Aion, the MMO from well known MMO publisher NCsoft, has already enjoyed a successful launch in Korea and China. Now it is set to come to Europe and the USA, and as a fantasy MMO, it can’t help but get compared to World of Warcraft, the all-conquering MMO, but is that fair?
While Aion may never see the heights of success that World of Warcraft has achieved - the retained Eastern flavour may put some blinkered gamers off - there is a middle ground of success for MMOs that seems to get ignored by pundits. All Aion needs is enough gamers to generate the monthly revenue to make it profitable and by extension to ensure that enough gamers are in the MMO world so that it has a convincing and engrossing social and gameplay environment. Aion does have enough new gameplay ideas that it should attract an big enough audience for this.
Comparing Aion with World of Warcraft is tempting because it is easy as they are both fantasy MMOs, but the backstory to Aion is very different. It draws upon legends and mythology from around the world, although most heavily from Korea. The whole game world then both looks and feels different enough from World of Warcraft for gamers to feel they are experiencing something new.
A new MMO needs more than different graphics and environment though, and Aion supplies this. The new feature that will have most people interested, or at least the most obvious reason to be interested, is flight. Hit level 10 and you regain your wings (an Amnesia story arc explains why you’d lost them). Suddenly quests and combat can take place in all three dimensions rather than just on the ground. Hover over an enemy and blast them while they wave a sword ineffectually at you! Naturally, there are limitations on flight or else you would be invincible, so in the main world you have a limited flight time before you must land. This is removed in PvP areas. Flight certainly adds to the gameplay in Aion, but there is more to it than just this.
The classes in Aion might look a little slim on first glance - choose between Mage, Fighter, Scout and Priest when you create your character, but again level 10 holds the key. At this level you get to choose a sub-class or specialism. The good thing about this is you’ve had ten levels to hone your style of play before you have to choose what exact skills you will pursue. As an example, a Priest might opt for the buffing route or the out and out healer route.
Level 20 introduces another way to customise your character - Stigma Stones. Instead of having the abilities of your character fully defined by your class, you can use Stigma Stones to allow your character to do something that the class doesn’t normally permit. For example, Cloth Armour too lightweight for your melee loving Mage? Not to worry, a Stigma Stone will allow you to wear metal armour. This way you can create a set of bespoke skills that mean your character is actually quite different from someone else’s playing the same class.
Aion has little touches as well as big new ideas, so you do feel this is a well-rounded MMO: there’s the Locate feature that helps you find quest targets, the semi-transparent map that allows easier navigation and the Private Store that allows you to set up and sell to other players anywhere in-game.
If there were to be a complaint about Aion, it’s that despite the extensive localisation, some people may still find the graphics non-conventional. The Talking Weasels might put some people off. It’s also a shame that NCsoft weren’t prepared to open the UI up to third party customisation and plug-ins, which is one of the big USPs for World of Warcraft. But these are minor points in what is looking like a well crafted and polished MMO.
Aion is due to be released in September 2009 and is a PC only MMO. It will be a monthly-subscription based MMO.
Tags: aion, fantasy, mmo, mmorpg, ncsoft, pc games, videogames, World of Warcraft
