Character Creator

Okay, I wanted to take some time to go over the character creation system in Aion, as I rushed through it before.

The first step (obviously) is choosing your faction. In Aion there are two factions: The Elyos and the Asmodians.

Not to delve too deeply into the lore of Aion, but when the Tower of Eternity broke apart, the world of Atreia split in half. The upper half of the planet became known as Asmodae, home of the Asmodians. Bereft of much sunlight, they adapted to their cold, harsh environment; growing claws on their hands and feet, as well as manes on their back. The bottom half of the planet, renamed Elysea, was on the other hand bathed in the light of a nearby star. This lead to the lands of Elysea being much more lush and vibrant. The Elyos, in turn, took on a more angelic appearance.





Upon choosing your faction you'll be greeted with the class selection screen. As I mentioned last entry, there are four base classes that expand to eight advanced classes. Upon hitting level 10 you're given the choice (after an ingame event) of which of your base class's two advanced classes you wish to become. From then on you are that advanced class.





Each race has a distinctly different look to them in both character models and weapons/armor.



Once you choose your base class you'll find yourself looking at the Character Creation screen. Here's where the fun starts.

As you can see, the game isn't limited to fair faced prettyboys. You can make characters with a significant amount of grit to them if you desire.

On the left side of the screen are the preset creations for both body type and head. Mostly you'll be using them as a base, but they also give an easy option for people who do not want to delve into the full customization features. Even still, there are a couple dozen hairstyles and face shapes per sex; as well as a number of decorations and tattoos to help further customize the basic look of your character.

You also have free reign over your character's hair, lip, and skin color if you want.

These are just the basic tools.



Here's where the fun starts. By clicking on the "Customize Face" you'll find yourself faced with twenty-five different sliders allowing you to change the size and shape of nearly every aspect of your character's face.

Remember what Bethesda tried to do with Oblivion? Or EA with Skate? Or Activision with Guitar Hero World Tour?

Aion succeeds where those guys failed.

Simply put this is the most comprehensive face modeler I've seen to date. While playing the game during both weekend events I've yet to find any player made character in the game that looks like another character. The variety that is possible is simply astounding.

Here's a quick sample of some of the other character faces other players have designed:



And that's not even a fraction of what's possible.



You also have the ability to completely change the size of any part of your character's body as well as your character's height. As you can see, there are twelve sliders just for these adjustments.


Ultimately there's very little you can't do with the system.


You can make your character as large as an Orc...


...or as small as a Dwarf.


You can make something frighteningly familiar:







Or...something just frightening.



Next up, I'll start going over Beta2 with showcases of each faction's starting lands.

Aion Beta 1

Okay here's a bit of a walk through my Aion Beta1 experience.

"Beta1" is the nickname for the first Beta weekend for Aion. The Elyos faction was the only playable faction, and only levels 1-20 were unlocked.

Unfortunately, I only got my beta key on the last day of the beta. Thus, I only had from about 9pm est to 3am est to play before the beta weekend was finished and the servers shut down.

There are four base character classes in the game:

Warrior
Scout
Mage
Priest

These four split into eight advanced classes at level 10. The breakdown is as follows:

Warrior:
**Gladiator - Your classic plate dps class. Halberds, 2-Handers, upclose facesmashing.
**Templar - The tank class of Aion. A "Board and Sword" class that has a lot of damage mitigation and emnity generation.

Scout:
**Assassin - Typical sneak and stabby. Can wield two handed sword or daggers (possibly maces as well).
**Ranger - Hunters without the pet. Purely a ranged dps class. Lots of kiting. Lots of shooting.

Mage:
**Sorceror - Pretty much your typical spellcaster. Lots of elemental based magic and knockback/cc.
**Spirit Master - Spirit master is the pet class of the game. You raise up four elementals with you that can fill numerous roles from tanking to ranged dps.

Priest:
**Cleric - Healers/melee fighters. Mostly a healing class but can defend themselves with mace/shield if needed.
**Chanter - Buff class! Primarily this class is a Buffing/Healing class. It's said most of this class's DPS will come from fortifying its allies.


I chose to make a Warrior, with the intent for him to become a Templar at lvl 10.




The Elyos starting zone is really nice looking. Despite there being a lot of people playing, the mob spawns seemed to be handled pretty well. I never found myself waiting for normal monsters or quest items to respawn despite having at least 10-20 people running around wherever I went doing the same quests I was.



Most of the quests were kill quota, fetch, or kill and retrieve quests with rare exceptions. There was one quest that required one of 3 different items from three different types of monster. The reward you got was a mystery, but the more difficult the monster, the better the reward.

As you can see from the image above, there is an option aside from the normal map screen for a map overlay to be put on the screen. You map in this game will automatically post markers for major objectives (such as people you need to talk to in order to turn in quests). Some items and monsters in the game also can be tracked by right-clicking on their names in the quest text and clicking "locate". If the target can be located, it will be marked on your map with an X to indicate where it can be found.

There is also a built in Quest Tracker (as seen on the screenshot) where you can have your progress on a number of quests shown on the right side of your screen.



Combat in the game is pretty interesting in the way it's handled. Some skills have specific chains that will unlock as you use them. For example: My Warrior had a primary melee attack ability. Upon using this ability, a second attack ability became immediately available for a short period of time.

This period of time was likely no longer than six seconds, and if you chose to use any other ability between the first and the second, you'd break the chain. If you look close you can also see there is a translucent icon in the screen NE of my character. If you use an ability that's part of a chain, the next part of the chain's icon(s) will pop up there. If the ability is ready, the icon will be solid. If it is not, you'll see part of the ability darkened in the usual clock fashion.

Now, I say "icon(s)" because some abilities can chain into multiple options. My warrior's primary strike could chain into a second strike, or an ability that would create a damage absorbing shield and increase my attack ability momentarily.

These abilities were on separate cooldowns, so finding the right rotation was key to survival.



Here's another combat image. Pay attention to the UI in this image. In the lower left hand is your HP/MP info. In the top left, you can see your buff icons/timers.
Directly below the enemy is where the enemy's castbar will appear. This is built into the combat engine and it will tell you what ability they are about to use as well. Combat text appears next to the creatures getting hit. Red text is typically damage you are taking, white is damage you are dealing. Critical hits are actually written with a *Critical* tag next to them.



Here's a quick picture of the Warrior's shield defense ability. Using any other abilities breaks the stance; but while you're using it the warrior takes a % less damage. It was a great ability for keeping myself alive between chain cooldowns.



As for travel, your flight ability is not intended for travel over long distances. You can only fly for a limited amount of time (60 seconds at level 10). Thus there are two primary ways to travel long distances: Flight paths and teleportation.

The image above is an example of the Elyos flight path in progress. A spell effect bird appears on your back and carries you as if it is a pair of temporary wings.



Magic items in the game can be bound upon equipping (and I assume acquiring). Binding must be done outside of combat and has a channeling spell effect during the binding. If you notice in this image there are white stones in my inventory. These are "Moonstones". They can have any number of abilities to them and act like gems for the most part. Almost every item in the game has at least one socket. The big difference is you have to pay to have one removed after it is socketed into an item (if you wish to replace it). The previously socketed moonstone is then destroyed.



Here's an image of my gear by the end of the night. The early gear available from merchants only really changes in hue, but there are magic items that drop and offer different looks. By the time I hit level 9 I had a set that pretty much matched from quest rewards.



The game's storyline is pushed forward with quests, and at pivotal moments you'll find yourself starring in generated in-game cutscenes. Considering these all feature your character with all of the fine tuning available in the character creation system (which I'll cover later), these really impressed me.



Here's another.



This image is a very brief taste of the Elyos capital city of Sanctum. It is a floating city in the sky that just utterly dwarfs Dalaran in size and scope. This place completely blew me away. I'll have more screenshots of this city later.

Unfortunately, at this point I had 5 minutes before the server was going to shut down on me and I was desperately looking for a place where I could stretch my newly attained wings.



Ta-da! Skyrider spreads his wings for the first time! God, this moment felt so good.



An image of one of the animations when you're ascending in the air. Default Flying controls are "R" for rising and "F" for falling. This can be a little awkward while maneuvering. I'm likely going to think about getting a mouse with more than 2 buttons to accommodate for this if I play live.



Oh and when you dive, you DIVE LIKE A HAWK. This simply looks amazing in game. The flying animations are really well done. There's those little glide animation segments too that just make it work so well.

Sadly at this point in time the servers went down and I couldn't test anything further.

I did confirm one thing though: If you run out of flight timer while you're flying (it's that circle of dots surrounded by the wing icons in the bottom right of the UI) you WILL fall to your death. It is not advised.

More to come in the future! I'll go over the character creation features and my Elyos/Asmodian experiences in Beta2.