The first time you ever get into the game, you can view a cinematic introduction that shows you what happened to the world of Atreia and why it was split in half. After that, you get to choose which side you want to align yourself with: the Elyos, inhabitants of the lower half of the world, or the Asmodians, who reside in the darker upper half of it. I chose Elyos, primarily because I could never get into any dark/evil character I've ever attempted in any MMO, and secondarily because bright sunlit worlds appeal to me more than cloud-filtered debris-littered landscapes. Regardless of your chosen faction, you can then choose from four base classes: Warrior, Scout, Mage or Priest. Eventually, each class branches out into two specialized classes and you will be asked to choose one after you "ascend", but that comes only when you reach level 10.
If the classes sound pretty basic, character customization is definitely not so. Just to give you an idea of the degree of customization available, there are over 40 different hairstyles, more than 20 face types, color palettes for hair, eyes, lips and skin color, and sliders to further customize the little details - face shape, forehead, eye height, etc. The same thing goes for physique. You can select your body size (from tiny to large) and then use sliders to adjust your height, head size, neck, legs, etc. Although everyone is technically the same race, the character modeler allows you to make dwarf-like or elf-like characters, and markings like moles, scars and tattoos are also available. The amazing thing is that you can actually zoom in and see all these details on your character in the game.
Getting into the game, my Elyos warrior wakes up to a beautiful pastoral setting. It's raining and as I take a few seconds to look around in awe, my character holds out her hands palms up and then pulls out a large leaf umbrella to shield herself from the rain! Cute touch. The game looks pretty even at the lowest settings, but at max it's simply gorgeous and more importantly, it runs smoothly as well.
The user interface is standard for most MMOs. You can use either the W,A,S, D keys or the arrow keys to move around, space bar to jump, and the mouse to manipulate the camera angle. For those who have never played an MMO before, ingame help is available through a popup video tutorial. People are often quick to judge a game as a "WoW clone" simply on the basis of it using exactly the same default hotkeys, but I happen to think that UI standardization is a wonderful thing. It makes life easier for those of us who like to hop from one game to another.
The first few quests serve to familiarize you with the controls, combat and questing. If you substitute kobolds with striped kerubs, and wolf tails with snuffler tails, you get the complete picture. At least in the beginning zone, the game does a good job of moving you from one area to the next as it reveals your character's true nature as a Daeva, born to fight against the evil Balaur.
Combat is typical of most MMORPGs. You learn class-specific skills by buying skill books from a trainer and reading them. Once learned, you can bind a skill to a slot on your action bar and execute it by pressing a hotkey. Some skills are only activated as part of a chain of skills but unlike other games where you have to discover the different combinations, you can see all the possible chains in your skill book whether or not you have already learned them. The animations are rather flashy and casters utter some gibberish while firing off their spells, and yet the combat feels responsive.
Quest givers generally want you to kill one type of creature or another, sometimes to gather an item, at other times just for the sake of killing. Sometimes they send you to another non-player character to deliver a message, or send you out into the world in search of an object or a missing person. I like how cutscenes are used, though sparingly, to narrate some of the story. While there's nothing fancy about the quests and nothing changes in the world after you complete them, they are paced well enough that the trip to your character's ascension at level 10 is grind-free and actually enjoyable.
The final quest you get in the newbie area sends you off to your capital city, in my case Sanctum. There you are given your wings as you take your rightful place amongst the Daeva, complete with a little cutscene starring you. Flying is a little overrated. There are only certain areas you can fly in and you have a flight timer, initially set to one minute. If you happen to be way up in the air when the time runs out, you'll fall and most probably die. Death, by the way, is punishable by experience loss but you can buy back the lost points from a soul healer. Of course all this is based on my limited experience as a Daeva who has never gone to the Abyss, where all the fighting on wings takes place.
The ascension opens up a whole new world in Aion. For the first time, you gain access to the various crafting trainers, allowing you to finally make use of all the raw materials you've been gathering from the start. In crafting, you can be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one. It's too early for me to make any sort of conclusions about the crafting system but so far, I haven't had to make any useless stuff just to level up my crafting. Also, Aion has a nice feature that I've only seen in other Korean-developed MMOs so far - the ability to set up a personal store anytime anywhere. So if you're out in an outpost where there's no NPC trader or even on a roadside in the middle of nowhere, you can sell your goods while you're away from the keyboard.
As my Daeva warrior starts a new life, there is much to explore and more to discover. When people talk about Aion and what makes it different from the multitude of MMORPGs out there, they always cite flying and aerial combat. But that doesn't come until much later and certainly doesn't explain the level of excitement that the game has generated. If you think about it, flying aside, Aion is rather standard for an MMO. But I think what sets it apart is polish, that same elusive quality that had previously been a Blizzard monopoly. Perhaps having launched in Korea almost a full year before its North American launch has made this level of quality possible. Or maybe the developers have simply taken all the features we've ever wanted in all the existing games and bundled them into this neat package. Whatever the reason, the game has been fun so far and in my book, it definitely lives up to the hype.
The ascension opens up a whole new world in Aion. For the first time, you gain access to the various crafting trainers, allowing you to finally make use of all the raw materials you've been gathering from the start. In crafting, you can be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one. It's too early for me to make any sort of conclusions about the crafting system but so far, I haven't had to make any useless stuff just to level up my crafting. Also, Aion has a nice feature that I've only seen in other Korean-developed MMOs so far - the ability to set up a personal store anytime anywhere. So if you're out in an outpost where there's no NPC trader or even on a roadside in the middle of nowhere, you can sell your goods while you're away from the keyboard.
As my Daeva warrior starts a new life, there is much to explore and more to discover. When people talk about Aion and what makes it different from the multitude of MMORPGs out there, they always cite flying and aerial combat. But that doesn't come until much later and certainly doesn't explain the level of excitement that the game has generated. If you think about it, flying aside, Aion is rather standard for an MMO. But I think what sets it apart is polish, that same elusive quality that had previously been a Blizzard monopoly. Perhaps having launched in Korea almost a full year before its North American launch has made this level of quality possible. Or maybe the developers have simply taken all the features we've ever wanted in all the existing games and bundled them into this neat package. Whatever the reason, the game has been fun so far and in my book, it definitely lives up to the hype.
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