Choose My Adventure: Aion Live, not Classic, is much more like the MMORPG I played at launch

After dipping some of my toe into the Aion Classic pool last week, the polls basically said to do the same thing, only with Aion Live. To be honest, I was hoping for this result – I do like the idea of comparing and contrasting those opening segments – but I would have been fine going through more of Classic. Basically I’m just being subservient and appreciative of the voting.

What I wasn’t really ready for was how both completely familiar and unfamiliar Live felt; there are story bits that I recall and opening segments that I’m all but certain were there when I played this MMO at launch, but then there were some new classes and story pieces that I was not expecting.

Our story starts naturally back at character creation, and once again I elected to roll an Asmodeus character in order to get maximum comparisons between the two versions of Aion. That’s kind of about the only similarities that I experienced because after that point things got completely different, starting with my chosen class: the Technist.

Research shows that this class was added in Aion’s 4.0 update, which arrived in 2013, four years after the game originally launched here in North America, so obviously this was a completely new thing to me. But hey, gun-wielding DPS character? Why not? I’m all for moments when fantasy MMOs decide to insert semi-modern or sci-fantasy things into them. Sci-fi and sci-fantasy is more my bag in general anyway.

Rumbling around the opening zone of the game, I was once again struck with familiarity and unfamiliarity. I kind of think I recall this zone from back in the day, but then I also am not sure I ever did wander around here before. There were certainly quest steps and old CGI cutscenes that I remember from the original. Haven’t I done stuff for this old witch chilling in a hut before? I’m sure I have. I must have.

Of course none of this ultimately mattered as I moved my way along. I was kind of afraid that the Technist was going to fall into the same predictable and boring patterns that I experienced with my Classic character as my hotbar had three buttons, one of which chained into multiple attacks. Here we go again, I thought to myself, only this time it’s with a pistol!

Regardless of my dread, I continued to move along the opening story to the point when I was put into a single-player dungeon. This part I definitely don’t remember because I know for sure that I would remember the poorly voice-acted Shugo that was introducing this delve for me. Seriously, someone should have given that guy a coffee. Or three.

The dungeon itself was… fine. It was a lot more like a private delve than any sort of major dungeon experience like those I’ve experienced in other MMOs, but that wasn’t a huge turn-off. What sort of annoyed me was the fact that I wasn’t able to get any more levels as I was locked from getting additional XP until I completed a quest that would see me ascend into a Daeva – and the game made sure to remind me of that over and over again.

Finally, though, I made my way out of the delve and got to another part that I definitely remember, which was the story portion where my character hallucinated her way through the PvP zone to face off against an Elyos warrior dude. This was just as interesting as I remember it being, although it was also kind of stilted and wooden in terms of animation. I seem to recall this part of the story being… prettier.

Once I had finally hit my ascension, it was time to select my sub-class, and it’s here that I made what is probably the best decision of my entire life here in Aion. I went for the Aethertech purely because the description of it mentioned that I would get to rumble around in a mech suit. Also, the character creator showed off some of those suits, and I was immediately in love.

On aesthetics alone, the Aethertech won my heart, but then it dug itself further into my good graces by being what I can only assume is a tank class. I was able to play a tank class that drives a mech suit around. These are two of my all-time favorite gaming things put together into one MMORPG class. It’s like this thing was made for me specifically.

The love for the Aethertech only deepend as I roamed around the next zone to pick up side quests and move my way through the levels. This Bastion that I was riding around in only had punch fists, a big cannon, and a huge wave of ice that it issued in front of it, but man did those abilities have some heft to them. I freaking adore the button where my suit rears back, charges up a mega robot punch, and then absolutely smashes an enemy for four digits’ worth of damage. Ooo baby, give me more of this, please.

On top of the really good (read: lucky) class choice, I also ended up liking my time in Live more than in Classic for one very big reason: Even though it was presenting a new story and quests to me, it still also hit the right familiar tone in terms of its pacing. I didn’t feel like I was being punted down the road to get to cap as fast as possible. I was being given time to kind of figure out my robo-suit. Sure, the levels were also coming up pretty quickly here too, but nowhere near as frantically as they did in Classic.

So honestly? Live feels like the better – or at least more comfortable – experience in my opinion. I guess coming to this game without years of experience under my belt is making me shrug off people who espoused the virtues of Classic over Live, or maybe it’s just me continuing to be a contrarian against the wider Gamer™ Discourse. Either way, I definitely prefer this version.

But I’m not going to continue to play either game, though. I’m just not that interested overall in Aion. It hasn’t seemed to age too well, I’ve got other more interesting MMOs to play, and I just am done with my time here. Though if I must come back sometime later, either for work or leisure, I know which flavor to reach for.

So obviously this wraps up this month’s brief stint through two MMOs in one series of articles. Talk about value, am I right? Don’t answer that. Instead, answer where we’re going to for March!

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Polling is going to once again wrap up at 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday, February 28th. And I promise that I will put some time into whatever game is selected instead of the thing that I’ve been hungry for over the past few months. No, really. Seriously. Stop looking at me like that.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.