I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend playing Aion, and the developers are so confident they’ve got a winner that they’ve allowed beta testers to share their thoughts and impressions… and screenshots! An MMO can’t be judged in one weekend, but here are a few of my first thoughts on this baby:

The Good

Beautiful graphics.The screenshots don’t do this world justice at all. It’s true epic fantasy. And the graphics aren’t just lovely, they’re functional. With dozens, even hundreds of finely rendered characters cramming the newb area, with shining weapons and elaborate animations whacking bipedal rats, I experienced zero lag. No stuttering, no rubber banding, no casting delays, not a single problem.

My machine is Dell with a dual core (1.86 Ghz) running XP with two GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS. It’s two years old, and loaded up with every MMO in existence, half a dozen RPGs, and a crapload of my secret vice, puzzle adventures. Oh, and while I was playing Aion, I had my email and IM running, as well as an image editing program open to crop screenshots on the fly.

Animations.Speaking of beautiful, someone had fun with these, and the fun is contagious. My warrior was a little too “Asian schoolgirl” for my blood, but these look like they were done with motion capture technology. I’m going to say hands down, best jump animation (or really the best landing from a jump animation) in an MMO, ever. I also wonder where the heck my character keeps her pom poms when the /cheer isn’t in effect.

A great, intuitive interface.I was asked to post no pictures of the interface, but I don’t know why. It’s in better shape than the interface of a number of launched MMOs. In the quest journal, every noun is highlighted, and clicking gives you more information, waypoint marking options, and more. I did no research, checked no beta boards, nothing, and I figured out everything I needed to know about upgrading my armor, collecting crafting ingredients, looting, and special attacks in less than five minutes. I’m usually not that competent.

Lots of “cool” factor.At level one, I have nifty looking gear, awesome animations, special effects, and personality. My only concern here is how on earth can I get more cool looking as I grow in power?

The Bad

No bug reporting.Wha? Excuse me? Big beta weekend, heap big deal, but finishing the bug report tool wasn’t a priority? Sorry, but I don’t report bugs via a forum, and in 2009 I definitely don’t read multiple pages of a thread with no visible dev involvement to see if it’s been reported. This screams “we don’t care about what you say,” to me.

Backstory? What backstory?They must be assuming that all of us have read every released word online, or the wiki entry, because there was zero effort at explaining anything story-wise to my character at level one. Or two. I’d been playing for hours before the game informed me that I’d lost my memory at some point in the past.

Same old MMO starter levels.Despite being awesome looking, despite lots of nifty innovations in gear and strategy, and despite a number of indicators that (to the experienced eye) suggest that a really solid PVP team built this thing, the first five levels are exactly like every game you ever played. The early quests are by and large mediocre, with the added benefit of all of the NPCs insulting you.

The insulting a level one character is very Asian, in my experience - those on the bottom level of society, the newbs if you will, are not entitled to respect up front. You have to prove yourself. And indeed, the NPCs grow more courteous as you level, which tells me it’s an intentional element of the storytelling. I still wonder how willing a Western audience will be to tolerate this. The very first thing I got upon logging in was accused of sleeping on the job, and ten minutes later I was told I had no honor. Quite a cold shower after years of being the hero come to save us all.

The Unknown

I have yet to try flying or PVP - possibly the major attractions for this particular title.

The Full Metal Awesome

Okay, so, there’s this quest, and when you complete it, you get a glimpse of the world you’ve forgotten, and I cannot describe it to you. I can’t describe it because it will ruin the wow factor for you when you get to it, and I couldn’t possibly do it justice. It’s just a cut scene, but it is the most awesome thing in the universe. My jaw dropped. First of all, it’s visually stunning. Second, I have never before seen a cut scene that made me want to play this game for the next year just to do the things the scene implied I could eventually do.

In fact, the completion of this quest marked a real turning point. I started getting quests that were much more interesting and engaging, and I found it very difficult to stop playing.

The Short Version

Despite a tedious beginning, story wise, this title has a lot of potential. The tremendous stability, the outstanding visuals, the wonderful little interface innovations, and the now-intriguing plotline have me psyched for more.

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