The Aion Experience

I’ve finally figured it out! The difference between the Aion grind and the EQ grind – the only other game I’ve ever really experienced what is labelled a “grind”. I was reading back through The Dark Knights blog and read the following comment:

I figured I’d give the game another shot, I mean… Aion was fun, but I haven’t seen a grind like that since EQ1, and I didn’t like it then, still not a big fan.

BAM! Like someone elses palm to my forehead, it hit me. Yes Aion is a grind, although I haven’t experienced even the worst of it (apparently) at level 22, but so was EQ. And I loved EQ right? I played it for 5 years straight. It cost me all my sick days, nearly a job or two and certainly inhibited my ability to look for said jobs when I was out of work. Evercrack was certainly a correct rename when it came to me.

So what’s the difference?

I don’t know what it was about that comment that made me remember it, but the EQ grind was done in… are you ready for it?… a group!! OMG that’s the difference? A GROUP!

For the longest time I was guild-less and fancy free. I had my sights firmly set on joining Talisman, the biggest raiding guild there was on my server at the time and was not going to join anything less. Which meant I didn’t have any friends or guild mates to help me along as I leveled. Yet level I did. How? In GROUPS!

You couldn’t solo in EQ, what are you, nuts? Oh no no, you zoned into which ever area was suitable for you at the time, sat your ass down at the zone entrance and proceeded to beg, grovel and plead for a spot in an existing group. You always wanted the group with the best spot, the area that had a never ending stream of mobs at your disposal. You’d settle for a group in a lesser spot, all the while still keeping your eye on the groups in the prime locations in case one of their members dropped off unexpectedly.

Hell, every now and then there’d be a few nut balls at the entrance that would be all like, “Hey, we don’t need them man, we can start our own group” and you’d group up (usually after at least an hour of waiting) and try to find a spot where you could pick off stragglers from another groups area without incurring too much of said other groups wrath for kill stealing.

Your group ‘camped’ an area. And like you would expect with the word camping, you found the ideal spot, you pitched your tents, or in the case of EQ, you’re casters sat down with a book open in their face, while the leader or most agile member of the group went out hunting to return with your dinner.

It was… awesome!

You didn’t have to know anyone. Groups weren’t consistent. Guilds didn’t run together all the time, some did, most didn’t at the beginning. I’m thinking back to the days of Overthere. I’m talking about the zone Overthere, not just randomly pointing around my living room expecting you to know where I mean. The wide, open, grassy zone with those awesome birds that were easy to kill and gave nice XP. The Sarnaks that always dropped more coin…

For some reason when I think of grinding, I see there and “DC” I think the zone was called. I can’t remember what DC stood for, I just remember you all camped a section of the wall that was the dungeon in the middle. Big zone, had to have levitate to make it to the middle? Tunnels with Spiders and big Giants all around? @Moochew will reply in the comments with the name of the zone I’m sure…

Anyway, this epiphany that was the realisation of the differences between the two games is also part of my answer as to what hasn’t grabbed me with Aion. There’s no real grouping! Sure there is for certain sections or hard quests, but over all, the majority of your time is spent solo leveling until you reach a point in which you are forced to skip or swallow your pride and ask for help. That’s the difference. After WoW, everyone is so used to being able to solo, the thought of grouping just because, well, doesn’t exist anymore.

I actually miss that aspect of EQ. The requirement to group was a pain at the time. I mean we all secretly despised the Bars and Druids who could solo effectively right? But even I, as one of those Druids, chose to level my entire life in a group over solo. Why? Because I enjoy the people. I hated the hours on end waiting to be with the people, but once I was with the people, I was oh so happy.

*pauses and thinks* Then again, going back to the days of EQ, there were less tools playing the game, hell there were less people overall playing MMO’s. It wasn’t as mainstream as it is today courtesy of WoW. You might get one bad group member, which really, only united other members of the group as they sat there bitching and whispering to one another about how sucky he was. Then, when he’d leave, you’d all rejoice and the bond only grew. And replacing group members wasn’t like it is today – there was an endless stream of wall flowers just anxiously waiting for you to pick them over everyone else.

If you spent any length of time in a particular zone, you got to know the regulars and chat would be filled with “Oh hi xxxx, how are you?”. If you were really well known, a simple LFG announcement from you would result in a wave of “zomg it’s xxx hihihi” responses from the zone over. Then of course you had the morons who thought they were that someone special and annoyed us all with their refusal to stop speaking.

All in all, the leveling experience in EQ brings back some of my fondest memories in game. And that is the difference (for me) between the grind that was EQ, and the grind that is Aion. I don’t know anyone in game outside of my WoW friends and of course Moochew. After the torture that was WoW pugs, I’m scarred for life (or at least for the next few years) so don’t really venture out of that familiar circle of sane and pleasant people. And thus, my time in Aion is lonely.

Lonely because my friends have all abandoned me. And lonely because there’s not as much grouping, or grouping is limited to the time you need them, so you don’t really meet any new friends.

Will this get any different as I level up? I hope so. But even it does, how willing will I be to stick my head up and say hello. After 5+ years of solo/friendship only play, I’m all rusty when it comes to just “/1 Ranger LFG”….

I want to start this post by thanking everyone for their replies to my post yesterday. Obviously all bloggers love getting comments, but in particular for yesterdays post, your replies gave me the exact feedback I was looking for.

I also want to clarify one point that didn’t sit well with me – I was in no way bashing Aion in yesterday’s post. And I’m a little surprised (and offended) it was labelled that. It’s a sad day when people can’t see past someones opinions and personal experiences in a game they are clearly a fanboi of and label you nothing more than one of the many who waste their readers times by bashing a game they clearly don’t like.

Well, they were wrong. Never did I say I didn’t like the game, in fact I clearly stated I did, I just wasn’t sure if it was for the right reasons. After chatting to my twitter friends (I’m so addicted to Twitter btw, especially with none of my friends playing the same game as me) and I think we worked out what my issue with Aion really is, and that’s a lack of playmates. Some readers confused my loneliness of having a completely barren guild with an unpopulated server. Never did I say that Nezekan was unpopulated.

After narrowing down the major problem to a lack of friends online – and I’m talking about the friends I’ve just spent the past few YEARS with in WoW, not just any random player that is happy to talk to me, I decided to log on last night and spend some time looking at my characters. Of course, being in Australia and 3am PST server maintenance don’t mix to well and I remembered I wouldn’t have any play time last night anyway. Ironic.

The other main problem, which I had to laugh as it hit me the second I logged in, is my lag. I’ve bitched about this before. Telstra can do die in a fire of dog crap for all I care. We are on a proxy now, but a lot of good that did me at 924ms last night /sigh. The lag is going to be a factor for me for as long as we live in this house. Telstra won’t upgrade the lines to the fastest growing area in the state, and as such, the situation is only going to get worse. This is also a contributing factor to my non-enjoyment playing ANY online game at the moment – hubby had to quit raiding in WoW because of it, and he loves raiding in WoW.

This morning, I decided to tidy up my screenshots folder and clean out any old ones. In doing so, I found some that I took of my characters and did get a glimmer of hope that it was actually the reasons listed above I am not having as much fun as I could be, and not the game itself. Visually speaking, the game is very pretty. We all know that. But there’s something about finding your characters quite… well… hot that makes it even better.

And yes, shock horror I am a female gamer who loves looking at the hot chickies in game. O.o

My little cleric. Interesting playing a healing class that can wear chain lol.

I love my Ranger’s face. I don’t know why, but I just find her so pretty. Sadly, I’m not that keen on the rest of her lol. Not sure if it’s the fairly take bow designs or just a general “meh” feeling about her looks.

The character I love everything about though – face and body – is my Assassin! She’s just cool in every way.

In no way have I given up on Aion. I don’t hate the game, I am not bashing it and anyone who got that from my post needs to read it again… slowly. I can only assume going forward that I will be doing it alone, if I do it at all. Yes I could try to find another guild and/or new friends, but I’m not the sort to put myself out there to random people easily. For one, it can be more trouble than it’s worth and pugs make my skin crawl. And two, for me personally, I can’t guarantee my time availability with a toddler that likes to fight sleep. It’s the reason I only ever did friend/guild groups in WoW – the understood. Random pick ups are not so understanding… or forgiving.

And I definitely don’t want to venture into any PvP areas on my own… I want my back covered!

As I scan though my Google reader to see what new blog posts have been added, I notice a few themes:

1. There’s the people dinging level 50 in Aion. A lot of them. I really do feel like a slacker at level 22…
2. There’s the posts of people who dinged (dung?) level 50 a few days or weeks ago and are now bored. The PvP scene isn’t what they had hoped, there’s no real WoW style raiding or dungeon crawls and all their friends have already abandoned them.
3. The post Aion player – the players who have already left Aion but can’t seem to leave the game alone long enough to stop bashing it, stating how bad it was for them or generally, how the people left playing it are idiots. /clicks un-follow on that blog.
4. Then, there’s the people, like me, who are just too distracted playing other games. Torchlight, Dragon Age Origins and Fallen Earth seem to be the most popular.

This leads me to ask myself, is Aion dying already? I only have to look at my gaming experience to somewhat answer that – all my fellow WoW guildmates are no longer logging in, even my partner doesn’t really play anymore (granted that’s more to do with out lag frustrations). And even I, who just last week loved the game dearly, have found myself groaning the familiar “urg, not more of this” grinding complaint.

I can’t figure out what the difference between WoW and Aion really is in the earlier levels. Sure Aion has a higher gold sink, more xp required per level etc. But really, aren’t all MMORPG’s pretty similar? Both Aion and WoW give you quests to complete and help you level, both give you loot, money, crafting options etc. What was it about WoW that had me hooked by level 3, yet Aion is still 50/50 at level 22?

I still like the game, I think. I dunno. I can’t decide if I’m clinging to it because it’s the online MMORPG style I’m familiar with, or if because I genuinely do enjoy the game. I wasn’t having much fun when I transitioned from Altguard to Morheim, the jump in mob difficulty was painfully noticeable. No longer was I taking mobs with ease, in fact the very first mobs right after you zone through were dropping me to half health each time. (I was 21, they were 23)

The other night I decided to go and have a look at Brusthonin because it’s apparently meant to be slightly easier. And it was, remarkably so. That is, when I could actually get to a mob. The fact that there is no mob tagging in Aion is one of my biggest leveling frustrations at the moment. I know, over the grind and everything! With my lag, buffing takes me a good 5 seconds, and then there’s the slight delay while Alexan aligns the arrow in her bow and fires it. Most times someone has jumped in and taken my mob by this point, regardless if my arrow lands or not.

I’m a nice player, even though I saw it first, and technically I started attacking first – it’s not my fault my arrows have to travel – I leave the mob to who ever jumped in. The same courtesies are not repaid. Even when I do manage to get the first damaging attack in, if there was a spell caster mid-cast, they keep attacking. Hell, some even go as far as to start attacking a mob I’m already on if they think they can out-damage me! Spending 10 minutes fighting to get a single quest mob is not fun. This didn’t happen in WoW, once you got that first point of damage in, the mob was yours.

During my frustration that was the ridiculous lag, impolite fellow hunters and general Aion loneliness (anyone want to my be friend?), I started to question my time in Aion. How long would I stick around? After retiring from WoW quite a few months ago no, I am desperate for that next big MMORPG that everyone flocks to. Desperate to raid dungeons, kill bosses and generally hang out with my friends online. I miss that feeling of wanting nothing more than to log online right that second. The hating being at work/school/where ever and instead of concentrating, you spend all your time thinking about what you did the night before, and what you might do that night. The complete and utter mind capture that is an awesome game.

Aion… is not that. Not for me. I look forward to playing each night because it means my daughter is asleep and it’s my (attempted) relaxation time. But that’s all. No wanting to log on during the day, no “omg just go to sleep so I can play already” desperation. It’s just… a game. I think the biggest problem for me is that none of my friends continued to play. Everyone I know abandoned the game like it had koodies. The biggest draw to an online game for me is the people. With Aion disappointing so many, I’m left all alone to quest and level. No familiar group members, and no back-up in PvP.

Finding another guild/group is a possibility, but I don’t want another guild. I want my friends, who all went back to/stayed in WoW. A game I’m very much over. For me, for now, I’ll experience the world that is single player games and expand my gaming CV. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play Dragon Age!

Coming from a Hunter background in World of Warcraft, it constantly felt like something was missing when I was fighting mobs in Aion. Oh I know what it was – the bouncy red arrow above the mobs head indicating “he belongs to me”. The good news is you can mark mobs in Aion as well – it won’t give you any benefit like the Hunter’s Mark of WoW, but it’s still a handy way to show your group members which mob you are attacking, especially if your group resembles a peep of chickens (yes, that’s what a group of chickens is called apparently)…

Ok, so marking in Aion is part of the Branding System. Frustratingly, the branding functionality is usable only by group leaders, Alliance captains, or Alliance vice captain. As a Hunter, you can be designated puller for a co-ordinated group and as such, can be made leader to utilise the function for this ability. I’d really like to see Aion open the ability up to all group members as the ability for a sorcerer to mark a mob they’ve put to sleep (there’s a Zzz mark) would be handy for all the “Gotta touch them all” group members. Sadly, at this point, we’ll have to resort to screaming “DON’T TOUCH” macros. I so do still love the “You touch it, you f**k it” slogan I witnessed in a WoW group years ago. “You spank it, you tank it” another all time favourite.

The biggest reason to use branding however, for now, is that it allows for one-key-press assisting. See, branding works two ways:

1. Branding the target
2. Targeting the brand

Confused? Ok, in simple terms, say you and me are in a group along with 4 other players. I pull 3 mobs, one of which is put to sleep by the sorcerer leaving two beating on me. I know that mob xxx has more hit points and hits harder than mob yyy so I brand that one with an arrow as the first to be killed. Instead of you having to target me then assist, or having to write up a macro to do it for you, you can simply press the /selectbrand 9 which is the arrow  hotkey (or assign any hotkey you like for the select arrow option) and blam, you’ve now targeted the correct mob and can start wailing away.

Of course in smaller groups while you are leveling up this won’t be as big a problem, but when you come to the higher end instances, raids or even PvP, it can come in very handy. Especially if you’re with a group you run with constantly.

How to set a Mark/Brand

There are two ways you can do it. I chose to do it via Options >> Key Mapping. Hit your escape button, choose options, then Key Mapping. Scroll about half way down until you see the marks and assign a key beside the one you want to use.

The other way, is by using the in-built functions by using the Show Brand functions and Select Brand functions in the [Actions] tab in the Skill Window.

Note: The Select Brand function is usable only when a group leader or an Alliance captain assigns the brand to a target.

Of course, using the built in buttons will clutter up your hotbar but can come in handy if you are needing to use multiple brands – such as a kill marker and a sleep marker. That only clutters up the group leaders hot bar of course, for the remaining group members that simply need to make sure they are targeting the correct mob, if several brands are in use, then Ctrl+Tab (default) tabs through only the targets with brands.

If you, as the group leader/marker don’t want to clutter up your hot bars, you can take a few extra seconds to right click the mobs target frame (the info bar that appears at the top) and select the branding icon from there. Of course you then have to do that for every mob which is annoying when there are quick pulls but may come in handy when moving through an area slowly. If you are doing it this way, note that the three most recently used brand are displayed at the bottom of the target’s drop down brands list.

When a branded target is dead, the brand will be removed automatically.

As an ex-WoW Hunter, I naturally use the blue arrow to mark all my pulls. It may not be a bouncy red one, and it may not improve my damage any, but it certainly makes me feel special. =p

I’m too sure if you can call two people a group, but I was in one today. And I’m happy to report that it’s absolutely no different to any other MMO where you randomly group with who ever walks by – makes you want to practice typing with your face.

I was doing one of the “find Rae” quest lines, which really, should just be renamed to “where’s Rae” along the where’s Waldo lines as she’s never in the same spot twice and is usually buried amongst rabbits or mobs trying to kill her. I mean really, how can one girl get into so much trouble and still be alive?

Anyway, I was doing the step where you find her in the cave and you have to destroy the power generators and make the big orange portal explode. Which of course all happens without so much as a eyelid bat from the mobs not 10 feet away. Running past another player in there, I had the message pop up on my screen if I’d like to join a group.

I figured why not right? I’m in an enclosed area, with lots of mobs that I have slaughter through to get to the generators I need, and I had the funny feeling the ‘big bad guy’ with a different name to all the rest was going to also be a tad harder. Wouldn’t help to have some assistance…

Assistance. Let’s just pause and ponder that word for a moment. What does it mean to you? For me, it would generally mean help right? Attacking the same mob that I am? Waiting for your partner to be ready, and at least over half health before going and attacking another mob? Allowing you to finish destroying the generator before running off, agroing 3 mobs and then running around like you have a firecracker up your ass yelling for help?

I mean really. I join a group to help things progress quicker – not to babysit a player who can’t help but poke every mob he passes… going the wrong way!

I did learn however that there is the ‘dice roll’ system when it comes to loot in a group. Sadly I didn’t get a screenshot of it as the nincompoop I was grouped with couldn’t sit still and I wasn’t able to properly pay attention. Which brings me to my other annoyance with him. We had two changes to roll for loot – the first one was a spell book which I passed to him (oh yeah, you have roll or pass) as he was a caster. The second was a pair of leather boots, ie the kind of leather I like against my cold dark skin, and not only does he roll, but he wins and says “oh, did you need those” then RUNS AWAY!! That bastard picked up the boots, dangled them in my face and then took off.

For more information on group looting, I found this helpful page: Group Looting. Basically looks the same as WoW…