So yeah, this crazy KR mmo from NCSoft that isn't really like typical crappy KR grindfests is like, coming out in like September :V It's actually legitimately good from what I've played and seen in play videos. It's going to be a standard monthly subscription MMO rather than the crazy pay for hour system China and Korea has.
The game is typical fantasy bullshit setting with a few good gimmicks and clean design. It's PvP centric, the endgame consists of the two races, Asmodian and Elyos, duking it out in The Abyss, a giant open battleground with castles to own and such. You get points that you use towards special abilities and skills everytime you kill someone, but at the same time you also LOSE points if you die. And the top 20 highest scoring people of each side get to be chosen as Avatars for their particular side, and the top person becomes a fucking Gundam. Oh, and you fly.
The game has CRAZYYYYYY deep character customization. You can be anything from a 3 foot loli to a 12 foot version of Shaq.
Here's the
GDC video showing off the immense character customization as well as a few other things. The game is built off of Crytek's CryEngine (FarCry 1's engine) and looks
amazing for an MMO, while still maintaining very good performance even with lots of people onscreen. People with 3 year old Dells can play the game fine and the game runs without a hitch even with 100+ people nerdslapping eachother.
Following stuff below shamelessly stolen from SA as there's just way too much shit to go into and I suck at generalizing.
The FactionsElyos -
For justice, nobility and feathered hairdosThe humans who would become the Elyos were the ones on the bottom half of Atreia, now called Elysea, which was bathed in the light of the nearby star and became a lush paradise. As a result the Elyos are vibrant and fair-skinned people. Believing themselves to be the blessed people of Aion, they pursue art, music, grand architecture and the extermination of all Asmodians for being ugly. Their capital city is called Sanctum.
Asmodians -
Claws, talons and lots of back hairThe humans who would become the Asmodians were the ones on the top half of Atreia, now called Asmodae. They got the shaft big time, since Asmodae recieved none of the light from the sun and became a dark, desolate wasteland. As a result, the Asmodians are rather more bestial in appearance than their Elyos cousins, sporting blue-gray skin, claws on their hands and feet, great manes down their backs and eyes that glow red in combat. They too have risen to civilization, but only through great effort. While grim survivalists, they are not the "bad guys" by any stretch and place enormous value on family, friends and honor. They also hate the Elyos for being self-righteous, not helped in the least by the Elyos returning that aggression. Their capital city is called Pandaemonium.
The ClassesFor a great look at the Aion classes in glorious HD action, watch this video.Aion players start with 4 basic class choices on character creation:
Warrior, Scout, Mage and Priest. These branch into two classes each once the player reaches level 10.
Warrior ClassesGladiatorWielding giant fuck-off swords, axes and other weapons that are sometimes the size of their own bodies and dressed in heavy plate, Gladiators are exactly what their name implies. They can be considered the offensive tank of Aion.
TemplarWith sword, shield, heavy plate armor and lots of toughness, Templars are the defensive counterpart to the Gladiator.
Scout ClassesRangerRangers are the bow class, though they have melee ability with dual-wield as well. Their abilities mostly focus around staying at range and pinning down enemies.
AssassinAssassins are the lightly armored melee powerhouses, comparable to rogues from most other games. They stealth, they stab and they kill people dead.
Mage ClassesSorcererA sort of logical extension of the Mage class, Sorcerers excel in CC in all its forms as well as launching the elements at their enemies, usually in the form of balls of fire or frost as well as giant boulders in both nuke and AOE forms. They wear robes and therefore die quickly from melee.
SpiritmasterAion's pet class, Spiritmasters retain some basic Mage abilities such as nukes and CC, but their class is based around summoning spirits to do their bidding as well. This is their best form of protection, since they wear robes like their Sorcerer counterparts.
Priest ClassesClericClerics are full-on healers, continuing their Priest roots to their logical conclusion. They can put out more raw healing than any other class. They wear chainmail and can use mace/shields or staves.
ChanterChanters are something like a combination of Priest, Bard and Red Mage, and could be generally described as the buffing class. They also wear chaimail and can use mace/shields or staves like the Cleric.
The classes are customizeable by use of
stigmas, which grant additional skills and trait to your class similar to how talents work in WoW. They cost a small amount of "stigma shards" to swap out from an NPC in a town.
A whole lot more about the Stigma system can be found here from the crazy people at Aionsource.FlightAt level 10 (which takes maybe 5 hours casual play), your character gains the ability to fly through a quest chain that also does lot of other nifty things I won't go into. Flight is a major part of Aion, as you may have noticed from the mountains of art and screenshots of characters with wings. Much of your time will be spent flying around. You may fly anywhere there is aether, that stuff that the Tower of Eternity used to be a source of. Now it's in a lot of places, and anywhere a high concrentration of it can be found, you can fly. Flight has a time limit, however: the initial limit is 1 minute of flight with twice that in recharge time, though there are methods to increase that as well as refill your time limit such as potions or gates in the Abyss, where flight and flight timer management are incredibly important.
Flight is very well done in Aion, as it is more than simply point-and-autorun-from-point-A-to-point-B. You can dive, glide and swoop around, and on the whole flying feels very natural and dynamic since your character will animate properly for many of the maneuvers you can do. You won't quite be doing loop-de-loops or anything overly fancy, but knowing how to fly well is one of the most important parts of the game for both PvE and PvP. I found myself flapping around just for the hell of it sometimes. Nearly all abilities are useable while flying (though you have to stay still for things with a cast time, just like on the ground), encouraging its use in PvP.
Also, you may use your wings at any time and any place to glide from great heights, regardless of the presence of aether. You can also glide to pick up lots of speed, making use of higher terrain useful for catching fleeing targets or ambush them from above.
PvPvEAion begins encouraging PvP at level 25 through the use of rifts which semi-randomly connect players or groups of players directly to opposing faction zones, allowing them beat the opposing faction up to their heart's content. After completing a certain level 25 quest, players can also visit The Abyss, the centerpiece of Aion's PvP both figuratively and literally. This huge expanse of floating debris and islands is rife with captureable castles and rifts to it are open almost constantly. The Abyss is the source of some of the best rewards in the game and constantly encourages players to capture parts of it for their faction. Resources are easily gathered from the areas around the castles, which means both player and NPC crafters will love you for capturing them. The guild that captures a castle gains taxes from their use and their faction will love them since holding those fortresses lets them get to certain items, resources and rifts not otherwise accessible. The Abyss is also a good spot for leveling so all the people still leveling can grind space crabs to their heart's content.
Besides the Abyss, PvP action can be found in your opponent's lands; the end goal of both factions is to shatter the stump of the Tower of Eternity on the other faction's half of the planet, and of course city raiding is in and gives the best rewards in the game. With rifts constantly opening and closing between the halves of the world, a huge part of Aion is popping over the opposing faction's lands and ruining someone's afternoon.
"Wait! You said PvPvE!"That's right. Remember those Balaur guys I talked about way up in the story section? They're the third faction, and they'll be right there in the Abyss and faction lands popping through rifts, capturing fortresses and making things interesting. They're controlled by the server, hence the PvE part.
CombatCombat is the usual hotbar deal typical of most MMOs. However, many skills are parts of combo chains, often with branching options to each chain and animations that flow well through the entire combo.
In addition, flight adds more options for classes, particularly in ranged combat; although of course a melee character can fly as well or simply hide behind things and wait out the flight timer on his opponent until they're forced to land.
Finally, another interesting thing they've done with the combat in Aion is dynamic movement bonuses, which reward moving in combat. Now all your jumping and strafing around in MMOs actually does more than just abuse lag and give your opponent a headache; strafing increases your evasive stats, moving forward increases your offensive power and moving backwards increases your defense. These apply while flying as well, so feel free to combine the two mechanics to swoop down and smack someone with a sword!