Over at Curse there's an interesting video preview of NCsoft's upcoming Aion as well as a couple of screenshots showing off the game's flexible user interface. The entire interface can be adjusted to however a player would prefer and in the screenshot above you can see that Aion is well aware of the popularized WoW-style layout. We're always in favor of letting players easily organize their interface in the way they see fit.
The gameplay video, however, is far more interesting. If you hadn't been at least marginally interested in Aion -- or didn't even know it existed -- then check out that video. While the quality is fairly low, you can easily see that NCsoft has been carefully crafting this new game.
The animations (and graphics) look great and even in a low resolution hand-held-cam video the game's personality manages to get through -- partially thanks to the unique music. We would also like to note that it appears as though Aion uses the 'WASD' movement configuration, which is another reason for us to be slightly more curious about the game.
Reader Comments (5)
Posted: Apr 6th 2008 2:37PM (Unverified) said
I'm calling it. War and AOC are getting all the attention, but Aion will be a sleeper hit.
The vast majority of people who actually research the development of this game are pleasantly surprised. Too bad so many are just looking at a few screenshots and calling it "another asian grind fest".
The vast majority of people who actually research the development of this game are pleasantly surprised. Too bad so many are just looking at a few screenshots and calling it "another asian grind fest".
Posted: Apr 6th 2008 8:48PM (Unverified) said
Wait, a braggably flexible user interface means moving some elements from the bottom of the screen to the top? Am I missing something? There are games out now with window shaping, opacity and color options, font changes and even custom skin loading.
We can't keep patting these games on the back because they've improved upon the games of yesterday, I expect the next UI to blow the current ones out of the water to get my attention.
Though, I'm kind of a HUD-hater, and modern MMOs are half-screen HUD games nowadays. I generally minimize my on-screen clutter as much as the game comfortably allows.
We can't keep patting these games on the back because they've improved upon the games of yesterday, I expect the next UI to blow the current ones out of the water to get my attention.
Though, I'm kind of a HUD-hater, and modern MMOs are half-screen HUD games nowadays. I generally minimize my on-screen clutter as much as the game comfortably allows.
Posted: Apr 6th 2008 10:58PM (Unverified) said
I could be wrong but isn't Aion running on a licensed (and possibly upgraded) version of the Guild Wars engine? The interface & gameplay video look exactly like a re-skinned/re-imagined version of ArenaNet's hit game.
Posted: Apr 6th 2008 11:06PM (Unverified) said
iisdev: I believe Aion is running on the Crysis engine
Posted: Apr 7th 2008 11:37AM (Unverified) said
Crysis engine is correct.
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