Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Numtini]

Caution, the beta isn't running consistently, it's only every other weekend.

[Draegan]

Caution, the beta isn't running consistently, it's only every other weekend.

Upcoming Closed Beta Events

Closed Beta Event #3 - July 2-July 6
Focus: Asmodian levels 1-20

Closed Beta Event #4 - July 17-July 20
Focus: Elyos and Asmodian levels 1-25

Closed Beta Event #5 - July 31-August 3
Focus: TBD

Closed Beta Event #6 - August 14-August 17
Focus: TBD

[gryeyes]

Caution, the beta isn't running consistently, it's only every other weekend.

Good save

Wouldn't even get a chance to play it until July 17th

[AcidCat]

Wonderful. I wait over 8 hours for this thing to dl and install, and finally think I'm going to play, then this fucking Gameguard shit launches, spits out some gibberish "Error 114", and that's that. Nice.

[Koyasha]

Windows 7?  Gameguard needs a fix in order to run in W7.  http://blog.integrii.net/programs/GameGuard.rar  That's the fix that worked for me.  Replace the GameGuard.des file in your Aion\Bin32 folder.

Course, if your GG error is different or for another reason, this may not work.

[Signe]

I gave it a go and it's just okay so far.  Early this morning, there were so many personal shops set up at this one camp with their stupid text over their stupid heads, that you couldn't even find yourself!  Horrible.  Horrible.  Horrible.  Just like nearly every Korean Mish Mash PoS, though the game itself isn't as bad as most Asian Grindfests.  Maybe after level 10 something amazing happens but it's just so so for me right now.  And, of course, PvP - don't know about that yet.

[Threash]

So far its... not bad.  You know what you will get, same as every other game but its well done like WOW rather than a failure at every single opportunity like WAR.  The graphics are nice, it runs incredibly well on my machine that has trouble with the vastly inferior WAR graphics and it looks "pretty", i had trouble making a character that looked like a man rather than a flat teenage girl with short hair but after playing around with it for a while i managed, the Heihachi Mishima hairdo helped.  It doesn't feel grindy at all in the first 10 levels, i don't know how badly that ramps up later but its no worse than any other game at this point.  Depending on how the pvp is i think this is going to be my game of choice, whether their plan to deal with faction imbalances works or not is yet to be seen but you know what? at least they HAVE a plan which is more than any other game has come up with so far.  I was looking forward to champions online but their lack of villains and real pvp makes Aion the winner so far.

[Mrbloodworth]

and I'm getting over 100fps.

Take a look at the textures up close, even on the highest graphical settings. The textures are clever and colourful, but ridiculously low res. The flashy effects surrounding the textures sort of make up for it, but look at anything up close and you can see why it runs so fast.

The textures are not low resolution.

[Draegan]

I gave it a go and it's just okay so far.  Early this morning, there were so many personal shops set up at this one camp with their stupid text over their stupid heads, that you couldn't even find yourself!  Horrible.  Horrible.  Horrible.  Just like nearly every Korean Mish Mash PoS, though the game itself isn't as bad as most Asian Grindfests.  Maybe after level 10 something amazing happens but it's just so so for me right now.  And, of course, PvP - don't know about that yet.

The first few maps are split up like AOC so you can move to another channel if you like.  Theres a button on your UI and just move to another channel if it's bugging you.

I personally like the shops.  I set one up to sell manastones and went out.  Came home later and I sold my inventory.  I think it's pretty cool.

[Numtini]

I'm very torn on personal shops. I like shopping in games, but they create lagfests in the cities. It's one thing now where there are a dozen people at most in a town. It's quite another when there's two hundred in the main city which was my experience in my short time in Lineage2/Taiwan beta. I would like to hope they add some kind of auction house or that there's one somewhere. That siphons off the majority of sales, but still allows an entrepreneur to set up shop with pots or whatever near a dungeon.

As contrasted with the other Korean grinders I've seen, it has a lot more customization, it's quest rather than grind driven, it seems to not require a buffbot, it seems to have a lot more care put into it, and it seems to have something as a progression other than kill more mobs.

Anyone know if there are instances at some point?

[tmp]

Anyone know if there are instances at some point?

They have some added in patch 1.2 and 1.3 it seems.

[Threash]

BTW is there any hint at a release date?

[Falconeer]

September 25th. Deliberately unconfirmed.

[AcidCat]

I had to change some kind of user control security setting in Vista to get Gameguard to work. And now of course vista keeps warning me about it. Kind of weird, no other game has made me do anything like that. Game itself is okay, though I kept having Lineage II flashbacks ... not even sure exactly what reminded me of it most. Maybe just the player character models.

[Rendakor]

I think ~launch-era EQ2's model of Player Shops was the closest to tolerable. Players could sell, but only from their instanced house; there was a Broker with a more WoW-AH style interface that allowed you to browse what people were selling. Then, you could either buy from the broker and pay a markup, or you could walk directly to their house to buy directly from the player. Dealing with 100+ people all sitting there with a block of text over their head is just 

[Draegan]

Anyone know if there are instances at some point?

They have some added in patch 1.2 and 1.3 it seems.

There are some in the game but at higher levels.  They've added more to the game in the other patches.  I think anyway.

[Signe]

Thanks for the tip, Draegan.  I like personal shops, too, as long as they're not too intrusive.  It was just all these tiny campsites with dozens and dozens of them and you couldn't even figure out which text belonged to which shop.  My favourite thing in MMOs, however, is auction houses.  I could just play auction house in WoW for hours sometimes. 

PS  I was told the release date for NA was September 1 by some unnamed game guy recently.  IGN says it's September 30.  So, I'm assuming it's in there somewhere.  I don't know if I'll play.  If post level 10 is the same, probably not unless it has some sort of extroidinary PvP or crafting or something.  I don't hold my breath for good PvP, though.  It very nearly almost always ends up crappy.

[Numtini]

I popped into some of the higher channels and you can have an entire server to yourself essentially. It's kind of creepy. Nobody there at all, just you and the NPCs. It's like playing Warhammer or something 

[01101010]

Giving it a run yesterday and this morning, I gotta admit... the scenery looks strikingly similar to WoW in some parts. And that is not a slam by any means. Being a priest, I don't have any wtfown abilities, however the animations for it are pretty fancy - aside from the untranslated audio. I do like the added cutscenes for some of the epic-line missions, being just long enough to develop an idea of what the hell is going on or what to do and where to do it, but short enough to not frustrate my ADHD side.  

Reaching level 10 and doing the Daeva quest was meh, but having wings is pretty slick - I do, however, think that novelty will wear off soon enough. But for now, I like the fly-fly. I will have to run my chanter around later and fool with the first subclass stuff when the wife releases me back onto the net.

The only real drawback so far is running/walking. My character seems like it is running at a frantic pace but my distance and time say otherwise. Perhaps he leans too far forward when running, but meh... its a small detail. Nice, short, quick and dirty little MMO.

edit: Enter key, why do you fail me??

[Draegan]

Priests don't own until you get combos which I think are around level 11 or 12.  Clerics are one of the best classes in the game apparently.

Also if you're curious when you open your skill screen with "K", in the upper right hand corner is "Chains" click on that and you can view all your chained abilities.  Also you can click on the tab for Skill List and you can see all the skills your character gets.  Before you pick the subclass you only see the skills from 1-9 then once you pick your class you can see everything up to 50.

edit to add:
I just figured out how to make your weapons +1 etc.  At a general store there is some powder you can buy for 800 kinah, click on it and then on a weapon or armor and it transforms it into cloud of something.  You can then click on that and then a piece of gear.  I got my Mace of the Lake to +2.  Woot.

[01101010]

Priests don't own until you get combos which I think are around level 11 or 12.  Clerics are one of the best classes in the game apparently.

Also if you're curious when you open your skill screen with "K", in the upper right hand corner is "Chains" click on that and you can view all your chained abilities.  Also you can click on the tab for Skill List and you can see all the skills your character gets.  Before you pick the subclass you only see the skills from 1-9 then once you pick your class you can see everything up to 50.

edit to add:
I just figured out how to make your weapons +1 etc.  At a general store there is some powder you can buy for 800 kinah, click on it and then on a weapon or armor and it transforms it into cloud of something.  You can then click on that and then a piece of gear.  I got my Mace of the Lake to +2.  Woot.

I actually found that out when I was screwing around opening and closing everything. There is a ton of options if you care to look. I am digging the Chanter and his bo. Good tip on the +1 stuff. I'll check it out when i jump on later this evening.

[DLRiley]

Wow Draegan you seem real excited to play Aion. I'm counting on you to take one for the team.

[Draegan]

I've been following the game for a few years now.  I don't think this will be "taking one for the team".  I enjoy the game enough in the first 30 hours of playtime (during COB) and thats good enough to pick it up with the NA launch.

[Ratman_tf]

You can ask me any question you like.  I played the game for 20 hours or so (maybe more) and got through the first three PVE areas up to level 20.

One thing I really hated about GW is how non-intuitive the terrain was. Like, you walk up to a ledge that would be just a ledge in WoW, and in GW it's an impassible "wall".

Is there any of that in Aion?

[Falconeer]

No.

Plus you couldn't jump there, while here you can. Not to mention fly.

[Falconeer]

Seriously, I understand everyone concerns here, but since many keep wondering what is it like, I have a honest question for everyone who tried it:

could you find one single thing this game doesn't do better than WoW in the first 10 levels? I am all ears.

[Nebu]

This goes back to my little innovation rant.  People want something slightly different from WoW and will accept less polished if it delivers a new type of experience.  I think this is why AoC and WAR attracted so many box sales.  Both titles were advertised as not WoW. 

Unfortunately for AoC and WAR, they both delivered not WoW in playability as well.  Both titles gave us a VERY fun experience early on (1-20 in AoC and Tier 1 in WAR) but suffered greatly in late game progression and "stickiness".

[tmp]

could you find one single thing this game doesn't do better than WoW in the first 10 levels? I am all ears.

First 10 levels... the mobs seem to have relatively more health, take noticeable time and handful of attacks to defeat and you can actually die fighting just one of them, let alone two. Think it's mostly drawback of playing a scout (they're weak in PvE for looong time) but the longer 'time to kill' is noticeable for other classes, too.

[Draegan]

One thing I really hated about GW is how non-intuitive the terrain was. Like, you walk up to a ledge that would be just a ledge in WoW, and in GW it's an impassible "wall".

Is there any of that in Aion?

It's a full open world.  Or they do a good job tricking you of thinking so.  The first area, by looking at the map, is pretty enclosed where there isn't much outside the path you're following, though it is pretty large.  But you can jump off cliffs and other things.

But you can't fucking swim.  I don't get it.  But it's as open as any WOW zone.

This goes back to my little innovation rant.  People want something slightly different from WoW and will accept less polished if it delivers a new type of experience.  I think this is why AoC and WAR attracted so many box sales.  Both titles were advertised as not WoW.  

Unfortunately for AoC and WAR, they both delivered not WoW in playability as well.  Both titles gave us a VERY fun experience early on (1-20 in AoC and Tier 1 in WAR) but suffered greatly in late game progression and "stickiness".

How can you use WAR when you talk about a new experience?  Aion is just as "different" as WAR was when compared to WOW.

First 10 levels... the mobs seem to have relatively more health, take noticeable time and handful of attacks to defeat and you can actually die fighting just one of them, let alone two. Think it's mostly drawback of playing a scout (they're weak in PvE for looong time) but the longer 'time to kill' is noticeable for other classes, too.

I've played each class up to 10 at least if you take in Chinese OB and this last weekend.  Scouts are by far the hardest class to play early on.  I played a warrior for shits and giggles yesterday and 1-10 was quick and easy.  I was killing mobs probably faster than WOW's newbie experience.

For the first 10 levels order of ease is probably Warrior, Priest, Mage, Scout

[tmp]

Oh, one more thing i almost managed to block out by now (played the chinese open beta thing) ... the UI can be infuriating with its inflexible "move but a pixel and kiss that dialogue window you had open goodbye" and similar junk.

I wrote down some more detailed impressions (both positive and negative) earlier in this thread i think, but too lazy to try and dig them out.

[Threash]

Is there any way to customize your character abilities like talent points or something in that style, or is everyone of the same class always the same?

[Falconeer]

Thanks, tmp.

And Threash customization lies in the still unexplored (by me) "stigma" system. So yes, everyone is different in a "talent" fashion.

[BitWarrior]

Stigma System Guide

[Threash]

Stigma System Guide

Thanks for that, it doesn't seem to offer a whole lot of options sadly.

[Ashamanchill]

Sorry to place what is probably a stupid question in here, but how are the tank classes playing.  In terms of soloing, and any dungeons/group pve you have done.  Since ChampsOnline looks like it won't be out until too late for me and my buddies, we'll probably pick this one up, and I'm always the tank of the bunch.