betI've been playing the beta for this game for about 3 weekends. I wanted to give you some of my first impressions of the game and how the game in general works.
One of the most prominent things about this game is how beautiful the environment graphics are. When you log into the game you are met with a scenic view that simply dwarfs any game I have ever played. I am running the game on a Laptop about 2-3 years old on medium graphics and the game runs great. So if you have a half way decent machine you can run the game really well. It seemed that the game sped up quite a bit the lower I set the graphics. So I see no reason to have to get a new PC just for this game. Though the game does scale up immensely as it is running on the same engine that Farcry was made on.
The Closer I got the more detail I would see.
Lets jump right in. The Planet is shaped sort of like an Apple Core where they live on the inside portion of the planet instead of the outside. The middle is where the Tower Of Eternity used to be, it's now the Abyss. The Asmodian are on the upper half of the planet where everything is Dark and the Elyos are on the bottom half where the sun is almost always shining. One of the most amazing things about the game is looking up into the sky. You look out and up and you see the other half of the world. Which is where the opposite faction of players are.
There are three different Factions in the game, the Elyos, Asmodian and Balaur. As a player you can only play 2 of the factions, the Elyos and the Asmodian.
The first character I created was an Elyos. You start out in this beautiful landscape away from the main city. You can just look around and the world seems alive and vibrant. The trees plants and animals are all high quality that just make you want to stare at them all day. From what I have heard the developers decided that instead of making the game all Lighting effects and bloom (Which slows down your PC) they just put in amazing artwork. One thing I did get to see was someone show off the amazing White wings while I was there. I started out as Elyos but I didn't get past the starter area before I made a Asmodian.
The Asmodian are very beautiful in a rustic sort of way. The characters that you create have instead of smoothed out hands and feet they have Talons, Claw's and a Tail. Don't be worried though, the character creation is the same for both factions although there are likely slight differences for each. The Asmodian starter area is a lot rougher edged than the Elyos side. I did however go much further with the Asmodian side of things. I worked my way up to level 22 almost 23. I was able to experience grouping with others, which I had good teams and bad teams. I'll go a bit more into the leveling and groups little later.
What I do want to get into is the scenery in the Asmodian area. What I was expecting was a really drab area which had no sunlight. I was wrong in this case but I do admit that the Asmodian side is a bit darker with more grey than anything. There's grass and some Drop dead gorgeous scenery which I did get some pictures of. There's a lot of ice in the upper half of the world as well as some crazy dark forest's. I do have to say that in both the upper and lower halves of the world, Lakes have to be the most beautiful and "Alive" parts of the world.
The Balaur are the 3rd Faction which throws the PVP for a loop while in the Abyss. The PVP style in this game is a lot like Alliance Battles in Guild wars. There are certain objectives that need to be taken to take control of the abyss. You are going to want to keep control of the abyss, because as you control the abyss you control the best area's for PVE with the best loot and leveling in the game.
Flight. At first flight seemed a bit aquard but after you set your keys up the way you want them (I prefer having E have my character fly up and C to make her fly down.) it was just another part of the game that made everything even more beautiful. Flight itself is not one of the most prominent things in the start of the game. Gliding on the other hand I use all the time and am extremely addicted to. There is a bit of a difference between the two. You can glide what seems a bit longer than how long you can fly. Gliding is where you run off a cliff hit the space bar while in mid air and your wings poof out as you drift around slowly (still faster than running) where it allows you to just take in the scenery. In the abyss you can fly almost infinitely. This brings up a concern of mine that I had which was answered. My concern was that flight was just going to be another way to travel. It turns out that there is in-flight combat as well as the ability to set your character up for either working better while in flight or on the ground. The Abyss is a vast open space where there is a ton of flight involved and its the major area for PVP so I bet you can guess which way I'm going for.
I died a horrible death for this picture.
I want to talk about combat a little bit and talk a little about each Class and their secondary classes.
The Warrior is a standard sword, shield and spear wielding type of character. The first sub group they split off into is The Gladiator. This class is more of a just all out damage dealing and stuns type of class. It can help by being able to tank when there's no Templar around but if you want a tank the Templar is the way to go.
The Templar is a tank through and though. On the PVE side I would take a Templar over a Gladiator any day. As for PVP I'm sure I'd like a Gladiator by my side instead though. Though I have not really experienced much PVP the Templar might be able to hold its own in PVP I just don't know yet.
The Scout is more of a mixed bag for the first 10 levels then you get to pick from two sub groups. The Assassin is one of those two groups. From what I've seen they have quick and precise damage with some nice stuns.
The other class that the Scout splits up into is The Ranger which I have not grouped up with. I did hear a lot of people saying that the Ranger seems under powered compared to something like an Assassin. Then again I talked to others who said that those people just don't know how to play a Ranger. It looked like there was a lot of running while you keep away from the monsters while soloing. Then again there was what seemed like a lot of pin-down effects which they had which could be good for keeping an enemy stationary. A Ranger I might take as a substitute for a Sorcerer because of the pin-down or slow down skills they have for a group.
The Mage is just what it sounds like a magic casting class. It splits up into The Sorcerer which seemed like a really useful class where it has a "sleep" skill which it gets early and is a good way to keep one mob asleep while the rest of the group kicks the butt of another. They also do massive amounts of damage which makes them all the more useful.
The Spiritmaster is the second half of the Mage duo. This class reminded me most of the Summoner from Final Fantasy games. They summon one of the 4 elements to help them in battle. Earth is supposed to be a form of a tank while the others all have their own uses. I did hear that having a spirit master can help a party with getting better loot. I had a chance to group with a Spiritmaster and I didn't really see much damage or anything that really made it stand out other than it having a pet that also did damage. I took a Spiritmaster instead of a Sorcerer and really missed the sleep skill from the Sorc. I say instead of bringing a gladiator I would prefer a Spiritmaster instead for a group.
The Priest is obviously a healing class which splits into the Cleric and the Chanter. The Chanter has from what I saw 3 buff's that apply to the whole team which raise important attributes for increasing damage output and the like. They can also be a very useful secondary healing class.
The Cleric on the other hand is what I played the most. You get two buff's with the Cleric and Chanter that increase health and defense. Most of the time while In a group I would spam my health over time spells as well as tossing a lesser heal here and there and a greater heal when there's massive damage being taken. Surprisingly mana seems pretty easy to keep up as at level 19 you get a skill that allows you to convert health into mana. You have to be careful because if you use it while in battle having low health can be a bad thing. The other thing I noticed is that Clerics can do some pretty good damage so helping with damage while healing can help quite a bit.
Did I mention Clerics have lightning?!
I did get to mess with the crafting part of the game a bit and from what I saw it was pretty expensive to do. Just like in WoW when your crafting rank gets to a certain point you have to increase the skills level. That in itself looked expensive and that's not counting the time it takes to gather the required items for crafting.
There's a couple options to sell loot. There's a Player store where you can pretty much just plop down and set prices for your items and sell them. There's also the option to sell them at an Auction house type of system. They both have a really easy interface where I didn't have any problems finding a weapon or armor at a low price with good stats. If you don't feel like using those systems you can just sell your loot to the vendor.
Leveling up was very easy and there was almost no grinding. The quest system is really easy to use as well as there's a share quest option. As you move forward while questing when you come back to turn them in there is always another quest to do. If there's a new area to explore there is likely a quest to move on to the next area at the end of that quest chain. There is also a couple map options. Pressing M opens a big map where it shows everything. Pressing N on the other hand brings up and overlaying map that shows everything but is transparent. Each quest comes with a couple of links where you can click them and they will tell you where you need to go by showing a purple X on the map which pops up instantly.
Here is the in game HUD.
There were some faults that I found with the game, one of which is there is no way to work off your death penalty. You HAVE to pay for it via a vendor which happens to be VERY expensive. This maybe different as you level up perhaps later you can have it removed by other players or some other option, but as of level 22 you have to pay the vendor to get back the experience lost. The other thing that happens a lot to me is while gliding if you accidentally hit the space bar twice you have to wait 10 seconds to glide or fly again which is more than enough time to go splat into the fast approaching ground.
Once you get past those two things you can't help but love the game. I do have to say that the game is not easy, but after you get to know whats what and how everything works you really don't want to stop playing.
Game Website: Aion
One of the most prominent things about this game is how beautiful the environment graphics are. When you log into the game you are met with a scenic view that simply dwarfs any game I have ever played. I am running the game on a Laptop about 2-3 years old on medium graphics and the game runs great. So if you have a half way decent machine you can run the game really well. It seemed that the game sped up quite a bit the lower I set the graphics. So I see no reason to have to get a new PC just for this game. Though the game does scale up immensely as it is running on the same engine that Farcry was made on.
The Closer I got the more detail I would see.Lets jump right in. The Planet is shaped sort of like an Apple Core where they live on the inside portion of the planet instead of the outside. The middle is where the Tower Of Eternity used to be, it's now the Abyss. The Asmodian are on the upper half of the planet where everything is Dark and the Elyos are on the bottom half where the sun is almost always shining. One of the most amazing things about the game is looking up into the sky. You look out and up and you see the other half of the world. Which is where the opposite faction of players are.
There are three different Factions in the game, the Elyos, Asmodian and Balaur. As a player you can only play 2 of the factions, the Elyos and the Asmodian.
The first character I created was an Elyos. You start out in this beautiful landscape away from the main city. You can just look around and the world seems alive and vibrant. The trees plants and animals are all high quality that just make you want to stare at them all day. From what I have heard the developers decided that instead of making the game all Lighting effects and bloom (Which slows down your PC) they just put in amazing artwork. One thing I did get to see was someone show off the amazing White wings while I was there. I started out as Elyos but I didn't get past the starter area before I made a Asmodian.
The Asmodian are very beautiful in a rustic sort of way. The characters that you create have instead of smoothed out hands and feet they have Talons, Claw's and a Tail. Don't be worried though, the character creation is the same for both factions although there are likely slight differences for each. The Asmodian starter area is a lot rougher edged than the Elyos side. I did however go much further with the Asmodian side of things. I worked my way up to level 22 almost 23. I was able to experience grouping with others, which I had good teams and bad teams. I'll go a bit more into the leveling and groups little later.
What I do want to get into is the scenery in the Asmodian area. What I was expecting was a really drab area which had no sunlight. I was wrong in this case but I do admit that the Asmodian side is a bit darker with more grey than anything. There's grass and some Drop dead gorgeous scenery which I did get some pictures of. There's a lot of ice in the upper half of the world as well as some crazy dark forest's. I do have to say that in both the upper and lower halves of the world, Lakes have to be the most beautiful and "Alive" parts of the world.
The Balaur are the 3rd Faction which throws the PVP for a loop while in the Abyss. The PVP style in this game is a lot like Alliance Battles in Guild wars. There are certain objectives that need to be taken to take control of the abyss. You are going to want to keep control of the abyss, because as you control the abyss you control the best area's for PVE with the best loot and leveling in the game.
Flight. At first flight seemed a bit aquard but after you set your keys up the way you want them (I prefer having E have my character fly up and C to make her fly down.) it was just another part of the game that made everything even more beautiful. Flight itself is not one of the most prominent things in the start of the game. Gliding on the other hand I use all the time and am extremely addicted to. There is a bit of a difference between the two. You can glide what seems a bit longer than how long you can fly. Gliding is where you run off a cliff hit the space bar while in mid air and your wings poof out as you drift around slowly (still faster than running) where it allows you to just take in the scenery. In the abyss you can fly almost infinitely. This brings up a concern of mine that I had which was answered. My concern was that flight was just going to be another way to travel. It turns out that there is in-flight combat as well as the ability to set your character up for either working better while in flight or on the ground. The Abyss is a vast open space where there is a ton of flight involved and its the major area for PVP so I bet you can guess which way I'm going for.
I died a horrible death for this picture.I want to talk about combat a little bit and talk a little about each Class and their secondary classes.
The Warrior is a standard sword, shield and spear wielding type of character. The first sub group they split off into is The Gladiator. This class is more of a just all out damage dealing and stuns type of class. It can help by being able to tank when there's no Templar around but if you want a tank the Templar is the way to go.
The Templar is a tank through and though. On the PVE side I would take a Templar over a Gladiator any day. As for PVP I'm sure I'd like a Gladiator by my side instead though. Though I have not really experienced much PVP the Templar might be able to hold its own in PVP I just don't know yet.
The Scout is more of a mixed bag for the first 10 levels then you get to pick from two sub groups. The Assassin is one of those two groups. From what I've seen they have quick and precise damage with some nice stuns.
The other class that the Scout splits up into is The Ranger which I have not grouped up with. I did hear a lot of people saying that the Ranger seems under powered compared to something like an Assassin. Then again I talked to others who said that those people just don't know how to play a Ranger. It looked like there was a lot of running while you keep away from the monsters while soloing. Then again there was what seemed like a lot of pin-down effects which they had which could be good for keeping an enemy stationary. A Ranger I might take as a substitute for a Sorcerer because of the pin-down or slow down skills they have for a group.
The Mage is just what it sounds like a magic casting class. It splits up into The Sorcerer which seemed like a really useful class where it has a "sleep" skill which it gets early and is a good way to keep one mob asleep while the rest of the group kicks the butt of another. They also do massive amounts of damage which makes them all the more useful.
The Spiritmaster is the second half of the Mage duo. This class reminded me most of the Summoner from Final Fantasy games. They summon one of the 4 elements to help them in battle. Earth is supposed to be a form of a tank while the others all have their own uses. I did hear that having a spirit master can help a party with getting better loot. I had a chance to group with a Spiritmaster and I didn't really see much damage or anything that really made it stand out other than it having a pet that also did damage. I took a Spiritmaster instead of a Sorcerer and really missed the sleep skill from the Sorc. I say instead of bringing a gladiator I would prefer a Spiritmaster instead for a group.
The Priest is obviously a healing class which splits into the Cleric and the Chanter. The Chanter has from what I saw 3 buff's that apply to the whole team which raise important attributes for increasing damage output and the like. They can also be a very useful secondary healing class.
The Cleric on the other hand is what I played the most. You get two buff's with the Cleric and Chanter that increase health and defense. Most of the time while In a group I would spam my health over time spells as well as tossing a lesser heal here and there and a greater heal when there's massive damage being taken. Surprisingly mana seems pretty easy to keep up as at level 19 you get a skill that allows you to convert health into mana. You have to be careful because if you use it while in battle having low health can be a bad thing. The other thing I noticed is that Clerics can do some pretty good damage so helping with damage while healing can help quite a bit.
Did I mention Clerics have lightning?!I did get to mess with the crafting part of the game a bit and from what I saw it was pretty expensive to do. Just like in WoW when your crafting rank gets to a certain point you have to increase the skills level. That in itself looked expensive and that's not counting the time it takes to gather the required items for crafting.
There's a couple options to sell loot. There's a Player store where you can pretty much just plop down and set prices for your items and sell them. There's also the option to sell them at an Auction house type of system. They both have a really easy interface where I didn't have any problems finding a weapon or armor at a low price with good stats. If you don't feel like using those systems you can just sell your loot to the vendor.
Leveling up was very easy and there was almost no grinding. The quest system is really easy to use as well as there's a share quest option. As you move forward while questing when you come back to turn them in there is always another quest to do. If there's a new area to explore there is likely a quest to move on to the next area at the end of that quest chain. There is also a couple map options. Pressing M opens a big map where it shows everything. Pressing N on the other hand brings up and overlaying map that shows everything but is transparent. Each quest comes with a couple of links where you can click them and they will tell you where you need to go by showing a purple X on the map which pops up instantly.
Here is the in game HUD.There were some faults that I found with the game, one of which is there is no way to work off your death penalty. You HAVE to pay for it via a vendor which happens to be VERY expensive. This maybe different as you level up perhaps later you can have it removed by other players or some other option, but as of level 22 you have to pay the vendor to get back the experience lost. The other thing that happens a lot to me is while gliding if you accidentally hit the space bar twice you have to wait 10 seconds to glide or fly again which is more than enough time to go splat into the fast approaching ground.
Once you get past those two things you can't help but love the game. I do have to say that the game is not easy, but after you get to know whats what and how everything works you really don't want to stop playing.
Game Website: Aion
