Post by Morreion on Aug 25, 2009 7:30:34 GMT -5
Aion: Five Things I Learned from Aion’s Lore
One of the things that drives me crazy about MMOs is that despite the fact that they take place in made-up worlds, the narrative tries to pretend that some of the game elements don’t exist. Character death is a good example. Many MMOs are inhabited by NPCs who somehow don’t notice that the Player Characters die, but then a couple minutes later, those same PCs are just fine.
One of the delights of Aion lore is that it cops to the game elements by making them central to the fictional world. Aion PCs can’t die under ordinary circumstances because they’re Daevas. When they take enough damage to be “killed,” they’re yanked back to the Obelisk that their soul was bound to in the first place. And everyone in the world knows that Obelisks work that way. In fact, that’s a key answer to the “Why don’t you do it yourself?” question we talked about above. The NPC answers, “Because I might die, but you’re immortal.”
One of the delights of Aion lore is that it cops to the game elements by making them central to the fictional world. Aion PCs can’t die under ordinary circumstances because they’re Daevas. When they take enough damage to be “killed,” they’re yanked back to the Obelisk that their soul was bound to in the first place. And everyone in the world knows that Obelisks work that way. In fact, that’s a key answer to the “Why don’t you do it yourself?” question we talked about above. The NPC answers, “Because I might die, but you’re immortal.”
