Aion Shaping Up For US Launch

One of the most promising MMORPGs in development these days is NCSoft's Aion, a fantasy-based offering built on CryEngine. It makes heavy use of flight as a gameplay mechanic, allowing aerial combat and easy travel around the visually stunning game world. There are four basic classes — Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Scout — each of which have two subclasses. For example, Warriors can be tank-like Templars, or berserker-like Gladiators, while Mages can turn into a scholarly Sorcerer or command the elements as a Spiritmaster. Early previews of Aion almost universally comment on how polished the game seems — this is partly due to the fact that it has been up and running since November in South Korea. "Being stable, scalable, reliable and fuss-free is far from a given in MMOs, but Aion is all those things, and can already stand alongside the genre's usability kings, EVE Online and World of Warcraft. Its expansive, zone-free open-world environments look terrific and run smoothly on a wide variety of systems. It just works." Since the game is already in a relatively complete state, NCSoft has been running closed beta "events," where a portion of the game is opened for testing. MMOGamer has a write-up from the latest such event. Aion is due out in September.

Comments

Alternate Universe?

[Tyler Eaves]

Since when is EVE a shining example of a MMO UI? EVO works (for some people) very much *despite* the cluttered, poorly laid out, typographically flawed UI.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[sporkmonger]

I couldn't agree more. Eve is my MMO of choice, but I would kill to be able to extend/improve the UI.

Re:Alternate Universe?

[cthulu_mt]

I stare at a spreadsheet all day. Then I go home, boot up EVE and stare at a spreadsheet.

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[S77IM]

Holy crap, that shit should be illegal.

I was going to try out Exteel and now I am glad I didn't. Slashvertisement Fail.

    -- 77IM

Re:Game is unplayable by all inelligent users

[S77IM]

It's not DRM -- it's anti-cheating software. So if you are running some sort of scripting or bot program, this thing scans your memory, identifies that program, and kills it. It periodically downloads new identifications for new types of cheat programs.

I understand their goals (nobody likes cheaters), but I don't see how this differs in substance from giving full control of your computer over to INCA Internet. I guess that's no different than handing over the keys to Microsoft, and to Nod32 or AVG or whoever does your antivirus -- except that an operating system and antivirus software are supposed to benefit you, while this thing...?

  -- 77IM

NCSoft?

[freedan]

Aka the developer that releases like 2 new and utterly generic MMOs every single year? Forgive me for not getting too excited.

Usability Kings?

[Thaelon]

he genre's usability kings, EVE Online and World of Warcraft

You've got to be shitting me. Surely you mean World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a bigger fan of EVE than World of Warcraft. But the EVE GUI has been shit since inception. And Customer UI suggestions go completely ignored for literally years , and that's just one thread that was alive for years with no sign of improvement.

EVE is wonderfully good at many things (nowhere else will you hear the term "pvp shakes"), and I've been in battles of over 1000 players with the game completely playable, but the UI?! That's their biggest failing.

Re:GameGaurd v. PunkBuster ??

[Opportunist]

Because Punkbuster is still under your control, mostly. At least if you're not completely clueless. You can turn it off and on as you please (of course, programs using it require it).

This thing installs itself not unlike the classic rootkit and getting rid of it is near impossible, not even talking about turning the processes off and on (or finding out whether or not they're running in the first place).