AION: Catch All

armedbushido wrote:
AP Erebus wrote:

Steam has a pre-order dealie on this baby..

NCSoft is making their beautiful new MMO, Aion™ available for pre-purchase today on Steam.

Steam purchasers have the privilege of choosing Aion Standard Edition or Aion Collector's Edition.

The full version launches on September 22 (and 25th in Europe) each version comes with additional pre-purchase incentives such as:
- 7 additional days of game time - allowing 37 total days of play time when the full game releases
- Special in-game bonus items including:
- Attribute boosting hat
- Experience boosting talisman
- Exclusive special effects ring (water)

Steam players who purchase the Aion Collector's Edition also receive these additional in-game items:
- Black Cloud Wings which give 40 seconds of additional flight time
- Black Cloud Earring which gives an HP and an MP boost
- Special character title, "Pioneer of Aion", with stat boost
- Color dye to tint one in-game item
- Two character emotes - Disco Emote and Samba Emote

Also, pre-purchasing on Steam gets you an invite to the pre-release closed-beta events. The next beta event is July 17th - see below for specific time.

Focus: Elyos and Asmodian levels 1-25, including access to the Abyss.
Starting time: 17th of July (noon PDT, 8 PM BST, 9 PM CEST)
Ending time: 20th of July (noon PDT, 8 PM BST, 9 PM CEST)

For anyone confused about these time standards, PST is the time on the US west coast, BST is what to look at if you're in London and CEST is for those of you in Central Europe.

For more info regarding beta events please go to NCSoft's Aion web site http://www.aiononline.com.

Maybe... i'll need some more impressions before I spend some monies.

Damn, I got my through the NCsoft store - /damn

Ok, now for the million dollar quest. Will Aion have mods? Because of it's Asian roots I think I read that Aion will not have mods even in the Western localization. This would make sense since Asian's view mods as cheating. Personally I am all for it - kind of sick of all the mods that play the game for people. However, this might turn off a lot of players that WoW brought in to the MMO space. I cannot find anything official on this - just wondering if someone else had heard anything?

Armed don't worry about who you pre-order from you get the same thing from everyone. The only difference i have found is if you pre-ordered a callectors box edition you get an Asmodean figurine as well. I also have not heard anything if mods will be used in game or not. My guess from what I have seen in the beta's is that they want to focus more on macros than any mods so my guess would be no they won't be allowed but only time will tell.

I'm officially caught up in the hype. The only problem I see is that I don't care much for PvP, and there doesn't seem to be a way around it.
Elyos Templar looks to be what my first choice would be. Anyone know what the monthly fee is going to be? I can't find it on the website.

I can't find the post with the pricing officially announced but I know I read it will be $14.99/mth in the U.S. but they did not say if a 3 and 6mth discount program will happen or not. I don't mind paying to play a quality game like this and I hope it keeps my attention for longer than 2 weeks but i'm pretty sure it will

I honestly doubt that Aion will be using any sort of mod system. And really, do you need it? With all the nice in game ui features, being mod less I believe is going to be one of the game's strong points.

I really, really, really, hope they do the $6 for 100 hours plan they have in China and Korea.

Ive been out of the MMO world for quite a while, so please forgive me but: By mods do you mean custom UI addons, or does WoW actually support some sort of game mods? Back when I played WoW I used a few different cusom UIs, and they were amazing.

UI, in WoW a UI mod can pull all sorts of data from the game to analyse and display and add UI functionality (making a big queue of crafting for example), but it cannot influence the game itself or let you do something you couldn't do without. The problem is that certain mods become required to be remotely competitive, and change how you play the game. Aions UI is very competent, even including a locate function to find quest locations and NPCs. I wouldn't mind if they let you move bits around, hide and show parts, or resize bits of it, but that would be adding to a good base not fixing something that is missing.

This game is just not holding my attention. Too easy, too flashy. My guy made level 5 and he's wielding two swords nearly as tall as he is, to kill the game equivalent of rats on a farmstead...

For me I'm not getting it on release (which seems to be a good rule to live by for MMOs in general), but I'm still curious so I'll be reading reviews and opinions of people who play it to decide if it's worth my money. The early levels are standard MMO fare, but at the moment I don't know what the higher levels and the bit in the middle of the world are like. Then there's the issue of what the community turns out like, which is a big deal but something NCsoft can't really control.

This game is just not holding my attention. Too easy, too flashy. My guy made level 5 and he's wielding two swords nearly as tall as he is, to kill the game equivalent of rats on a farmstead...

Robear, that's not even a half hour into the game. The scout classes actually start to struggle around level 7+. I am trying to get my assassin to 13 to see if they get any skills that up the power curve. Right now, there is no reason to play one over a Gladiator or Templar. (up til 12)

My wife and I researched this game last night and after watching a few videos we were impressed.

It was a moment of pride for me as my wife experienced her first game boner.

I tried to temper her enthusiasm a little bit though. I explained about open-world pvp a little bit and we debated the pros and cons. We play LOTRO right now and that game has one of the best communities I've seen in an MMO with City of Heroes coming in a close second.

I'm not sure how well she'll deal with being griefed and griefing is an inevitable fact of life when playing a game that has open pvp.

Dayum though, this game sure looks purty!

Made it to level 19 with my sorceror. In the upper teen levels, there comes a point where you need a well-rounded group to finish the campaign quests in the Altgard area. If you can't find a group, you're going to be stuck farming for a couple levels until you hit 19 or 20 and can head off to the next area. Even if you do finish all the quests and do a good bit of crafting (which also gets you XP), there's a bit of lag in the XP you get, so you have to do a bit of farming. It's my understanding that the later patches increase the XP somewhat, evening this out.

I didn't get to participate in the PvP this weekend as my highest toon is only 15 but I really like the game so far. Graphics are great and as someone else said, I get more FPS in this game than I do in WAR or WoW. I play on the Siel server on Asmo side and the city had tons of people this weekend and I saw no difference in my performance. There is a good mix of quests in this game too.

Most of the quests are more than just go kill 10 pigs. They usually have other objectives along with it or there is another quest that coincides to it and they usually culminate into something more interesting. You also have the story-line quests which if you do more than just click through the quest and go to the objective, are more engaging and you usually get a decent reward for finishing these. I love the quest tracker they have and the ability to find people if it says go follow-up with Mr. Smith by clicking on their name and hitting locate and it will place them on the map. The transparent map (n) is an awsome addition for questing as well.

I really like the crafting system as well. I haven't gotten into it a ton but I like that you can skill up in all areas and then become a master in one. I really think that is how every game should be. I never much liked that in other games I had to have one toon for harvesting herbs, one toon for mining, one toon for chopping wood, etc, etc.

The leveling doesn't appear to be too tedious either.

My roommate has been playing these Chinese version for close to 3 months now, there were bugs when he picked it up and scripted quests not working. However, he also stated they have fixed / patched the majority of the current ones hes only 40 and plays pretty casual . 1 -2 hours a day max and no weekends. He hasn't created another char to test if the old problems were fixed but he said they seem to be fixing a lot of the issues.

I have been in the NA CB1 - CB4 im only lv 15 as a glad but the games stability has increased, or appears to have . There was a crash in CB 3 . We luck out and benefit from a game that has been released for 6 months abroad, so hopefully we can avoid the unpolished MMO exodus that AOC had and even War.

My quick review nothing overly revolutionary , which is fine I have been playing every major mmo since eq1 to most recently War. The game is fluid controls work and air movements is fine , I haven't done air combat yet (pvp), Roommate said certain abilities don't work in the air, ie pets cant fly for the Spiritbreaker, certain mele abilities wont execute either. All and all its easy to pick up, if you have played any other mmo. The point to click movement is changeable I think but I tried to get used to it its a slightly different feel, ill probably switch it to ASDW keys for combat purposes.

The positive so far its not as grindy as Lineage 2 , everybody keeps stereotyping it because of Ncsofts history. Watching my roommate at the higher levels 28-40 I noticed he needed lots of group questing to level . The quests seem tough you need a solid group not just 1 other person.

The crafting is simple and actually useful but kind of tedious , lots of repetition and slow build up for points, I made myself armor at lv 13 that was worth using.

Leveling its not super fast , and the beginning is actually difficult from lv 8-10 since you don't have all the abilities that make your class dish out enough damage to be efficient. Most classes can handle 2 mobs at those levels , but 3 was death for my warrior.

Once I got my Gladiator to level 11 it was easy street. The new abilities and weapon made a dramatic difference for my character. I could kill non stop single mobs with no down time , I was able to take down 3 mobs together at this point but lost a decent chunk of life.

I don't know enough about stigmas to talk about them my roommate tried to explain them but i have the attention span of a newt.

All in all if you like the fluid motion of WoW, with the combat of a DAOC or Lineage 2 I think you will enjoy the game. Id like to get to 25 and try Abyss pvp but i don't want kill myself before the actual game and level all weekend long.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

my wife experienced her first game boner.

Crying Game anyone?

boreden-myrddraal wrote:

My roommate has been playing these Chinese version for close to 3 months now, there were bugs when he picked it up and scripted quests not working. However, he also stated they have fixed / patched the majority of the current ones hes only 40 and plays pretty casual . 1 -2 hours a day max and no weekends. He hasn't created another char to test if the old problems were fixed but he said they seem to be fixing a lot of the issues.

I have been in the NA CB1 - CB4 im only lv 15 as a glad but the games stability has increased, or appears to have . There was a crash in CB 3 . We luck out and benefit from a game that has been released for 6 months abroad, so hopefully we can avoid the unpolished MMO exodus that AOC had and even War.

My quick review nothing overly revolutionary , which is fine I have been playing every major mmo since eq1 to most recently War. The game is fluid controls work and air movements is fine , I haven't done air combat yet (pvp), Roommate said certain abilities don't work in the air, ie pets cant fly for the Spiritbreaker, certain mele abilities wont execute either. All and all its easy to pick up, if you have played any other mmo. The point to click movement is changeable I think but I tried to get used to it its a slightly different feel, ill probably switch it to ASDW keys for combat purposes.

The positive so far its not as grindy as Lineage 2 , everybody keeps stereotyping it because of Ncsofts history. Watching my roommate at the higher levels 28-40 I noticed he needed lots of group questing to level . The quests seem tough you need a solid group not just 1 other person.

The crafting is simple and actually useful but kind of tedious , lots of repetition and slow build up for points, I made myself armor at lv 13 that was worth using.

Leveling its not super fast , and the beginning is actually difficult from lv 8-10 since you don't have all the abilities that make your class dish out enough damage to be efficient. Most classes can handle 2 mobs at those levels , but 3 was death for my warrior.

Once I got my Gladiator to level 11 it was easy street. The new abilities and weapon made a dramatic difference for my character. I could kill non stop single mobs with no down time , I was able to take down 3 mobs together at this point but lost a decent chunk of life.

I don't know enough about stigmas to talk about them my roommate tried to explain them but i have the attention span of a newt.

All in all if you like the fluid motion of WoW, with the combat of a DAOC or Lineage 2 I think you will enjoy the game. Id like to get to 25 and try Abyss pvp but i don't want kill myself before the actual game and level all weekend long.

That kind of summons up my groups experiences over the weekend. We had a mix of levels from 5 - 22. I see this game really attracting the hardcore PvE crowd from WoW that miss the old WoW days. Been reading up on some of the Dungeons in 1.5 and they sound really cool.

From everything I read, you shouldn't judge the game solely on 1-25 since the game really starts when you hit the abyss at 25.

LINK

Here is a link that shows what 1.5 update will have, the NA launch will include this update...

Anyone know if this weekends preview is going to start out with pre-made characters?

They haven't said anything yet but the Community manager is supposed to make an announcement tomorrow so we should be able to find out more then.

I hope they go with the premade template , im dying to go the Abyss on a US server .

Slightly off topic question any of the podcast guys playing the beta , or are they still entrenched in WOW for there MMO of choice. Not knocking Wow at all played since beta still do occasionaly, but was curious if they had intentions of moving on or trying Aion.

Well, the beta/preview events are only one weekend every fortnight, so I think it's hard to get entrenched in it. Other issues for me is that it's hard to get invested in a character you know is just going to get wiped at release, and that we're playing 1.0.x with some minor updates versus 1.5 that will be used for EU/NA release.

A new 438MB patch is out for CBT5 (this weekend), mostly consisting of the first round of english audio localisation. I like the approach that they've gone to that effort to make it appeal to the target audience and not just the minimum effort to get the game out in the english speaking regions

WIthout reading through the entire thread, is this game worth it?

You can get into closed beta now through Steam if you prepurchase, by the way.

The majority of us wont be able to tell you what the end game will be like, from what I have seen the game changes dramatically at 25+ im only 22 and I don't want to invest every beta weekend killing myself leveling.

Pros
A Polished MMO , in comparison to AOC or War the game has a defined direction and there is relatively little glitching and bugs ( quests work , there are nice cut cinematic and this week English language patch for the NPCs added more imersion.

The Skill combos and attacks for leveling are more intuitive then Wow leveling , I felt I needed to utilize my attack chains and abilities to play efficiently.

The graphics , not the best on the market but they look good and the game can be played on most cheap mid size machines , I tried it on my cousins 8600gt with 2gb of ram and was still getting good frames and no lag spikes.

Cons
Crafting, I found it a bit tedious but useful ,I haven't messed with it since last beta but I had gotten armor crafting up and it was useful just lots of repetition.

Flying its a bit over hyped and not as useful as you might think there are lots of boundaries in the normal world, abyss is more free flight though.

Quests and leveling there were some holes in leveling where I had to grind half a level not to bad since you can kill very quickly, the quests are a bit linear but so are 80 % of all MMO quests kill 10 of x mob , im bored of it but i see the necessity.

My opinion, the game has no glaring issues that make it not work or feel cumbersome to play. I played WOW since beta so if your bored of WOW and are looking for a decent MMO AION may be it. If your looking for something to give you back your MMO Virginity and sweep you off your feet I don't think you will find that with Aion.

The skill trees and leveling system...

Is it where you get a new skill every 5 levels or so and able to specialize at 10-25-50?

ranalin wrote:

The skill trees and leveling system...

Is it where you get a new skill every 5 levels or so and able to specialize at 10-25-50?

At level 10, you choose one of two paths for your archetype. As a mage for example, you can choose to be a sorceror, which is a nuking class, or a spiritmaster, which is a pet class.

At level 20, you get two slots for stigma stones, and another slot every 10 levels (I think) up to 5 slots. Stigma stones are pretty much the only way to specialize. Most stones are drops, although you get a couple from quests. The first one you get as a sorceror reduces mana costs for everything by 50% for 15 seconds. One that's in really high demand is Curse: Tree. It will turn someone into a tree for a short time, and more crowd control as a sorceror is always handy.

No its like WoW with spells needing to be bought every 3 levels. Most spells are rank ups with a few new ones sprinkled in.

You have to wait until 20 to get introduced to the stigma system. The stigma system was originally designed to allow cross class skills but now it just seems like extra spell slots for more powerful skills that you can only equip a few of. Depending on whether you want to raid, group, pvp or solo grind, you will select these 2 versus those 2 out of ~8 skills available.

yea that's basically the same old Lineage (korean) skill base system.

NO THANK YOU.

I hate that system with a passion and almost every Eastern MMO uses it. While they may add something here or there (like Stigma here) or shuffle the level reqs for specialization around it boils down to the same.

I am not particularly bothered by not getting a new skill every level, in most games you don't ever use 90% of your skills , you figure out the 5 or 6 best and use them in a rotation .
I like the Stigmas idea , there kinda like a mix of glyphing and talent points in wow. Some of them add extra effect to current attacks others give you completely new attacks and abilities , like dual wheild. There are supposed to be dozens of them for each class which allows for a greater customization then Talent trees. You wont have the best pve and pvp spec you will have what works best for your play style. Some stigmas will be hands down and a must but some my hope is the higher level ones are more for the type of combat you take part in.