Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Draegan]

There is a GCD.  Combat is just like WOW except there are additional delays with combat animations (one of things I hate in Aion).

Fastest duo in Korea was a Chanter and Assassin.

If I were creating a self sufficient duo I'd probably go with a Gladiator/Chanter or Assassin/Chanter.  Decent PVP duo, great PVE duo. 

The Glad can tank almost everything except some end game stuff, good melee AOE dps. 
The Chanter has great group buffs, decent healing in the form of HOTs and small single target heals.  They have a run speed group aura which is supposedly decent.
The Assassin has some of the best single target dps in the game.  The class basically wrecks small scale PVE, and does very well in PVP as well.

If you want to focus mainly on PVP though I'd change out the chanter for a cleric for dispels.

[Zetor]

Even if there is a GCD (though it seems to be very quick on the videos, 1 second? 0.5 sec?), I would like to play a caster class simply because playing melee in wow with my ping is pure hell. I don't even want to think about positionals, combos, counters and stances. :p Casters are much much more lag-friendly, esp if they have some sort of built-in ability queuing like wow.

[Falconeer]

The sad thing is I can't really fault them, I was the same way about WAR when it came out.  I was incredibly excited and argued vociferously with anyone who said anything negative about the game.  It was gong to be the savior of PvP MMO's!

Of course when the game launched and turned out to be a steaming pile of crap I got religion pretty quick...

Two quickies:

1) I think Aion *might* be fun, sure, but I said multiple times I don't know if it will be. My time on this thread has been merely spent trying to shed some light on the shades of grey some are loving to miss cause it's too much fun to just say boo. Or baah.

2) The game is already out in many countries and no one is talking about failure, let alone of Warhammer proportions. Quite the opposite actually.

Next one who hints to me as if I am thinking of this as Robot Jesus on PvP sauce will be just branding him/herself a fucking muppet with a passion for kiddish playfulness. Basically, a furry.

[Draegan]

Even if there is a GCD (though it seems to be very quick on the videos, 1 second? 0.5 sec?), I would like to play a caster class simply because playing melee in wow with my ping is pure hell. I don't even want to think about positionals, combos, counters and stances. :p Casters are much much more lag-friendly, esp if they have some sort of built-in ability queuing like wow.

GCD is about a second or so.  It may be 1.2 but I'm not sure.  There is no built in ability queue, WOW doesn't have it either.

Next one who hints to me as if I am thinking of this as Robot Jesus on PvP sauce will be just branding him/herself a fucking muppet with a passion for kiddish playfulness. Basically, a furry.

I think I've been very consistent throughout the thread saying this is another Diku MMOG thats new and shiny with a PVP focus.  I've never claimed it was the next best thing.  I just think it's going to be the "The Next Fun Thing" for me.  I've just been spending the last 10 pages or so arguing with people about opinions of the game's design.  There is plenty I'd like to see differently in the game, but know one has brought up my concerns to argue for or against them.

[Zetor]

Even if there is a GCD (though it seems to be very quick on the videos, 1 second? 0.5 sec?), I would like to play a caster class simply because playing melee in wow with my ping is pure hell. I don't even want to think about positionals, combos, counters and stances. :p Casters are much much more lag-friendly, esp if they have some sort of built-in ability queuing like wow.

GCD is about a second or so.  It may be 1.2 but I'm not sure.  There is no built in ability queue, WOW doesn't have it either.

There is a single-spell queue in WOW, it was added in 2.3. I remember this because my affliction lock's DPS jumped by about 20% after the patch. It would've been even better if I was destruction spec. :p
1 second GCD is meh, but it's still better than no GCD. I guess my main concern is, if you have a very low GCD, it seriously penalizes players with bad pings... and there's always going to be a lot of those (unless you have a server farm hosted in Australia, among others).

Anyway, what's the scoop on ranged classes? Do they synergize well with healers? The post I linked mentioned that casting locks facing until the cast is done, which sounds like it'll make kiting a bit different (but probably still doable).


Edit [referencing the below post]: Yeah, I posted about it, reply #1189... I think it's a reasonable post, and underlines that aion isn't meant to be a wow-killer.

[Hawkbit]

This might have been posted, I can't remember because there's been so much trolling here lately.  This was posted on my WoW guild's (even though I don't play anymore) forums.

I know Aion feels a lot like WoW, but it does some things pretty differently and this person points those out.  Does a real good job of pointing out the big things to people coming from WoW.  Also made me wish Aion was live right now.

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Ugly-Gnome/Aion-Why-you-should-and-shouldnt-play

[Draegan]

I totally forgot about that spell queue.  I havn't played a caster since before that.  My bad.

I think you can turn off "auto-approach" but I'm not sure, which will change that.  However you can kite just fine, it won't force you to turn if you are current controlling your character.

Range Classes:
Ranger:  Extremely bursty.  The crit range is large so you can get really crappy small crits or huge ones.  It's a shame a lot of it's random, but that's in 1.0.  Apparently now in the test realm they've tightened the crit window.  This class has some CC and is very weak if a melee person gets in on them (low armor and hps) but has some evasion buffs.  Also, this class starts off REALLY SLOW.  You really don't feel like a ranger until at least in your low twenties.  You get your first ranged chain at 16, and another skill at 19 which is where it picks up.  But if you're grouped with a friend it shouldn't be an issue.  Expect to melee at least up until level 16 or so.

Sorcerer:  Big time CC class. (Don't fret they are adding anti CC resist stats on all gear in 1.5 apparently Sauce)  Anyway very bursty also but not as much as the ranger but their sustained DPS is higher.  Extremely squishy.  You get caught by an assassin or ranger when you're not ready with your shields up you're dead.  Has a few damage shields though.

Spirit Master:  Pets, Dots, AOE Dots, fears.  You have skills that you use through your pet which is neat.  A few issues though, pets can't fly so you can be limitied in the Abyss.  Very good soloer.  Has an ability called crash that the pet has.  Reduces flight time by 50% or something.  I played one up through 18.  Fun class.  Has an awesome level 50 DP skill that summons a gigantic badass pet.

Hope that helps.

[Segoris]

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Ugly-Gnome/Aion-Why-you-should-and-shouldnt-play

Was posted about an hour ago, but more people will probably see your link. It's a decent read.

There is a GCD.  Combat is just like WOW except there are additional delays with combat animations (one of things I hate in Aion).

As for the spell animations, back in the Chinese open beta I found that unsheathing your weapon will minimize the time it takes to begin the spell cast.

[Draegan]

Thats why you'll see ranger jumping around a lot.  It's the same thing.

Also on that link which was pretty good.  There are a few misconceptions, especially with the cost of death xp recovery.  I also thought this game had Tournaments and Arenas.  There are tons of videos out there with them.

[Vash]

I also thought this game had Tournaments and Arenas.  There are tons of videos out there with them.

Could just be player organized and player run stuff.   The whole concept for Arena's in WoW came from players on many different servers running their own 5v5 (or other #v#) tournaments in the STV / DM arenas.

[Draegan]

That's possible.  It just looked much more organized than just a few players getting together .

edit:
My english sucked in this post.

[tmp]

There's arena kind of place in the main faction city but it seems more like "lot of people enter, some people leave" thing than organized matches. Could be wrong though, being l.10 ranger at the time it didn't seem very reasonable to try it first hand.

[DLRiley]

2) The game is already out in many countries and no one is talking about failure, let alone of Warhammer proportions. Quite the opposite actually.

You mean multiple Asian countries were games like maple story make multimillion dollars in profit....

[Falconeer]

Lineage 2 had free pointless arenas for a while, but at some point the Grand Olympiad tournament was patched in, and it was a big deal. So it might not be in at launch, but I think it's safe to assume they will definitely develop on it.

[Senses]

Hoax's post should make anyone else who has voiced some skepticism over Aion's pvp in the last few pages feel embarassed for sharing the same opinion as him, despite the ass-backwards way he arrived at it.

So seeing this on the top seller list on Steam isn't in error huh, this is The Next Big Thing in pvp mmo's.  Yeah enjoy your FOTM failsauce bullshit along with the Darkfall and Mourning chaps.  Or wait, is this just the I'm so sick of WoW that I'll try anything crowd I've been waiting to gather since 6 months after the launch of that failboat?

You must be new at the whole MMO thing Senseless, go dickride some lineage clone (WITH FLIGHT!?) on the vault or something.

Or barring that, feel free to just quote the posts where you think in the pages of useless fanboi versus sane posting that I'm sure has gone on here that your side has proven that creating a ranking system that punishes people for losing is totally going to up the quality and quantity of the combat that any player who doesn't get their kicks whacking the foozles craves.

Let me guess this thread went something like:
-that system sounds like the failure that was the original WoW honor system
NUH UH WOW IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT GAME AION IS GOING TO HAVE ALL THESE REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS THAT NOBODY HAS EVER EXECUTED BEFORE AND IT WILL AMAZE YOU!  IN FACT FROM NOW ON ANYBODY WHO QUESTIONS JUST HOW WELL ALL THIS PIE IN THE SKY SHIT THEY ARE PROMISING WILL WORK BASED ON LOGICAL EXPECTATIONS DERIVED FROM EVERY OTHER GAME EVER MADE ILL JUST GO LALALALALALALALAALALALALALALLAALALAL YOU DONT GET IT.

Sorry man, you just aren't smart enough to argue with, maybe someone else will oblige.

[Bzalthek]

Hoax's post should make anyone else who has voiced some skepticism over Aion's pvp in the last few pages feel embarassed for sharing the same opinion as him, despite the ass-backwards way he arrived at it.

So seeing this on the top seller list on Steam isn't in error huh, this is The Next Big Thing in pvp mmo's.  Yeah enjoy your FOTM failsauce bullshit along with the Darkfall and Mourning chaps.  Or wait, is this just the I'm so sick of WoW that I'll try anything crowd I've been waiting to gather since 6 months after the launch of that failboat?

You must be new at the whole MMO thing Senseless, go dickride some lineage clone (WITH FLIGHT!?) on the vault or something.

Or barring that, feel free to just quote the posts where you think in the pages of useless fanboi versus sane posting that I'm sure has gone on here that your side has proven that creating a ranking system that punishes people for losing is totally going to up the quality and quantity of the combat that any player who doesn't get their kicks whacking the foozles craves.

Let me guess this thread went something like:
-that system sounds like the failure that was the original WoW honor system
NUH UH WOW IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT GAME AION IS GOING TO HAVE ALL THESE REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS THAT NOBODY HAS EVER EXECUTED BEFORE AND IT WILL AMAZE YOU!  IN FACT FROM NOW ON ANYBODY WHO QUESTIONS JUST HOW WELL ALL THIS PIE IN THE SKY SHIT THEY ARE PROMISING WILL WORK BASED ON LOGICAL EXPECTATIONS DERIVED FROM EVERY OTHER GAME EVER MADE ILL JUST GO LALALALALALALALAALALALALALALLAALALAL YOU DONT GET IT.

Sorry man, you just aren't smart enough to argue with, maybe someone else will oblige.

ILL JUST GO LALALALALALALALAALALALALALALLAALALAL YOU DONT GET IT.

[amiable]

Two quickies:

1) I think Aion *might* be fun, sure, but I said multiple times I don't know if it will be. My time on this thread has been merely spent trying to shed some light on the shades of grey some are loving to miss cause it's too much fun to just say boo. Or baah.

2) The game is already out in many countries and no one is talking about failure, let alone of Warhammer proportions. Quite the opposite actually.

Next one who hints to me as if I am thinking of this as Robot Jesus on PvP sauce will be just branding him/herself a fucking muppet with a passion for kiddish playfulness. Basically, a furry.

I'm sorry Falconeer, but no.  You have spent pages upon pages defending every crappy design decision that the developers have made. Now you come here with this "I'm-not-a-fanboy-noobs" routine?    

Also I hear that David hasselhoff is HUGE in Japan

[Draegan]

What crappy design decisions?  He's only defended the PVP ranking system, which is not a crappy design decision.  It just a design decision you don't like.

[Falconeer]

Two quickies:

1) I think Aion *might* be fun, sure, but I said multiple times I don't know if it will be. My time on this thread has been merely spent trying to shed some light on the shades of grey some are loving to miss cause it's too much fun to just say boo. Or baah.

2) The game is already out in many countries and no one is talking about failure, let alone of Warhammer proportions. Quite the opposite actually.

Next one who hints to me as if I am thinking of this as Robot Jesus on PvP sauce will be just branding him/herself a fucking muppet with a passion for kiddish playfulness. Basically, a furry.

I'm sorry Falconeer, but no.  You have spent pages upon pages defending every crappy design decision that the developers have made. Now you come here with this "I'm-not-a-fanboy-noobs" routine?    

Shut up, you furry 

[DLRiley]

What crappy design decisions? This is getting too fucking funny.  

[amiable]

What crappy design decisions?  He's only defended the PVP ranking system, which is not a crappy design decision.  It just a design decision you don't like.

Uh.....   Isn't the PvP ranking system and the loot/mechanism behind it basically the entire game?

[Modern Angel]

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Ugly-Gnome/Aion-Why-you-should-and-shouldnt-play

Somehow this:

Since apparently I was one of the first from the WoW scene to jump on the Aion bandwagon, everyone is looking towards me as their definitive source for Aion answers.

was one of the least obnoxious sentences he wrote.

[01101010]

This is going to be one of those threads that stands as an example of how to devolve a thread. So when do we start throwing rocks at each other? 

[Draegan]

What crappy design decisions?  He's only defended the PVP ranking system, which is not a crappy design decision.  It just a design decision you don't like.

Uh.....   Isn't the PvP ranking system and the loot/mechanism behind it basically the entire game?

No.

The PVP ranking system is a meta game.  The last 5 ranks are where the competition is for the people that want it.  It has no bearing on your character progression what so ever. 

There are three different shades of Abyss gear (three colors for different rarity) that are bought by varying degree of points.  This is not the end all be all of gear.  There are, in some cases, better gear to be had from, crafting, raids, small group content.  However if you want to get the Abyss gear, you can grind out PVE instances till your heart is content though it takes longer supposedly.

Are you being dense on purpose?

[Falconeer]

This thread is the troll training ground.

[Hindenburg]

And you're all getting F's.

[Nissl]

The last several pages of this thread are worse than Aionsource.

[Xurtan]

Have you read Aionsource? This is at least entertaining and legible.

[01101010]

If you treat AionSource like a cryptic puzzle in which posts only make sense when aligned with different threads, then it just shy comprehensible. Otherwise, I get more worth out of a randomly generated page of characters.

...and Hasslehoff, as much a tool as he became, will always have a special connection with the world - I mean who has not gotten completely rocked on saki, went home and ate hamburgers off the floor? If not, then you need to reflect on what you missed out on in your youth.

[Nissl]

This is at least entertaining and legible.

You're right.  Maybe I'm finding it more painful because it's actually comprehensible.  With Aionsource my brain just kind of shuts down after a couple posts.  There aren't even coherent arguments to latch onto.

I increasingly think Aion's community is even dumber than WAR's, and that's saying a lot.

Yeah enjoy your FOTM failsauce bullshit...

I don't know whether I'll be playing Aion 3 or 6 months after release, but I'll be playing at release because this game has polish competitive with WoW in the early leveling game and while extremely similar in a lot of ways it is not WoW.  We've seen enough from the game's success in Korea to know that endgame class balance is decent, bugs are low, small-scale PVP happens, and mass PVP doesn't make the servers shit the bed.  That set of features looks like a low bar for 2009 but it's one that neither WAR nor AoC cleared.  Hell, I can't think of any game since WoW that has cleared it, arguably including WoW.

Maybe the endgame abyss point design doesn't work over the long run for Western audiences or they won't remove enough grind at the high levels and I'll quit after a couple months.  Compared to any single player game I'll still easily have gotten my $50 worth.  

[amiable]

You know Falconeer, I leave it as an excercise for the reader as to who is or isn't being a troll in this thread.

[Draegan]

I don't see why you would want to be a troll in the first place.

[Xurtan]

Free health regen, obviously.

[Hoax]

This is at least entertaining and legible.

You're right.  Maybe I'm finding it more painful because it's actually comprehensible.  With Aionsource my brain just kind of shuts down after a couple posts.  There aren't even coherent arguments to latch onto.

I increasingly think Aion's community is even dumber than WAR's, and that's saying a lot.

Yeah enjoy your FOTM failsauce bullshit...

I don't know whether I'll be playing Aion 3 or 6 months after release, but I'll be playing at release because this game has polish competitive with WoW in the early leveling game and while extremely similar in a lot of ways it is not WoW.  We've seen enough from the game's success in Korea to know that endgame class balance is decent, bugs are low, small-scale PVP happens, and mass PVP doesn't make the servers shit the bed.  That set of features looks like a low bar for 2009 but it's one that neither WAR nor AoC cleared.  Hell, I can't think of any game since WoW that has cleared it, arguably including WoW.

Maybe the endgame abyss point design doesn't work over the long run for Western audiences or they won't remove enough grind at the high levels and I'll quit after a couple months.  Compared to any single player game I'll still easily have gotten my $50 worth.  

Yeah if thats all it takes to get you to play a MMO thats all it takes.  Personally until they evolve the combat beyond auto attack and skill hotbars I'm just not interested at all.  Unless the setting and world and art direction really seem amazing.  A diku clone that gets most of its dna from Lineage and has taken an awful direction with its pvp system?  Doesn't do much for me personally.

Its funny though that I can't even point out how in the history of games having a ranking system where losing takes away points has failed to do anything but foster exploiting, bullshit tactics and avoiding taking any fight you don't think you can win.  I'm all for the olden days of WoW pvp, before the honor system, battlegrounds, battlegroups with the rest of the game designed with pvp in mind.  That is not what this is going to be.  I've watched some of the pvp videos, the combat looks very wooden, much like Lineage and some f2p Korean WoW clones I've played ala Silk Road.  I think its even a step back from WoW's diku combat, even if they did add the z-axis.  Either way though losing points for losing, or hell, having points in general is a fucking stupid idea.

[Lantyssa]

I increasingly think Aion's community is even dumber than WAR's, and that's saying a lot.

Isn't a large part of the community made up of WAR (and AoC) players looking for the next "PvP game done right"?