Can Aion Dethrone The King of MMOs

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When NCsoft showed me a demo of their soon-to-launch, massively multiplayer fantasy game, Aion, at the E3 show, I saw a lot of reworked themes common to this fairly mature genre: A pair of at-odds races, each vying to wipe the other from their common home planet; user interface elements familiar to anyone who??s played any of NCsoft??s titles; and a persistent world that??s as dangerous as it is beautiful.

But what I didn??t expect was a discussion about the game??s launch in Asia, which happened some months ago, and how rapidly the game has caught on and expanded in China.

The game??s International Development Manager (international, that is, for South Korea-based NCsoft), Yong Taek Bae, explained that the game??s initial launch broke all kinds of records. On Aion??s Korean launch day, beginning at 6am local time, when the company switched on servers and began allowing paying customers to join the game, 11,000 players signed on each hour. By noon, the company had to turn on four additional servers ?? in addition to the 21 running at launch?Cto accommodate the crowd. Each server is capable of supporting 7000 simultaneous players.


But that was nothing compared to China, where the local company operating the service had to double the volume of servers after launch; They??re currently running around 70 servers continuously to handle the constant, heavy demand.

So the big question in my mind is, could Aion pose a significant challenge to the 800 lb. gorilla that is Blizzard??s World of Warcraft? If the draw in Asia is any indication, it??s certainly possible. One big question remains: Can the company appropriately and accurately ??re-culturize?? the game ?? not just translate the text from Korean to English, but modify the storyline to accommodate English euphemisms, and American cultural references and themes. NCsoft says it??s hired a team of seasoned fantasy and sci-fi writers to do just that. It remains to be seen whether six months of tweaking and balancing gameplay based on player feedback, and good writing, will be able to help the game overcome the out-of-the-gate second class status afforded to any new, non-Blizzard MMO.

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Aion Preview: More Than Just Good Looks?
Every year it seems as though we get that one ultra-hyped MMO that has fans arguing whether it will be the 'the one' to blow industry dominator, World of Warcraft, out of the water. Last year it was Age of Conan and Warhammer Online; this year it's NCsoft's Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Now, I have to be honest here when I say that Aion was going to be in for a tough time with me, just because it has managed to attract so much hype. Interestingly enough, however, despite the fact that I did go into this with fairly (ok, extremely) high expectations, Aion was impressive enough that I could really understand what all of this hype was about.

For those of you who aren't 'in the know,' Aion is the next stellar MMORPG to come from NCsoft - the developers who brought you games like Lineage I and II, Guild Wars and City of Heroes. In reality, the game has already been released in Korea, about seven months ago, and it is now that we're seeing it being ported over to North America. In this way, Aion is entering the MMO market with a massive Asian following, very similar to NCsoft's incredibly successful Lineage II. Another important thing to note is that, because this game is already so popular in Asia, the Aion team can afford to take the time to make sure their launch is as smooth as possible in North America. Already we can see the huge advantages this team has over the 'predicted WoW killers' of '08', Age of Conan and Warhammer Online - both of which were released too early and to disastrous results.

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Still, despite the lack of originality in the class spread, I'm certain that players will be happy enough with the massive amount of control you get over your character's appearance. While Aion subscribes mostly to the Asian aesthetic, it's not difficult to play around with the dozens of sliders available to adjust everything on your character. In fact, I managed to make an avatar that looks fairly similar to my girlfriend (the closest I'll get to getting her into MMOs!), which is something that I don't think I've ever managed to successfully pull off in a video game. In the games that do allow for a deep amount of customization, a lot of the time they get too complex to really do anything if you didn't know precisely what you were doing. Aion does a fantastic job of finding the happy medium between ease of use and depth of customization (check out... Wolverine!).

Following up on the creation of my Asmodian Chanter, I dove headfirst into the World of Atreia, wondering how my first experiences would shape up. The starter areas for the Elyos and the Asmodians are very different in their layout, but it is important to note that there is no diversity in quests when choosing different classes. While some people are making a big fuss about having to go through the same routine when levelling up multiple characters of the same race, I'm fairly indifferent. I'd much prefer new content being added to the end-game system, where I will be spending most of my time, rather than having a new forest and chain of quests designed to give me a 'choice' at level 20. On the other hand, I can understand this frustration for players who love to 'sample' every class, as it may start to feel tedious when you need to gather 10 sacks of grain for the fourth time.

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The second most praised aspect of Aion, the combat, is definitely one of the things that I enjoyed while powering through my quests. Players have the opportunity to 'chain' their attacks together to create combos, but it is also important to note that these combos can change and evolve in different directions, with the end result being different for each combo path. To me, this encourages a fair amount of 'on the fly' thinking and stresses a certain degree of battle awareness, as opposed to some MMOs that just tell you to spam your strongest attack every time it's up. As a guy who was a huge fan of precise Hunter shot rotations, Warrior Slam rotations and Feral DPS rotations in older World of Warcraft, you can imagine just how happy I am to hear of this.


The only aspect of combat in Aion Online that is currently being argued over is the 'usefulness' of flying that is currently employed in the game. While I have yet to really engage in some aerial combat, I'd like to point out that flying gives a great form of initiating kills (or escaping them!) while not giving players the idea that, once you're in the air, you're absolutely safe. I'm sure anyone who's played World of Warcraft can attest to the absolute frustration that can come from two Rogues who sit in the sky, 60 feet in the air, landing on 'safe' targets, killing them, and then heading back to the safe skies. For me, the frustration did not stem from being killed by two Rogues, but it was the fact that there were absolutely no ways you could initiate a fight with them that they did not want. I'm extremely pleased to see that Aion has included flight in their game, but they wisely decided to use it as a tool, and not a method of safely going AFK.

[kasummi]

Nice article, enjoying!

[CookieOfPower]

Interesting facts, great post!