Aion is NCSoft's MMO With a Pretty Face

Eurogamer has an interesting review of a game that you might not have even heard about amidst all the hype for other games coming out in the near future. NCSoft's Aion is taking a stab at dispelling the myth that MMOs can be either beautiful or gameplay-rich, but not both. "Best of all, most of Aion's splendor is achieved through rich color and fine art, rather than particle effects and polygons, meaning it shouldn't be as expensive to run as it looks. NCsoft appears to have thought of everything. That's just as well - if it's going to bridge the abyss between the Eastern and Western MMO, it will need to. The big question is whether Aion can be all things to all MMO players, and still retain a soul of its own. We'll find out when it's released early next year."

Comments

Left-Click Doom

[AioKits]

One of the main differences I have noticed between 'eastern' and 'western' MMOs is the control scheme. Many eastern ones feel as if they have the taboo that if you're using more than one hand to do EVERYTHING in the game, you're going to hell. However, western ones sometimes get the opposite problem in that every possible action is somehow mapped to a key on the keyboard... Lineage 2, fun as it is, drives me NUTS at times with all the clicking and few (if any) shortcut keys. Other games, like EQ2, you can have up to 3 action bars key mapped (1, Alt-1, Shift-1, I think) for any of them. While useful, if I change the bar layout for any reason, such as a new ability, I gotta rememorize where everything goes.

I want to try Aion, but I do not get much out of a game with a control scheme similar to Lineage 2's. While it does make smoking easier, the constant mouse movement makes playing more than 30 minutes painful. Does anyone know what type of control scheme Aion is looking at? I really loved the videos and want to love this game.

Re:Left-Click Doom

[vertinox]

While it does make smoking easier, the constant mouse movement makes playing more than 30 minutes painful.

Actually, you hit the nail on something. I was under the impression that in Asia, that gamers in Asia tend to be multi-tasking when playing MMO's (eating, drinking, and smoking) because they are usually gaming in a cafe which offers such products.

But I agree on the Western MMO problems... Makes me want to buy a foot pedal sometimes.

Re:Dispelling the myth?

[TriezGamer]

It's popular in East Asia, but not as popular as Eastern-created MMORPGs, which are similarly not as popular here as Western MMORPGs.

Re:Dispelling the myth?

[ShakaUVM]

WoW is kind of meh in graphics. My fiancee wouldn't play it because she thought it was ugly.

AoC... now that's a pretty game. If you can get it to run at over 10fps, that is.

Like another NCSoft published game?

[ReverendLoki]

Best of all, most of Aion's splendor is achieved through rich color and fine art, rather than particle effects and polygons, meaning it shouldn't be as expensive to run as it looks.

Seems to me, this is alot like the art direction that Guild Wars took. It relied on artwork for a lot of it's beauty, keeping the poly count fairly low. It certainly allowed it to run on a wide variety of PCs.

Of course, NCSoft was only the publisher of that game; Arenanet was the developing company. I wonder if this announcement might effect development of Guild Wars 2...

Just say no to Asian MMOs

[TitusC3v5]

Aion looks fabulous, so far. Flight looks amazing, and the world seems very polished. However, I've yet to play an Asian MMO that didn't bore me to tears through the use of grind, grind, and more grind. If what they mean by combining the East and West is that it avoids this mind-numbing grind that Asian MMOs seem to adore, I may give it a shot.