I want to start off by saying a few things about my expectancy of Aion before I give my first impression on the good and the bad. First off I am not looking for something that is going to break the mold. I wanted something pretty to look at while I had fun killing monsters like in every other mmorpg. I'm not looking for a game that has new innovative questing.. questing is questing to me. I am at the point no matter what is in that box I will only read the directions how to kill X.
So with that said, lets get started! I have only played for the first day, so I can't give a full review on this game yet. My first impressions are mostly on the Mage role. I tried them all out, which took some time, (that and the character creation.. we will come back to this ;) ), and finally settled on a caster. I have not got past 9 sadly due to trying things out to get a feel for what I wanted. I plan to get past that tomorrow!
Anywho.. I seemed to have picked a decent server (for now), and had no queue. I was happy.. after the updates, to log in w/o any hindrances. I've always liked Dark Elf type characters so I picked a server I could make an Asmodian on. I'm quite happy with it so far.
The character creation was great! I spent too long in there finally when I picked the class I was going to lvl for sure, after remaking her twice.. I said no more lol. The characters in this game are some of the most beautiful I have seen in any game. It's like taking Lineage 2 and Guild Wars models and mixing them into WoW.. almost.
You can really get into detail, I even saw people who made chars that looked like dwarves. The hairstyles are like my dream game hairstyles! They go way and beyond AoC and any other game I have played. They are simply the best, tons of choices.
The world. Oh my it is a lovely place. Stunning, it was a nice change from Champions. I felt like I was in a fantasy place, not some lifeless city or sparse forest. Not bright in your face colors either. So you get it, I love how the game looks. I loved how L2 looked too, didn't mean I played it past a week lol.
Game play. It really was enjoyable. Different, not bad though. Combat reminded me of Runes of Magic slightly. From what I have done so far, I have not died once vs getting killed every 10 min on my last MMORPG I wanted to give a shot.. Champions. This game will take that spot for sure. There were some annoying things, like my character blabbing her mouth off everytime she casts, I turned that off after a couple of hours. The game is not perfect but it was simple enough, yet you had to still think about what you were doing.
I cannot say how high end is but I am looking forward to it. This WILL BE my new game to stick with. It may last only till Cataclysm, maybe beyond. Only time will tell.
Polish! The game has been converted from the Korean version which has been out for almost a year. So yeah we get the polished version with the bugs smoothed out. More than I can say for any game since 2004. They did have a head start on that, but I am glad they did.
I did do a little reading and figured the Spirit Master would be the class for me. It seems a decent solo class, and I love pet classes. This looks like the class for me, unless I can recruit some friends/family, I might then make a healer. But for now pretty happy with the mage type.
Performance. I was really surprised to see how polished and smooth the game is. It makes some of the graphic intense games out there look bad honestly. I'd say this would run better on older machines than any out there besides WoW, which has the lead there.
The UI was simple enough, I liked it. Controls are pretty much the same, you can always remap keys too. Combat with it was smooth, chain "combo" spells pop up on the screen or on the spell key that triggered it. Nothing spectacular but easy for me, how I like it. I am lazy and old. No spamming keys for melee combat like AoC.. which I hated. That's bad on the Carpal Tunnel :(
The bad.. hrmm. I really am impressed by the game. Maybe because it's not beyond my expectations. The chat is a bit different, but not hard to get use to.
Really it's not as slow as I have read on some other sites reviews, I could kill most mobs in three nukes. Maybe for other classes it could be. However it's not as easy as WoW, then again I am not playing WoW for a reason atm. It is slow I will admit when you compare it to WoW. When I first started WoW I thought, gee this is a kiddie game. EASY MODE! That was my first thought as an EQ player. People who compare it to L2.. must not remember how painful and slow combat was in that game.
I wish it had more of a quest helper built in like Champions, AoC, WAR.. just to name a few. But it does have options to show you where to go, you just can't be lazy.
Flying. I went into this game knowing it is limited. If I had to say my biggest issue, it would be flying. But knowing how it is before hand, it's not so much of a let down.
My feelings could change as time goes on but as I see it now this is my game of choice for the long run. I am pretty smitten with it so far.
On a side note NC Soft added in a quick character search option similar to WoW armory with a 3D character view along with it. Pretty cool!
My first impressions. -kaozz
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