Aion: User Interface

Aion's North American players are now basking in the post-patch glow of the much ballyhooed 1.9 update. With such an extensive list of tweaks, its hard to get a good gauge on what works well and what doesn't given the short gestation period. Nevertheless, your humble columnist is here to make the attempt.

User Interface

Changes to the user interface are slight, and somewhat underwhelming. NCsoft has finally added a proper Looking for Group tool, and while it's nothing revolutionary, it will make you wonder how you managed to find groups in Aion without it. There are also two additional hotbars, a godsend for a game that has a silly amount of skills, spells, and associated icons. These new hotbars can be dragged and resized anywhere on your screen, but annoyingly the same cannot be said for the rest of the game's static UI. Want to move your radar from right side to left, or your target info box from the top center of the screen to a more traditional position? You're out of luck, short of hacking your game client and attempting to do it yourself.

Sure, the lack of a custom UI isn't a game-breaker, but Aion is one of the very few AAA MMORPGs that refuses to allow you any sort of personalization on your interface, and I'm continually scratching my head as to why.