Aion After a Week

I actually have a new article going up on the various play styles of each class in Aion over at MMORPG.com in the next couple of weeks. It was already such a long article I couldn't put everything I wanted to into it. One thing that would have been fun is to compare the classes in Aion to other classes from other games, mainly WoW. I feel comfortable doing this since the game of Aion itself is so different from WoW, but many of the class abilities appear similar. I really did not have the room to write a bunch of clarifying information for my article, plus it would add extra length for no reason. So here goes:

Templar -> A Protection Paladin/DK

Gladiator -> Warrior

Chanter -> Bard

Cleric -> Generic Healer

Spiritmaster -> Warlock

Ranger -> Vanilla WoW Hunter minus pet

Assassin -> Rogue/AoC Assassin

Sorcerer -> Mage

If I had put that list in the article, I would have had to explain it all, but since it's here I don't have to worry about it! Those are how I see the various classes. Chanters are a little bit like WoW shamans as well, but not completely. Templars really could be Protection Paladins just lifted and put into Aion, they really only have one DK live ability, but it's a pretty sweet ability. Divine Grip: Grabs a target up to 25 meters away, and all enemy targets within 20 meters of that, and brings all of them straight in front of you. Mass DK death grip.

Aion is still enjoyable, I haven't made it past level 18 though : ( I probably played about 4 hours of WoW this weekend, and way too many hours of Aion, but Friday and Saturday sleep just wasn't happening so I was up and awake forever. I caught up a little yesterday, slept for about 3 hours during the day then I went to bed at 1am and got up at 7:30, so that was some nice extra hours. Still feeling tired. Probably why I'm writing about it instead of Aion.

In Aion you have to complete special quests, I forget what they're called but they're special, they have their own tab in the quest book, in order to level up every 10 levels or so. You work on the quest throughout the 10 levels, but then the storyline all culminates at the end. These end quests, sadly in my opinion, do in fact require a group effort. You will need a healer, so either a chanter or a cleric, and you will need a tank, so either a templar or a gladiator, and you will even need some good DPS. So far I have yet to see a group go through these quests with less than 5 people, and that was rare, almost everyone was going as a group of 6. This is because dying is such a painful experience I believe, that bringing less people just doesn't feel safe. The mobs are elite, so they hit harder, and have a lot more health. They don't hit ridiculously harder though, so it's really all about killing them down.

These quests, so far, are not instanced, though players can still switch game instances if they wish. But this means that the mobs are free for all, and while most of them are just kill so many of this type, there are some boss mobs that can be farmed for gear. I'm hoping that the later stages of Aion has instanced dungeons so players can farm them in peace, but we'll see, I really haven't heard one way or the other, so if anyone knows, feel free to leave a comment about it.

My Templar is level 18 and, while fun, just doesn't hit as hard as I wish it did. My ranger is now level 17, I'm slowly getting her up in the levels, I think it took almost twice as long to level her than it did my Templar. Partly because when I was leveling my Templar I was grouped up with a friend, but also just because even when solo I could level as my Templar with no issues in crowded areas because I could move up to the mob, and not have to worry about other mobs around. As a ranger though... constantly kiting mobs, you have to constantly be aware of your surroundings, and sometimes you really just have no choice but to run away because you are surrounded and there's no way to kite your mob without aggro'ing a bunch of others.

On that note, rangers seem OP to me so far. Animation cancelling will always be powerful, and rangers can definitely pull it off much easier than any other class. I haven't seen any mages manage to pull off animation cancelling yet, but perhaps I just haven't been looking close enough. I know that the mage style of mob killing doesn't require much kiting, and in order to animation cancel on the mage you need to be jump kiting, so we'll see, I'll probably level a Sorcerer later... but I don't want to start any new characters until finally hitting level 20 hopefully sometime this coming weekend.

That's all for now ^^

WoW's new problem, the BG issue

Patch day has come and gone, and everyone is upset for various reasons, as normal. Major issue right now, AV is a wasteland. Where once was a thriving angry mob playing a fun BG, there is now a thriving angry mob playing the WoW forums. The forums actually give a sense of reward in terms of stress relief and getting your feelings out there. Funny, that's really the entire issue in the first place. The following is a post I made on those forums:

"Northrend leveling just wasn't interesting. Level 71 was, but that's about it. I know Blizzard spent forever on it, and they're all proud of it, but it still blew. Leveling has become so easy, yet still mind numbing in longevity,that it's about as interesting as afk'ing in a BG.

It's pretty obvious players aren't viewing leveling as a mode of progression for a character anymore. It's just a grind that they have to jump hoops through in order to get to the progression paths in the end game. WoW is an old game and it's expected, but it's also expected of Blizzard to fart miracles.

Why even increase the level cap to 85, why not just make a really involving and entertaining quest chain that players have to complete, takes maybe 5 hours, and call it a day. Congratulations, you can join the rest of the remade 80's.

It's the same problem with battle grounds. For arena players, they aren't viewed as a mode of progression, they're just like leveling. That's the real problem with battle grounds. If you don't offer a reward, many people won't want to participate. Thanks for the treadmill guys, where's mah carrot at!?"

Now, I wrote that after participating in some BG's myself today, to see what all the fuss was about. I went on a level 80 toon. Well, it's true that AV is a wasteland, there wasn't a single game running when normally there would be 7, but everything else was normal. When you go off the forums into the game itself, it's like a magical cloth is pulled over your eyes, and all you see is happy people.

It's a real issue in this aging MMO. MMO's need to stay fresh, they need to offer a reward for the grind. Currently there is no reward for leveling, except that hey, now you can actually level in a way important to the game itself. I won't bring up Aion's leveling just yet, because I feel I need to experience it a little more to get the full scope of how it's working. I could generalize it, as I have before, but I'll reserve from doing so for this post.

Aion Day 3

For many it's day 1, but since I pre-ordered I got to mess around starting 2 days ago in the actual game. Is it everything I hoped it would be? More or less. There are a few glaring weaknesses, but honestly, they were already expected. Assassins can't solo for anything in the mid teen levels, not that I'm playing one, but my friend is, and the only people ever "lfg" is Assassins and Clerics. The assassins are supposed to be a force starting at level 25 though, so as long as you have someone to level with you it shouldn't be too bad.

Duo questing was frustrating due to the amount of peo

ple at launch, and may be today, but when it works, aka not too many people doing gathering quests, or kill for item quests, it works really, really well. There is no XP loss for being in a duo group, and I believe no XP loss for being in a party at all, so that's a major plus. It makes leveling faster, and more enjoyable for all. You can gain a semblance of chain pulling when you group up which is impossible for solo players, at these levels anyway.

Eurogamer did a review, and I'm a little surprised they gave the game a 7 instead of an 8. Their score numbers seem to get very arbitrary when it comes to MMO's. From reading the review, it sounded more like the reviewer was trying to play a game that Aion isn't, and then putting this ideal game on a pedestal that Aion was not meant to be compared to. Itis like matching a horror film in a race for an oscar against an action film in the Best Action Film category. Sure, the horror film may have some good action, but that wasn't the complete intent of the director.

Anyway, there's my Templar. She's just a warrior in this picture. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that not everyone took horns, since only one hair style allows horns and, to me anyway it seems, is one of the best options available. Not that I made all of my characters with horns, but for my first and most carefully crafted one. One word of note in the character creation, the face you choose actually determines just how much the sliders can effect your character. Some of the options just aren't there, like the tilt of the inner eye, you can't change that in any way except by looking at each face and choosing a face with the inner eye tilt you want from the beginning. A little annoying, but I'm guessing it has something to do with making the game run smoother despite all the different possible features.

I'm hoping to get an Aion comic up and going soon, just a small one, not a full blown color one cause I can't draw, but making little circles and lines look semi like characters isn't too hard, especially in the full ink styles of Sinfest or Applegeeks mini's.

How I got into MMO's

Today I thought I'd do a rough history of how I got into MMO games in the first place. It all started when I was going into highschool and one of my friends younger brothers was playing Everquest. The first one. I loved video games, but all I had was a computer, no console systems. And beyond that, I didn't even actually own any computer games that you paid for. I got Diablo one christmas, and then a year later finally got the computer able to play it. Up until that point I had been surrounded with Commander Keen 1 and 2, Duke Nukem, the original Doom, Tie Fighter, and a lovely little CD called Games for Daze, which had over 60 demos of various games on it. Half of them didn't actually work, but the ones that did... magic carpet ride... oh man. Anyway, that's kind of turning this short history into a long one.

So I saw him playing Everquest, and I sat down and played for maybe 10 minutes. I enjoyed it, it was strange, a new computer game. None of my friends were into computers, just this friends younger brother, and it was great to play a new game on the PC. So did I go out and buy EQ? Hah... no... still haven't actually paid for any games up to this point. To be honest, I never made it past killing a couple rats. I think I died once too. To rats.

The years went by, I'm at their house a lot, and he's playing a new game called Dark Age of Camelot. Wow... better graphics, a much smoother interface, hey, I can actually play this game. I couldn't stand the FPS mode of EQ. At this point I had started playing a few other games, Diablo, Comand and Conquer Red Alert, as well as got my first console system, a Sega 32 bit I think... maybe it was 24 or 64 version I can't remember. I loved Dune on that thing...

So I sat down and played some DAoC, I actually managed to hit level 16, and since I was so used to copying games over back and forth I nabbed a copy of his files and stuck them on my computer. Once again, my computer wasn't capable, so I missed out and didn't play anymore. He eventually leveled my level 6 Paladin thing, I forget the name of the actual class, all the way to max level and he used it as his main. Dysideron was its name. That later became how I started using the name Dyse, not because of Dice, but because Dyse was a feminine version of Dysideron.

Well... I've got the internet by now, I didn't originally though I left out when I did get it, and I'm playing WC1 and WC2, games I also didn't pay for. Well, Warcraft 1 was the demo version, and WC2 was a gift I got about the same time WC3 was about to be released... So I'm reading up, checking out game sites, what have you, and lo and behold, a Warcraft MMO?!

I don't even try to get in the beta, I don't know enough about what's going on to do that. I just read the beta forum boards, daily, for like, ever. I wanted to post so bad. I probably make up for it now that I actually can post, how badly I wanted to tell those idiots how wrong they were. They're in the beta, I'm not even in the beta, and I know more about the game then they do, it was so painful.

So I go over to my friends house again this one winter, and his younger brother has WoW installed on his computer. He doesn't like it though, goes back to DAoC, and me? I get his account for free, plus 6 months paid, for $20. It was... awesome. WoW was awesome. And that's how I got into my first MMO.

Well, I spoke too soon

About the druid buffs. They get a Maelstrom weapon in the upcoming patch, but they also just got infected wounds fixed, so it's properly removed, and nerfed for PvP. Though apparently it is a PvE buff since it had a conflicting issue on mobs with a DK's Icy Talons.

I've got a new Aion article up over at MMORPG.com, not sure if I'm supposed to talk about that really 0_o but oh well, I doubt it matters. It went up yesterday, so look for it if you want, it just goes over the different starter weapons available to the different classes, and how to use them. Focusing specifically on the second tier of starter weapons, so players don't make mistakes and take the wrong one.

Besides those wonderful personal issues, I've got to say I love the thought of these new contacts. I can't wait until we can just use the headsets for true 3d immersion in games. A headset plus a controller and first person view, or even 3rd person just more screen space. They've done studies that having a screen closer to your eyes is not a bad thing, you just need to make sure that you're not watching in the dark. Close up screens can give you bad headaches apparently as well though. I'm grabbing this info on eye care from another CNN.com article, I just can't remember the link. You don't even need a round screen, the front of the headset can be large and square, the screen just has to be close to you. Gaining the ability to use full peripheral vision just sounds amazing to me.

3rd person view from not too far back from your avatar sort of works, but then the screen feels way too cluttered because you're missing out on everything in front of your avatar. Perhaps the best solution is to have an avatar that is liquid, so you can see through yourself. That would be great for shooters, not so much for MMO games since seeing your avatar is so important for that genre, but I think it could work. Why no one hasn't just kept the normal FPS mode, but moved the camera about a foot back behind the body, but then ignored the body to the player so all they see is their see through hands holding the gun, is beyond me. Blur the edges, get your peripheral vision on.