Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Tale]

Why is everyone using Win7?

You're in a thread about trying a frustrating foreign language beta version of an obscure videogame. These people try Windows 7.

[Falconeer]

But but
The Chinese videogame doesn't fuck up my everything else when it fails to make sense.

[vex]

Also I know theres a way to glide but can't remember it for the life of me...can someone tell me how to do it?

Just double jump.  It doesn't work everywhere though and of course you need a down hill slope to do it effectively.

For some reason I'm enjoying this game.

[Falconeer]

Why exactly should people enjoy WoW and not enjoy this?

[Draegan]

I made a "dwarf".

I thought you made Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Good call.  I have another one where the beard is longer and fuller.  It was more dwarf like.

[Nija]

Why is everyone using Win7?

You're in a thread about trying a frustrating foreign language beta version of an obscure videogame. These people try Windows 7.

Win7 is going to be the strongest OS MS has released since Windows 2000.

It's fantastic.

[DLRiley]

Why exactly should people enjoy WoW and not enjoy this?

I don't think there is a reason, but like LotR and FF11 ultimately no one cares. If Aion is a solid game it will get enough "I don't want to play WoW or bored of WoW but not tired of WoW players" to be moderately successful.

[Falconeer]

Why is everyone using Win7?

You're in a thread about trying a frustrating foreign language beta version of an obscure videogame. These people try Windows 7.

Win7 is going to be the strongest OS MS has released since Windows 2000.

It's fantastic.

For sure!
But.. now?

[Lucas]

Ten screenshots for your viewing pleasure (1920x1200 max detail, AA 8x, 8800GTS 640MB). Enjoy the sights with Jill, my sexy dominatrix sorceress.

[Hawkbit]

Why exactly should people enjoy WoW and not enjoy this?

I don't think there is a reason, but like LotR and FF11 ultimately no one cares. If Aion is a solid game it will get enough "I don't want to play WoW or bored of WoW but not tired of WoW players" to be moderately successful.

Aion is about the closest gameplay to WoW I've seen yet.  I liked the bit I played of the beta.  I'll likely buy it when it comes out.  I suspect, though, that like WoW I'll get bored at the cap and quit unless there's endgame that doesn't require me sitting at my PC for hours without the ability to get out of my chair when my family needs me. 

EDIT:  Super props on a unique looking game though.  I really like the style.

[Draegan]

Here is something that was described to me in the Korean release of the game.

After level 20 or 25ish the PVP in this game opens up.  Other than the Abyss and the activities that go on there you have what they call Rifts.  These are portals that open up randomly between the two different sides.  There is a game wide annoucement that a rift has opened in such and such area.

At one point everyone on one side got in and started taking over that area killing NPCs and PCs alike until the other side pushed back and drove them out.  Apparently there were hours of fun to be had.

The key I think is the rewards for killing people.  What do you get for killing.  I still don't know much about the ranking system/reward system for PVP.  Hopefully it's not WAR bad.

[tmp]

For sure!
But.. now?

It lets people do away with XP and play with Vista without having to admit it's pretty silly to hate on Vista after it had years to shape up and get solid driver base. And since it basically *is* Vista, it's pretty stable from what i hear.

Anyway re: Aion, played it to l.10 yesterday. Overall impression so far is, it just tries too hard. The constant, exaggerated animations whenever a character stands still for just a second, equally exaggerated facial animations that turn your character in some sort of Joker minus the face paint, the weapon and costume designs that make art deco an example of refined restraint... these just don't help. There's also some leftovers from old games that don't help the experience either (NPC dialogue panels and other things like 'inspect' panels closing as soon as you select something else, for quest dialogues it frequently means you have no way to get that text back ... lack of a 'try on' feature is minor but also annoying after playing games which do provide it) Out-of-combat regen is for some odd reason kept low and the individual mobs can hit pretty hard, forcing the player to spend some seconds after every other fight on sitting down and getting up... don't know what for, exactly, it doesn't add anything.

The bunch of cliches aka the grand story of "you were the ultimate bad-ass, one of chosen few, and now you're not only the ultimate bad-ass but also the one person who might save the world. But alas, you have amnesia." doesn't really work in the MMO where you can see million other players go through the same motions of hunting the same ten rats and reach their own identical enlightement. Nothing new, but the exaggeration again backfires and just makes the silliness even more apparent.

Oh and the range of character size slider together with the head size slider result in experience more freaky than Second Life can provide. If there's one "wtf" feature in this game, that's it.

There's some nice touches and ideas here and there (occasional nice spots in the world, combo skills, skinning the appearance of gear unlocked for later levels) but they're generally buried under thick layer of what feels like ten different cakes someone has barfed all over the whole thing.

Overall it seems like a solid game... but very meh. Like a blockbuster that fails because it tries to one-up everything made so far, and so it goes from start to end cranked up to 11; and after short while it just tires the viewer out.

[Mrbloodworth]

That's some really stunning art.

[Draegan]

You can "try on" item by ctrl-left clicking.

[Nerf]

You can "try on" item by ctrl-left clicking.

There is also an NPC that lets you pay to change the appearance of an item to the appearance of a donor item.  So if you have a level 10 breastplate that looks fucking amazing and don't want to get rid of it, you can make your end game super rare raiding item look like it.

Should do away with the cookie-cutter looks.

[Tarami]

The Chinese version isn't what's going to get released over here though, so some of the typical Asian exaggerations might be tuned down once we get to buy it. Atleast that's what they've claimed, who knows for sure.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/61732

The work we are doing on Aion goes well beyond just translation and localization; Aion is being completely globalized for the Western market.  We strongly believe that it is not enough for a particular quest or reference to be just be translated correctly—it must be culturally relevant for our audience.  So it is up to us to make sure that we implement this culturalization into Aion and allow western players to be immersed in a world to which they can relate.

But yes, it's definitely trying too hard. The vast majority of the emotes make me cringe, and at the same time, the combat looks so goddamn boring since I've been spamming my single offensive spell for nine levels.

[Nija]

For sure!
But.. now?

Yes, now. The copy I have expires 3/1/2010. I'll be supporting it in the workplace at release, no doubt, as they rolled out Vista here ASAP as well. Everyone is going to be using it, you might as well get accustomed to it now.

It'll keep you away from shitty Korean grindfests at bare minimum.

[Merusk]

For sure!
But.. now?

Yes, now. The copy I have expires 3/1/2010. I'll be supporting it in the workplace at release, no doubt, as they rolled out Vista here ASAP as well. Everyone is going to be using it, you might as well get accustomed to it now.

Well, not everyone. Just companties who actually upgrade software.

Have I mentioned we still run Windows 2k and Office 97 on lots of machines recently?  If not, I just did.  Sorry, but it's a bit of a sore point that I have to send stuff home and save it down to be able to open it at work.

[Nija]

Have I mentioned we still run Windows 2k and Office 97 on lots of machines recently?  If not, I just did.  Sorry, but it's a bit of a sore point that I have to send stuff home and save it down to be able to open it at work.

I was the same way, pretty much. Win 2k pro is great, as far as I'm concerned. We were using Office 2k though - not 97.

The place I work at got gobbled up by a huge company last year and now we're state of the fucking art and it is time consuming.

[Lantyssa]

There is also an NPC that lets you pay to change the appearance of an item to the appearance of a donor item.  So if you have a level 10 breastplate that looks fucking amazing and don't want to get rid of it, you can make your end game super rare raiding item look like it.

Seriously?  About time a game had this designed in from the start.

[rk47]

that is amazing feature, but is there any crafting at all in the game? If there is any is it anything like Lineage 2 painful drop hunts ?

[Falconeer]

Out-of-combat regen is for some odd reason kept low and the individual mobs can hit pretty hard, forcing the player to spend some seconds after every other fight on sitting down and getting up...

Rest (sitting) is for emergencies while to kill the downtime you are supposed to use bandages, who are available to all classes if I am not mistaken. They serve the function of minor money sink too. Potions work the same way they did in AoC apparently (heal over time only).
Crafting, I don't know, butr harvesting is the usual thing with an additional layer of coolness. Sweeet.

This turd makes so many little things the right way.

[Draegan]

Gathering is easy.  The higher the skill the faster your gather takes and there are sooooo many nodes to gather from.

I havn't done crafting yet but I believe it's the same old stuff.  Alchemy is really good though from the potions etc you can make.  I have no idea about the viability of the others since I hate crafting in games so I havn't really looked into it.

Regen is fine.  I have abilities to regen my mana and health called treatments.  Not sure what there is for Rogues and Soldiers outside pots and bandages.

[Falconeer]

Huge props to NCsoft.

For the first time I can do a beautiful overweight character.

[schild]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY

Seriously though, the game really put me off with the feet and "extra fur" thus practically ensuring I'll never be able to tolerate it even if they make the opening less 'meh' for America.

[Hindenburg]

Otherkin, maybe. Not enough fur for furry.

[Falconeer]

Furry? Wait, no way! Oh fuck, no! And I am playing an Asmodian now cause I'll definitely go with a human at launch.

You know what Schild? There's some kind of mild excitement peak at level 5 or something when you trigger the cool "flying vision" cutscene. That is a good opening.
I wonder why they didn't make anything like that from the get go. In 2009 when you get at level 5 with no surprises you are (with good reasons) already jaded.

[Lantyssa]

She's way too muscular to be overweight.  Allowing a character to have some bulk is nice though.  I'm tired of being a twig.

[DLRiley]

Wow, why does your character look like the girls around my neighborhood 

[UnSub]

Wow, why does your character look like the girls around my neighborhood 

Their eyes glow?

[DLRiley]

Wow, why does your character look like the girls around my neighborhood 

Their eyes glow?

When their wearing contacts sure 

[tmp]

Rest (sitting) is for emergencies while to kill the downtime you are supposed to use bandages, who are available to all classes if I am not mistaken. They serve the function of minor money sink too. Potions work the same way they did in AoC apparently (heal over time only).

Yeah, but the catch is using the bandage involves animation of character kneeling down and the induction bar that together take about as long as enabling sit mode for the couple seconds it'll take to regen the same health amount. So it's minor money sink which doesn't really work because there's no compelling reason to utilize it -- either way ii'll be spending time with ass on the ground, just in one case it also costs me game money to boot.

Good news about the "try on" function; feels really silly i missed it when LotRO has the same ctrl-left click shortcut for it and i've been using it there for months.

Dabbled with crafting today, it's quite decent. Similar "gather stuff and click to combine" approach like in the other games, though it has the extra cockblock that's a chance to fail making the item (related to level of crafting prowess vs required skill level)  On the upside, they provide "craft quests" of sorts which allow to easily increase the craft level and earn some regular xp to boot without having to gather billion raw hides or pieces of iron ore in the world.

re: trying too hard. Found something that shows it in the nutshell.

this eyesore is what happens if player doesn't die often enough. There's apparently some DP points gained from monster kills, as you gain these points you also gain extra particle effects which are fortunately only visible to the player themselves i presume, since i haven't seen anyone else running like that. Screenshot is with the DP gauge at level 3 which is max for my lowbie character. The effect is pretty permanent and the only way i could find to get rid of it is to die

edit: logging out clears the DP gauge so that's another way to get rid of it. It's just i'm guessing that gauge signifies some helpful effect, so the visual punishment that comes with it is just hard to explain.

[raydeen]

Huge props to NCsoft.

For the first time I can do a beautiful overweight character.

He likes big butts and he cannot lie.

[Draegan]

You don't have a DP skill?  I think I had one at level 10.

[Segoris]

Aside from some cosmetic things (it "feels" like I'm running slow, hitting autorun while pushing any other button won't enable autorun, small things like this) I don't have any complaints so far for this type of a game. It's fun, and grouping with people when I have no clue what they're saying is good times.

Edit: Oh, and bonus points for the transparent map