stealth), they have a warrior-type(fury/arms), or templar(paladin-prot), priest type, mage type, sorcerer (sorta like a warlock, because of elemental pet summoning)
there is alot i'm probably forgetting, i'm just typing as its falling out of my brain.
imagine if lineage/eq had the funding/backing/developer man power of blizzard, and using a more cutting edge/modern graphics engine.... and where they would be today.... thats Aion. (except take out the stereotypical asian mmo grindfest mentality)
Anywho i cant wait to try the USA version when it comes out.... i'm currently playing on the china servers right now.
(PS: this game is the sole reason i can justify to have a windows boot partition on my mac, :P :D )
Pretty good game so far, havent touched my wow accounts in a few weeks now. I've just been solo-playing a few of the different classes.
I'm 100% sure that this will replace wow for me when it is released in the NA/US market.
--Random brain-leak blurps below--
* Graphics are really nice, they are using a modified Crytek engine to run the game. Zones are beautiful & diverse. Characters are modeled VERY well, and have a nice/smooth feel to their movements. i've tried playing alot of the other mmos out there either the character animations bugged me (guild wars) , or the world environment was blah (lotro), or the graphics were just to unimpressive (most all Free2Play MMOs with the exception of Swords of the new world)
* Soundtrack is INCREDIBLE, i paid for the collector edition pre-order, that comes with a CD with the original soundtrack to the game.
* Chain Skills! After completeing a stdard attack, a secondard attack opens up. for example in warcraft if you mage cast fireball, then fireblast would become available. or if you cast frostbolt, then a frost nova with knockback would become available.
To cut down on clutter for the action bars, if you have fireball in slot-2..... after you cast fireball, slot 2 would change into fireblast. so you could just spam 2,2,2,2,2,2 and it would auto complete the chain/combo for you. It will also place a clickable
button for the next available chain in the same general area as some of the ArcHUD/IceHUD warcraft addons place their status bars.
* You gain your wings/flight at a very early level, flying is a very integral part of the game.
* I've played the first 12 or so levels and they go by really quick, without grinding so far. I'm actually worried some of my quests will go grey before i finish them. The quests genres are the usual. Collection, delivery, kill. On collection quests, drop rates are fairly high. I havent complained yet about when a item is going to drop.
* All trainer skills are taught by books, kinda like the warlock pet grimores back in the day.. you can by them ahead of time so that when you level they will be in your inventory and you can right click them when you are of appropriate level to use them.
no more hearthing/flying back to the trainer every level.
* Quest log/tracking system is nice. it will track as many quests that will fit on the right side of the screen. each one tracked has a clickable button for "remove from tracking", or "open quest log entry for this quest" Anytime you pick up a quest item, it will do a small on screen notice of what you picked up, what quest it was for, and how many more you need.
* When you complete a quest it will mark the turn in point on your map so you dont have to go looking it up again. All NPC names, and Zone locations in the quest log/descrption are clickable and will bring up a small history box about them, and if that doesnt help, the history box has a "locate" button you can press to mark a waypoint marker on your map for it.
* Has both the standard map screen, or a diablo][ type transparent overlay map.
* When you move to a new zone, or subzone you can click on a obliesk item to set your "Bind Point", when is where you will hearthstone to, or resurect to when you die. this does cost gold (100g to 300g) but just to give you an idea, by the time i sold all my grey vendor trash at level 9, i have about 9k gold.
* there are flight masters & flight points. also teleporters to main cities are usually bundled with them too.
* vendors have a 1 click "Sell grey item" type button
* you get 1 backpack, but you can pay to have it "expanded" to a larger size
* character classes Scout which later specializes either ranger (hunter) or assassin(rogue, stealth), they have a warrior-type(fury/arms), or templar(paladin-prot), priest type, mage type, sorcerer (sorta like a warlock, because of elemental pet summoning)
there is alot i'm probably forgetting, i'm just typing as its falling out of my brain.
imagine if lineage/eq had the funding/backing/developer man power of blizzard, and using a more cutting edge/modern graphics engine.... and where they would be today.... thats Aion. (except take out the stereotypical asian mmo grindfest mentality)
Anywho i cant wait to try the USA version when it comes out.... i'm currently playing on the china servers right now.
(PS: this game is the sole reason i can justify to have a windows boot partition on my mac, :P :D )