If you’re reading this post then I’m going to assume that you know what Aion is. If you do then you can skip this paragraph. If you don’t then a brief description is: Aion is a new MMORPG that is being developed by NCSoft. The MMORPG uses the Crytek engine and each character has a limited flight ability.

With that very brief synopsis out of the way, I have been playing Aion in the last two beta events. I’d like to share a quick few thoughts about it.

• Aion is essentially like every other MMORPG. Quests (I call them “jobs” or tasks”) are the same (slay 10 creatures, collect 15 of these, take this here) are the same as what you find in other MMOs, with the occasional interesting story-based quest that pops up completely unexpectedly.
• Combat is similar to other MMOS, but the chains do add a small choice to your combat. Do you knock them back, or do you shield bash for extra damage? They’re small choices, but they can add up to make a big difference
• Flight is significantly more limited that I expected. The majority of the game world is a “no fly zone”. The only time that you can fly (outside of the abyss) is when you are near one of three or four chunks of the Tower. These are, of course, city or outpost areas. The adventure zones are all no fly zones.
• That said, you can glide in the no fly zones, and the website claims that some areas have “pockets of air” that will send you higher… kind of like a hang glider, actually. I have yet to run into these locations, but you do have a limited amount of control over your gliding. With some practice you can glide longer than usual, as long as you’re effectively going down hill or at least have jumped from a cliff.
• The main cities – Sanctum and Pandamonium – are both no fly zones. This baffles me, particularly in regards to Sanctum because that is a city floating in the clouds! Yes, it is possible to go over the side and die, although much of the city does have invisible walls preventing this.

With all of that said, it is a solid MMO. The game runs beautifully; that is to say that older computers should have no problems running this game (though you will, of course, need to turn down some graphics options). The animations are smooth and fluid (more often than not). The client is stable, though the beta servers can have some issues (I suppose that’s expected).

The real fun is obviously in the PvP of the game. NCSoft has been really smart about the PvP in Aion.

You don’t need to engage in PvP because there are areas in the game that the other side simply can not enter. These rift-free zones are of the same level as the rift-enabled zones. If you just want to grind and do the usual MMO jobs then you can do that, but taking part in PvP brings considerable benefits.

First of all, the campaign quests – those are the quests that reveal your character’s missing memories and progresses the game’s main story line – are (in my experience thus far) only available in the zones that have limited PvP. So if you want to continue your story then you’re going to have to accept the possibility of occasional, limited PvP.

I’ve said “limited” a few times, so what does this mean? NCSoft loves to use the description PvPvE. That’s “Player versus Player versus Environment”. This describes the action in the abyss, but these limited PvP zones are a way to slowly introduce the players to this concept.

There will be “rifts” (think worm hole) that appear in these zones. Sometimes they’re one-way and sometimes they’re two-way. These rifts don’t always appear, and when they do they are always in a limited number and they are in a random location. When they do appear you will see a message in your chat box that says “A rift to Eloysea has appeared” or “A rift to Asmodae has appeared”. It will repeat once for each rift that appears (I never saw more than 3 at once).

In addition to these limitations, the game also imposes a numerical limitation. That is to say, only a small number of the other side can come through at any one time. Once a certain amount of players use a rift then that rift will vanish. This makes it impossible for the attacking force to out number the “home forces”; you can not be zerged. That’s not to say that you’re limited to single digits; all together you can have more than 10 players from the other side in your area, but it’s unlikely that they will ever have more players than are on the home side.

You can never see the level of the opposing characters, so it is actually impossible to know for sure exactly what you are going up against. Logically a ganker could try to make their way closer to the city in that area to find potentially lower level players, but you have players coming and going fairly frequently. You can never be sure that the person who you are about to attack is weaker than you. There is also nothing stopping the “home force” from having considerably higher level players in the area for one reason or another.

In the two weekends that I’ve played I’ve had a small number of PvP kills. I think that it’s about 24. It’s only that high because I went through a rift, found an invading party, and happily went about assaulting the enemy. ;D It was fun times. They eventually caught on to us and sent a repelling force around twice our size and basically steam rolled us. Hah! Well, they missed the assassin who could hide, but they did eventually find that sneaky little bugger too..

In so far as my home area is concerned, I had few enough PvP encounters that I could easily count them on one hand and probably still have a finger or two left over.

It’s an interesting way to ease the player into the game’s PvP action. You’re never over whelmed because they have a limited number that come into your area, and they are not always in your area because the rifts are not always present. When they do appear then you know about it and you know how many rifts there are (but not necessarily how many players, if any, have used them).

Lastly, the launch version of the game will have another feature. If a player decides to jump through a rift into an area that is considerably lower level then them then they’re in for a bad surprise. The game curses you after you kill so many players that are considerably weaker than you. You can no longer return your character to your home. You’re stuck in the enemy map and that’s that. You’re not going anywhere until you get killed.

Some of the other players have told me that upon getting cursed the location of the cursed character is always shown on the area’s map. I do not know if that is true or not, but I do know that the ‘curse’ described above is true. Still, this is something to keep in mind.

Generally speaking the game becomes a more enjoyable experience once you join a group and decide to take part in the PvP. The rifts are so random that I’ve come to think of the opposing characters as rare uber spawns with rare loot. No, players do not drop loot, but they do give you “Abyss Point” which can be spent to get sweet gear, useful items, as well as better consumables (potions, food) than you can find on a common vendor.

Oh, lastly there are arenas that you can enter if you want to do something like that. These are not “capture the flag” or other types of games. They are simply gladiator arenas that you enter, are instantly flagged PvP upon entry, and can consequently attack anyone else or be attacked by anyone else in the arena.

Of course you can avoid all of that if you want, but I’ll be happy to take part in it. When I get bored of it or just want a break, well, then there are the PvP-free zones that are the same level as the rift zones.

In all it’s been a decent experience. It is not a genre-changing game, but it’s a MMO that offers enough features to keep me interested. . . for awhile.