AION!!

So you might not know what the upcoming MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) AION: Tower Of Eternity is. That’s okay, let’s get educated shall we?

So first, there was Lineage 2. I know what you’re thinking. What happened to Lineage 1? Who knows. No one’s every played Lineage 1. So Lineage 2 came out in 2003 in Korea (2004 here). It was a solid game. I had a lot of grinding. Which is just killing monsters over and over again for experience without any other kind of gameplay. You stand in the field, and you kill the werewolves. For hours, sometimes days.

For people with addictive personalities, this was glorious.

It also had a very distinctive style. Very asian, very anime. Lots of emo hair and slick lines. It was all swords and sorcery. One of the first games to have one giant map without any zoning (when you hit an invisible wall and the game has to load the next area.) Lots of interesting places to beat the crap out of monsters.

Unfortunately, things couldn’t stay this way forever. This game became wildly popular in Korea, and people learned how to make money off of it. The gold farmers dug their claws into this game an have never let go. They run around killing everything that the legit players need and sell all the money they earn for real cash to players.

Along with that, a copy of all the games coding was released by accident. Since then free versions of this game have been illegally (and through a loop-hole, legally) been used all over the internet.

Many games have tried to copy the style of Lineage 2 and profit from the games success. I myself have been looking for a game that was anything remotely like Lineage 2 with better gameplay. While the overall look and feel of Lineage 2 was pretty great, the gameplay was lacking. Very few attacks and customization options were available for your character.

This, is where AION comes in.

AION: Tower Of Eternity, is a new game that is coming out in 2009 that features one of the most highly customizable character generations I’ve seen in a long time. With all the style and flair of Lineage 2 and other anime games and roleplaying games. Boasting much much more customization and very very nice graphics.

Its not quite out yet. Though it is coming. I personally can’t wait. This desire to play the game was worsened when two specific youtube videos came out this past week. One depicts out first look at a party working their way through a dungeon. (I suggest clicking through and checking them out in High Quality.)

If anyone has every played an MMO before. You know this is not how MMO’s look. This looks like an action adventure game. Which is wonderful. It looks like fighting and grouping will be a very fun experience. I wonder if they’ll give us the option of leaving in the Korean voices.

The second video is shows off the customization of the character generator.

Again this is something that most MMO’s just don’t have. Especially not to the extreme that this game does.

2009 will be a good year.