Aion (Chinese MMORPG)
Graphics
The graphics of Aion are based on the Crytek 1 engine. The
textures them selves are well detailed. With the engines built in bump
mapping, the clarity and detail of the characters are extremely well done.
Though, due to polygon counts, most layers of armor are flat segments of
bump mapped textures rather than full 3D objects, where a cape or flap
looks nice. When it moves, you can notice it has NO depth and a low polygon
count when moving.(Which means less curvature on objects.)
The world is comparable. While the textures are nice, the polygon count
is not that extreme. Don't expect this game to feel smooth and flush
like Crysis or Unreal Tournament 3. However, it's much smoother than
World of Warcraft, with a lot more depth and realistic curved and
beveled windows rather than WoW's flat texture only windows.
The world itself is limited. Due to Farcry being a zone/map
based game, this game is too. While the game is massive, it is still broken
into zones. Each zone relative to that level tier. The zones are
amazingly designed and the art is very impressive and each area blends
into the next within the current zone.
The zones are very well sized in scale. Each one roughly equaling a
small island. Due to this, both major cities reside as there own zone.
So to battle you must leave/zone out of the city to find any enemies
other than the no risk same faction only arena.
In a nutshell, Aion graphics are top of the line for a MMO. In the
screen shots you will see how beautiful these graphics are.
Gameplay
Quests-
Quests are the first thing you encounter being the core of the
tutorial. The quest system is easy to navigate, the system itself
being designed closely to the WoW quest system. Giving a well designed
interface with the quest dialog on the top and the conversation button
and quest rewards shown on the bottom.
Quests start out simple and are well plotted with map way points in
the beginning and then leading to branching quests (where you get
multiples from the same person). The quest log is also set up almost
identical to WoW with some minor display tweaks.
All in all an easy learning curve for almost anyone.
Combat-
Combat is set up very Everquest style. It is simple MMO target and
press button gameplay with NO world refresh timer. So all abilities
can be casted instantly right after the other has finished.
This also helps with the chain system. When an ability is used,
a different ability will swap on the tool bar (can be turned off and
set to manual) in replace of that icon and give you a 5 second
opportunity to cast a "chain only" ability which will deal more
damage, cause an effect like stun, assist the player, and/or debuff the
enemy with the same damage type (Fire, Slashing ect.).
Moving, which is prominent in melee, you are given indicator arrows
around your feet according to the direction. While these arrows are lit,
you gain a slight (around 10 points) bonus to your character stats.
PVP works as stated above. As far as we have seen there, is no
adjustment to this mechanic.
Flying-
Flying is a well done mechanic in this game. It is not
overdone or a cheap filler. To fly you can either hit the icon on the
UI that has the flight time indicator around it, or you can use the
default Page Up key. Flying is controlled by a flight gage that only
replenishes while not flying.
First of all, flying is controlled by Either, a shiny floating
substance that while in the presence of it, you will gain back your
flight time. Due to this, you can not fly anywhere you are not near
Either.
The flight time in the first flyable location is 1 min to every 3 min
or so of rest time. This is well designed around the ability to
harvest rare floating rocks or killing some enemies.
However, are are limitations. Any location that is not concentrated with
Either is not a flyable zone. Also, due to this limitation they use
this whenever they would like an area to be foot only and force you
through the content, like the newbie area and some low level areas.
Although no matter the area, as long as you have flight time
you can glide down to a safe location by jumping in mid air.
Polish-
The polish of the game is very well done. For how new the game is, it
feels as if they took a great deal of time in every nook and cranny of
the game.
The game itself has does have some limitations, such as zone lines and
object padding. The zone lines are obviously noted by the terrain.
Though there is some object padding which can pull you out of the game
sometimes. Object padding is where an object is too small or is a
location for artistic reasons that would otherwise cause players
to get stuck in those areas, such as boulders on the side of a hill.
Therefore, the developers tend to put padding across the gaps to create
an invisible safe floor. This is not used alot in Aion but you will
notice it at times, mostly while jumping on fences and around other
thin objects.
How the P2P works-
Aion P2P is different from other MMO's. You pay for what you play,
basically. You buy these SDO time cards. Now you can buy in chunks
for 2 hrs 5 mins. For example, 1(2hrs 5 mins) would be 0.50 USD.
Though, the more you buy the more cheap it is. For example, 30(2hrs 5 mins) is
5.00 USD. That's very cheap compared to buying 1(2 hrs 5 mins) for 0.50 USD.
Click this link to see exacly how this works:
http://www.cn-usa.com/?cmd=buy&loc=170404Sign up page:
http://register.sdo.com/PTNew/index.aspxMain website:
http://aion.sdo.com/project/index/index.htmSCREENSHOTSPicture 1Picture 2Picture 3Picture 4
