Now it’s the beginning of a new anticipated game Aion. NCSoft recently invited the Ensidia, top-of-the line WOW guild to enter Aion(EU)’s Beta which will be launched the upcoming weekend.
http://www.ensidia.com/community/post/1196/
Description of the contest
All you have to do to win one of the 50 keys is post a comment with the words “I want to play the Aion EU beta” until Thursday, June 4th 2009, 14:00 CET.
So we have seen the same reply on follow-up comment - “I want to play the Aion EU beta“.
A topic named 1st WOW Guild Went over to Aion from Chinese online gaming interactive site named 178.com, report the event. But unexpectedly we found a very opposed phenomenon there. Most of players there left same words as “I don’t want to play the Aion EU beta“.
Why?
Months ago most of Chinese players were wishing that they had the chance to play Aion. One of the reason is that people was tormented with an everlasting itch for World of the Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King remote, on the other they were very excited to see a new MMORPG which got nice screens and details. People treat it a big project as “WOW Killer“, like everything that we are doing now.
But after the beta test of the Aion(CN), more and more Aion fans quit the game and delete the client. “There are full of bots and disgusting quest, it’s another grind MMORPG with DELUXE APPEARANCE, just a new WOW Clone.” Can Aion Dethrone The King of MMOs? It seems that the answer is clear.
Aion vs WoW
When we checked out the voting result and player comments relating to Recommended MMOs in November，it’s crystal clear that Aion and WoW are becoming the focus of MMO players’ discussions, due to the upcoming of Aion’s OBT and the recent release of Wotlk. Some players said they hope Aion or some other MMO will pose a challenge to WoW’s throne, “If a game comes out that poses a serious future threat, maybe the developers will get their heads out of their nether regions and start innovating some.”
Scenery in Aion is seductive and depicted to a nicety, and it’s eastern style. We can easily find the decided difference of water effect between Aion and WoW. Putting aside your system, Aion is more beautiful than WoW, but WoW is still a cost-effective MMO. The graphics of Aion actually look nice, but it should first make promises with its quest system, class and gameplay balance.
It is said that “WoW + wings = Aion”. Everyone is trying to imitate WoW in seeking success, but Aion also owns lots of unique things you may not notice. Here are some differences between Aion and WoW. You can explore the Aion world personally when its OBT starts. Plus, don’t forget to tell us your discovery.
1.Characters in Aion can fly, cause’ they get wings. Are you interested to see how aerial combat breaks out in an MMO, especially for melee/special classes. Is the assassin going to have to chase someone in 3D just to hit them? Are the spiritualist’s pets all going to fly with him’her? A system like this would seem to favor ranged combatants unless there’s some kind of lockon feature or speed advantage for melee classes.
2.There’s no Mount System in Aion but a Transformation System.
3. PvP system in Aion is larger than WoW, Aereschuranta.
The Abyss(Aion’s PVPVE area) is divided into three layers: Top, centre, and bottom. There are five fortresses and eight artifacts in the top layer, one fortress and seven artifacts in the centre, three fortresses and seven artifacts in the bottom layer with two strategic points.
4. Characters can’t swim in water. They will get a cumulative injury in water.
5. When the characters die, they will be sent back to the place where you bind. You won’t see the Spirit mode in Aion.
6. DYE system, just DIY your suits. There are more detail setting in character creating interface in Aion.
7. Players will get kinds of titles by sloving quests or collecting items, these titles affect characters’ attribute. This achievement system is added into Wotlk now.
8. Guild need to level up for enlarging its scale.
The combat system is indeed innovative as it is based off combos more like a fighting game but with the traditional MMORPG abilities. Think of every class as having an activated combat playstyle similar to the “Rogues”.
9. Skill CD prompt in Aion is innate but in WoW you need a related Plug-ins.
Is Aion a Killer to WoW?
Let’s just read players’ opinions we have gathered. A game requiring more than what people’s graphics card can deliver might decrease its supporters who just have an ordinary graphics card. People are hoping NCsoft will retain the same great character models and world graphics while not alienating those who have older systems.
Aion, despite some simalarities, is a completely different game. this world is nonlinear, whereas, I saw
some places that looked familiar, such as Dark Shire and GoldShire. In the world of building, no house is
gonna look the same as the last, there’s always gonna be something like a higher chimney, maybe an
extra chimney, but most of all, the SHAPE will be different. (Excluding the redundant townhouses.)
Now, when I see an inn, it looks the same on the outside. And the inside, which makes it even WORSE,
because this means that no effort was put into towns, this is severely disappointing and takes you out of
the experience and reminds you that you are playing a video game.
Aion will not only have better graphics, but the combat will actually be FUN.
Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Hellgate: London, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. All of
these MMO’s were touted as ‘WoW killers’, but none have delivered. The Warhammer Online beta was so
bad they had to pull it back into active development.
Aion looks interesting, but is it a WoW killer? No. It doesn’t add anything substantially new to
the genre, but that’s not the reason why people won’t flock to it.
WoW runs quite well on many, many machines, including those 2-3 years out of date. I can already
tell, just by looking at the screenshots, that Aion will require more than my processor/graphics
card can deliver. That holds true for many of the WoW playerbase. I tried LotRO, but it wouldn’t
play on my laptop at anything more than the most basic settings, and that just made it look like
crap.
That is, IMO, one area that Blizzard has yet to be outmatched on: graphics. Wow’s graphics are
stunning considering that they’ve got low polygon counts and primitive textures.
Why can’t other MMO’s take a page from Blizzard’s book, and offer stylistic, simple and well-done
graphics that are easy on video cards? At a stroke, you’d have access to a much wider audience.
Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I hope Aion rises as a serious threat to WoW, as they sorely need the
competition. But I’m not holding my breath.
So whatever you consider with Aion and WoW, their developers are still doing their best for their own features. Don’t be too punctilious in your attention to the question if any game is a killer to another one.
from http://news.mmosite.com/content/2009-06-04/20090604051826498,1.shtml
Tags: aion, Beta, bots, Ensidia, EU, WoW —
June 12th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
The article is usefull for me. I’ll be coming back to your blog.
June 13th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Hi, gr8 post thanks for posting. Information is useful!
June 14th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Hi, interest post. I’ll write you later about few questions!
June 15th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hello, can you please post some more information on this topic? I would like to read more.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:17 am
Ok some feedback to your post
computer power!
Firstly, computer wise… I have a 2-3 year old computer and aion ran outstandingly smooth (it took a long time to load the game and get to login screen, howerver after that everything was instant and very very smooth)
First Impression
First impression of the game was very very good, character creation screen provided good options for individualistic creation and was very simple to use.
Classes!
Up to level 10 you are still your base class (such as mage) so i am unable to comment a great deal on classes or balance, however from what i have seen the class balance is a highly important aspect to nc soft. An example of this was the nerf of spiritmaster in beta test 2.
Gameplay!
The game play looks good :), the best aspect (in my opinion) of WOW is the simple but effective interface, which Aion has included. The spells individually work the same way as WOW, except for the combo’s which i have not tested as of yet. Quest givers are highlighted aswell (unlike FFXI online, which drove me mad)- The statement made earlier about the combination of Western and asian mmo’s is instantly proven at first inspection. Aion provides easy. user friendly controls from games like WOW or WAR, and includes customisable macros and a self contained AH (such as the bazaar in ffxi). In adition to this it apears they have corrected what i beleived was the downfall of WOW, which is they have included PVP amongst leveling and raiding (instead of treating PVP and PVE as completely different aspects).
Finally i would just like to contest something people consistently say…. “korean grind”….. well firstly EVERY mmorpg is a grind game (whether its grinding for exp/levels or loot). This is no exception for WOW either, once at max level you can spend hours and hours grinding for loot in instances or raids. secondly without the need to grind to obtain items or exp the game will become way way to easy (another of WOWs downfalls).
Personally after 4+ years of WOW i think being able to get full PVP epics after 6 or so hours of BG is pathetic…. where is the challange??? …
On the other side of the coin FFXI provides this challange however is perhaps a bit to complex to control and understand to begin with. And obtaining items from quests can take way way to long for low levels.
Conclusion!
If you want everything for nothing, have to work for nothing and level quickly then WOWTLK is probly best for you. Although the simplistic user interface makes this game easy to grasp and simple to learn.
If you want to play for hours, without feeling like you are getting very far very quickly and possibly lose it all when u die then FFXI is your game. However the upside here is you can party a great deal to level faster (but partys take a lot of time to form and play). Items do not bind on equip so most items u can use and then sell. Possibly the best 2 aspects of this game are: 1) the concept of sub jobs and 2) the autotraslation keys to remove some language restrictions
However if you would like a reasonable mix of the two then for sure Aion is for you!
Ratings of the games i have played!
WOW - before any addons = 10/10
WOW + TBC = 8/10
WOW + TLK = 5/10
(Blizzard made it to easy and were lazy with thier addons)
DAOC + addons = 8/10
RF Online = 3/10
FFXI Online = 6/10
Archlord = 4/10
*AION* = 9/10 (HOWEVER PLEASE NOTE THIS, AND ALL INFO ABOUT AION ABOVE IS BASED SOLEY ON BETA’S!)
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:29 am
Correction sorry Rating for FFXI online was meant to be 8/10
July 6th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I don’t get why everyone is treating WOW like some grand original concept, and that every MMO with questing is a replica of it. Other MMOs that far predate WOW were very similar to WOW, but no one accuses Blizzard of stealing ideas from other MMO manufacturers.
Personally, I tried WOW and could only stand it for about 20 days. The graphics were way too cartoony, and the animations only added to that. There was hardly any story to speak of, and the only thing worthwhile really was just the quest grinding. Nothing else made me want to stay. Even the RP was severely lacking–and WOW has dedicated RP servers!
If Aion were anything like WOW, I would have dropped the Beta and demanded a refund from GameStop for my preorder.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Is it not true that for 6 weeks there is server shutdown in china that over 5 million are without WOW now???
October 6th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Now this article might look cool in some1’s eyes
BUT
You talk like WoW is the 1st 3d mmorpg ever created, as if Wow is complete original, and all rest just copy. Dear friend you should get your facts straight, there were 3d mmorpg games before WoW, and WoW was basicaly created with 20% original content, 80% of content was combined from games that were on the web before WoW. Its more or less same with Aion, it combines most of the finest details from numerous mmorpg games. And yes, there is no grind in Aion, none at all, 1-50 you can do by only questing. PvPvE system enables you to get exp even from pvp action. lvl25+ you all can expect to experience intense pvp action not even closely seen in WoW.
WoW is 100% out of date, thats shown in huge drop in income in pas month, and keeps dropping, instead of these atempts of adding more expansions, Blizzard should focus on making a sequel.
Bot problem in Aion: Ehm, do you realy think there is no botting in WoW? My neighbour still makes a living, feeds his family, pays bills etc from botting characters in WoW and selling them online, tho sales are down for a last few months. I wonder why? Oh wait…Aion