Aion: Hands On Preview: Part Three

04 Aug 2009 at 15:20:00 by Bill Vaughan

After having discussed the extensive character customisation, gameplay and questing, this week I talk about Aion after level ten, some of the recent additions to the beta client, and a few features that I feel could be better.

I had several hours of Aion planned this weekend but the powers that be (my ISP) had other ideas. How typical that the day they develop authentication problems is one of the three days in a fortnight that the Aion beta is open, and the main day I had put back to spend in Atreia. But at 10.30pm when my router sprang back to life, I was logged in and playing before you could blink, until 4.30am, because I have a duty – a duty to bring word of this game to others! Cough. Anyway, on with part three of my Aion preview.

Before the latest test session opened this weekend, NCsoft announced that it would be adding a stack of newly-localised voice files and cut scenes into the beta client. Each faction, the angelic Elyos and the menacing Asmodians, get their own introduction which plays when a new character is created. Western character voices can also be tried out in the creation process now. With this in mind, I went to the character creation screen and rolled a new toon. Randomly selecting a Scout, I chuckled to myself when I saw that someone in the development team is obviously a fan of footballer, David Beckham, because there he is as one of the pre-made characters. This demonstrates again just how intricate the character customisation is, heck, someone already made Barack Obama.

There were a handful of voices to chose from, ranging from average hero to slightly threatening to youthful. You can listen to three or four unique samples of each voice, each suiting the tone you selected, for example, the kid's voice says something like “I can take care of myself!”.

When a fresh toon enters the world of Aion, a flashy cut scene does indeed play now, complete with western voices. It shows the struggle between the three factions in the game; the two playable humanoid races mentioned before and the Balaur, the draconic AI-controlled race. This plays out as a dream, and the new character awakens in the starter area.

Several, though not all, NPCs have voices now, and many pivotal quests have cut scenes with voice-overs, explaining your mission. When the game launches next month, NCsoft says all voices will be present. This adds another level of immersion to a game that already draws you in with its stunning graphics and smooth gameplay.

Back on my original character, who reached the grand level of ten in my last test session, I set off from the city of Sanctum to start my new set of quests in the zone of Verteron. Now, if you've read my two previous articles on Aion, you'll know I think pretty highly of the game so far. I was very impressed with the character creator, which has enough options to ensure you're unlikely to bump into a twin of yourself unless you'd picked one of the dozen or so pre-made characters. Then the following week I talked about the questing, combat and some of the general gameplay you encounter in the first ten levels of Aion. Until that point I found it hard to say anything bad about the game, but after my relatively short time online this week I'm going to mention a few things that I feel could be better.

On my first foray into the wilderness surrounding the first hub in Verteron, I approached a lake. I was looking for mudcrabs, which were plentiful on the shores but I thought I would venture out into the lake to see if I could find some underwater. I waded out, then noticed my character wasn't swimming, just continuing to walk on the lake bed. When his head went underwater a warning message popped up, then he started taking damage, a lot of damage. I jumped, thinking that he would start swimming, but no, still dying. I turned him around and got back to the shore in time, barely.

Wtf? How the heck do I swim in this game? After some investigation, it turns out you can't swim in Aion, period. Apparently, water is used in much the same way that mountains are used in other MMOs, as a boundary. There are plenty of Aion beta testers that feel this is perfectly acceptable – hey, it's better than the dreaded 'invisible walls', right? And surely it's more realistic, I mean, who can swim in full armour with weapons equipped anyway? And who needs swimming when you can fly?

I'm sorry, but that doesn't wash with me. Using water as a boundary works fine in games like GTA, but in a role playing game where your character has to explore the map on foot, searching out quest items and mobs which are located in water sometimes, swimming is as needed as jumping. As for boundaries in Aion, there are plenty of invisible walls. Flying can only be used in certain areas, and if you try to go somewhere off-limits, you find yourself hitting that unseen barrier. No-fly areas seem to be anywhere above a set altitude, cities, certain areas with mobs and, guess what, over water. And to all those that take the view that Aion's non-swimming policy makes logical sense due to the weight of armor and items your character carries around; that would be fine if you could swim after banking everything you carry (you still can't).

Comment