Aion: the Tower of Eternity

[Morreion]

Aion: the Tower of Eternity - just when you think there's been enough fantasy MMOs already, Korea's NCSoft blends eastern and western influences. Characters can fly, as in they have wings. Released in South Korea in 2008, the North American release is planned for Q3 2009.

Aion official site

Aion First Look Preview with Sanya Weathers

There is an unholy degree of character customization. For my female warrior, I had 44 hairstyles, 20 faces, and six bodies. There were 23 "premade" face/hair combinations. There were tattoo options. And there were 25 face sliders to customize everything from eyebrows to nose tilt. And there will apparently be voice options as well, although they were not functional while I was testing. There are also body sliders. Some people pushed those sliders aaaaaaaaall the way to the right, predictably...

It is fantastically gorgeous, with thousands of little details to gorge on. The landscapes are sweeping and epic. The animations look like they were done with motion capture, and within a few feet of the opening spawn point, you're sure to find people testing their new emotes.

Aion coverage at Ten Ton Hammer

Delving into the archetypes and specialty classes of Aion

Video: Flying, Combat and Mass Combat while Flying

[Oatik]

I'm most interested in this of all the upcoming games. I bet it looks good, sounds good and plays smoothly...I wonder if it's fun??

[Morreion]

Two views of Aion that compare it to WoW:

I'm Sorry WoW, I've Found Someone Else

I am not suggesting that Aion is a WoW killer, just that what I used to love about WoW feels so prevalent in Aion. I must admit that I originally thought nothing of the game. To me, Aion was just another MMO on some random website with pretty screenshots. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Blizzard in that regard, but the scarcity of anything existent on many game websites turns me off. One of my friends, on the other hand, became engrossed immediately and pushed me to research the game further. I started watching the class videos on AionOnline.com, and the graphics looked amazing in motion, not just the perfect screen shot capture. I later learned that it was actually being produced by NCsoft as their next big thing, rather then an MMO from some company I had never heard of, and that made me perk up. Addition: After writing this article I headed back to AionOnline and discovered that they have recently updated their website. It is now fleshed out and I suggest anyone who has not seen the updated site should check it out.

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Aion review - beta version

I would expect Aion to do quite well, there aren't all that many games out there with that level of polish and accessibility. But the mythical "WoW Killer" Aion is not. While Aion has some unique features, the same level of quality as WoW, and even surpassing WoW in some areas, World of Warcraft still comes out ahead with being much bigger, offering better replayability through more classes, races, and zones, and having the more popular PvE raid endgame. It is difficult to image millions of players quitting WoW to play Aion, when Aion isn't that different in the leveling game, and its endgame is PvP-heavy. It is hard to predict how much being WoW-a-like is going to help or hurt Aion in the long run.