Within the next three months, the armory will be updated to allow you to view the status of your auctions and check your mail. Why? Because Aion has it. Nevermind that players have asked for it forever. Aion has it, so Blizzard, much like number one, will make it so. Two games that take the ideas of others and make them their own.
I proclaim the battle of the spitshine begun!
A reason not to play WoW…
… and a reason to play WoW…
Gotta love ye’ olde gaming noob. And penguins. Who doesn’t love a bird that wears a tuxedo?
For the longest time, I wasn’t a fan of grouping. I played solo, talked in guild chat, and was happy with only teaming up when it was time to run a dungeon. It stands in contrast to how I’d played MUDs beforehand. I had been social before and would meet up with friends I’d made in-game to adventure often. Yet, when I made the jump to a “real” MMO that disappeared. I became a voice in guild chat and the occasional raid buddy.
Nowadays, things are much different. I love grouping, talking in vent, and generally being a community member instead of just a player. So, I ask myself: what happened?
I think it all comes down to opening the door on the MMO genre. The difference between then and now is that I had been playing WoW and now I’m not. Warcraft jumped into the field and proclaimed themselves to be the MMO for the non-MMOer. It was the game that opened doors except that, in doing so, they closed others in the process.
For some reason that I’ll never fathom, they decided that people who group to complete quests should be punished. Maybe it’s that that they want to “guide your experience” and leave less to chance. But why punish? At the end of the day, unless Blizzard tells you to group up, and sometimes even when they do, you’re going to get less xp per kill and progress slower than if you went it alone. If that’s not the nail in grouping’s coffin, I don’t know what is.
For a single game, the “solo to level-cap” ideal wouldn’t much matter. The problem is that game studios and, more importantly, publishers want to emulate WoW’s success. So, we see this model repeated until soloability becomes the expectation. No big game “forces” you to group. They might encourage it. But there are always ways to advance, even if it’s plain old grinding. Yet, that fact is one that gets lost in the complaints that players shouldn’t be “forced” to do things that “aren’t fun.” As a result, games release more “casual” content so people can play by themselves in these massively multiplayer worlds.
I didn’t realize the bubble my playstyle had been in until I escaped the WoW-trap and hopped between games for a while. I don’t like feeling like I have to do something any more than the next guy but I found out that taking risks and trying something new can actually wind up being a lot of fun. Darkfall, for all of its hardcore-i-ness was one of the single most fun MMOs I’ve ever played for the simple reason that it was the single most social game I’ve ever played. Yet it stayed true to its MMO roots. I’m not talking Free Realms social with Darkfall, I’m talking get together and overcome social.
Even though I’m not playing WoW anymore, it’s still the industry trend setter. It’s the Big Daddy of the MMO world and when it moves, people turn and look. And if, one day, it wears a blue shirt, it’s not unlikely that the other kids will start to wear blue shirts too.
You know, for all of the good WoW has done the industry, I kind of wish they’d never taken up a leveling model. I know, it’s the natural move, but doesn’t level separation create walls that’re hard to overcome? Someday, it’d be nice to have a game with all of the MMO bells and whistles that will let you hop in and group with from the get go. Levels don’t let you do that.
For the time being, I’m contented. I can solo when I want and group up when the mood strikes me. That’s something I really like about Aion right now. The K&G and Havok community are active and fun and a pleasure to talk to on vent. They say that community makes or breaks a game and I’ve found that true. As we move forward, I hope the WoW approach to grouping is something we leave behind. Keep the option, drop the penalty, and we all win.
It begins... Syeric lvl. 1
Combat arrows provide temporary buffs
Even though I was stuck at work for far too long yesterday, I was still able to spend a decent chunk of time in game when I got home. I arrived home at about 9PM EST and was able to login to the Lumiel server by 11:30. That was the worst part of the experience, bar none. I was lucky though. Some people were reporting random D/Cs but, once I was on, I stayed on. My connection was rock solid, too. I had a ping that fluctuated between 120 and 220ms but that’s acceptable during a head start.
Syeric in level 5 leather armor
My first spin out with my Scout, Syeric, was fun. The leveling curve is vastly lower than it was in previous versions and I was able to hit level six much quicker than I have with any characters before him. It’s slower than WoW, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel painstakingly slow like it did at this time with WAR. The beginner zone was crowded but not as much as I’d been hearing about. The only real competition I found was with herb nodes, since they are part of a very early quest. Once I moved past this area, even that dropped out and I was able to level up in ease.
I did manage to die, twice, and found out that the death penalty is still in the game. I’ve never played as Scout past the first few levels, so it took some getting used to. The class is very much a glass cannon and you take damage easily. A fellow guildmate and I were chatting in vent about how often you’re forced to rest between fights. I still found it a lot of fun to play, though. There’s something about stringing together criticals without even trying that I find very satisfying.
One thing that I found a little bit confusing was the combat arrows. These are also referred to as movement
When you join a legion, their banner automatically appears on you
modifiers on various boards. Aion’s combat is augmentable in that you can give yourself a temporary buff by running in a particular direction. Running forward increases damage, backward increases mitigation, and side to
side increases avoidance. What was confusing is the most of the people in chat seemed to think that you got the buff by running after you saw the
arrow and that there was no indicator if it was actually up or not. As a Scout, that would mean to get the full benefit of the buff I would need to constantly be moving forward. As I’m sure you can imagine, that was more than annoying to have to run in circles non-stop for every mob and it didn’t seem like a decision any reasonable developer would make. A little testing and chatting with other guild mates revealed that, no, once you see the arrow the buff is up. If you’re not moving that direction, it drops quickly but you’re not stuck mouse turning 15 times a fight.
The community seemed fairly good. People were talkative and, yes, they talked a bit about WoW. For the most part though, I didn’t find that to be the majority the conversation. It’s easy to make your own chat tab and ignore it anyways.
So, on the whole, the first day of head start was a great success. Server stability and lag were top notch on Lumiel I didn’t see anyone complaining about either the whole time. The biggest issue was about the queues but, apparently, CM Ayase is of the belief that they’re better than server consolidations, so they’re going to stay until it’s sure than another server will remain populated even after the initial hype dyes down. Hopefully, the official launch day will go as smooth as this one did.
To finish off today, I’ll leave you with some pictures of your first introduction to the Abyss. After one of your early missions, you get a glimpse of your future. It looks something like this… (edit: excuse the formatting — wordpress isn’t agreeing with the picture blocks.)
The server hamster speaks!
The Aion head start began today as of 3pm EST. Trumpets blared, banners were dropped, and courts across England exploded in applause. And even though I was (and still am) at work, I couldn’t help but peek into the interwebs a little bit to see how things were going.
From the sound of it, things are going a little shaky. When people are able to connect, they’re finding themselves in zones that are absolutely flooded with people. More troublesome for players, however, is the fact that most of them can’t connect. One forum posted complained that he had place number 2060 in a 5+ hour queue.
Both of these things are to be expected less than two hours after the launch of an MMO but that doesn’t do much to make players feel better about it, especially when the game’s been live across the world for the last year.
The whole thing has got me thinking though, what would players really prefer: no queues and better performance now or more servers and forced mergers later?
I look at this kind of thing as testing period, post-beta. Closing servers looks bad. It scream failure to people who don’t know any better. Understandably, companies want to avoid this and NCSoft is opting to open with fewer servers and (I hope) open more as needed.
Still, multi-hour queues suck and there’s something not right about “testing” something that should have been prepared for sooner. This kind of thing harkens back to the woefully low QA standards across the board for the MMO genre. Yet, the reality of the situation is, despite what I as a consumer may want, it’s not possible for MMOs to have the same standard as, say, Xbox 360 games. They’re whole different beasts with massively different network demands.
MMO launches effectively have three outcomes: lose/lose/luck out. If you don’t have enough servers, there are queues. LOSE. If you have too many servers, you soon find them empty and have to “consolidate.” LOSE. Or, you do things just right and avoid either. LUCK OUT. Not many people luck out.
So that’s what I’m wondering, what loss would be the better?
Now, I get to sit and wait for Sunday!
During the pre-select period (today until the head start begins on Sunday) you’re able to reserve two names and play around in the character creator. I had a good time with it but, I have to admit, the experience was a little bittersweet knowing that that’s all I could do until Sunday. It’s like being able to use the dressing room at a clothing store but not actually being able to buy anything.
Still, I spent a good hour or so tinkering around. It was a period of self-discovery and the end result was that I found out I’m indecisive. I must have gone through the face and hair selections at least ten times trying to find something that was just right. We won’t even get into how often I’d go into the “advanced” panel to tweak this or that, just to do it all over again for another face or hair option. That, my friends, is why I can’t play a game like Champions. Two weeks in, I’d still be deciding on just the right outfit.
In the end, I decided to go conservative with my main. Meet Syeric.
Syeric - Assassin, Lvl. 1
Syeric is an assassin because I found their combat style to be fast paced and fun. I kept his body form pretty much standard but I scaled down his height. I have this “small but deadly” image in mind for him.
Hear that Spielberg? He’s ready for his close-up!
Ain't he cute?
Now, with the option of creating a second character, I couldn’t resist reserving my nickname Raegn. Raegn’s a warrior that will eventually go the templar route for tanking. I like playing both sides of the fence. What can I say, I swing like that.
Oh, Raaaeeeeeegn?
Raegn - Warrior, Lvl. 1
Raegn’s a little sensitive about his name. Sometimes people call him Raegan and for that he blames his parents. Me. Then again, with a face like that, I’ll probably think of him more as a Chester Cheeto than anything else.
Asmodian...
... or Cheeta. You be the judge.
I can tell you one thing though, he’ll be the baddest thing with highlights the gaming world has ever seen. But, damn, aren’t those eyes cool?
Anyways, that’s the update for now! I’ll be twiddling my thumbs at the call center this weekend but I’m interested to see what you all make. Post the pictures on your blogs! It’ll make my workday go faster, honestly.
Until tomorrow!
As the launch of Aion looms ever closer, more and more people are coming out of the woodwork to voice their opinions on it. That’s all well and good except for when people spread little bits of misinformation left and right.
The current doom and gloom is all about endgame PvP. Some people would have you believe that Aion’s endgame rewards you for not engaging in Abyss PvP but wants you to grind quests instead. The logic is that, since you can lose abyss points (think honor in WoW) when you die, at higher ranks you stand to lose more by PvPing than PvEing.
This is true. We’re all chipper here, same page in the same book. Except, when we look a little bit deeper we see there’s a little extra context to the story.
—
Look at the date
The main place people are getting this stuff from is this interview. Look at the date on that. May 31st, 2009. Not only is it far outdated but the guy is obviously going on a shady memory. He says that “After 400k I killed a 3rank soldier and only got 350 pts. If I die I lose 5,000 AP.” According to the chart I’m posting below, that would have put him at a 3rd rank officer and he should have earned over 3k AP for that kill. Yeah, it’s not that relevant anymore. I re-read this and didn’t take into account the rank difference. The fact remains, he would have lost gained more/lost less in the current version of Aion. You’ll also see that he claims to play solo more often than not while PvPing in the Abyss. Since Abyss is based primarily on group combat, he would have far more potential to die often than the average player in a group. His risk/reward ratio is skewed.
Only the Highest Ranks
Have a look at this wiki article. Hell, wild man that I am, I’ll just include it here.
Courtesy of Aionopedia.com
Now, unless I’m reading this wrong, only the top four PvP ranks stand to lose more abyss points than they’d gain if they die. Now, have a look at the “Req’d Positions” column. By my math, it looks like that’s only 44 people on the entire server at any given time. Let me repeat, 44 people. No offense, but big freaking deal. If 44 people on any server in any game decide to PvP or PvE or dance naked on mailboxes, it makes no difference whatsoever in anything. To put that in perspective, that’s less than 2% of over moderately ranked PvPers and far less than that for all combatants.
Sorry, that’s probably not us
The other fact that bears repeating is that you and I will probably never see those ranks. At least I won’t. Special PvP ranks tend to be reserved for the more hardcore among us. Unless you’re holding on to you’re Abyss Points for the sole reason of hitting those top notches, you’ll probably find yourself lower in the “Req’d Points” than you’d need to be. And even if you do,
Those positions will change hands often
Abyss Points are won and lost when as you kill or die yourself. On top of that, you use those points to buy armor and other rewards. Your total amount of points will rise and fall with the tides, so unless those “top performers” now grinding PvE quest decide to sit on their points and never log off, they’ll be back in the fray sooner rather than later.
—
There’s more to it than just the above for both sides of the argument but these are the core holes in their argument. If there’s 3000 people on at primetime and 500 in the abyss, who cares about those 44. They’re still targets no matter where they are.
Now, I’d be remiss not to address a counter argument to my own. But, the amount of AP you get depends on the other player’s rank, so it’s less reliable even earlier! The amount does drop if you’re killing people of a far lower rank than your own and you still lose the same amount if they kill you. There’s a couple points I’d like to make regarding that though. First, Aion is a gear game. The people of far lower rank are probably also going to be of far lower level, too. If you lose to them you deserve to take more of a hit the same way you should if a level 25 killed your 50 in WoW. Second, the game’s PvP is based on group combat. If you’re going it alone all the time, yeah, you’re going to lose more AP. The other side of that coin, however, is that you’re also going to earn it much slower and will probably have a lot harder time doing most things in the Abyss. When you’re with a group, you should be making more kills than you’re taking.
The fact is, the end-game of modern day Aion revolves around PvP. NC Soft isn’t stupid. They’re not going to break the core of their game right off the bat. It’s worked fine in the eastern part of the globe and it’ll work fine, if not better, here too. It’s version 1.5, a game minus the Korean grind, and with more options than ever before.
This whole argument disregards the fact that most people coming to Aion will do so for the PvP anyways. I’d hope most of these people would choose to do what’s most fun for them at the end of the day.
If you want insightful commentary on Aion, go where people have followed the game a little bit. Or at least look into things before they make blanket statements.
Earlier this evening, wordpress had some issues with putting through to the feed. You might see a repeat post (or two, this post may actually double up on you) in there as I tried to correct the issue but I’m pretty sure that didn’t fly. The good news is that if you choose to read my short story, The Deemed, the original “part 1” submitted to the feeds actually features the full text. On my end, I got an error message when I tried but when I checked Google reader, it somehow posted half of the story first and then the complete story underneath it. Weird, I know. But, if you’re a subscriber and see that wonky “part 1” post, you can scroll down right past where it says “Continue part 2 here” and get the full monty without having to click anywhere else. Sorry for the confusion, everything should be on the up and up now. I blame the interwebz.
The conclusion Raith and Joanna’s post-apocalyptic adventure. Well, maybe not post-apocalyptic. Post-virus? If you’re just joining us now, check out part one here.
The tale continues. Follow me after the break to see what happens.
Part I
Step into a world ravaged by an unstoppable virus. After the death of his parents, Raith decides to brave his now empty town. The dead abound and signs of destruction litter the streets. He believes he’s all alone until little Joanna finds him. But, how alone are they really? And if they live to see the next day, will there be anything to wake up to?
Author: Yours truly
Word Count: Approx. 4,800 words (7.5 pages – broken into two posts)
Advisories: Violence, adult themes, some disturbing images
Author’s Note: Just a note, I drew inspiration from this story from a lot of places. I’m sure you can guess at least one of them; however, I also read Stephen King’s The Stand this summer. Great novel. I wrote this story to test the waters for my writing class. I love to write with elements of “the fantastic,” the likes of which we find in books like Terry Brook’s Word/Void trilogy but I wasn’t quite sure they’d be open to elements of fantasy. They’re quite the grounded bunch. This, a scenario that could happen seemed like a good place to start. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think!
