The website of EuroGamer has released a new preview of MMORPG Aion: Tower of Eternity to show us a wonderful fantastic world. According to this article we can learn it that Aion is a good combination of two different game styles in the East and the West.
The details are as below:
There#DY#s a general rule of thumb in the world of massively multiplayer RPGs: the easier on the eye a game#DY#s characters are, the harder work levelling them will be. It#DY#s a cultural split between Asia and the West. From the Eastern hemisphere, the likes of the Lineage games and Final Fantasy XI have sported flawless catalogue-model avatars, draped in filigree fantasy couture, but their existence is often far from glamorous, locked in a mindless experience grind of monster after monster that seems to have no end, or purpose.
Meanwhile, Western MMOs built on the EverQuest/World of Warcraft model offer incident-packed questing, spectacular dungeons, relatively fast levelling, deft storytelling and universes rich in detail and lore, peopled by grotesque anthropomorphic cartoons clad in spiked, primary-coloured fetish wear. Can#DY#t we have a life of beauty and ease?
NCsoft thinks so, and Aion: Tower of Eternity is the result. Guild Wars was a first stab at breaking down this divide, and very good it was too, although its short levelling curve, heavy instancing and player-versus-player focus took it some way off the beaten MMO track. Aion is different, or rather, it isn#DY#t.
This is pared-down, best-of-the-best fantasy MMORPG design from the old school, dressed in Sunday best. A divine war between two opposed races; eight character classes split neatly into four traditional archetypes (warrior, scout, mage and priest); six crafting professions; a level cap of 50; a single, persistent world on each server, with minimal use of instanced areas. It#DY#s all by-the-book stuff.
That#DY#s not to say that there aren#DY#t novelties. All characters get the ability to fly as early as level 10; the Abyss zone introduces a third, AI faction that will interfere in the player-versus-player war; and, most interestingly perhaps, there#DY#s the Stigma system, which will allow characters to equip the skills, spells and abilities of other classes.
Aion is a world inverted, and split in two. The landmasses are actually on the insides of two hemispheres, which were once connected by the titular Tower of Eternity. After a holy war to oust the dragon lords who overthrew Aion, the world#DY#s god, the Tower of Eternity was shattered, severing the two worlds. The dragon lords were banished to the Abyss that took the tower#DY#s place.
The transport system: when your own wings aren#DY#t enough, is a giant spirit bird.
(click here for full image)
More previews on next page.
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