As you all know I'm a big fan of MMORPG's (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games). For a long time I played the well known game World of Warcraft which I believe was the leading MMORPG game for many years, and don't get me wrong. It truly was. You could call it a never ending game where the best player was the one who spent most hours in game, as many other games on the market. Recently I started playing a "new" game called Aion Online. This game isn't exactly a new game as it was released in Korea about one year ago. I thought I would write a comparison about Aion Online and World of Warcraft because I constantly hear other peoples opinions about it.
Character Customisation:
World of Warcraft (2/10):
In WoW you have about 10 different faces, hair colours and hair styles to choose from (as well as a few skin colours and decorations for your race). Every character basically looks like clones and if you pick a Night Elf, you are all the same height, same weight and same voice (if you have the same gender of course). If you don't care about how your character looks then WoW would be the perfect choice for you.
Aion Online (9/10):
In Aion you have so many options to choose from. Tons of different faces. You first choose your "basic" face (32 options). Then as you have chosen your face you can also choose from 23 different shapes of the selected face. You can edit this face you selected and do whatever you want with it. Big nose, small nose, big lips, small lips you name it! You can add a decoration to your face and apply different tattoos if you please. You can pick any Skin colour, eye colour or hair colour that you want. So far it's the best character customisation I have seen in a game. Your characters body is also completely changeable. You can make her/him tall, short, fat, thin, normal, tiny, big arms, massive feet, ridiculously big head etc. You can even choose a voice for your character. Unfortunately there are only 4 different voices to choose from (therefore the score of 9/10).
Managing your Character:
World of Warcraft (10/10):
One thing I like about WoW is how you manage your character. Flying is simple, walking and moving is also simple. I also don't feel any stiffness as I'm moving around in the world. It's smooth and I can only give good marks to WoW for this.
Aion Online (10/10):
With all new games it takes a while to get used to moving around with your character. Aion has the same moving system as WoW (W, A, S, D). Flying was a bit tricky to get used to but when I got the hang of it I loved it. Gliding (which is a way to move to another location faster) took me a long time to learn but as soon as I got it figured out I must say it's a brilliant solution instead of "Mounts".
Graphics:
World of Warcraft (4/10):
Even though WoW has been out for many years I have to say the graphics are rubbish. Back in the days when WoW was just released I still thought the graphics could be better and was always hoping they would change it with some patch or with the new expansions. But nope, you got what you got. And I don't think they will change it either. Your characters face has about 4 polygons and the rest of the game also has about 1 polygon. Ok, not that bad but I don't like it.
Aion Online (10/10):
Ok, what can I say. BRILLIANT. This game has it all. Lovely environment! The characters looks stunning, mobs are very well made, weather and all effects are superb. I couldn't want better graphics in a game.
Crafting:
World of Warcraft (7/10):
You like farming materials before you can skill up your profession? Then WoW is best for you. It does take time to skill up and don't think you can skill up unless you have the mats needed. Recipes are hard to get and you will have to grind mobs in order to get the ones you need (or buy it in the Auction House).
Aion Online (9/10):
I have heard some very bad opinions about this part of the game. It does take lots of time (just like WoW), the only difference is that you can do "work orders" to skill up. This means you don't need to farm mats, you can just buy it from the vendors. I think this is brilliant. The only thing I would say as a negative point is that it takes a little bit too long to skill up. You need to spend hours and hours watching your character craft. Why not watch a film in the meanwhile? ;)
Fighting:
World of Warcraft (8/10):
I must say I like the way you are fighting in WoW. Its smooth and easy to manage your character in battle and you can use so called Addons to make the game easier. You can make macros to help you and its easy to heal in a group (targeting players etc). Tabbing also works very well when you need to change your current target. I must say I am disappointed in how little skills you need to kill a mob. Spamming one spell works well, even in PvP you see players spamming their Moonfire etc.
Aion Online (10/10):
I have not fully tested all classes so I it might be different than what I have experienced so far. I'm currently playing my Spiritmaster (lvl. 30) and so far so good. I really like the fact that I don't have to be facing the mob in order to cast a spell. It automatically turns my character around if the enemy is behind me which is a very good thing about Aion. You also have chain skills which are awesome. This makes fighting much more fun. PvP is also great so far.
Dying:
World of Warcraft (9/10):
What can I say. You die, you run to your corpse and sometimes you need to repair your gear for a bunch of money but it isn't harder than that.
Aion Online (7/10):
You DON'T want to die in this game. You loose a big amount of experience and will have to pay lots to get it back. So if you don't have much Kinah (Gold) you shouldn't get drunk and have a wipe night. You will be ruined by the end of the day and sweat when you see the price to get your experience back. But hey, you don't need to repair your gear nor running back to your corpse.
Leveling your character:
World of Warcraft (9/10):
In WoW it goes pretty fast to level your character to the maximum level of 80. The biggest reason for this is that you can use AddOn's that show you where you have to go to complete quests. If you are lazy and never read quests it will suit you perfect.
Aion Online (9/10):
Since the maximum level is 50 it will also be harder to level up your character. In Aion you can either grind your way up or do quests. It takes almost the same amount of time. I do not like the repeat quests in Aion. They are quite boring and most of the time they take a long time to complete. But WoW has got so called "Daily Quests" that are just as boring so I don't see why WoW has better quests. They are pretty much the same. Kill these bears, get their claws and bring them back to this guy who is standing on a dock all day long. Or talk to this guy, talk to the next guy miles away, then go back to the previous one. Please invent telephones in game haha ;)
Even though there are many other parts of these games I could compare I will stop for now. I will end my post with a few other things I really enjoy with Aion Online that WoW does not have.
Private Shop:
You need to be afk for a while to eat your dinner or visit the toilet? Then you can set up your own little private shop and sell your things you don't need to get some more money. Other players click on your character are select the item they want to buy and you earn some extra. Brilliant if you don't want to put your things on the Broker (Auction House).
Item Customisation:
At level 30 you can change the way your gear looks like. Did you like your other tunic better than your current one but you still want to keep the stats of the current one? You can then visit the item remodel and get your gear to look like your old item (or any other item) Only restriction is that the items both have to be made of the same material. (cloth = cloth, leather = leather etc).
Morphing:
Asmodians has the option to use the so called Morphing in order to get materials they need. You need aether powder and some DP and you can get materials you need for crafting. Very good if you don't like farming the materials.
Divine Points:
When you are fighting you collect Divine Points (DP) that will allow you to use more powerful spells. This is awesome to save and use if you think you are close to dying.
