Verteron
Latest
Wings Over Atreia: Easy button
You young whippersnappers don't know how easy ya got it! When I was your level, we had to delve deep into the heart of KHQ to do our campaigns, uphill, both ways! And it wasn't no namby-pamby walk in the park, either -- you wiped multiple times just to get where yer going! Why, back in my day, we could go days, sometimes weeks without skills, trying to scrimp and save enough for the books. There is no question about it: The Aion of today is much different than than the Aion of yesteryear. Heck, it's not the same game as last week! Yup folks, with each successive patch and update that NCsoft rolls out, the game we love (or love to hate, as the case may be) gets progressively easier. Patch 1.9 saw the addition of repeatable quests to ease the leveling curve; 2.0 brought more quests and higher kinah rewards from them; and Wednesday's 2.1 increased drop rates to astronomical levels. All good news, right? Personally, I am leery of this seeming accelerated trend towards installing an easy button in the game, and I think that there are some serious repercussions to over-simplifying. Now, don't get me wrong -- I am all for lightening the load and eradicating flawed designs that have a fun factor of zero (hot heart of magic, anyone?), but at what point does making the game a bit easier go too far? While the game certainly shouldn't be a job in itself, do we really need to cater to the instant-gratification crowd by dumbing it down completely? I firmly believe in the old adage "you appreciate what you have to work for," and I think that spoon-feeding players is a bad idea that is going to come back and nip NCsoft in the... ankle. Glide past the cut to explore for yourself the new easy buttons within Atreia.
Hands on with the Aion beta: Exploring Sanctum and Verteron
After leveling your stunning avatar to level 9, ascending to Daevahood and getting your wings, it's time to go out into the world -- well Verteron at least. But first, let's talk a little about the glorious city of Sanctum and what your new Daevic powers really mean. Join us after the jump as we take a closer look at Aion's hub city of Sanctum, the zone of Verteron and the basics of flying.
Aion zone video for Verteron set to the tune of majestic
It's time lose ourselves on a magical journey through- whoa, whoa! Is that a lady with big, feathery wings? Oh good, it's a new zone video tour of Aion. For a second there we thought Hawkgirl was finally assaulting us for making fun of her helmet.NCsoft has really outdone itself with the world design in Aion. The architecture alone makes us wonder if we'll ever stop exploring long enough to level up. Also, we didn't once see a zone covered in mushrooms and slathered with purple. HuzzahOur standards aren't actually that low, we promise. In fact, considering that Aion is running on a beefed up CryEngine (the one from Far Cry) there was actually quite a bit of presupposition on our part.Since Aion is proving to be pulling some visual heft, we're feeling decidedly excited for the North American launch, which is still unknown to anyone but NCsoft. Hopefully with videos like this showing off the game's serious visual oomph, we'll get a concrete launch date soon. Check out the full video after the break.
