Aion, the New Pioneer in the MMORPG Community

In many circles, the term, "MMORPG" brings up a great many jokes. Chances are, this article may not change peoples' views of the massively multiplayer role-playing game genre; however, this might shed some light on a new MMO on the scene that I have heard called the "Blizzard Killer" (courtesy of KingxCloud). The name of the game is Aion.

Aion, published by NCsoft, was developed by a Korean company. Incidentally, the world was given Aion a year after its release there. Like many MMOs, the whole goal is doing quests, crafting items of many different kinds, connecting with others to take on different challenges. But Aion added many things, breaking the mold in the process. It features an insane level of customization, rendering the possibilities virtually endless for both the characters' physical features as well as the gameplay experience. For instance, in addition to the massive amount of armor and clothing in the game, dyes can be added to individual articles of clothing making them your own. Physical features can be fully customized right down to the curvature of the bridge of the nose. You can even change your equipment to look like another piece of equipment in your inventory. But enough about customization, gameplay is what many people want to know about.

Many people know that MMOs are about guilds, quests, raids, crafting, farming, and grinding until you reach the level cap. But in Aion, deception is one of the potential components of gameplay. But first, some background.

Two races, of opposing sides, are fighting in an endless war for control of the middle ground, the world, between their worlds, Abyss. As with many MMOs, PvP is a key feature with Aion, but Aion adds an addition spin on it. When the opposing races meet in Abyss, the regular gameplay is transformed. The PvP we knew before gained a new addition, PvPvE, also known as, "Player versus Player versus Environment". The simple explanation is that the player will be fighting the opposing race as well as environmental hazards or traps that are on the battlefield. This brings me to my next point, flight. Upon ascension at level 10, the player will go through a ceremony and will be endowed with wings. In Abyss, most combat will be aerial. In the PvPvE area, this will prove to be a challenge, because you will be flying and attacking the enemy while be damaged by parts of the environment. To top it all off, Abyss throws you into the fight blind. This is where deception comes into play.

In Abyss, you will have characters from level 25 to level 50 fighting each other. But players of opposing races cannot see their foes' level. So you may be blindly attacking a player 10 levels higher than you, or that player you want to attack who has level 50 equipment may just be a lower level character trying to psych you out. Like in an actual battle, the opponent cannot be sized up at a glance. In Aion, it is possible to take the equipment you are wearing and make it look like another piece of equipment in your inventory. This, is my opinion is a really unique idea for an MMO.

I work at Gamestop, and I stumbled across this game my first night working there. The night of the Halo: ODST release also happened to be the night of the release of Aion. Being the release, they threw out the unused Preorder packs. I took one home with me and looked it up. I saw videos that had incredible graphics and awesome looking classes to choose from, and I was sold. I bought the game the next day. Upon creating my character, and the weekend finally arriving, I logged on, and found that there were so many people who had the game that there were literally lines to log onto the servers. This is a testament to the people at NCsoft. They have continually worked day and night accommodating all those who have started playing Aion. In just two and a half weeks, they have effectively eliminating the logon queues for even the fullest servers.

All in all, on a scale of 1-10 in terms of wantability, I'll have to give this a definite 9. A 9 because it's a great overall game, but obviously only caters to fans of one particular genre. I'm not one to drop money on a game I've never heard of, especially when it means giving up a game I already own, but I did for Aion, and I don't regret this decision one bit.