Aion

Aion beta is open again! You can level all the way to level 20. Honestly, the sheer amount of possible grinding in this game is making me hesitate from doing just that. Now, there's nothing wrong with a game that takes a little time and is enjoyable on the way up, but as with most MMO's I've encounters, that enjoyment only lasts the first time through.

I want to make an Aion comic, so I'm hoping to test out my black and white 4 panel across simple drawing skills soon. Nothing as awesome as Sinfest, more along the lines of simple like Applegeeks mini comic thing at the bottom.

Crafting in Aion is very grindy. It's not a necessity either, so I'm not sure if I'll put too much time into it once the real game launches. I'm also completely addicted to harvesting. I was addicted to it in Age of Conan, I'm addicted to it in Aion. Whenever I see a resource I have to go get it, even though I know it's going to respawn in less than 5 minutes and I'll be tempted to take it all over again. It's not like anyone else is taking the damn things, but I just feel the need to when I see them. And honestly, I think I'm about doing it on pace to keep the gathering skill up, which is both enjoyable for me, and scary at the same time, because I've been doing a hell of a lot of gathering.

Still haven't seen the end game of Aion, just knowing that leveling more than 1 character is going to be a major pain in the ass. I'm currently looking at a Templar, but I'm growing disappointed with the lag that occasionally plagues the game. I don't know where this lag is coming from, probably Comcast so me, but the rate of it just makes me think it has something to do with Aion as well. When I can get the Templar to weapon swap perfectly and use abilities at the right time without having to press... wait to see if it worked... no it didn't press again... wait another second... that's what this game turns into sometimes and it's Horrible when it does. When the game runs smooth the combat with a Templar is nice, when it runs even the slightest big laggy you're screwed and going to end up healing yourself between every mob.

So I've been thinking about maybe leveling something else, but I'm not sure what yet. The ranger is fun, the kiting takes skill just like hunters used to in WoW, but I don't know if I'm ready to go back to the same play style I used over 3 years ago and had to watch it deteriorate before my eyes over the last 3. Current WoW hunters are a complete joke in comparison. Aion rangers take that same kind of skill, but the weapon manual weapon swapping is again a deterrent to the class in my eyes. This time from ranged weapon to melee weapon you actually have to swap before using. Considering the up to 2 seconds of weapon swap lag depending on what your doing when you hit the button, it's a terribly unresponsive system. I'm also looking at a Summoner just because the pets look f'in awesome, but I'd probably rather have a sorcerer if I leveled a mage. I don't like either the cleric or the chanter really, and I'm not sure which I would take over the other. The chanter looks like more fun, but it also looks more like the other melee classes, so a cleric might be more interesting.

But we'll see. Also, just started watching some show where this girl dies and ends up being a grim reaper... pretty good so far.