| Aion MMO Looks To Conquer Europe And USA |
View Comments
| Games - Computer Games |
| Written by Dave Taylor |
| Friday, 21 August 2009 08:10 |
|
Aion, the MMO from well known MMO publisher NCsoft, has already enjoyed a successful launch in Korea and China. Now it is set to come to Europe and the USA, and as a fantasy MMO, it can't help but get compared to World of Warcraft, the all-conquering MMO, but is that fair?
Aion, the MMO from well known MMO publisher NCsoft, has already enjoyed a successful launch in Korea and China. Now it is set to come to Europe and the USA, and as a fantasy MMO, it can't help but get compared to World of Warcraft, the all-conquering MMO, but is that fair? While Aion may never see the heights of success that World of Warcraft has achieved - the retained Eastern flavour may put some blinkered gamers off - there is a middle ground of success for MMOs that seems to get ignored by pundits. All Aion needs is enough gamers to generate the monthly revenue to make it profitable and by extension to ensure that enough gamers are in the MMO world so that it has a convincing and engrossing social and gameplay environment. Aion does have enough new gameplay ideas that it should attract an big enough audience for this. Firstly, while the game is "high fantasy" and therefore well into World of Warcraft territory, its backstory is taken from a mismash of legends and mythology from various sources, though mostly Korean, and this does give it a solid grounding. It makes the environment different enough from World of Warcraft that gamers won't feel that they are playing a clone. It's not just the graphics and story that are a little bit different though, Aion has some new gameplay ideas. The main one that people will focus on is flight: at level 10 your character gains their wings, so the action turns into a 3D experience with some quests requiring you to fly around, and with some options for combat in flight. How fun it is to hover above the target out of their reach and blast them. There is a but, of course, which is that within the main game area, flight time is limited, for the obvious reason of ensuring it doesn't make you invincible. It does add to the flavour of the game, and the PvP area does allow free flight, so it's used enough to ensure you're not frustrated by the lack of flying. When you start Aion and create your character, you'd be forgiven for thinking there aren't many class choices. There's only four: Scout, Fighter, Priest and Mage. This is actually a strength of Aion. You can choose the basic class you like and then play 10 levels while you get a feel for the game and how you like to play it. At level 10 you can then choose a sub-class that best suits your style: for example, your Priest may like straight healing best, or prefer to do more buffing, and can select a sub-class based on this. Customising your character class doesn't stop there. At level 20 another gameplay extra comes in, Stigma Stones. These give you the ability to slightly change your characters abilities. So, a Cloth Armour wearing class may decide that it likes to get stuck into the melee, and so the ability to wear metal armour would be very useful. Your class may prevent it, but you can overcome this with a Stigma Stone. This is quite change from other MMOs, as your character in Aion can have different abilities from other characters who are the same class. It's not just the big gameplay additions that will warm you to Aion either. It's little touches that let you know this is a well rounded MMO, like the semi-transparent map that makes it easy to navigate, the built-in Locate feature that makes following quests easier, the Private Store option to allow you to set yourself up as a vendor. If there were to be a complaint about Aion, it's that despite the extensive localisation, some people may still find the graphics non-conventional. The Talking Weasels might put some people off. It's also a shame that NCsoft weren't prepared to open the UI up to third party customisation and plug-ins, which is one of the big USPs for World of Warcraft. But these are minor points in what is looking like a well crafted and polished MMO. Due for release in September 2009, Aion is going to be a monthly subscription based MMO available on PC. About the Author: Dave Taylor is a professional games journalist and Publishing Director for GamerZines.com. He regularly contributes to the Aion for Beginners blog. You can find more features on Aion in the MMOZine, free digital MMO magazine. |