The Daily Grind: What did you think of Asmodae?
by Lesley Smith 
Jun 22nd 2009 at 8:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Bugs, The Daily Grind
So, Closed Beta Test 2 is over and the next one is over a week away. Aion has gone silent for now and that means we have a time to reflect on the weekend's event. I got my warrior maiden to level 10 quite easily and spent the rest of the time exploring the available zones including Altgard. I have a feeling I ended up in Morheim too but scarpered as soon as I noticed the mobs were level 40. While I will probably stick with Elyos, I can't get over how beautiful Asmodae is. It's much more aesthetically pleasing than the parts of Elysea I've seen and if they could just move the sky from Altgard Fortress and Tunapre Lake to Elysea I'd be set.
So come on beta-testing readers? What did you think of Asmodae? Was it what you expected or were you, like me, a little surprised? Has it made you reconsider which race you're going to roll when the game goes live later this year? Speak up and drop your thoughts in the comments box below.
So come on beta-testing readers? What did you think of Asmodae? Was it what you expected or were you, like me, a little surprised? Has it made you reconsider which race you're going to roll when the game goes live later this year? Speak up and drop your thoughts in the comments box below.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Manic Soul said on 8:19AM 6-22-2009
I'm curious to know how this is running on everyone's systems...my wife is dying for this game and she's running a p4 with something like 2.6 or 2.8ghz, 2gbs of ram and a geforce with 528mbs of video ram. according to the system requirements I see online her processor's the only thing that's going to be lacking to run the game (at least for minimum requirements) but I also know that the system requirements are sometimes different in practice (or are even different when the game goes gold). anybody beta testers mind letting me know how the game ran for them?
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Andy O. said on 11:15AM 6-22-2009
Single Core CPU, you said she had a Geforce with 512 ram (528, same thing), but you didn't say what chipset the video card has. If it's a Geforce fx 5200, I'd say forget it, if it's a Geforce 8800 or 9x00 series you should be OK, but given you're on a single core system I am guessing she has an AGP video card which means the fastest video card you could have is a 7800 GS, her performance probably won't be amazing
Get ready for an upgrade. CPU speed recommendations may be hit or miss, but in beta's I always opt for "more is better", running a dual or quad core is gonna help a lot.
Don't upgrade if your system is 3-5+ years old, just get a new system.
Manic Soul said on 11:50AM 6-22-2009
@ andy o. :
Thanks for the advice. Her system's a few years old and had a bit of a rough time handling WoW during raids so we'll probably just end up getting another one at some point. Some point = I'm unemployed and don't want to buy another computer just for a game. I don't remember the geforce card she had, though...chances are she just needs a new system altogether.
Mordredis said on 2:04PM 6-22-2009
I loaded it up on my older PC with a 6800 Ultra with 256 megs of ram on it just to see if it would run at all, and it was playable at 1280X1024 with the rest of the system comprable to what you posted. I did experience some lag around heavily populated areas but it wasnt anywhere near as bad as I feared.
derella said on 8:37AM 6-22-2009
Thanks to their invasive anti-cheating software, Gameguard, I wasn't able to play.
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Myrix said on 9:00AM 6-22-2009
I think this game is going to have an event faster love -> hate turnaround than WAR or even AoC.
I'm seriously amazed its getting all the praise that it is. People must be starved for anything that isn't WoW.
I keep hearing how its so amazingly polished, which must be a testament to how incredibly shitty most MMOs are in beta/launch. The fact that it runs smoothly should not be something we have to praise, it should be something we expect. But, I do realize it's not something we often get, so fair enough on that.
Beyond the smoothness, and the admittedly beautiful zones, I find Aion to be no better than most other Korean games out there like Lineage 2 or Rappelz. In fact, it feels almost exactly the same as Rappelz except (gasp) I can use WASD and jump. How westernized.
The writing is a joke, the quests are awful, combat is standard fare (not bad, but nothing original or interesting either), and even flying is disappointingly not nearly as cool as it looked in the early videos.
Maybe it's just me, but if not for the great graphics I would think it was just another F2P MMO that I downloaded and uninstalled the next day.
Also, as a side rant, GameGuard is TERRIBLE and has all sorts of negative side effects on your PC. I refuse to play Aion any further on that point alone.
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Myria said on 9:52AM 6-22-2009
You'll note that both War and AoC were effusively praised before release as well, reading the old pre-release press and post-release reviews of both gives one rather a sense of deja vu.
We do seem to like putting games on a pedestal they can't possibly live up to before we abandon them. I don't think it's so much a matter of anyone being starved for anything that isn't WoW, there are plenty of MMOs that are pretty much nothing like WoW (Pirates and Eve, to name two) and none of them have sub numbers that anyone would reasonably call impressive.
No, I think it's more a matter of there being an excruciatingly vocal and generally quite young segment of the market that takes new = good as axiomatic. Add in absurd levels of marketing hype and a gamer "Press" whose main purpose seems to be to regurgitate said hype early and often, and you get the current cycle of "From anointed WoW-killer to the pathetic butt of jokes in two easy months" MMO release cycle.
Temko said on 9:03AM 6-22-2009
I'm sorry.... people were expecting anything other then WoW with different art? i'm sorry... 11 Mil subs does tend to make other guys drool to nibble and copy&paste it
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Murderbeard said on 9:08AM 6-22-2009
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Most people hating on it probably did not play it. I personally had no Gameguard problems, but they really should fix that because i've heard a lot of people are having the same issues as you guys. I leveled a Ranger and a Templar. Definitely feeling the Templar. (not a tank/healer hybrid. way to respond Lesley =])
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Prog70 said on 9:13AM 6-22-2009
I leveled a warrior and scout to lvl 10 an thouroughly enjoyed the experience.Got some nice green drops and fooled around with dyeing my armor.It's not really anything horribly new but it is extremely polished and I found myself immersed for the first time in a very long while in a new MMO.
Thraay said on 9:30AM 6-22-2009
Oh I am going to be rolling a Asmodae as my main come release.
After rolling two characters (one on each side) I enjoyed the Asmodae side alot more. The story line was just amazing. I can't get over all these people that say the story / quests are complete crap and that they have no idea why there character is in the game world.. WTF? Did you even try and read the quests storyline. It's clear cut what happened and why you are in the game. If you played upto level 9 and ascended then you should know what happened and why your character lost there past. And as you play through the game the parts to the puzzle are put togeather even more.
People coming into any new MMO expecting something completely different is going to be greatly disappointed. Almost everything coming out in the not so distant future is sticking to the tried and true format.
The three things Aion does great is its Story. Questing based PvE (no grinding required to level) and some top notice end game PvP.
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Carrie said on 9:29AM 6-22-2009
My first character I leveled was an Asmodean Scout, which was tougher than I thought it'd be as I died quite a bit to mobs just 1 level over me. When I got to Ranger I was disappointed that they make you press a button to switch between melee/ranged attacks, which just seems unnecessary to me.
Then I rolled an Elyos priest and had a much better time. Never died, and I thoroughly enjoyed the more cheerful zones and the quests there. For Tutty!
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Smasheij said on 9:52AM 6-22-2009
I played both a priest (chanter) and a scout (assassin) and had a great time. Everything ran great. The quests were fun and easy-to-understand and the difficulty felt right. It really felt like a mixture between WoW and Guild Wars.
I agree with the Carrie in that the scout was a bit tough. Once I became an assassin the class was cake, but before then it really needed pots to get by (at least it did if I got jumped by a mob or *gasp* two). The priest was much easier to level up to 10.
I didn't get to PvP any, but I'm really looking forward to trying this game out in PvP. The classes I played felt like they were built for PvP
Derella, there were instructions on the beta forums to help you with Gameguard issues. I had the same problems going into the beta on Friday. I'm not sure if you saw that stuff on the forum or not, but I thought I'd point it out in case you want to get in the next time around. I hope you can get past that! : )
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Aganazer said on 10:12AM 6-22-2009
My opinion about the Asmodae newbie zone is that its too much like the other newbie zone. This hurts replayability when they are so similar. I liked the art style better, but the quests were nearly identical. Five return trips to the graveyard and an Ascension quest with 20 minutes of time wasted traveling from one end of the zone to the other. Sorry, but traveling is not gameplay, especially when you've already been through the same area a few times already.
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Thraay said on 10:28AM 6-22-2009
While the quests may have been similar in what you had to do. The quest story was completely different. I am sure things are going to change up a little for the Elyos side since Liv has already said they are going to make another pass over the 1-20 content and fix up/change & add more content based upon the beta feedback for the Elyos content.
Them changes have not made it into the game yet and more then likely won't be in until CB3 or CB4.
I doubt we will ever see the two Ascension quests be completely different. One reason being is that they need to keep both sides on a equal leveling ground. The quests need to take roughly the same amount of time to complete as to not give one side an advantage over the other.
I myself do not care much for the Elyos side since alot of there quests gave me the feeling that the quest giver was better then my character. Where the Asmodae side gave me more of the fitting in raider type feel. None of the quests givers made you feel like you where less then the dirt on the bottom of there shoes and most of them was just out to make there own pockets a little larger. Just like a raider community should be.
wolfsterne said on 11:22AM 6-22-2009
I was dismayed that the story/quest were exactly the same....Blizzard really spoiled folks with the separate story lines...I'm glad the TOR devs understands how important this is.
The game will have a LII size audience in NA I think.....sadly their biggest downfall is some of their so called fans screaming go back to WoW every ten seconds
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Nadril said on 10:45AM 6-22-2009
I really do wish I could get in the beta and give this game a shot. After watching some Korean PvP videos from it it has sparked my interest, but I'd rather get an idea for how it plays. (and I don't really want to just pre order it yet)
Any sites we know of doing beta contests or something to where I can try and sign up?
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CindyL said on 10:54AM 6-22-2009
People are screaming go back to WoW for only one reason I've seen:
People are trying to turn the game into WOW. Hey guess what? The existing fan base does not want to play WoW we want to play Aion.
It's a very good thing to give suggestions but when you go on several threads and keep stating "WoW has this and so should you if you want to pull away their subs..." It gets really old and tired.
If you don't like what the game does and has to offer that's fine, just move on already.
OH and don't go trying the beta because you want a free preview, you'll get a skewed impression of the game as they ARE bugs and things missing. If you're not interested in helping the game and getting it ready for launch then wait for open beta.
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Nadril said on 11:11AM 6-22-2009
The game has been in korea for like a year, don't kid yourself by saying that the beta isn't just a free preview.
CindyL said on 11:19AM 6-22-2009
Part of localising the game is making changes to how the game functions, for example inverting Y axis. You don't think tweaking some of this stuff doesn't need testing?
It doesn't matter how long it's been out in other parts of the world while most of the game is ready to go the things that are being changed for the western audience still needs to be tested. Don't kid yourself this is not a preview.
I do blame the NCsoft team partly for this mis-communication. They led us to believe for more then a year this would just be a free preview but now that we're in it, it's a lot more... :S