Saturday, June 6, 2009

Aion Beta experiences at NA server

Finally, the long awaited beta for the famous MMORPG, Aion, has begin on 5th June 2009. This game is a great success when it is launched at Korea and China.

I have been playing it for a while and currently I am a lvl 9 Sorcerer. Many players have speculated that this game may be a WOW thrasher or a WOW clone, but I disagree. If there is any style Aion has tries to imitate, it is definitely (in my view) a Guild War clone.

After been force to wait for so long by NC West, I am all excited to get a first hand experiences. As I progress, I discover the beauty of the game. However, I must add that I am somewhat a little disappointed by the game.

But please do not get the wrong idea that I am saying Aion is a lousy game. I enjoy it very much and my gaming experiences in Aion is wonderful. The reason behind my slight disappointment is the anticipation I had on the game because of the long release time that NCWest has took citing localisation as it's main reason of it's delay.

After reading through some of the quest, my mind was thinking, "What localisation is that? I believe I just read some plain direct translation of Korean text to English. Wad the!!? I waited so long for this kind of translation work!!??"

To my disappointed, the linear story line quest did not even have a voice over and there is no tutorial. I had sligth difficulty in locating the NPCs and monsters. (but no worries, I have sort it out. NCSoft decide to make the locate feature "hidden") The fonts size is small and I have to really strain my eyes to read them. After a while I lost interest in reading the quest, so much for localisation crap, nice job NCWest. So much for immersion experiences. I expect the "immersionist" are now taking out their torch gun and loading fully laden oxygen tank ready to ignite their flames.

That is the only flaw I have against the game. Otherwise, I am definitely enjoying myself. I give it a 8 out of 10 for entertainment value and 2 for "localisation" content.

And O, surprisingly, so far, the gaming graphic is not heavy for my computer to handle. I am currently running a 2Gb RAM Duo Core Intel processor with Geforce 7600 256mb RAM. But I will definitely buy a topnotch card soon to enjoy the full extend of what Aion graphic treat it brings.

Remember, this is still in Beta. I strongly believe there will be a open beta with players able to create characters for both factions. And Ayase did mentioned that when the game is launched, the version will definitely will not be the current v1.0. There is potentials my friends. I hopes things will get better.

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