Review: Aion Online

(Main points have been underlined for glancing through.)

Game Basics:
Title: Aion Online
Publisher: NCSoft
Genre: Fantasy MMORPG
Website: http://na.aiononline.com/

Ratings:
Beginning/Tutorial: 3/3
Graphics: 5/5
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.: 3/5
Character Customization: 5/5
Story, Quests, Content: 3/5



I had first seen the light of NCSoft when I looked at Lineage II, an expansion? new version of Lineage? I don't know. Either way, I stumbled upon Aion Online, another game made by NCSoft. I was blown away by the game's graphics. The content development and various systems in-game like crafting were really thorough and detailed. They had a nice cleric class. After a few clicks through their website, I downloaded Aion to try (on a private server, but that's beside the point!). You pick either Asmodian or Elyos as your race/faction (which is for the entire account, so if you pick one and want to make a character of the other, you need to make a second account, which is rather annoying.) and then create your character.

The character customization was amazing. By far, aside from Perfect World Online, Aion's customization range is the most extensive I've seen for an MMO. There are over 50 options for hair, at least 20 for facial features, custom options for hair and skin colors, as well as a range of options for different body parts, such as leg thickness, hand sizes, and more. There's also a voice option, with three or four different voices your character can have. When you rotate your character, the pieces of hair or cloth that are flowy actually move with the character. Thank you, NCSoft, for giving that subtle realistic animation! It definitely added another dimension to gameplay, at least for me.

The classes are fairly straight forward: You start as one of four primary classes: Warrior (general tank melee type), Scout (long-range melee type), Mage (offensive magic type), and Priest (healer type). Specifically on the Priest class, since that is my favorite, Aion is fairly unique in that it gives healers the option to wear chainmail armor, the second-highest defense equipment type in the game. It gives the once-too-squishy-to-survive-combat healing class extra physical defense so the healer can, you know, live through a fight! Chainmail is specifically tailored toward Priests, so it will have Priest-friendly attributes. Priests also have pretty solid combat skills, particularly both long-range and close-range magic skills which are useful for soloing and PvP combat. Once you complete the ascension storyline, you can pick one of two secondary classes that specialize in certain aspects of your primary class. Once your character is created, you watch a cinematic and then begin adventuring in the Aion game world.

The opening cinematic was really interesting. It explained the game background and your character's in a short but dense clip, leaving me wanting to get in there and kick Balaur butt (yeah, I sided with the Elyos.)! The initial tutorial setup was unique as well. There are little video tutorials on various aspects of the game that appear above the character's toolbar, complete with voicing and animations. It's a nice feature for first-time MMO players. Aion also has the typical "oh, you're new here, go kill some small number of weak monsters to get used to the game's combat style" quests.

The quests were, for me, Aion's single flaw. While the quests are really interesting for your first time around, they do not differ from character to character. At all. You literally have the same quests for your priest as you do your warrior or mage. The quests are broken up into two types: Campaigns, which are storyline-driven and require a line of sequential campaign completions, and regular quests, which are basic and can be done at any time. When your character first speaks to an NPC about a Campaign, there's a brief introductory cinematic regarding the Campaign's problem/premise, then you complete the quest, and receive orders for your next Campaign quests. Regular quests have no outstanding features. I found the Campaign quest structure to be interesting because you only get the major reward at the end of that particular Campaign's questline and the rewards are usually a good-quality piece of equipment that is often better than the regular quests' equipment-rewards. But once I had completed enough quests on my cleric and I had made another character only to discover that they were literally the same quests with no difference, the game's originality and creativity just seemed to have gone out the window. There are no real "class" quests except for when you turn a certain level at the beginning and you're told to go see your starting zone's class trainer to get new skills. Hoo frickin' ray. I don't know, maybe I was spoiled by other games that gave class-based quests, but Aion definitely lost points with me there. I mean, it's not that hard to introduce a handful of basic quests for the different classes. It's less difficult than mapping the insane amount of hair options in the character customization screen! Aion did, however, redeem itself a little when some of the quests require you to gather various items, making either gathering skill (essencetapping or aethertapping) more integral to the game than other games.

The gathering skills are heavily used, of course, in the crafting professions. It's a rather simple step: much like skinning an animal allows you to acquire leather to make leather equipment in other games, the two gathering skills allow you to acquire items used in various craft professions. It's highly recommended that characters keep up with both gathering skills as they are each used to produce items and, of course, require higher-level items the more you advance in a skill. There are six total crafting professions: armor crafting (produces chain and plate armor and helmets); tailoring (produces cloth and leather armor and belts); weaponsmithing (produces--Guess what!-- weapons such as blades, polearms, and maces); handicrafting (produces staves and bows as well as a variety of accessories); alchemy (makes potions, scrolls and Mage weapons, orbs and spellbooks); and cooking (produces food that restores mana and health and provides boosts). Your character can learn all of the crafts but can become an expert and then master of only two. When you select an item to craft, you have three potential outcomes: success of creating an item, success of creating a higher quality item, failure to create an item. It's definitely worth it to pick up the crafting skills as a lot of the created items are better than quest items.

Another interesting feature of Aion is the title system. You acquire different titles throughout your adventures in Aion, each title giving a different bonus when equipped. Most of the ones I've seen are obtained through quests or Campaigns. Both Elyos and Asmodian characters gain the ability to fly once they ascend to Daeva status and pick a second class, which is rather convenient. Flight, however, cannot be used in all areas, which is annoying. There are also both teleportation and flight systems, which are pay-to-use and vary by length of travel. The flight animation is really cool, it looks like a giant, green, semi-transparent bird that is connected with your character's body, making it look like you're gliding on your abdomen. There is also a character-only and account-only warehouse, which makes transferring items from character to character easier than using the mailbox system. The PvP system, called the Abyss, is unique in that it is technically PvPvE, meaning that while you're attacking a monster, someone else of the opposing faction/race can attack you. There are several different types of PvP options in the Abyss, ranging from capturing and controlling a fortress to capturing an artifact (which is more like capture the flag that affects nearby fortresses) to battlegrounds, offering options for every type of PvP'er.

Overall: Great!
Summary: Aion's got some really awesome, unique factors that make it a must-try game, at the least. The lack of different quests for different characters or classes is frustrating, but there are plenty of fantastic features to counteract that to a degree. My favorite features are the character customization, crafting, and graphics.