Aion and MMOs - a delicate balancing act

The past few weeks of playing in Aion have, at least for me, illustrated that getting the balance right, especially when it comes to MMOs, is vitally important.

Take my tenure as a Ranger - while I thought that running around with superb blade and arrow skills would be awesome, I found that my weak armour (I couldn't use chain or plate, for instance) and lack of actual melee weapon proficiency was my downfall.

When attacking, I was always on the back foot, and had to rely on kiting to defeat difficult mobs - that is, fire arrows and lay traps, all the while retreating, so that you can kill them without them hitting you and doing damage. I found myself always playing on the defensive and struggling to kill mobs that were at my level, possibly because I'm just not a very good kiter.

This, obviously, sucked.

I gave up at level 19 and started a new character. This time, I'm a Gladiator, and I can wear plate and chain armour. I can also wield a polearm, which is a 10ft tall stick with a god-damned HUGE blade on the end.

This, obviously, means I can wade into battle, hit higher-level mobs around the head and watch them cower in fear.

Which means that I can play much more aggressively.

It's amazing the progress I've made - in less time I'm at a higher level and I'm enjoying it much, much more.

I do feel that, perhaps, the Ranger class could be better balanced - while my blade skills were sufficient to take down lower level enemies, as I approached levels 19 and 20 I found everything far more difficult. Looking up guides for kiting revealed that the best way to progress was to exploit a small animation but that, essentially, allowed you to fire arrows sooner than you really should have done. In my opinion, getting ahead this way is just not right, and illustrates that, however small it may be, there's a small unbalance in the force.

But, now that I'm Gladiator, it's all good - stuff that's my level falls easily because I've managed to acquire some pretty good equipment, but quests around my level still offer a good mix of difficulties - some are simple and easy grinding whereas others are too difficult because of the sheer number of mobs. Others, such as those in the Krall settlements near to Verteron Fortress, require groups, and ranging around with a group of people picking off high-level mobs is some of the most fun I've yet had in Aion.

On the other end of the scale, I was challenged to a dual by a Chancer a couple of days ago. Not having encountered one before, I accepted, and he cut me down with a few simple spells, and I couldn't get near him.

Either I'm not very good or that particular class of character is too powerful for its own good.

Ho-hum.

It's the little details that count

Games are huge. From the sprawling expanse of Oblivion to the high concepts of Half Life, modern games – and I’m talking the big ones, those with budgets that run into the millions – are pretty damned massive and, often, all the better for it.

Of course, taking a keen interest in the big picture means that plenty of games miss the finer details, letting incidental information slip by the wayside and forgetting the little snippets of life that make a big sandbox seem like a living, breathing environment.

My adventures in Aion have highlighted this fact very nicely. Once you’ve reached level 10 and ascend to the ranks of the Daeva, who come with a very nice pair of wings, your character is allowed to begin exploring the wider world.

First stop is the region of Verteron, which is governed from the impressive-sounding Verteron Citadel. It looks suitably lavish, too, with a huge tower rising from the exterior walls and building towards a glistening gate to the Abyss.

It’s busy, too, with both players and NPC characters. Several staff shops, selling weapons, shields, potions and manastones, and plenty mill around, sweeping streets and talking amongst themselves. A small group of children weave through the legs of full-grown Daevas, laughing and playing games.

But they can’t possibly live in Verteron Citadel, as there isn’t anywhere for them to live.

You see, for all of its charm and magnificence – because, so far, it’s one of the biggest settlements I’ve come across – the only buildings in the Verteron Citadel are shops, military installations or temples. Yet NPC characters talk about living in the Citadel, how it’s safer than the world outside, and how happy they are.

See what I mean? That little detail, not relevant to the game at all, still manages to prevent my imagination from being suspended and still robs Verteron of a chunk of its humanity. It’s a little detail, sure, but it definitely matters.

Aion isn’t the only game guilty of this, either.

As a sports simulation, FIFA 10 relies on its depiction of real life being as perfect as possible – and, by and large, it’s one of the best out there thanks to fantastic graphics, realistic gameplay and fluid animation. It’s obvious that EA’s motion-capture budget has been well spent.

However, a couple of little things instantly bring the illusion of reality crashing back down to earth - even if they're the tiniest of tiny details.

Take goal celebrations, for instance. If you score, your player will run off to celebrate - that's a given. However, more often than not, they'll run into the goal itself. The camera will then cut to images of the scorer and his teammates celebrating on a different part of the pitch.

Also, intercepting opponents' free kicks is simple: stand in front of the nearest player, and their kick taker will more than likely pass to them. A real footballer will notice this and won't let the ball go anywhere near you.

Both of these things are obvious, and I've noticed both of them after around a dozen matches on FIFA 10. They can't have gone unnoticed during development and testing, and fixing them can't be too difficult.

The rest of FIFA 10 is superb and, as I stated yesterday, Aion's world is lush and fantastically realised. But, when you're committed to providing experiences like these, the little details are crucial - and, more often than not, it's the little details that let the games down.

First impressions: Aion, the new MMO from NCSoft

I've had a chequered history with MMORPGs: Guild Wars was entertaining but the lack of actual community play hampered the experience, and Tabula Rasa was a huge step forward for NCSoft - and I'm in no doubt that the involvement of Ultima supremo Richard Garriot played a large part in that.

On the other hand, I've never played the "daddy" of MMO games, World of Warcraft, despite being a huge fan of Warcraft RTS titles in the past. Looking at my MMO history, it seems that I'm a bit of an NCSoft fanboy - and, consequently, I'd been looking forward to Aion for months.

I've been playing it for several weeks now and, thankfully, it hasn't disappointed.

The game's main attraction is surely its rich, vibrant and lavish world. While almost every open-world game relies on the same stale locations - even Aion has its forested area, desert bit, snowy tundra et al - Aion's world is far more imaginative and detailed than the average.

Every different environment is packed with incidental detail, NPCs, quests and places to explore and, thanks to huge demand since the game's debut, most of the world is crammed with eager players. Most of them have been pleasant, too, and always seem eager to help out if you've picked a fight that you won't be able to win.

It's a good thing that virtually every one of Aion's locations (those that I've explored, anyway) looks fantastic because, when it comes to gameplay, NCSoft's latest relies on MMO conventions.

Most of the game's quests, for instance, are very, very linear: the NPC's speeches may be well written and packed with detail, but there's only so many times that you can kill 10 Mud Ribbits or 15 enemy warriors to suit a tenuous request from a local farmer.

The main story quests are more involved and more rewarding, but they're just not as frequent as the dozens of normal quests that little the game's towns, villages and countryside.

And, as I've progressed through Aion's levels, of which there are fifty, I've found that more and more grinding is required. NCSoft may have spent almost a year tweaking the game for a Western release, but the foundations of an MMO that begun life in Korea are often obvious.

That said, Aion has plenty going for it: the combat itself is visceral and rewarding, there's plenty of crafting to do, the main story is decent, the community is friendly and the world, above all, is an extremely nice place to hang around in. Hopefully I'll be sticking around for a while yet.