The Aion Experience

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!

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…

Warning: This is a very passion filled ranty post. If you can’t handle it, stop reading now and go play with a ball of yarn…

A frustration that very few people will share with me is reading comments along the lines of, “zomg!! I have 200 ping and can’t even play, this is insane!!!”

Why does this bug me? Well, being in Australia and connecting to US servers, a good day for me is 600 ms. On average, at prime playing times, I still consider 1500 ok and playable. By 2000 I might consider finding something else to do…

No, there are no Aussie servers to connect to. And no, we can’t connect to Asian servers because guess what, I can’t speak Chinese!!

What also bugs me is reading comments such as:

I don’t understand why people waste KE on things like dash attack or ambush. If you ambush you have loads of time to cast KE. If you’re lagging too much you need to fix that up because this game isn’t for the slow to react.

Or when someone replied to my video ages ago with “Why are u so slow at using skills, or chainskill” …

Um… why? WHY?! Because we have a near constant 1 – 2 second delay on everything we do and NO, there is nothing we can do to fix it!! If I had $1 for every comment along the lines of ping, slowness or the like, I’d have enough money to move overseas and bask in the unplayableness that is 200 ping.

*takes a deep breath…*

Fortunately, some aussies have it a bit better than us – for us personally, we not only have the “Aussie connecting to an overseas server lag“, we also have the “Telstra f—king suck b—ls and won’t do right by customers“, tripled by the “we moved to one of the fastest expanding areas in the state and the backhaul (rim) can’t cope with the influx of use…. and Telsta won’t f—king do anything to fix it“. For those unaware, Telstra holds a monopoly on pretty much all internet connections in the country and is also now a private run  company, which means their number one priorities are their shareholders. Speak to any online gamer who is rim-blocked by them and you’ll get pretty much the same response you read here.

For this week’s “Screenshot Sunday”, I thought I would share my various ping levels, captured anywhere from 8am to 11pm over the past week…

My Lag over the past 2 weeks...

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…

It was less than 24 hours ago that I shared my “Post Level 16 on a Ranger” experiences and already I am back to the “maybe this class isn’t for me” internal debate.

Unfortunately (for me), since sharing the video of my fights, I received an unexpected amount of response. The blog post got some comments – some helpful and worth my attention such as the ones from David. Others, in particular the one from xWolFik who couldn’t take the time to read the post properly before opening the empty hole in the front of his face.

I also spent quite some time chatting to fellow Rangers and general Aion players on Twitter which was both beneficial and insightful.

The consensus: Standing still = Bad. Kiting = Good. Me = Sucky.

While it was great that some of the comments made me go searching for more info, like everything in life, there are two ways to approach things and berating a blog post or poster with “learn to play I am so much better” style attitudes is not exactly the best way to get people to warm up and listen to you. I will especially ignore you if you can’t even use correct English – It’s YOU, not U! Gah…

Some players also need to remember that not all of us have been playing since stage 1 beta for the pure reason of analysing every minuscule element of the game. I joined with the early start program (so two days before servers went live) and didn’t spend much time researching anything prior to playing. So yes, I might be a bit slow in learning this, but everyone has to start somewhere and I have only been playing the game for a couple of weeks now.

That said, I’ve spent the better part of today reading, researching and testing. And I’m once again saddened by the Ranger and the possibility they just may not be for me, regardless of how much I want them to be.

Movement Modifiers

Yes, this probably falls back on me for not spending the time pouring through the PowerWiki reading up everything I could on the game prior to playing. As I said though, games are a relaxing escape for me, must like TV is for others. I’m here to kick back at the end of the day. So no, I didn’t read up everything before I logged in. I’m happy to learn as I go, and today I got to learn something new.

Apparently, the way you move your character while in combat will affect your damage output as well as your defense. While moving forward, your character will receive a bonus to damage inflicted, however you will also be more vulnerable to attacks. Moving backwards will increase your parry and block defense, but lower the power of your attacks. Strafing, or moving side to side, around your opponent will increase your ability to evade attacks.

You can tell which modifier is active by the light yellow arrows near your characters feet. I’m glad I now know what they are as I thought they were indicators of quest mobs or NPC’s at first. Oops.

According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following effects:

Forward:
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Defense

Backward:
+500% to Parry
+500% to Block
-70% Physical Damage
-40% Movement Speed

Left/Right Strafe:
+300% to Evasion
-70% Physical Damage
-20% Movement Speed

According to the Ranger FAQ over at AionSource.com, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, as well as both auto-attacks and abilities. The in-game character profile does indicate modifiers, but not their respective values. With the limited confirmed knowledge we have about this matter, maintaining a forward movement while kiting is recommended in order to maximize damage.

kirua writes…

A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 auto-attacks, no abilities, same mob level & type for each attempt gave:
average 78.20 damage while standing still
average 54.20 damage while running backwards
average 90.54 damage while running forwards

Of course the sample size is too low, but it should give a rough idea of the damage increase forward movement while kiting provides.

Ok, so it’s good to know what those arrows are, and that you do get damage bonuses by moving forward. Um, can someone please tell me how I’m meant to kite moving towards the mob?

I spent some more time watching YouTube videos and noticing that nearly everyone was running backwards. Those that weren’t, were doing circles. Either way – they were only doing 70% damage, but, they weren’t getting hurt. And since that’s one of the problems for me (minor, but still noticeable), I decided to give it a go.

…

…

Kiting SUCKS!

I walk straight lines backwards, do 70% of my potential damage and take forever to kill the mob. I switch to circles, again only doing 70% damage and my circles aren’t big enough to avoid receiving damage from the mobs anyway. So why would I take damage and do less damage? If I enlarge my circles, I aggro other mobs.

I return to my research and learn that apparently, any ranger who kites backwards = sucky. Great. Further reading reveals you are meant to run forward with your camera turned backwards while jumping and firing off your shots. Ok… they do realise I’m not an octopus right? Circles are said to be the best choice for this method.

I get back to where the mobs are and attempt this overly complicated kiting method. Some of my shots go over the back of my head which is handy, the rest I have to stop running to fire them off which flips my character back to facing the mob in order to fire and then I end up running the wrong way. Half the time when I am running my circles, my auto shot isn’t going off, and no matter how hard I mash my ability keys, they don’t go off either. It’s a pointless game of tag where I am never it. And if I strafe more than I run forward, I lose 30% of my damage.

If I can manage to get everything right and obtain my extremely temporary 10% damage boost, it still takes me longer to kill due to the above frustrations – namely my shots not going off. So what exactly is the point of doing 10% extra damage if it takes me longer to kill?

Yes, I will admit standing still and taking a few hits is not the most conventional Ranger tactic, but, if I’m killing the mobs quicker and without dying, then what’s so bad about it? Apparently 90% of Rangers out there kite backwards, and thus only do 70% damage… so how does me standing still and doing 100% damage make me worse than them? Because I use a few Odella Powders to heal up after every 3rd or so mob?

Of course, I am one of the only Druids who grouped their entire way up in EQ and didn’t solo or kite once… maybe I just like doing things differently lol. But either way, the kiting aspect so far has brought nothing but frustration and time to killing mobs. Last night prior to being informed I’m doing everything wrong I was having fun, now I want to shove my Ranger off a cliff.

I have a funny feeling with my constant lag ranging between 700ms at best, 3000ms at worst, the Ranger isn’t going to be a class I will be able to play, let alone play well regardless of my ability to master making crop circles or not. /Sad Panda…

It is with great disappointment, and a little sadness than I have to announce I made the switch last night from a Ranger to an Assassin. The switch is not permanent, and I am by no means giving up my Ranger completely, but it still makes me upset to not be playing my Ranger as my primary character. Especially as I so love the ‘bow and arrow’ play-style so much.

I kinda knew this was coming even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. My first impressions as a Ranger were not fantastic, but I stuck it out a few more levels as everyone told me that post 16 is far better. What frustrated me however, was that in order to get to level 16, I had to group with my husbands Chanter which honestly, was nothing more than a pity party. He didn’t need me. In fact most of the time I ran around gathering while he solo’d… I did nothing more than leech experience. What bothered me more was that I had to “stick it out” in the first place – no character should have to play through gritted teeth and clenched fists for 16 levels before you reach the fun times. And in fact I know a few players who haven’t – choosing to abandon their Ranger long ago.

While I am fortunate enough to be able to group with my partner to at least level 16 should I then wish to attempt the rest solo, is the fact I have lots to do outside of just playing Aion – I have this blog, which I love, as well as another blog based around The Sims which I also play. In Aion itself, I want to take my time leveling up and getting to really know my class well which all takes time. This all slows down a partner who doesn’t have as much on his plate and is happy to just play and experience. Then again, since I am the researcher of the family, he can just ask me anything he needs to know lol, he doesn’t spend the hours I do researching, reading and googling information.

All of this combined means that I slow down his leveling. He tends to bum around on alts while I do my stuff so he doesn’t out-level me, but then I feel guilty for making him wait around or not be able to play his character of choice because I chose to do other activities. During the week I told him to not wait for me any longer, just go out and level and I’ll give it a go on my own… after all, I was level 15 by now, surely it had to be somewhat easier than when I was level 10 and just finding my feet?

Wrong! Last night I jumped into game, solo, and went to fight some Nimble Aracha. Now yes, the game was laggy, but due to our location, and the fact Telstra likes to f#$% all their customers over, I’m always going to have lag of some sort. Last night’s 2,2000+ ms was particularly bad to start with, but by the time I was ready to actually play it had eased up some. Regardless of the lag factor, the Mosbear mobs I was fighting through to get to the Nimble Aracha were taking me down by at least half health each time. When I finally found my first Aracha, it freaking killed me!!

The death was the last straw and my camel’s back was well and truly broken. I couldn’t stand the fact that I had to sit and heal, or bandage, or use my Odella Powder collection to heal via my Herb Treatment after every mob I killed. I also don’t want it to take 5 minutes to kill a single mob that leaves me half dead! That’s just not fun.

So I cracked it! I threw a little tanty and rerolled.

When I first ascended, I struggled with the choice between Assassin and Ranger. I had planned to go Ranger prior to even stepping foot in game, yet the enjoyment and pleasure I received from the close combat fighting caused real internal conflict. In the end, I decided to go with my original choice of Ranger and ignored the slight glimmer of regret that would later fester and eat away at me.

I’m not deleting my Ranger, and I’m certainly not ready to give up on her yet, but I just can’t solo with her at the moment. For now she will remain my group character as I do love the damage she can do with her bow and arrow given the proper distance. And I still have some hope that I will be able to master her, but for now, I need… I need… A little less conversation, a little more action please. All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me. A little more bite and a little less bark, a little less fight and a little more spark, mobs need to shut their mouths and open up their guts… satisfy me…. satisfy me yeah.

*clears throat* Sorry. Proof reading what I wrote originally, I couldn’t get Elvis out of my head lol.

Moving on. I’ve heard great things about the Assassin, I thoroughly enjoyed the pre-10 levels before my Ascension, and am once again, at level 7, enjoying the play-style of surprising mobs from behind and then slitting their throats. One of the good points with an Assassin is I don’t need to constantly switch between ranged and melee weapons and this should alleviate at least one gripe right off the bat. That’s correct yes – I don’t need to switch weapons do I?

Having never played an Assassin style class before this should be an interesting journey. I loathed the repulsive, vile, inexcusably annoying Rogues of WoW. God I hated them, I mean really despised them as a class and all who played them. No matter what class I was on, they always induced cussing to run through my head that would make a sailor to blush should he have had the unfortunately experience of hearing it. But who knows, I might just grow to enjoy a new play-style with Aion’s Assassin…

So without further adieu, I present to you, Dewinter named after Milady de Winter, from the novel The Three Musketeers. A capable and beautiful spy, Milady was remorseless and unrepentant for her countless “misdeeds” and I feel my very own Dewinter will follow in those perfect little footsteps. Thankyou to my good friend Ebonclaw for the name… Shadow, Midnight, and all other “hiding in the dark” names were already taken. Damn you unoriginal character namers for taking all my other ideas!

Dewinter - Aion Assassin

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!

Last night was the first proper chance I got to play for any length as a Ranger. And I have to say, I’m already questioning my choice. Having played a Hunter in WoW as my final character before I quit, it seemed a natural choice for me to chose the Ranger – especially as I found the Hunters one of my favourite classes to play over all. Unfortunately though, the Ranger is no Hunter!

One of the first annoyances I had was that the ranged damage was slooooow, painfully slow. I would fire off my two special attacks and then just stand there like a deer in headlights while the mob ran an me. It took a few minutes for me to realise there was no auto-attack damage coming and that’s why I was barely making a scratch with my arrows. I watched a few more mobs and couldn’t figure out why there was no white damage.

After some googling, I discovered that there is currently a bug with the auto-attack and the special abilities and seems to be most obviously experienced by the Ranger class. What’s worse is that this bug appears to have been around for quite some time now – since the early beta stages! There’s one thread I found dedicated to the frustrations this bug brings and the fact that there is still no fix for it.

Once I figured out I had to mash my ‘c’ button to get it going, things started to lose a bit more health before they reached me. Which brings me to my second and so far, biggest frustration. I’m a ranged class and yet I do 50% to 75% of my damage with melee weapons! What the?! Of course a mob is going to run at me when I shoot it, but if the slow portion of my Entangling Shot doesn’t land, I’m screwed!

Now remember, I’ve come from the Hunter class where I had a pet to distract my prey while I shot arrow after arrow into it. In Aion… no such assistance. This means that a Ranger needs to kite if he doesn’t want to get hit. Unfortunately there are no readily accessible football fields for me to make use of to kite around!

Unless I’m just doing the whole kiting thing completely wrong, which is more than a possibility given the last time I kited was as a Druid in Everquest, you need a lot of room do it it. I tried the “just walking backwards” method and nearly fell off the world. I switched to the “move in a circular motion” method and pissed off 10 other mobs trying to enjoy their day who instead, turned their attention to me. Kiting? Not easy.

One thing I did discover last night was you can use your “ranged” damage while the mob is trying to chew your face off. Yes, a bow and arrow and point blank range, nice. Since my bow can actually do some nice damage – anywhere from low 100’s to high 200’s for normal and crits, I decided to give that a go for a while. I’d pull the mob and then just continue to arrow it down while it was at my feet. Annoyingly, it took forever to die that way. Perhaps there’s some sort of damage bonus the further away you are?

After that didn’t work, and after getting really frustrated at the kiting bit, I decided to shoot as many arrows into the mob as I could before switching to my sword and dagger when it got close. Hey guess what – this brings up yet another frustration!! Having to constantly switch weapons is doing my head in. I go to pull a mob, but oh wait, I don’t have my bow equipped. I swap and pull the mob, it gets close and I spend 30 seconds smashing the shit out of my weapons swap button because lag hasn’t caught up with my request and I can not do a single melee attack until it does.

WoW at least had that right – a Hunter would automatically swap from bow to weapons when a mob was too close to archer. And even if my weapons were the last thing used, if I selected a ranged shot ability, she would simply whip out her bow. Easy!! Aion, you should take note please.

After a mob is close, and once I do manage to swap my weapons out, I’ve usually lost a good chunk of my hitpoints and are frantically mashing as many melee abilities as possible in the hopes of simply retaining my life. Unfortunately my melee damage is still only so-so as it’s the left overs from my levels one through to ten. I don’t have the throat slitting abilities of the assassin, I’ve just got the scraps to make use of. Which, when you’re trying to kill a mob who is not level six or seven and in fact has a lot more hitpoints… takes forever!

I’m not giving up though! I did have a momentary thought of restarting and going Assassin instead, but I see them everywhere and so far have only run past two Rangers. No no, I’m going to keep pushing through as I’ve heard over and over that they get better, especially at 16 and beyond. I’ve also been told that they are far more enjoyable in a group situation where you can stay at ranged, which is also where all their damage is. Thankfully hubby didn’t take long to convert to Aion (about 3.2 seconds) and I’m driving a good friend of mine up the wall with all the info and screenshots I’m sharing so he will cave soon and join us. Which means – a walking group!

I did also get a lot better as the night progressed. I have to remember that I’m new to the Ranger class and although it bears resemblance to my beloved Hunter, they are not the same, and I can’t expect to be brilliant as soon as I start playing. After an hour or so of play, I did manage to kill a few mobs by kiting and managed to take out quite a few more before they even touched me (they were slow movers lol). I kind of feel like Aion’s Ranger is almost WoW’s Warlock (in the beginning at least) – they take skill to play and until they get changed, will be reserved for the ones willing to put in the time. And we all know how skilled I am… =p

I’ve also heard that later on, the PvP is all about ranged distance, so I’m hoping that will play in my favour, especially as PvP tends to scare the crap out of me most times lol.

So far, the things I want fixed/improved are:

• Auto Attack!! This HAS to be fixed and now! I shouldn’t have to spend the majority of every fight mashing my ‘c’ button to either enable, or r
  eenable it. Fix it now please.

• Weapons swapping. If my dagger and sword were the last things used and I hit a ranged ability, just pull out the bow. I know it’s there, I shouldn’t have to remind my character that the arrow goes in the bow and not the dagger. Same goes for close range combat – stop whacking the mob with the bow and pull out something sharp! Automatically!

• And lastly, which is a minor thing yes, but still annoying, when the mob is dead, put your weapons away please. With your weapons still drawn, not only do you look like an idiot when you run, it keeps you in combat and stops you using other functions. Just put them away once the fight is over.

So far, that’s it. I’m sure I’ll find more things out as I progress along. I am only level 11 (almost 12!) so far…

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…