The Aion Experience

Did you know you can teleport from one end of the city to the other in Pandaemonium?

I see so many comments from Aion players stating they want a mount lol. We’ve all been spoiled in WoW and not don’t want to use our legs for anything other the bare necessities. And in Aion, there’s a lot more running than there is flying, especially for a game supposedly all about flying…

Pandaemonium is a big city. And if you have to run to the far end to hand in a quest, come back and find out you have then go back again, it can be very tiresome. Well now, you don’t have to run all that way! At the entrance to the city (near the teleported) and the far end of the city (near the hoity toity ‘oh you’re a Daeva‘ snobs), there are teleport statues. These do, funny enough, just what their name states – teleport.

I’ve run past them countless times without even paying attention. Then one day, I moused over them to see that they glowed and had the name ‘teleport’. Naturally, if something says it can teleport you, even an innate object like a big stone statue, you’re going to have to test it out. It’s Human, I mean Daeva nature.

Sadly, it doesn’t take you anywhere really cool, just saves you a run.

The cost is only a few hundred Kinah – 237 to get from the back end of the city back to the bridge at the front. Not bad considering it can save you, like, at least 1 minute =p

Did you know you can purchase scrolls that will teleport you to major hubs in game?

Purchaseable from Nekai in Pandaemonium, you can use the scroll above to teleport back from anywhere in game. It costs 1,782 Kinah so can be a little more expensive than flying back, but if time is more important to you than holding onto a few extra Kinah, then this scroll could become your new best friend. I always carry one on me, and when used, I simply purchase another. They do stack of course, I just do it that way to create a habbit. Hopefully it will become second nature and then I won’t ever be without a scroll.

You will find Nekai in the Market Street, along the left hand side if you are running into the city. You can purchase scrolls for Altgard Fortress, Beluslan Fortress, Morheim Fortress and of course Pandaemonium.

I have to vent a little – I’m finding the tradeskill system in Aion extremely frustrating. The work orders are handy to help level your skill in that you are given the core part of the combine and you can simply purchase the other pieces to complete it – so no farming involved. But for me, the work orders also feel like I am just throwing money away, a feeling I don’t like at all. So yesterday, I decided to gather my mats together and craft some Thin Durable Leather Leggings to raise my skill. Not only do those give me just over 2,000 Kineh when I sell back to the vendor, but I also have the chance to proc Noble Thin Durable Leather Leggings which can sell for a good sum more to the brokers.

I kicked off eleven combines yesterday and walked away to finish some other stuff. I came back to see seven procs and smiled! That smile however, quickly vanished when I noticed I only had ONE skill increase! The leggings were a yellow skill combine, and I got ONE skill increase out of 11 combines that proc’ed 7? I would expect at the very least to get a skill up when I proc an improvement. You’re telling me I don’t learn anything from that?! C’mon…

So, apart from the potential money made if they sell, it was a complete waist of time to actually craft usable items. How does this encourage players to craft items outside of the money hungry jerks that charge ridiculous amounts for their “time and skill”?

The lack of skill ups when I am working on anything other than work orders just adds to the frustration pile that includes the inordinate amount of kineh required to level up just one profession. This of course triples when you’re a nutter like me and not only want to dress yourself (Tailoring), but also want to supply your own pots (Alchemy) and food (Cooking) – that’s three professions for me to blow my Kineh on!

For the first time yesterday I sat down and seriously considered not worrying about any of my tradeskills and simply selling off any mats I collect and just buying my armor, pots and food from now on. But I’m a gluten for punishment and enjoy my professions – I’m not liking Aion’s version, but I enjoy the idea behind trade skills in general. I think I raised all but weaponsmithing in WoW, although I’ll hardly go that far in Aion. Outside of the ones I am currently working on, that will be it! Hubby is working on Handicrafting and Weaponsmithing so between us we have just about everything I’ll ever need.

At this point I can only assume that NCSoft wants us to raise our skills via work orders, which is fine, I’ll accept it, but I don’t like it. Not only are they mind numbingly boring, they are nothing more than a money sink and time away from actually actually playing the game. I’d really like to see a change implemented that rewarded players for crafting items that others can make use of instead of NPC work orders that disappear when handed in.

In a game that has the worst infestation of gold sellers I have ever seen, of which is ruining players gaming experiences (I already know of a couple of people who stepped away due to the in-game spam), NCSoft further inflames the issue themselves by requiring so much of the Kineh being sold to levelling tradeskills. If crafting items had a better chance of skill ups than the 1-per-work order rate, players might not need to blow so much money on it and would instead use the mats they collect to raise their skill. Would the price of mats then go up and the need for Kineh still be as bad? Possibly… but not everyone buys all their mats off other players and would instead spend time farming themselves.

Not to mention the satisfaction that would come from earning skill ups while crafting instead of the current system where I kick off a set of 6 or 9 combines and then go back to watching TV, playing with my toddler, the new puppy or, like yesterday – cleaning my entire house. Even worse is hubby who has it running in the background at work while he does them…

Last night, Aion Update 1.5.0.10 was released across the servers and the update was simple:

Gender Tag Fix for French and German languages
And Updated Chat Spam Filter

Nothing too exciting there, although the updated chat spam filter did intrigue me, but after a momentary glance I shrugged it off as nothing major. But then, I logged in. I have to give HUGE kudos to Aion for what ever filters they have put in, I can now finally see all the player-written drivel that is “Aion is better than WoW, Chuck Norris said so”. Yipee!

Of course, I would much rather see that sort of spam than the eye-gouging horrendous use of stars and hearts that was this:

The above was CONSTANT and made it impossible to use any of the chat channels – anyone attempting to, had their message lost before it was even read. And what is a MMORPG with no open chat channels for the kiddies to converse in? Where else are they going to learn how not to spell? Graffiti, that’s where. We can’t have that.

This morning, I logged in to see the following:

Ignoring the idiots who don’t understand that LFG is not Let’s Fracking Gassbag and is instead Looking for Group, the silence that is the removed gold spam is well worth the misuse. I’d LOVE to know the furstration that the gold spammers are feeling right now, I hope it’s really ticked them off. Yes, we’re still going to get the occassional one through, and yes they’ll probably still force us to fill up our block list every time they whisper, but this is yet another step forward in improving our gameplay.

The next step I’d personally like to see is the players name on my block list automatically removed when the character is deleted. If NCSoft really are banning accounts by the thousands all the time, then they’re either getting every single character OTHER than the ones that spam me, or the characters are not removed. I think it’s great that blocking a spammer can bring it to the attention of NCSoft, but having to individually remove each of the names when your block list is full can be just as annoying.

Still, in the entire time it’s taken me to write, proof and fix this blog post – not one single letter of gold spam came through the chat channels. Sweet!

— Edited not half an hour later —

I have to laugh as I finished writing this post and made my way from Pandaemonium entrance to the banks, I see the following:

At first I was confused by the message and thought it was one of the slow people unaware that the server queues were no longer a problem. Then I realised they were sitting in-front of someone and I moved closer.

A threesome I’ve never seen before, that’s two players treating the gold seller like a Chinese finger lock and hiding their sales window advertisement. My second kudos for the day goes to Lunatrix and Ambience of the Revelations guilds for spending their time doing this – be they AFK or not. Standing in front of this for a few minutes, it appears as if the gold seller is using a program to have them spam “HEY HEY HEY” every few minutes, supposedly to not get dropped and get some attention.

Oh well, while we wait for NCSoft to come up with a fix for this new trick, I can easily ignore them. I barely notice any store messages unless there’s pretty coloured links in there anyway…

Did you know that you can transfer money between your characters via your warehouse?

Unless you’ve never been to your warehouse ( aka bank), you would be familiar with the ‘Account Warehouse’ section that allows you to quickly and easily move items around between your characters. I find this section of my warehouse invaluable as I have made my currently shelved Ranger the one who will level the professiosn (since she already started). Of course, collecting all the ingredients on my Assassin means I have to continually transfer the items over so Alexan can use them. The shared bank (as it was known in EQ) is a huge improvement over WoW’s simple “mail to your alt” route.

What a lot of people don’t know however, is that you can also transfer Kineh between your characters just as easily.

When you open your warehouse menu, at the bottom of the tab you will see a little gold coin icon – double clicking on this brings up a window allowing you to type in what ever amount of Kineh you would like to move to your bank.

Click the coin icon to begin...

Enter the amount

Once you’ve transfered it up to your warehouse, you simply log on any other character that needs it, double click on the coin icon at the top this time, and the same transfer window pops up allowing you to enter the amount you wish to pull down.

Bring it down to your character...

Voila – it’s THAT simple. Now, when your crafting character runs low on money, you can top her up with of your others quickly and easily.

Happy Hunting!

That’s basically the title of the new gold spam MAIL that I started receiving today. Saying “sorry” does not make it all ok – ask any remorseful murderer or rapist. And yes, I put the pond scum that is gold sellers that spam in game in the same “should be shot on sight” category.

Gold Spam Delivered

They spammed the general channels and it got stopped unless you level up to 5. They spammed via whisper and again, that got stopped unless you level up to 5. So now, they take to mailing the equivalent of junk mail to us in game. Hey Spammers, guess what? WE DON”T WANT YOU IN OUR GAME!!! F#$% the hell off and go drown yourself in a public toilet please. They’re like cockroaches, no matter how many times you stand on them, they still don’t leave.

If they do insist of costing me time by having to open the mail, wait for the delete button to show up, then click delete and click yes I really want to #%$%ing delete this shit, they should AT LEAST include 10 Kineh with every mail sent. Call it proof me to you have the funds should I ever cause myself enough brain damage to order…

Ok seriously gold sellers… Kineh sellers… what ever you’re called, stop with the !@#$ing whisper spam!! Sorry… minor nerd rage there.

That is all I see. All day. Every day. And it’s driving me nuts.

My character name begins with an ‘A’ (Alexan) which is the reason I get so many whispers my partner believes. His name begins with an ‘S’ and he doesn’t see anywhere near as many as I do. That image above for example, was all in the space of 10 minutes. Those final three were when I was AFK to… well… I was AFK let’s just leave it at that. But I wasn’t gone long!

Yes, I could use the block feature (/block for those not familiar) but it’s usually a different name every time. I’ve already got 7 of them on the block list. Not to mention it can take a few goes to add their almost unpronounceable name that I can only assume was generated from rolling their face over the keyboard. And by the time I finally add them, I have a new name whispering me.

Currency Selling (or RMT – Real Money Trading) exists, and is growing because a substantial percentage of players want the benefits it provides. That’s all fine and dandy, but for every player that wants the benefits of having their in game life handed to them on a silver platter, there is another that can’t stand it and would happy see all the gold sellers skewered by threading them ass first.

I’ve got no problem with people wanting the easier road. I do have a problem when it affects me. The websites that exist – no problem. The parasites that invade my game space to spam me with crap I don’t care about – problem.

Every major MMO in the last few years has been infested with the likes of these scumbags. Of course, they have not always been so noticeable. I remember back in the days of EQ, especially in the earlier days, you never really heard boo from them. It was also the time when the currency was generated by the players. I have more respect from a company who will help the global economical crisis by paying players for their gold and on-sell it than the snail slime that hack accounts and obtain their funds in more dubious matters.

If you speak to most people, the problem isn’t the act of purchasing Kineh, it’s how the Kineh is obtained in the first place and the spam that every player has to put up with. If NCSoft sold the Kineh to players, at a rate that the ‘black market’ couldn’t compete with, most people wouldn’t have as big a problem. We wouldn’t get the in game spam, hacked accounts etc.

Unfortunately, the problem isn’t related solely to a momentary distraction of my attention by the spam. Gold farmers who gather the money will identify an area that enables them to generate the most wealth per hour. This can lead to bottlenecks in these areas which often times are places that normal players will have to pass through during the natural order of progression. If left unchecked over time, the flooding of gold into the online economy can often time lead to inflation driving up the costs of items sold between players via the auction house.

Now, while we’re all spitting our venomous words and thoughts towards the gold sellers themselves, lest we not forget some of the blame can also be sent back at our fellow player. The farmers and sellers would not be in business if it were not profitable. And it is profitable as long as players are willing to take the easy way out and shell out real life cash for in game cash.

Let’s say a farmer buys Aion for $50, and manages to send an advertisement to every player on the server only one time before being banned. In many cases, that farmer only needs to find one or two players willing to do business to justify the $50 for the new account that gets banned.

The only (quick) solution I can think of right now would be to block the ability to whisper from anyone under level 10. Just work it into the lore if you must – Daevas are the only ones with enough power to be able to whisper and be heard across the other side of the game. There’s already a block on the ability to use the chat channels until level 5, surely they could just make it “ability to talk… period” until level 5?

Although it won’t completely stop the problem, it will make it more frustrating for farmers. Or perhaps, add in an option to “only receive whispers from people on your friends list” and that would help it even further. Think about it, you have that option ticked 90% off the time, and drop it only when you’re looking for group and actually want whispers. Or hell, let’s get really advanced and have it same option automatically make an exception when you’re in the LFG channel… That way the player won’t even have to remember to re-tick it.

What ever you Aion guys do, please… do something!

During my 5 years of WoW play time, one of the most annoying things to read in chat besides the Chuck Norris jokes, was the gold seller spam. Not only spam because they would repeat the same thing 50 times in the space of 25 seconds, but also because it was unwanted. Just like all the emails I get asking me if I would like a bigger penis that would also last longer in the bedroom, the gold selling ads are of no use to me because I have zero plans to ever purchase in game gold no matter how broke I am.

For those that don’t know me well enough yet – I’m one of those zomg real life female gamer. Hence the no use for penis enlarging email spam lol.

So Aion’s not even officially live yet right? We’re still in the head-start program and only a portion of the eventual player base is currently online. I may not understand the need to purchase online currency, especially in a game like Aion where my level 7 character currently has just over 8,000 Kineh, but I do understand that currency selling, power leveling services and the like are big business. So really, I shouldn’t be surprised when I see the following pop up in chat last night…

Apart from the fact we all got spammed with it about 5 times before it stopped, who ever is involved pre-ordered Aion in order to offer this service first. Which leads me to two questions…

1. How can they possibly have enough money to start offering it for sale? And
2. WHO could possibly need money THIS early in the game?!

I mean seriously!! As I already mentioned, my level seven character already has over 8,000 Kineh, and I’ve not been hording any. I’ve purchased skill upgrades, a sword off a vendor and a couple of in game flights. I’ve not nothing left to spend the rest of it on! WHY would I need to buy more?!

I can only assume that it’s a copy and paste advertisement meant only to highlight the leveling, CDK (CD Key) and the Game Cards. But still… leave the advertising spam to the mountain of banner ads you see all over websites and be done with it. Make sure your own website is SEO’d properly and people will find you when they google for “buy Kineh” or similar. Otherwise give me your email addresses and I can forward you on all my penis emails – we’ll swap spam.

Just stop spamming me in game with it!!

P.S How do you pronounce Kineh? Is is Kin-eh like you’re a tad Canadain? Or Ky-neh?