Archive for September, 2009

MMORPG.com’s Josh Price takes this quick look at his early experiences playing a Ranger in NCsoft’s Aion.

When the open beta started, I decided to dive head first into the Ranger class, and boy am I glad I did. After having sunk over twenty five levels with both the Assassin and the Gladiator during the previous closed beta events, I must say that I had (and am having)a good time with the Ranger, a rip roarin’ good time, even. The class is not without its faults, though. Luckily, most of those faults are only below level twenty. During this time the Ranger can be a bore and a hassle to play, due to a limited number of abilities. But if you’re willing to see it through until the late teens, you’ll find yourself quickly filling those britches. Some might say that it’s like growing into adulthood; let’s just hope you’re not a late bloomer.

Read An Intro to the Ranger

Player vs Player (PvP)

There are no battlegrounds in Aion (e.g., Alterac Valley). Instead, the PvP is more “open-world” so to speak. The biggest PvP zone is called the Abyss. Players can only enter the Abyss from levels 25-50. Contained in the Abyss are the best XP opportunities, PvE rewards, PvP rewards, instances, and fortress raids. Think of the Abyss as a giant (and we mean giant) contested zone from a WoW PvP server. PvP is highly encouraged in Aion and it is difficult to avoid it once you reach level 25.

You gain Abyss Points (AP) by killing enemy players and Balaur NPCs in the Abyss (and lose it when you die). AP is kind of like honor from back when WoW first launched. AP gives you special PvP ranks and you can spend it like currency to buy various specialty items and abilities.

Two other forms of PvP in Aion include Rifts and the Arena. Rifts are portals that take you to your enemy’s PvE lands. Quests still start sending you through Rifts in your mid-20s. The capital cities also contain Arenas where you can participate in giant free-for-alls against your allies. Basically, it’s a way to practice PvP risk-free.

Graphics/performance

Aion uses More >

Eventually this weekend I managed to ascend in Aion and hit level 10 with my now Asmodian Gladiator, Mantooth. It took me a while to get there due to the fact that I’ve been busy in real life as I’m in the midst of moving apartment and also that I found leveling in Aion to be pretty slow compared to other MMORPGs. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that in this case it does seem to make the whole experience even more tedious and dull than it already is. Yeah, as you can gather from that statement, I’ve been kinda disappointed with the “newbie experience” of Aion.

Maybe it was the fact that I’d already experienced the game in beta but I have to say that I found my progression through the gated, newbie theme park to be boring, grindy and repetitive. I think this is mainly due to the fact that I haven’t able to buy into the lore behind the game and feel any sort of connection to the world and it’s setting. It also doesn’t help that the storyline is very dull and the quests extremely uninteresting and sometimes even downright poorly designed (I thank God I More >