Amazon.com: Aion: The Tower of Eternity Steelbook Edition: Pc: Video Games

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2.8 out of 5 stars (66 customer reviews)

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80 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid game, not my cup of tea though., September 23, 2009

T. Edwards (Stankonia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars

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This review is from: Aion: The Tower of Eternity Steelbook Edition (DVD-ROM)

Aion is a good looking game, this is true. Looking past the pretty fa�ade I however am left underwhelmed by the game. It doesn't seem to offer anything particularly new or exciting.

Character creation is decent, there are quite a few options to customize both your facial and body features. I can't really fault it in any way considering that you'll eventually be decked out in armor and character creation in such a game usually stands as a generic look. There unfortunately isn't much avoiding looking like everybody else in a broader sense because there are only two races. Upon close inspection you should find that most characters manage to create a pretty unique look. As you progress through the game you can choose to maintain various armor looks despite equipping other pieces though which is a nice way of looking unique in the long run.

There have so far been pretty annoying race lockouts on certain servers in an effort to balance them. For example I haven't been able to play with many of my guild mates because no more Asmodians are being allowed on their server. I imagine this will be fixed to some extent but I can't really lie and say that I'm not a bit bitter about being blocked from playing with my friends. Hopefully those who choose to jump in to the game after my writing this don't have this minor annoyance to deal with.

After some initial hiccups at launch the game actually runs quite well. Again the game looks gorgeous with interesting environments and flashy attack animations. The default UI is alright, pretty standard action bar with health bars, but if you're coming from another game it may take some getting used to. I for one am hoping for add-on support or UI customization though since I would personally prefer a slightly more minimalized UI.

The introductory zones come paired with help messages which offer limited video and audio help which I found to be a pretty nice newbie feature. Quests also have a keyword location feature which is like a built in quest helper. I find this feature to be pretty neat, I feel that it adds a sense of authentic adventuring to it for some reason and it doesn't clutter you map with all sorts of quest waypoints. So with these two features getting in to the game and advancing up to level 10 is rather painless.

At level 10ish you become a Daeva which grants you wings and allows you to choose from 2 specialties with your class. There isn't really anything of particular note here but it does add a bit more depth to game play.

Following level 10 it seems that the game becomes increasingly grindy which I don't much care for. Following level 15+ leveling is still quite doable but the rate at which I'm being rewarded for my time is a very important factor for an MMORPG for me and I don't feel that I'm gaining skills or equipment quite fast enough to hold my interest in the game. This has nothing to do with slogging through content too difficult for my character or being oblivious to other questing hubs, I'm simply noting that experience gain tapers off quite quickly. Gaining levels doesn't appear to get you anything aside from skills another factor contributing to the slow feel of the game. It has thus far been quite common for my character to go 2-3 levels getting very little aside from statistical boosts. This is hardly an issue unique to Aion but again it's another one of those things that takes away my desire to get from one skill to the next.

Eventually you get access to Stigma Stones which are sort of like a generic talent tree that allows you access to more skills. I was a rather let down to find out this was the feature which NCSoft was heralding as the way to play your character totally different from another player. While it is true that it allows you to diverge away from other players within your class specialty it isn't so broad in its choices that you'll find a slew of viable builds. I'm looking at it right now as something that will easily be theorycrafted to a point where everybody competitive will play a given class in maybe one or two ways.

Skills are pretty standard for the most part but one pretty cool thing so far is that you get chain skill where one initial attack triggers the use of further more powerful attacks. Unfortunately you can't use chain skills out of sequence but I do like the feel of an attack coming off cool down allowing you to unload on an enemy all at once. Having more than one chain attack generally allows you to be in constant active control of combat. The various chains and what you need to complete them are listed in your skills window and there appears to be quite a variety for the various classes.

Another feature I like is having your own personal shop which others will be familiar with from games such as Ragnarok Online or Fiesta Online. Basically you can open a little shop anywhere and sell your stuff. I far prefer this to auction houses typically because it allows you to be more competitive as a salesman than an auction house typically does because location becomes a valid choice and undercutting doesn't kill all chance at profits. It's also good for going afk for extended periods of time.

Flying is a big part of the game considering you have wings and all. I haven't liked flying much at all so far and I'm really kind of dreading parts of the game where it becomes more necessary. The controls seem very clunky and the limitations of cool down between use and the overall flight time lead to a high preponderance of ineffectiveness of death. You can modify your wings and combat abilities while flying so perhaps by the time I really need to worry about flying it's more tolerable but up to where I'm at now it seems little more than a poorly implemented gimmick. After quite a bit more practice with my wings I'm still only finding the flight mechanics to be marginally more tolerable, perhaps I suck but be fairly warned.

PvP has so far been respectable, especially for a rather new game. I haven't personally encountered any particular class which I feel is broken beyond belief despite some community complaints of balance issues. There does seem to be an attitude of this game and its PvP being "hardcore" and I have to comment that I feel this is a rather glorified designation. The flying adds a bit of depth and skill to PvP but I feel that's where the unique aspects of PvP in this game end. I don't think anybody playing WAR or WoW, particularly PvP servers, are going to switch over to this game and be refreshed by the PvP. It's fun and well implemented but at its core this has been done before.

Pros:
Good looking
Overall solid game
Seemingly popular

Cons:
High grind possibility
Awkward flying
Race lockouts

In summary, I don't think I'll be sticking with this one for long, I'm simply not being moved in any particular way by it currently. It's different enough from other games to warrant some consideration but it also hold so many cliché similarities that prevent me from getting too excited about it. The game has great potential for many players but I recommend taking a long look at it before biting the hype bullet. If I had to recommend it I feel that fans of Guild Wars, Lineage 2, FFXI, or even first time MMOers would like the game quite a bit.

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44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Into Eternity, September 24, 2009

Halo Faire (Canada) - See all my reviews

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: Aion: The Tower of Eternity Steelbook Edition (DVD-ROM)

Just putting a post, to give out some information for those folks "sitting on the fence" wondering if Aion is worth ordering or not . I'm trying not to be negative about the game per se, rather saying it maybe not for everyone. It tends to lean heavy on the "PvP-aholic"; "Grouping is where its at" ,"I luv to grind XP " style of game play. Which don't get me wrong is a perfectly valid style of play, but tastes do differ. I much prefer the exploration aspects of a Morpg verses bragging rights.

Graphically it's very nice. Similar to Guild wars in appearance,but perhaps a little more advanced and shimmering. The zones are similarly laid out; with the usual "single road" and long corridors to fight over/through. If your expecting the freedom of flying and therefore tons of massively open 3D areas; be prepared at least for levels 1-30 to be largely ground based (there's lots of no fly zones) and be hemmed in by mountains. Leveling is and can be a bit of a Lineage 2 grind fest, with the usual kill 10 of these, deliver this experience. When you start reach lvl 18 + quests , then your kinda forced to group. It's hard to solo, not impossible, just be prepared for lots of repetitive "farming". Most folks find it a drag until you reach lvl 25 then you begin the main part of the storyline.

Overall the aim of the Aion is to get you to this massive open ended Zone "the Abyss". As this is where the game is suppose to shine, with the focus tending to lean heavily on PvP and again grouping to survive. Bear that in mind if you buy the game, yes there are other things to do, crafting,big boss instances etc. But it's in the open 3D "battleground" of the Abyss, where the NCSoft are putting the heart of the Aion Experience.

Overall it's a fine MORPG, nice visuals, follows the standard pattern of leveling by gaining XP thing. And that's where it's strengths and weaknesses are. Is it a good game? Yes. But the next "big" new thing? In my experience sadly no. Hopefully one day a developer will have the courage to break free from the Everquest style of design and produce a different gaming online experience.

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Has potential, but needs a LOT of work..., April 13, 2010

Yu-jin Chia "Yu-Jin Chia" (Cupertino, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: Aion: The Tower of Eternity Steelbook Edition (DVD-ROM)

The first thing you'll probably notice about Aion is that it is graphically amazing. It uses CryEngine and is undoubtedly the best looking MMO in existence at the moment. Character models in particular are incredibly detailed- superior to even most single-player RPGs. Character customization is also extensive and very well done- you can truly make a unique character in every possible way, from facial features (which has more sliders than Oblivion or Fallout 3) to body appearance, armor, and size. If you want a game where you have maximum control over your look, this is as good as it gets.

Let's face it though- great graphics only take you so far. In terms of gameplay, Aion's a pretty standard MMO: trade and gathering skills, quests, dungeons, etc. This is nothing new to anyone that's played an online RPG. If you're expecting brand new game mechanics or anything revolutionary, you're going to be disappointed. That in itself isn't bad; a solid, polished, tried-and-true formula game with graphics like this would be a surefire hit. Unfortunately, Aion is far from this... very far. I can see it becoming a game to challenge the likes of WoW, but it's going to take a LOT of work, and- to be quite frank- NCSoft is not known for moving quickly on changes. Additionally, the few areas where Aion does deviate from tried-and-true game mechanics are uniformly badly implemented, and more than anything else are likely to turn off the majority of new players.

Those considering trying Aion may have heard that it's PvP oriented. This is most assuredly true, and it is a very extreme case. I've seen a lot of people complain that other NCSoft games, e.g. Guild Wars, focused too heavily on PvP. Until you've played this one, however, you've got no idea. You can PvP literally anywhere you can travel, and you can travel just about anywhere. There's almost no place that's safe- pretty much the two starter areas and the capital city are it. There is absolutely nothing preventing high level players (or, even worse, GROUPS of high level players) from entering low level areas and slaughtering hapless low level players trying to do quests. Furthermore, lower level characters are not merely at a disadvantage when encountering higher level ones. They are completely, utterly, hopelessly helpless. You can't even hit other players 5 or more levels higher than you, and even if you could it wouldn't even hurt them. This is PvP at its worst- not fair or fun in any sense of the term. There also seems to be high level players on every server that literally spend all day killing low level people, purely for fun. Due to the way the game is designed, it's not just easy to do this but ridiculously so. Even if you call over high level players from your own side to kill the offenders, they can be back in a matter of seconds. This is probably the heaviest deterrent to new players, and I actually know people that have quit this game purely because of it. I can see why: even though I enjoy PvP, I would rather do it when I want to- not when some virtual sadist 30 levels higher than me wants to. It's something that could be pretty easily remedied via patching, but I'm pretty sure NCSoft won't do it until they realize it's killing them- by which point it'll be far too late.

The problems with PvP would be forgivable if the PvE content was excellent. Unfortunately, it falls far short of that. For the most part, you're stuck doing mob killing quests, many of which are repeatable for 'reputation.' This isn't faction reputation like in WoW, though- it's per quest giver rep. If you do enough repeatable quests for someone, they give you special rewards. This sounds like a cool idea until you realize how many you have to do- on average a HUNDRED turnins. These are not short quests either; on average they take about 20 mins to complete each time! I honestly don't see why anyone would bother, or what the developers were even thinking. Most of the campaign quest content requires a group, which is inconvenient considering how few players there are at any given level on any given server (it can take upwards of an hour to put together a halfway viable group, and this is during peak hours). Dungeons are likewise lackluster and poorly designed. First off, there's absolutely no safe places- you can literally get killed by a patrol at the very entrance of a dungeon without even moving from the doorway. For some reason, there's also upper level caps on dungeons- which means you can't help lower level friends and can only run each place a few times per character. There's also a full day lockout on ALL dungeons a la WoW heroics, and this lockout occurs when you ZONE IN. To make matters worse, bosses in these instances often drop no loot. You read that right: you can run an entire instance and literally not get anything. Even worse, it's possible for items to drop that are only usable by the other faction. It remains to be explained why things are even faction-bound, but this would be akin to an Alliance-only item dropping on Horde side in WoW, with NO MEANS to move it there. On that note, you can't communicate at all with the other side. You can't even create new characters on the other side of the same server, unless you have more than one Aion account. Lastly, if you die in an instance, you resurrect wherever your bind point was. To put it in WoW terms, it'd be like resurrecting at your hearth... which is pretty bizarre. Generally speaking, instancing is unbelievably primitive and poorly executed. After seeing how badly designed the dungeons in Guild Wars were, and now this, I'm firmly convinced NCSoft is simply incapable doing it.

There's also a host of lesser things that could definitely use more polishing, such as the camera options, inventory management, and quest tracking. Some things as basic as targeting are glitchy, and there's a lot of skills and abilities that are ridiculously imbalanced. For that matter, there's just plain too many of both- enough to make your head spin even if you're a Guild Wars veteran. There's no support for addons, and macros are buggy and very limited in scope. You'll find frequent inconsistencies and problems with mob scaling, area design, and itemization. For example, quests often require you to kill specific mobs, but in the same area there'll be slightly different named mobs that look and act exactly the same... but won't give you quest credit. Many stats are either partly or totally useless, for example magic crit doesn't affect any spells- only your magic weapon autoattacks. You can also find, in almost any given zone, quests and enemies with a level difference higher than 20. When you consider there's only 50 levels in the game, you can see why this is just a tad weird.

Dying to anything but an enemy player also causes you to lose experience, and it is very easy to die. An alarming number of PvE enemies can stunlock or silence you, which means aggroing more than one is very likely to kill you unless you pop consumables. Elite mobs are often indistinguishable from regular ones, and just as often intermixed with them. Especially if you're not in plate, most of these will kill you so quickly you won't even know what hit you. There's also some other more minor quirks, such as an odd tendency for the game to quit completely if you get disconnected and melee enemies hitting you at range (good luck trying the reverse). Lag is handled very poorly- you'll often 'rubberband' just like in Guild Wars, and due to the flight aspect this can be directly fatal. Resource nodes also have an ugly, inexplicable habit of despawning if you cancel gathering or get interrupted by something. Resource gathering in general is slow, boring, and buggy- you'll often fail to gather immediately due to a bug that has inexplicably never been fixed. These issues, taken individually, might not seem irritating at first, but the more you play the more it wears on you because there's always at least one of them apparent.

Lastly, let's talk about flying. This, aside from the free-for-all PvP, is one of the 'exciting new features' trumpeted by the developers. Unfortunately, either as a result of balancing or just due to sheer lack of imagination, they've made it little more than a means of travel. And a pretty bad one, at that- even WoW's flying mounts, limited as they are to two continents, are far more flexible. The vast majority of areas disallow flying, including some places where you would think it'd be a no-brainer to allow it (e.g. capital cities, complete with floating islands accessible only by a 10 minute round trip by boat...). There's skills geared towards flying combat, but in practice it's just too unwieldy to be any fun. At any rate, there's a hard time limit on how long you can fly at once and, inexplicably, also a flight cooldown that limits how often you can sprout your wings. Potions, wing upgrades, and manastones can extend flight, as can flying through special rings in places like the Abyss, but if you were expecting to spend a lot of time in the air in this game, you will be extremely disappointed.

Believe it or not, I could easily double the length of this review with other bugs, problems, balance factors, and things that just plain need improvement. To sum it all up, Aion is a game that could be great if they would fix most- or heck, even a fraction- of the problems with it. Unfortunately, that list of problems is so long, and with so many intractable issues related to fundamental game design, that I honestly don't think it's likely or even feasible. Aion will probably survive for some time due to its original hard-core fan base- especially the Korean market, which seems to get all the updates months ahead of everyone else. However, I really don't see it getting any bigger or more successful, and once a true successor to WoW finally shows up, I doubt anyone will even remember it. I picked it up mainly because I was bored out of my mind with WoW, but my Aion experience has been so disappointing that I've decided to just go back.

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