Aion Cleric Staff vs. Mace and Shield

Once again Hoschi is the man.  I always have to give him props on his superior guides, and walkthroughs.  Check out his Cleric Staff vs. Mace and Shield guide.

Abyssal Splinter Walkthrough

My friend Hoschi has been busy again putting together some great guides for Aion.  Check out his Abyssal Splinter Walkthrough.

Aion Live Expansion

Aion just announced their new expansion Assault on Balaurea. The expansion will be free.

You can find new flight mechanics, dungeons, instances, and more. The part that really amazed me is the raising of the level cap.

I know from personal experience 49 to 50 was the worst grind I ever saw, and now they are adding even more. I hate to see what 69 to 70 is going to be like.

Slapping High Fives

I have had so much to post about lately I have skipped posting my Slapping High Fives the last few Fridays. This week it is time to get back into the routine, and highlight some great articles I found on some other blogs in the community.

My first high five goes out to Werit. He really likes the lockout timers in the city which works nicely with his play style. I find it a bit too long since it seems I can see the city multiple times a day. So is the problem really the lockout timers, or is it that we can flip to the city multiple times a day? If cities were harder to get would it be better, or would it backfire?

My second high five goes out to Healeroftru. Hitting RR70 in Warhammer is a nice accomplishment. It unlocks your full set of Warlord, and starts the final grind to Sovereign. Luckily when he reached the milestone it wasn't from me dying to him. I just recently hit the same achievement with my BW, and it is a pretty good feeling. Once again congratulations on RR70.

My third high five goes out to Gordon over at We Fly Spitfires. He talks about how Crowd Control is a thing of the past. I have to agree. I remember the days of EQ with crowd control, or DAOC. It is very true that everyone these days wants to do everything fast with AOE. I think also that PvP has killed crowd control. The crowd control mechanic is way OP in pvp, and causes more ragequitting than anything in games. No one likes to be stunned, or unable to do anything while being burned down.

My fourth high five goes to Syp over at Bio Break. He recently decided to give in to technology, and check out Steam. I am always amazed at the deals Steam has on games. I just know for some reason it hates my router. I have bought many games, but I end up getting pissed off when it screws up my internet connection and it seems it will only work again if I reboot my computer, unplug all ethernet wires, reset cable modem, reset router. It wouldn't be bad if it happened once in a blue moon, but it happens every single time so for me it is worth paying the extra money to not have to deal with all that frustration.

My fifth high five goes out to Hoschi who seems to still be enjoying Aion. I am always impressed with his guides, and posts. His most recent post comparing Staffs with Mace and Shield for his Cleric is simply amazing. If anyone is still playing Aion I suggest you read his blog. He also publishes his other guides in the Aion Magazine.

My sixth high five goes out to Ravious of Kill Ten Rats. He talks about player housing in previous MMO's, and now the new housing that GW2, and SWTOR will bring. He asks why WOW has never implemented it. Of all the games that I have played with housing I liked it in SWG's the best. I just enjoyed the community it made by being able to have your own vending machine store inside your homes. It made it like a little city where you knew what houses, or stores you would buy your stuff from.

My seventh high five goes out to That's Skar with a K. He is finding out that Tier 4 is a whole new experience on armor. The armor isn't just handed out as easily as tiers 1-3. He sees the difference now between Anni gear, and Sovereign. It makes a huge difference in tier 4 with the RR difference, and gear. You don't see that in the lower tiers, but once you get to tier 4 it hits you like a ton of bricks.

My eighth high five goes out to Bootae's Bloody Blog. He keeps coming up with some great ideas on how to make tier 4 awesome. I like alot of his ideas. Making the whole zone rvr enabled is how the Dark Crag server was. You know how much pvp happened in the pve areas even though it was pvp enabled? Absolutely zero. Why? Because would you rather waste an hour looking for someone to kill or go to the lake, or join a scenario. If you add some objectives to the other pve areas it may liven it up a bit, but I don't know if that is the answer or not.

My ninth high five goes out to Rivs of High Latency Life. I guess he avoided Danica Patrick long enough. I am not sure why. He is the biggest perv in the blogging community. Anyways he finally manned up, and gave her 10 bucks. No he didn't get a lap dance. He got a real domain. I am still waiting for him to start using all those suggestions he asked for a few months ago to make his blog better.

My tenth and final high five goes to Grimnir. He talks about playing a life tap shaman. It is like a comprehensive guide to playing one. If you enjoy playing the little green guys I suggest you head on over, and check it out.

Wasdstomp Goes Postal

Wasdstomp decided to go postal today on his HDD. Why? I was sick, and tired of looking at icons on my desktop of games I no longer have any desire to ever play again.

I uninstalled Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare 2, World of Warcraft, Aion, Dungeons and Dragons, and a few other useless programs.

Hopefully the gaming gods reward me somehow by making this bold move.

Aion Introduces RMT for Plastic Surgery

Aion released their Community address, and basically introduced RMT coming to the game. How will the players take it? Will they pay real money to recreate their characters looks, or pay another real money transaction fee to switch genders?

This is only the beginning of their new Account Services feature from what I read. I am sure by years end you will be able to spend hundreds of dollars buying stuff. Is it really worth it to pay real money for plastic surgery in Aion?

I don't really understand why anyone would pay to change their character.  Didn't everyone already spend an hour creating their toon originally?  I really only see this as a way for someone to recreate themselves, or change their looks if they bought the account.  I don't really see why else you would pay to change something so minor.

So you figure with a big community address you would read some patch notes, or hear about some exciting upcoming content but not a word. It was the most uneventful announcement I have seen. What about their vision?  I am thinking that vision was their ten year vision.

Oh wait. They did announce some changes. They are revamping the website, and the forums. Aren't you excited?

30 Trillion Kinah Quest Rewards in Aion

Could you imagine getting 30 trillion kinah for a quest reward in Aion?  On Azphel it was happening.  NCSoft had no choice, but to roll back the servers to save the servers economy.

Greetings Daevas of Azphel,

Earlier today we began to receive reports that a small number of players on the Azphel server had received over 30 trillion Kinah as part of a reward glitch. Since that time, we’ve brought down the Azphel server and have been working diligently to identify how to restore economic stability. We’ve made the decision to rollback the Azphel server data to 6:00am CST this morning and will continue to monitor all servers for related anomalies.

It’s important to understand that we saw the rollback as a last option and made every effort to avoid doing so. We’re currently performing the rollback and anticipate the server will be back online sometime on Tuesday, January 5th. At that point, all character progression on Azphel will be restored to its state as of this morning.

As an apology for the downtime, we’ll be rewarding everyone on the Azphel server with five Lodas Amulets later this week. It’s our goal at NCsoft to provide the best possible service to our customers. Our apologies for the downtime and as always, thank you for your continued patience.

So how many Aion players are going to ragequit over this?  What if you received a great drop from Dark Poeta, completed 12 hours of grinding, completed your xenophon weapon quest,or  dinged 50?  I would think all of the above would leave a sour taste in your mouth with the rollbacks.

Did NCSoft have a choice?  Probably not.  I imagine with trillions of kinah instantly added to the economy there would be no way to track down everything.  It was the best choice for Aion, but if you lost something you earned legimately during the rollback hours you will be very angry.

Once again they offer lodas amulets as a reward.  Is that really the best thing they can offer after something like that?  How do you think they should of handled it?  What would of been a better than giving five lodas amulets?

Dark Poeta Detailed Walkthrough

My friend Hoschi keeps cranking out some excellent Aion guides, and walkthroughs.  His latest is a Dark Poeta walkthrough.  I am amazed at all the great details of Hoschi's step by step guide for Dark Poeta.

Should have Aion won Grind of the Year, not Game of the Year for 2009?

If you played Aion than you know why I am asking the question.  How did Aion get 2009 Game of the Year?

Did they pay them to say it?  If so give me $25,000, and I will praise your game.  I think a better award would of been 2009 Grind of the Year.

Do you think Aion was the Game of the Year for 2009?  If not, which one?

Is Aion gaining new players?

I think Aion may be gaining subscribers these days.  I thought this day would never come, but I think it is happening.

What makes me think this?

A simple trend I see on all my Aion HD video leveling guides on Youtube.  They have been showing increases of 30%+ viewing consistently the past few weeks.  My Aion seven part video leveling guide is only for levels 1-10.   

You know no one rolling alts is using my guide.  They already know the first ten levels.  It means that new players are coming to the game, and wanting to get a jump start on the leveling process.

Did a bunch of gamers get Aion for Xmas?

Aion could still turn out to be the game that everyone imagined it being in a few more months.  It will be interesting to see how it matures, and how quickly they implement the Aion Vision.

Earn Double XP on weekends in Aion all the way to 50

NCSoft Aion took a good beating the last few days after the announcement of Double XP weekends to level 35.  Players voiced their opinions that once again where the real level grind starts Aion was still making players spend countless hours of boring grinding for every bubble of xp.  It was like a double slap, and spit to the face.

I am surprised they gave in so quickly.   I am sure the declining subscription levels probably have urged them to respond quickly to players concerns.   I don't know what the numbers are, but I personally know about 300 from my guild that stopped playing, and so many others from Warhammer that have disappeared.

At least many more players will now reach the level 50 milestone with double xp being extended all the way to 50.  Of course all the players who grinded it out will be mad until they realize the game won't be fun until the majority of the games population hits that max level cap anyways.

17 of My Best Aion Blog posts for 2009

Here is a list along with a short summary of my best Aion blog posts for 2009.  

Did Aion fool you into buying the game?

With open beta limited to level 30 I think NCSoft was trying to hide the real grind, and get players to buy the game.

9 ways Twitter makes Aion better

Twitter has become a huge social networking tool, but unfortunately players refuse to accept change.

Aion Grind Optimizer

The biggest question is always where do I go grind mobs now.  This optimizer works really great at showing mobs health, xp given, and the xp/time ratios to optimize the best grind.

Bot or Not?

Bots were a big deal in the game.  The problem was so many players just assumed people were bots since the grind is so monotonous. 

3 Things Aion PvP needs

You add these three things, and pvp in Aion would be so much better.

Will rifts be dead in Aion in 6 months?

With everyone eventually reaching max level it will most likely make most rifts a waste of time.

Queueing system for the Auction House broker

With the personal store nerf they really needed to allow a way for players to utilize the auction house since it was limited to 10 items.  The queuing system to put things in the auction house after other items sold would of been a great addition.

Manastones make me cry

I guess I just would always run into a streak of bad luck when it came to inserting mana stones into my gear.  The way they would fail, and destroy any manastones in the gear was stupid.

Why was I banned?

It is always great to read about players claiming they were banned for no reason.  Why do players always want everyone to believe they are innocent.

Holy Captcha

Adding captcha to gathering skills was just a dumb idea.  Everyone hates captcha.

Infatuation with character names

Why do some players feel they have to use the same character name no matter what game they are playing?

Dude where's my bags

Everyone needs more bag space.

Personal stores nerfed to 30 minutes

The nerf seriously ruined my ability to earn kinah as easily by not being able to put stacks of 200 in a store, and go to sleep for the night, and wake up with everything sold.

Things killing MMO's

Several things I think are killing MMO's, and sending them to an early grave.

Which is faster grinding or questing?

I don't know which came first the chicken or the egg?

Aion release survival guide

This is the biggest viral post prior to Aion launching.

Why I am playing Aion

This basically tells you why I left Warhammer, and decided to play Aion.

My Top 3 Aion Videos of 2009

These are three of my favorite Aion videos I made this year.  I really enjoyed Nochsana Training Camp.  Wouldn't it been nice if the xp was like that throughout the game?

Of course the Krall Boss farming sessions were fun too.  It was the easiest place to farm bosses with being able to change channels without fighting your way through the area again.  Did you channel farm?

The last video is the great queues everyone endured at launch.  I remember waiting over 3 hours my initial login to play.  How many hours did you spend total waiting to play?

 

My Favorite Elyos Aion Leveling 1-10 Videos of 2009

2 things that made Aion better today

They are listening believe it or not.  The leveling grind in Aion is getting easier.  They will now be offering double xp on weekends.  The second great thing they are greatly reducing the cost of soul healing.  Both get two thumbs up from me.

Another one BOTS the Dust

Is anyone even still playing Aion?  They just announced another 26,000 bot accounts banned in the game today.  How many subscribers are left after banning so many the last few weeks?

If your game is that infested with bots than maybe you need to start looking at why your game is a breeding ground for bots.

Why not remove the never ending grind?  I bet if you cut the grind in half the bot issue would fix itself, and you could actually work on adding content instead of wasting hundreds of man hours tracking down bots.

Three Reasons Aion Killed our Legion

I never thought that Aion would kill our legion. We were the biggest guild in Warhammer on Dark Crag. Everyone worked together, and had fun in vent. So how did it turn sour so quickly?

It is still shocking that it has happened. The remaining players in Aion are just a handful compared to the active roster we had in Warhammer. They plan on sticking it out, but I have a feeling in another month or two it will be completely dead.



Reason #1:   Legion 90 Player Cap size

The legion size cap in Aion played a big part in the demise of our legion. We no longer felt like one big family. We were split up into six different legions. It seemed okay at first because everyone was still in vent together, but it changed rather quickly.

The Legion was splitting up without the legion leadership even realizing it. I pointed it out early on, but no one wanted to listen. The legion leadership decided to make every legion split up into time zones to make it easy for everyone to be on at the same time. I tried to tell them that was a failed approach from the start, but I am just an idiot and don't know what I am talking about.

You have to have all the hardcore active players together. With the separate legions it became hard to find out who was on, and what everyone was doing. Everyone in vent started going to their own channels with their own cliques so you couldn't even ask for a NTC group or whatever because people were spread out everywhere even on vent. Our 200 man vent felt like a 10 man vent.

Eventually each separate legion started acting snobby to the other legions. It soon felt as though each legion was running as if they didn't want anything to do with the other five legions.


Reason #2:   The Grind

The grind killed a bunch of players early. After the first week or two most just disappeared without a word. By the end of the free month you could tell the activity levels dropped by a huge amount, and even more players stopped playing Aion. The legions kept getting smaller, and smaller.

As each legion shrunk in size the more unmotivated the remaining players became. You started having gaming sessions with less than five people on at the same time within each legion.

The grind was driving people to quit. You can't just grind for hours and hours, and see very little progress. The grind was terribly boring even at early levels.

As the remaining players reached 30+, 35+, 40+ they really started feeling the effects of the grind even with the Grind Optimizer. Once again players were dropping like flies.

The hardcore players like myself who forced themselves to grind it out till 50 have quit too. The game is just very boring, and when you think the grind is over at 50 you are just lying to yourself. The AP grind is probably worse than the leveling grind.


Reason #3:   PvP at level 25

The biggest lie Aion told us was that you were able to pvp at 25. Pvping at 25 is a huge joke. I would like to see anyone go out, and have fun pvping at that level. With no level limits in the pvp areas a level 25 has zero chance of killing anyone because of the hidden level of the opposite faction. Maybe if you could know you were fighting another 25 it would be different, but otherwise you better be quick at looking names up on the Aion site.

With our legion unable to really pvp at early levels, and the huge grind ahead it just didn't seem worth it. Players just gave up on Aion. No one wants to spend 5000 hours leveling to find out they hate the pvp in the game. It is easier just to quit, and move on.

Amazing Aion Vision Trailer

This Aion vision trailer is simply amazing.  It looks like they are adding weather, swimming, mount combat, taming, guild/player housing, and so much more.  The graphics are breathtaking. Aion deserves a definite two thumbs up.



 

Aion bans 16k accounts today

Pretty amazing numbers they banned from Aion today. I can't wait for the "I got banned for no reason" posts all over the Aionsource forums in the next few hours.

It is nice to see that NCSoft is taking a stance against all the bots, and RMT. They even gave a detailed explanation this time on how they banned players, and no one is just banned because they sent 5 million kinah to their alts.

Check out the full details of the bans.

Aion Xenophon Weapon Quest

I wanted to share a great detailed post on the Aion Xeno Weapon Quest.  Hoschi does a great job over on his Aion blog, and his posts are always full of valuable information.  Be sure to check out some of his other posts too.