Beginning of the comic

I'm going to start working on the comic with some real effort tommorow. My drawings are still somewhat not that great, but I think I'll be able to manage. I mean Dark Legacy is drawn on a sheet of lined paper, then uploaded and colored so... yeah. I don't have a scanner, but I guess this old digital camera will work to start. So, hopefully it can work.

If you haven't seen it, it has language but it's rather good, CCP's rap video called HTFU by Permabaned. A nice twist on words for the name of the band. Now my only question is, when is Blizzard going to release something even more awesome? Since Blizz isn't underground though, they should go for some more mainstream kanye style. Speaking of kanye, which you have to include P. Diddy in with that, which brings me to this video I can't believe I like by Ke$ha. Tik-Tok is the name of the single, as well as her album. This song, with the video, is just the perfect mixture of california, pop, the 80's, rap, techno, and rock all mixed into one. I mean, she's singing about a young Mick Jagger while also having lyrics regarding the way a DJ works the party. It's a pretty amazing song. I say I can't believe I like it just because it's so pop.

I was reading penny arcade the other day and noticed that gabe mentioned that Aion doesn't even really get going until level 10. I gotta say, that's what I thought at first too. Then you hit level 20... and go wow, the world just opened up a lot more. And then, and then you hit 25 and can go into the Abyss. I haven't hit 30 yet, but I'm pretty sure 25 to 50 is the real game, since I believe there are two different levels of Abyss zones. If they can get rid of the bots, make leveling 15% faster, and crafting/gathering etc. 40% faster, and fix the controls, they would have a top of the line game. Right now it's a little below top of the line. Everything works, but it's not that perfect. It's a hard thing for many gaming companies to get right, and it's surprising, you put all this money into your game, but then the camera or controls suck. Developers need to focus beyond the final dollar and work on making the damn thing run right first.

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.