What is Aion? And why is it so interesting?

[WhiteHorse]

What is Aion?

Aion is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) style of game. It's official website is http://uk.aiononline.com/ .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lSA_4JlQNA#ws

It is developed by NCSoft, a major Korean game developer. The game is immensely popular in Asia, and is now being brought into Europe and North America.
Players in America and Europe were so well impressed with what they saw in the beta plays, that before the game even offically started, it already sold more than 400 000 copies. All bought online, because offline it will only be available once the servers launch. This fact for it self already hints this is going to be one of the major MMORPG of the last years in game industry.

The history of the game and it's plot is a bit explained on the following video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MyiwRy40YA#ws

Is Aion Free or Fee?

To play Aion there is a monthly fee, a small one: 12 eur.
Have in consideration that altough Aion is a monthly fee game, this ends up being benefic, as one spends less money than buying payable items (Chantra Credits on Archlord), no chantra credits also makes the game more balanced, and being monthly fee means less kids inside the game, and a better game support. If you have any more doubts about this subject, expose it on this topic. Simply click the "reply" button.

I am not in Europe, can I still play with RoyalStorm?

If you are in a non european country, and wish to play with us, you need to buy the European version of the game directly to NCSoft. Here is the link for such.
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/Store.pl?dnv=4310646083&action=toggleCategory&mode=&category=14

An alternative link (altough the one above is the most recomended) for cross region game keys is:
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/news-announcements/60086-aion-cd-keys-easy-cross-region-play.html
(thanks for the link RoyalPT)

Physically buying the game in a store outside of Europe, will not permit playing in the European servers (where we are at). So if you are outside of Europe and want to play in European servers, you really need to use one of the above links.

[WhiteHorse]

The Future of Aion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8#ws

If this is not interesting, i don't know what will be.

[Jonybat]

That is really nice indeed...and also highly ambitious. Basically they are aiming to put the top points from an single player RPG, like the superb graphics and visual efects, environment variables, world customization and immersive quests into an already complex MMORPG that is Aion.

This may be a real breakthrough in the world of MMORPGs.

Well...lets talk again in a couple of years

[Teaser]

hehe, lets wairt and see. somoen told me that some new updates were launched in asian version, things like so much wanted flying mobs, new weapons and armors, if you are a SM and someone buffs you, your summon also gets the buff and vice-versa...... lets wait to see indeed all this transformation..... if it gets true soon, then i have to say im very happy that i bought aion and am playing it

[Bartas]

well ye but I wonder what rig you'll have to have to play it in full details

[Viittu]

Its not running in Korea , it will be loaded in patch 2.0 , they say somewhere in the midle of 2010 so expect it here in 2011!

[Jonybat]

well ye but I wonder what rig you'll have to have to play it in full details

That was DX10 at least, and summing up with the effects and world detail id say something like a Core 2 Duo 2.6, 2GB and a HD3850 / 8800GT with 512MB for recommended specs. But seriously, i doubt that will be enough, so id take that as the minimum requirements 

[WhiteHorse]

I think it will needed more graphic card power.

I have a very recent pc: Intel i7 920 with a nvidia 9800GT chip, DirectX 11 (Windows 7 - 64bit).
And i don't do that much quality as on the video. I do pretty good tough.* But that quality, not. I assume it must be the most powerfull nvida cards in SLI and so on.

*ingame screenshots taken from my pc: http://picasaweb.google.com/guild.royalstorm

[Bartas]

your screenshots are not that different from mine and I have rather old GF7900 GTS card. That means Aion current engine is not optimised for Dx10 and above.

[Jonybat]

I think it will needed more graphic card power.

I have a very recent pc: Intel i7 920 with a nvidia 9800GT chip, DirectX 11 (Windows 7 - 64bit).
And i don't do that much quality as on the video. I do pretty good tough.* But that quality, not. I assume it must be the most powerfull nvida cards in SLI and so on.

*ingame screenshots taken from my pc: http://picasaweb.google.com/guild.royalstorm

Well..obviously you couldnt get that much quality, even if you got a brand new graphics card with DX11, cause the engine of the game would still be the same. The current Aion release is based on Cryengine...that one seems to be based on a more recent engine, like Cryengine 2 or 3 (that supports DX11 already).

Even tho current Aion graphics are above overall MMORPGs...
http://i541.photobucket.com/albums/gg386/michaelsng/Aion0013a.jpg

...they still look like nothing when compared to a game with a newer engine
http://vnmedia.ign.com/conanvault.ign.com/images/articles/DX10.jpg
(AoC @ DX10)