Advantages of Aion
Hello everyone!
This article is the result of my long, even somewhat prolonged acquaintance with the game on servers in Korea/China and, yes, Europe. Before Aion, I underwent intensive therapy with "Lineage" (mostly), "Ivaga", "Wova" and so on. I hope this will help you make an informed choice - whether or not to play Aion. Please, ask your questions, share your opinions and experiences.
Part 1. Advantages
Graphics - An enormous plus without a doubt. The game is built, as you know, on the excellent CryEngine engine, albeit the first version. The graphics are so beautiful that they sometimes compel you to stop and simply observe the beauty and depth of the world, the butterflies flying around, the shimmering turquoise surface of the rivers. Naturally, all this would not be beautiful if not for the world-renowned South Korean artists. Despite all the beauty and modernity of the graphics (shaders, blooms, and other accessories included), the engine allows comfortable gameplay even on relatively weak machines.
My Core 2 Duo 4500 with a morally and physically outdated ATI 1950 graphics card delivers a solid 50 fps in almost all areas at full graphics settings, without freezes, loading times, and other "parasites". On the same configuration in Lineage II, I can hardly play, while in WoW at maximum graphics settings, the picture looks objectively worse and turns into a slideshow.
Class Balance - There are only 8 classes, and both races have identical classes.
Some may consider this a blatant oversight or laziness on the part of the developers, but look at games where there are tons of classes, yet only a few are playable? Or remember the eternal problems with class balance between different races when their classes are different? Aion is devoid of all this, and this is the absolutely correct solution! All classes in Aion have a right to exist, there are no "useless profs" or other "warlords". Each class in Aion fulfills its role, both solo and in a group.
Crafting - When I first made a "blue" item in Aion, I fell in love with crafting in this game.
As in any good game, crafting is useful and necessary, but in Aion, crafting does not bring headaches on one hand and brings fun with its "blue crits" on the other. Craft a lot - you can pamper yourself in every way. The resulting items from crafting crits are unique, very valuable, and scarce. Every player can become a professional in any field of crafting from bows, jewelry, to potions and food, and in one of the fields, become a master.
Flying - flying adds a new dimension not only for usual travel from point A to B, but also in PvP, PvE, and resource gathering.
This makes Aion unique in its kind. You cannot take off everywhere, but you can glide almost everywhere. The coolest part is climbing to some steep cliff, jumping off, spreading your wings at the last moment, and smoothly gliding somewhere. The sensations are indescribable; you have to try it yourself. Flight is limited in time but well-balanced, and therefore, it does not become tedious.
Skill Chains - Skill chains will completely change your perception of gameplay in MMORPGs. Hardcore players from premium guilds in Chinese WoW admitted that in Aion all their skills are worth little, and they have to retrain themselves, their fingers, and reconfigure their gamepads and keyboards specifically for Aion. They were extremely satisfied with the combat because there’s no more mindless pressing one button, then another, then back to the first button. You have to think, build a battle strategy in your head while waiting for specific skills to cooldown, using CC in the meantime. Continuing on the topic...
PvE - From the very first levels, you will not be able to kill mobs in "afk" mode. As I mentioned before, you’ll always have to keep the battle under your control. If you divert your attention for a second or two, the battle usually ends with your death, and not from the mob. :) Killing monsters in Aion is not as simple as in other games I’ve played, but the rewards are also good. The leveling speed is slightly slower than in WoW and much (no, perhaps much-much) faster than in Lineage II. It may not be as fast as you’d like, but it is definitely interesting.
PvP - This aspect remains not thoroughly explored for me, as I could only climb to the lowest ranks in PvP when I played in Korea, but PvP is no less complex than PvE in terms of combat dynamics with that adrenaline rush typical to all games of this genre. Everything seems normal here, but I have always enjoyed incursions into enemy territory through periodically opening portals with the intention of wiping out unsuspecting leveling noobs. :)
Character Creation - Aion has the best character customizer I’ve ever seen in my life. Sims 3 pales in comparison, and others (genre-related) games are hardly even worth mentioning; in all other games, it’s just nothing, unless EvE and City of Heroes slightly catch up in capabilities, but just slightly. The number of character variations tends toward a very large number, and in the new patch 1.2 it is practically limitless. Just consider the player-created copies of Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, and other celebrities. The character creation screen in Aion is a separate, wonderful game.
Loot - I am very glad that the department at NCSoft responsible for developing Lineage II does not share details with the neighboring department for Aion.
Items in "Lineage" now do not drop from mobs at all, what drops there now cannot be called items for normal people. :) In Aion, everything is fine, the amount of loot is very balanced, not too much, but not too little either. Apart from all the junk (there is absolutely no junk in Aion), you can get a unique item with a good chance and keep it for yourself or sell it for a good price.
My review does not cover all aspects of the game; I decided to focus only on the main points, but since the post turned out to be too long anyway, I decided to release a second part on the drawbacks right after this one. Stay tuned for updates!
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