Genre: Client games, MMORPG, Free MMORPG
Features: In Russian, Popular, Beautiful, Fantasy, RVR, Korean
Status: Started
Payment: Free-to-play
Developer: NCsoft
Publisher: Gameforge, NCSoft, Innova
Release date: October 30, 2008
Website: http://aion.ru
Aion
“Korean syndrome” in MMO-games, along with “WoW-clone attack”, has long been recognized as a malignant disease that has affected the very foundations of the multiplayer games industry. At first glance, Aion is guaranteed to fall into this undesirable campaign. Riot of colors, kitsch colors, excessive attention of designers to the elements of armor – all this indicates a crisis of ideas and inevitably pushes to the reasoning about the premature death of the project due to the sparsely populated servers. However, on closer examination, it becomes clear that despite many secondary ideas, this project has been so thoroughly developed and qualitative that we will soon talk about “Aion clones”.
First of all, it is worth mentioning the business model. It (to much surprise of the audience) is a monthly subscription fee, as a result of which players receive an unlimited package of pleasures, and are spared from the need for constant infusion of money, in order to correspond to the general level. In addition, this method of payment serves as an excellent filter from various random onlookers.
Having dealt with the financial part, you can move on to more important components of the project. Aion, without exaggeration, looks simply amazing. At the heart of the graphics is the well-known CryEngine engine, which, although obsolete by the standards of modern video games, but with the maintenance of the online game copes 100%. The game itself is very bright, colorful with peaceful colors and radiates universal love, warmth and kindness. The effect of the picture can be compared with projects such as EVE Online or Age of Conan – at first the game makes you forget about the development of the character and just suppresses the feelings with your landscapes and animation.
Here it should be said that the eye-pleasing graphics are only part of the overall composition, which is called the atmosphere. Giant trees, surprising with the pretentiousness of their forms, life-boggling forests and strange flowers remind Pandora from the famous movie “Avatar.” But this is only part of the picture, its light part, as the world of Aion is divided into two halves, one of which is a darker world, with impenetrable clouds and deserts.
As a result of the bloody war between humans and the race of dragons (later called “balaurs”), the planet split into two parts. One of them was populated by the Elyos, and it is here that the above described riot of life is observed. The other half settled Asmodeans – their world is a pretty oppressive impression, as it suffered much more from the war. As for the Balaur, they settled in the center of a split planet, a territory called the Abyss. It’s interesting that only two races are available to players: Elyos and Asmodeans. Balaurs are managed exclusively by the developers and designed to strike a balance between the two warring nations.
Particular attention should be paid to creating a character. Of all the modern games, only EVE Online boasts the same number of sliders, sliders and fill palettes that are available in this Korean masterpiece. In this case, the player can change not only the shape of the body, but also the growth of his character, and in fairly substantial limits, so that on the expanses of this world you can meet both real dwarf mages and giants.
Initially, the player is available only four classes: scout, magician, priest and warrior. After reaching level 10, the game offers to make another choice, as a result of which the number of classes increases to eight. Also on the tenth level, almost the main feature of the game becomes available – the possibility of flying, which is expressed in the presence of a pair of pretty impressive angel wings behind.
However, the most interesting begins after reaching level 25 – it is at this point in front of the player that the cherished gate with the tablet “PvP” comes off. Battles between players occur primarily in the Abyss, although sometimes between the two worlds a special gate opens, allowing players to arrange a small terror in the rear of the enemy. For killing opponents players are credited with special glasses, for which you can then buy something useful in terms of uniforms. By the way, the notorious wings play in PvP not the least role, as many battles take place right in the air. For pacifists, the game provides for as many as 6 peaceful occupations. You can make armor, you can become an alchemist, weaver or first-class artisan, and the process of “pumping” these skills is no less interesting than the execution of quests.
Summing up, we can say that Aion was really a piece product, play it only to enjoy its truly stunning beauty. However, other aspects of this project
