Post by Zeli on Aug 6, 2009 8:03:26 GMT -5
www.incgamers.com/Previews/118/aion-hands-on-preview-week-three/1
Aion: Hands On Preview: Week Three
04 Aug 2009 at 15:20:00 by Bill Vaughan
After having discussed the extensive character customisation, gameplay and questing, this week I talk about Aion after level ten, some of the recent additions to the beta client, and a few features that I feel could be better.
I had several hours of Aion planned this weekend but the powers that be (my ISP) had other ideas. How typical that the day they develop authentication problems is one of the three days in a fortnight that the Aion beta is open, and the main day I had put back to spend in Atreia. But at 10.30pm when my router sprang back to life, I was logged in and playing before you could blink, until 4.30am, because I have a duty – a duty to bring word of this game to others! Cough. Anyway, on with part three of my Aion preview.
Before the latest test session opened this weekend, NCsoft announced that it would be adding a stack of newly-localised voice files and cut scenes into the beta client. Each faction, the angelic Elyos and the menacing Asmodians, get their own introduction which plays when a new character is created. Western character voices can also be tried out in the creation process now. With this in mind, I went to the character creation screen and rolled a new toon. Randomly selecting a Scout, I chuckled to myself when I saw that someone in the development team is obviously a fan of footballer, David Beckham, because there he is as one of the pre-made characters. This demonstrates again just how intricate the character customisation is, heck, someone already made Barack Obama.
There were a handful of voices to chose from, ranging from average hero to slightly threatening to youthful. You can listen to three or four unique samples of each voice, each suiting the tone you selected, for example, the kid's voice says something like “I can take care of myself!”.
When a fresh toon enters the world of Aion, a flashy cut scene does indeed play now, complete with western voices. It shows the struggle between the three factions in the game; the two playable humanoid races mentioned before and the Balaur, the draconic AI-controlled race. This plays out as a dream, and the new character awakens in the starter area.
Several, though not all, NPCs have voices now, and many pivotal quests have cut scenes with voice-overs, explaining your mission. When the game launches next month, NCsoft says all voices will be present. This adds another level of immersion to a game that already draws you in with its stunning graphics and smooth gameplay.
Back on my original character, who reached the grand level of ten in my last test session, I set off from the city of Sanctum to start my new set of quests in the zone of Verteron. Now, if you've read my two previous articles on Aion, you'll know I think pretty highly of the game so far. I was very impressed with the character creator, which has enough options to ensure you're unlikely to bump into a twin of yourself unless you'd picked one of the dozen or so pre-made characters. Then the following week I talked about the questing, combat and some of the general gameplay you encounter in the first ten levels of Aion. Until that point I found it hard to say anything bad about the game, but after my relatively short time online this week I'm going to mention a few things that I feel could be better.
On my first foray into the wilderness surrounding the first hub in Verteron, I approached a lake. I was looking for mudcrabs, which were plentiful on the shores but I thought I would venture out into the lake to see if I could find some underwater. I waded out, then noticed my character wasn't swimming, just continuing to walk on the lake bed. When his head went underwater a warning message popped up, then he started taking damage, a lot of damage. I jumped, thinking that he would start swimming, but no, still dying. I turned him around and got back to the shore in time, barely.
Wtf? How the heck do I swim in this game? After some investigation, it turns out you can't swim in Aion, period. Apparently, water is used in much the same way that mountains are used in other MMOs, as a boundary. There are plenty of Aion beta testers that feel this is perfectly acceptable – hey, it's better than the dreaded 'invisible walls', right? And surely it's more realistic, I mean, who can swim in full armour with weapons equipped anyway? And who needs swimming when you can fly?
I'm sorry, but that doesn't wash with me. Using water as a boundary works fine in games like GTA, but in a role playing game where your character has to explore the map on foot, searching out quest items and mobs which are located in water sometimes, swimming is as needed as jumping. As for boundaries in Aion, there are plenty of invisible walls. Flying can only be used in certain areas, and if you try to go somewhere off-limits, you find yourself hitting that unseen barrier. No-fly areas seem to be anywhere above a set altitude, cities, certain areas with mobs and, guess what, over water. And to all those that take the view that Aion's non-swimming policy makes logical sense due to the weight of armor and items your character carries around; that would be fine if you could swim after banking everything you carry (you still can't).
I would handle this a lot better if characters simply refused to go any further into water after reaching their limit, or if they took the damage a lot slower, especially considering Aion's death penalty. The whole mechanic seems to be totally out of place in an otherwise polished game. Then there's the issue of character height. My character definitely seemed to start taking damage after his head was emerged. He's towards the taller end of the spectrum, but players can chose to make very short toons, so in theory this actually has gameplay issues. In a PvP situation, a taller player could back into water knowing that a shorter melee-based opponent could not follow.
My next minor grumble was the grind factor after the first ten levels. Asian MMOs are infamous for their pretty graphics but grind-based gameplay. Aion has managed to minimise this a lot, but while I can say that my trip to level ten was fun all the way, after that point I periodically noticed myself getting bored while questing. Having to kill 15 of the same mob is never fun, but there's a few too many of that type of quest in the early teen levels. I enjoyed the combat system when I began playing, saying that the chained skills spiced things up a little. However, I found myself using the same skills in the exact same order on each mob. Don't get me wrong, combat is certainly beautiful to look at, but the pleasure wears a bit thin when you've seen that animation 100 times in 30 minutes.
Back on the subject of flying, as I discovered shortly after testing my wings for the first time, using this as a way of getting from A to B is extremely limited. At level 13 I had around one minute of continuous flight time available to me, and once it was used up it took a while to build back up. Flight time increases as characters level up, and it forces you to use flight strategically, but if you expect to be taking to the skies for long periods once you get your wings, think again.
Having said all that, the flight feature is still fun. While in the air, a bar above your character's head indicates the flight time your character has left, and when it gets really low, a warning buzzer sounds along with another on-screen warning. If you fall more than a few feet you do take damage, but it would take a fall from a reasonable height to kill you. And while being unable to fly in many places, you can still glide. A double-tap on the spacebar produces your character's wings, and you can glide downhill anywhere.
Aion has another resource alongside HP and Mana; Divine Power. After you reach level 10, when you kill a mob you gather aether which slowly builds up. It took me around an hour of questing to build up a full bar of DP. Certain skills use this resource, which are typically powerful attacks that deal lots of damage. Using one of these skills uses up one full bar of DP, but don't feel rushed to use it once the bar is full, it stacks. A small indicator next to the bar shows how many bars you have stacked. It's not just in combat that DP can be utilised either, it can be used in crafting too, but more on that next week.
Lastly, I'll mention titles. By completing quests and tasks players can pick up titles for their characters. In other games these are purely for show, so you'd be forgiven for dismissing a title earned in the early stages of Aion, but I stumbled across the fact that these titles actually provide buffs. While looking through my character profile menu, I saw the three titles I had collected so far, and noticed I could improve my toon's stats by selecting one of them, another nice touch. There are several known titles already, around 50 for each playable faction, offering a selection of benefits.
Before I knew it, my time on the beta had come to an end again and I, along with everyone else, was unceremoniously booted off the server. I hadn't managed to get a glimpse of any instances or PvP, but I did give crafting a good shot, which I'll go into next week.
While Aion certainly isn't perfect, there appears to be enough to keep the majority of players interested and enthralled, in the early levels at least. I'm still enjoying the game and even thought about pre-ordering the swanky collector's edition which has just been released.
Next week I'll talk about gathering, crafting and trading, all huge parts of the game, so be sure to check back for that.
04 Aug 2009 at 15:20:00 by Bill Vaughan
After having discussed the extensive character customisation, gameplay and questing, this week I talk about Aion after level ten, some of the recent additions to the beta client, and a few features that I feel could be better.
I had several hours of Aion planned this weekend but the powers that be (my ISP) had other ideas. How typical that the day they develop authentication problems is one of the three days in a fortnight that the Aion beta is open, and the main day I had put back to spend in Atreia. But at 10.30pm when my router sprang back to life, I was logged in and playing before you could blink, until 4.30am, because I have a duty – a duty to bring word of this game to others! Cough. Anyway, on with part three of my Aion preview.
Before the latest test session opened this weekend, NCsoft announced that it would be adding a stack of newly-localised voice files and cut scenes into the beta client. Each faction, the angelic Elyos and the menacing Asmodians, get their own introduction which plays when a new character is created. Western character voices can also be tried out in the creation process now. With this in mind, I went to the character creation screen and rolled a new toon. Randomly selecting a Scout, I chuckled to myself when I saw that someone in the development team is obviously a fan of footballer, David Beckham, because there he is as one of the pre-made characters. This demonstrates again just how intricate the character customisation is, heck, someone already made Barack Obama.
There were a handful of voices to chose from, ranging from average hero to slightly threatening to youthful. You can listen to three or four unique samples of each voice, each suiting the tone you selected, for example, the kid's voice says something like “I can take care of myself!”.
When a fresh toon enters the world of Aion, a flashy cut scene does indeed play now, complete with western voices. It shows the struggle between the three factions in the game; the two playable humanoid races mentioned before and the Balaur, the draconic AI-controlled race. This plays out as a dream, and the new character awakens in the starter area.
Several, though not all, NPCs have voices now, and many pivotal quests have cut scenes with voice-overs, explaining your mission. When the game launches next month, NCsoft says all voices will be present. This adds another level of immersion to a game that already draws you in with its stunning graphics and smooth gameplay.
Back on my original character, who reached the grand level of ten in my last test session, I set off from the city of Sanctum to start my new set of quests in the zone of Verteron. Now, if you've read my two previous articles on Aion, you'll know I think pretty highly of the game so far. I was very impressed with the character creator, which has enough options to ensure you're unlikely to bump into a twin of yourself unless you'd picked one of the dozen or so pre-made characters. Then the following week I talked about the questing, combat and some of the general gameplay you encounter in the first ten levels of Aion. Until that point I found it hard to say anything bad about the game, but after my relatively short time online this week I'm going to mention a few things that I feel could be better.
On my first foray into the wilderness surrounding the first hub in Verteron, I approached a lake. I was looking for mudcrabs, which were plentiful on the shores but I thought I would venture out into the lake to see if I could find some underwater. I waded out, then noticed my character wasn't swimming, just continuing to walk on the lake bed. When his head went underwater a warning message popped up, then he started taking damage, a lot of damage. I jumped, thinking that he would start swimming, but no, still dying. I turned him around and got back to the shore in time, barely.
Wtf? How the heck do I swim in this game? After some investigation, it turns out you can't swim in Aion, period. Apparently, water is used in much the same way that mountains are used in other MMOs, as a boundary. There are plenty of Aion beta testers that feel this is perfectly acceptable – hey, it's better than the dreaded 'invisible walls', right? And surely it's more realistic, I mean, who can swim in full armour with weapons equipped anyway? And who needs swimming when you can fly?
I'm sorry, but that doesn't wash with me. Using water as a boundary works fine in games like GTA, but in a role playing game where your character has to explore the map on foot, searching out quest items and mobs which are located in water sometimes, swimming is as needed as jumping. As for boundaries in Aion, there are plenty of invisible walls. Flying can only be used in certain areas, and if you try to go somewhere off-limits, you find yourself hitting that unseen barrier. No-fly areas seem to be anywhere above a set altitude, cities, certain areas with mobs and, guess what, over water. And to all those that take the view that Aion's non-swimming policy makes logical sense due to the weight of armor and items your character carries around; that would be fine if you could swim after banking everything you carry (you still can't).
I would handle this a lot better if characters simply refused to go any further into water after reaching their limit, or if they took the damage a lot slower, especially considering Aion's death penalty. The whole mechanic seems to be totally out of place in an otherwise polished game. Then there's the issue of character height. My character definitely seemed to start taking damage after his head was emerged. He's towards the taller end of the spectrum, but players can chose to make very short toons, so in theory this actually has gameplay issues. In a PvP situation, a taller player could back into water knowing that a shorter melee-based opponent could not follow.
My next minor grumble was the grind factor after the first ten levels. Asian MMOs are infamous for their pretty graphics but grind-based gameplay. Aion has managed to minimise this a lot, but while I can say that my trip to level ten was fun all the way, after that point I periodically noticed myself getting bored while questing. Having to kill 15 of the same mob is never fun, but there's a few too many of that type of quest in the early teen levels. I enjoyed the combat system when I began playing, saying that the chained skills spiced things up a little. However, I found myself using the same skills in the exact same order on each mob. Don't get me wrong, combat is certainly beautiful to look at, but the pleasure wears a bit thin when you've seen that animation 100 times in 30 minutes.
Back on the subject of flying, as I discovered shortly after testing my wings for the first time, using this as a way of getting from A to B is extremely limited. At level 13 I had around one minute of continuous flight time available to me, and once it was used up it took a while to build back up. Flight time increases as characters level up, and it forces you to use flight strategically, but if you expect to be taking to the skies for long periods once you get your wings, think again.
Having said all that, the flight feature is still fun. While in the air, a bar above your character's head indicates the flight time your character has left, and when it gets really low, a warning buzzer sounds along with another on-screen warning. If you fall more than a few feet you do take damage, but it would take a fall from a reasonable height to kill you. And while being unable to fly in many places, you can still glide. A double-tap on the spacebar produces your character's wings, and you can glide downhill anywhere.
Aion has another resource alongside HP and Mana; Divine Power. After you reach level 10, when you kill a mob you gather aether which slowly builds up. It took me around an hour of questing to build up a full bar of DP. Certain skills use this resource, which are typically powerful attacks that deal lots of damage. Using one of these skills uses up one full bar of DP, but don't feel rushed to use it once the bar is full, it stacks. A small indicator next to the bar shows how many bars you have stacked. It's not just in combat that DP can be utilised either, it can be used in crafting too, but more on that next week.
Lastly, I'll mention titles. By completing quests and tasks players can pick up titles for their characters. In other games these are purely for show, so you'd be forgiven for dismissing a title earned in the early stages of Aion, but I stumbled across the fact that these titles actually provide buffs. While looking through my character profile menu, I saw the three titles I had collected so far, and noticed I could improve my toon's stats by selecting one of them, another nice touch. There are several known titles already, around 50 for each playable faction, offering a selection of benefits.
Before I knew it, my time on the beta had come to an end again and I, along with everyone else, was unceremoniously booted off the server. I hadn't managed to get a glimpse of any instances or PvP, but I did give crafting a good shot, which I'll go into next week.
While Aion certainly isn't perfect, there appears to be enough to keep the majority of players interested and enthralled, in the early levels at least. I'm still enjoying the game and even thought about pre-ordering the swanky collector's edition which has just been released.
Next week I'll talk about gathering, crafting and trading, all huge parts of the game, so be sure to check back for that.