Aion seems to be dividing players - some love it, some absolutely hate it. The one thing that very few people seem to disagree on is how the game looks when it's on a rig that can run it cranked up. The details of the game on the highest settings are polished to a mirror shine. Today's
Aion image comes to us from
Veng, who has this to say of her beta experience:
The detail in the player characters is phenomenal. This is my level 17 Asmodian Cleric wearing a rather contemplative expression. That's one of the features that impresses me - characters faces aren't static but go through a variety of expressions, making them seem even more real. Do you have screenshots that show off one of the more interesting designs or graphical views from your game? Send them to us! Our email address is
oneshots AT massively.com, and it's open 24 hours for your screenshot sending needs. Be sure to add your name, the name of the game, and a quick description too so we can give others an idea of why you thought it was so cool.
Sep 11th 2009 at 2:00PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jdpitt05 said on 2:06PM 9-11-2009
The game is pretty no doubt, but the gameplay is still a wow quest/grindfest. Kill 10 rats, collect 3 crystals, etc. Aion isn't revolutionary enough to make me sub. I'm gonna pin my hopes for a mmo breaking the trend on FFIV. I long for an MMO that can keep me excited and having fun from level 1 to max.
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MrGutts said on 2:11PM 9-11-2009
So you want a eve based leveling system instead?
Jdpitt05 said on 3:09PM 9-11-2009
Don't get me wrong I think Aion is a solid game for what it is. At this point I'd rather play it than WoW, but in actuality i'd rather not play either. I guess I've grown tired of the character progression in Wow and Aion. 1. Go to a zone get quests at town hub. 2. Kill 5 of these, collect 5 of these. 3. Get quest to go to the next hub in the next zone. 4. Rinse and repeat all by yourself solo until max level. To me it just isn't fun, I played the Aion beta until level 13 and got a quest to kill 10 mobs and I just realized this feels like work and I'm not having fun. I want an mmo where I'm having fun while I'm progressing my character, not feel like I'm doing work.
Elliott said on 2:18PM 9-11-2009
Aion is not revolutionary at all, but it is a solid game. That is hard to say about many of the recent additions to this genre in the past year or two, ya know?
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CindyL said on 2:35PM 9-11-2009
Yes I agree, it's polished and the gameplay is so much fun, I don't really need much more then that and I look forwards to logging and play all the time so far.
If they can keep with the updates, and I think they will, this game will have a solid niche crowd with great politics and inter guild interaction. :P
Elle Chase said on 5:41PM 9-11-2009
Aion's default graphics settings chug and hiccup horribly on my two-year-old 3.2 GHz core-duo with 2GB ram and an 8800 GTS (640MB VRAM). To get the great cryengine graphics you need a top-of-the-line system. When you notch-down the graphics for smooth operation, the result is a game whose visuals struggle to equal those in Conan, Olivion or Fallout 3. Do I want to put $300-$500 in graphics updates into an outdated 32-bit computer just to see nice graphics? Naw, I'll wait until I get a new 64-bit machine with Windows 7, and in the process see if they can get the game running smoothly.
After the incredibly smooth open betas and launches of Lineage II and City of Heroes five years ago, it's really a shame to see how badly NCsoft has slipped. Look at aion_ayase twitters to see a tragic saga of problems preventing everything from login to play to problem reporting for the last week. One can only hope that the litany of disasters is understood in Seoul, and that NC's home office is mobilizing the necessary resources in time for The Big Rollout one week from now.
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Neurasthenic said on 7:02PM 9-11-2009
That's unfortunate.
I'm using one of the earliest Core 2 Duos (E6400, 2.14Ghz), 2gb RAM, and a GTS250. I'm running Aion at max settings, 1680x1050, with 2xAA and it's very smooth. In huge city areas with lots of players it can be slightly choppy but it's still very playable. I'm not sure what's going on with your computer. I'm in no way trying to say you're exaggerating - I'm just surprised because in my opinion it's a very smooth and scalable game. I've even been running it on my laptop that has nowhere near the power of my desktop.
I just don't see how NCsoft has "slipped". I've had plenty of lag problems since open beta started but that's it. And it's safe to say they're devoting a large amount of resources to fixing that, although according to most players, it's no longer much of an issue.
Wait until the game actually launches to judge whether they've "slipped', when the issues they've had in beta have nothing to do with the quality of the game itself, but with network issues.
Elle Chase said on 9:42PM 9-11-2009
My partner and I were just trying Aion together. She has a machine similar to mine, except it's one of the early Dell 720 XPS models. Her graphics card is 8800 GT (512MB VRAM), and has a faster bus speed, but otherwise equivalent to my machine. She has EXACTLY the same problems... even when we run with everything set to "low" and no anti-aliasing. It looks like every time a few other characters enter or leave the field of view there is a 0.75 second to 1.5 second freeze-up. Needless to say, in a tight battle, or a PvP attack, that kind of freezeup can be fatal! It also results in our characters freezing within the world, which means we stop moving. As a result, someone without "the freezes" can move faster, catch up to us if chasing, etc. I should also note that the "freezes" don't affect the framerate readout. Of course, the framerate readout couuld be buggy.
Therefore, this is NOT a problem limited to a specific machine. It may be due to our 8000-series nvidia cards, although they were pretty high end two years ago. It may be due to the infamous server lag problems NCsoft has struggled with throughout open beta (that might explain no dip in framerate, and the fact we both have the problem). Since we have 3.0Mbit DSL connections here, right in the heart of Silicon Valley, and see no problems with any other games or apps, it's not a problem on our end.
We really would liike to play the game, seriously! It's our kind of game, and handles team play very nicely - unlike so many recent MMOs, whose group loot mechanisms were/are semi-broken at launch. I'm posting this to raise awareness of users to potential serious problems.
My suggestion to prospective gamers is to download it (9GB) from fileplanet and try right away, while it's still free, to see if your system can handle the game.
JDC78 said on 6:17PM 9-11-2009
I am running about the same rig and it is as smooth running for me. Having been playing since the start of the NA close beta and even a bit of the Chinese version I am very impressed with it so far. I have had zero issues, lag, or stuttering even with literally hundreds of players in the same area not just the zone.
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beebster said on 11:03AM 9-14-2009
my relevant hardware/software:
geforce 8800GT
4 GB Ram
Windows vista home premium x64
intel core 2 Quad
Hmm. yeah i played the beta, full settings, and in windowed mode, was getting no less than 30fps. i typically ran in between 30-50fps.
many things running in the background can affect your performance: spyware, excess services, viruses, background running programs, virus scans. or other poor computer etiquette that results in bottlenecked computer performance.
i consider myself a mid to low-high end gamer, and there is no game out right now that entices me to upgrade to geforces upper tier graphics cards. but that is relevant to me only i know.
good luck in finding a balance for those that have problems.
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