I don't play MMOs but the AION 2 dev video got me

My partner has been playing AION 2 every night since the global launch on October 5, so I ended up watching NC's behind-the-scenes video with him. I'm not a gamer at all, but I liked it more than I expected.

The part that stuck with me was flying. They said just making a character move fast doesn't feel fast, so they added things like dives, wind streams and speed-boost circles to change the speed while you're in the air. And because everyone is flying so fast, the game sends your position more than 20 times a second so fights still line up even on a bad connection. I had never thought about that at all.

The other thing was the pets. The mounting idea started from a skill where you grab a monster, and they liked it so much they made it work for every pet, with lots of different riding poses, even though it was more work. As someone who will spend 40 minutes plating one dish, I respect a team that does the extra step nobody asked for.

They also talked about the underwater areas having their own sounds so they feel different from the surface. That's the same idea as a good soup, the smell before you see it. I still won't be playing it myself, but I watched him fly through a wind stream last night and finally understood why he goes quiet for hours.