Overall Aion has a general, clean, and user friendly interface, which has a combination of features from many previous mmorpgs. If you spent any time at all playing WoW, EQ2, AoC, or WAR, you will pretty much feel right at home. It’s got your standard hotkeys bar, status bar, mini map, etc.., Here are a few things that I personally think Aion has improved on compared to previous NCSoft games such as Lineage 2, Guild Wars.

If you want to try Aion, and attend all beta events. Find out how Here.

Aion Interface

Hotkeys Bar:

Looking back through the history of mmorpgs, many of them have had your standard one row hotkeys of 10 – 12 hotkeys shortcuts. I believe it was World of Warcraft who came out with the Addon function which allowed user to customise their own interface, but without the addons, WoW would still have your standard single hotkey bar. One really cool feature that Aion has is the ability to have up to 3 rows of hotkeys bars of 12 keys at once that is 36 slots for your skills, macros, and tool, with so many slots there is a much less need to switch between hotkey bars.

The keys use keyboard shortcuts from 1 to + for the first bar, Alt+1 to + for the second, and finally Ctrl+1 to + for the third bar.

If 3 rows of hotkeys aren’t enough for you, Aion has another trick up its sleeves. The first 2 rows of hotkeys are standard; it is what everyone starts with upon entering the world of Atreia. The third and the fourth column are optional under Game Options. Yes!! You can add an additional column to the side of your screen making it a total of four rows of hotkeys!

Distance UI:

Another cool new feature in Aion is the Distance UI, which appears on the lower right corner of your screen once you have a target. Aion is the first mmorpg that allows players to fly, so your now can travel North, South, East, West, Up, and Down. With such a unique navigation system, you need a unique way of tracking where your targets are at. The Distance UI does exactly that, it displays the distance apart from you and your target as well as the altitude, whether it’s above or below you. This little feature comes in handy for mages and range character to reach their max distance of their skills! It is also great for locating quest NPCs, many quest NPCs in Aion are located above or below the ground.

Influence Ratio:

The influence ratio is located right next to the menu button on the lower right hand side of your screen. Aion is a world split into two, the Elyos and the Asmodian. Both races would battle each other for territories in game, the Influence Ratio shows which race has more influence in a particular area.

Character Window:

Aion’s character windows are much like any other mmorpgs or rpgs, you have your standard main character screen which has all your equipment slots on the left, your stats on the right, and your inventory on the bottom. One cool little feature is the ability to carry two sets of weapons that can be easily switched during combat.
Apart from the character info tab, there are 3 more tabs which are Stigma, Abyss, and Title. The Stigma tab which uses a special skill system per classes is pretty much useless until you have reached level 20. Once you have reached level 20 you will receive a mission to learn your ways of Stigma which I’ll go into detail in the Stigma tutorial. The Abyss tab is again pretty useless until you reach a high enough level, once you have reached a zone were pvp is available between realms (Elyos, Asmodian) you can earn Abyss points to gain rank in your faction.

Finally the Title tab, titles are an interesting new aspect in Aion which is taken from Guildwars. In Guildwars you can acquire particular titles by completing certain quests, certain amount of quests, gaining enough PvP points, or just having a 0 death count. What makes the Aion title system unique and apart from the Guildwar system, is that by obtaining a certain title in Aion there is a small stats boost or benefits that goes along with it, unlike Guildwars which has nothing special other than the title itself.

Stay tuned for more reviews.

Find Out How You Can Try Aion, and Get Into All Beta Event Here