Girl vs MMO

[que the soap opera music]

I was squealing over minipets, playing Aion, and raging over epic fail Halloween events. Who knew it would be months without a new post? Let’s skip all the boring little details and fast forward to the good stuff.

1. I switched from a chanter to spiritmaster. Gear itemization in Aion sucks. There just isn’t enough easily attainable gear for chanters. Some of course might disagree with this and that’s fine but personally I had a hard time finding the gear I wanted and or needed to play my chanter to the best of my abilities. Now I’m not asking for gear to be handed to me on a silver platter but what I am asking for is more options for a certain play style so that you are able to play your class the way it was meant to be played. Most if not all gear is made for clerics and we value different stats. It made it difficult for me to enjoy playing the class.

2. I love my spiritmaster. Despite pets not scaling with gear and a few pet bugs I love the class. I’ve managed to get my spiritmaster to 42. A well played SM is one to be feared, pun very much intended.

3. They introduced the Aion “vision” trailer. With awesome visuals and the promise of the future. I was hyped. Then the lack of any kind of time frame on when said features would added to the game became a joke. “It’s coming soon but not that soon cause then it would be too soon.”

4. I haven’t played Aion in 2 weeks. Instead I’ve been playing Dragon Age. I am addicted. The idea of my actions affecting the outcome of the game fascinates me. As Bioware is the developer and also making the next Star Wars MMO I am intrigued by what the future holds for that game.

5. My subscription to Aion runs out tomorrow. I will not be renewing. I plan on finishing up Dragon Age and going back to WoW. Despite what some people like to call ezmode I still find some aspects of WoW challenging, especially raiding. My hope is to gear up as much as possible via the badge system and hopefully find a guild that is willing to take on someone who hasn’t played in awhile but willing to learn. I had high hopes for Aion but the closer I get to Aion’s endgame the more disappointed I become. A lot of people will complain about the grind. I am not going to sit here and say the grind didn’t get to me -however- I don’t believe that the grind is Aion’s biggest downfall. Lack of real end game content, poor gear itemization, the craptastic notion that RNG is the best way to reward players who’ve put in time and effort, and PvP that is neither fun nor challenging because people always believe “zerging is real PvP” are my reasons for Aion’s downfall. That and the above about the vague “coming soon” statements from community managers is frustrating. So rather than raging all over the forums I’m making my stand by just leaving. Not that my little subscription money not coming in anymore will change anything it damn sure makes me feel better.

[/que the soap opera music]

Next time on Girl vs MMO….will she actually go back to wow? Or will she start playing Mass Effect 2 instead and turn her back on MMOs forever? Or will she post her thoughts on Star Trek Online and why she didn’t buy the game? Tune in next time for these and other questions might actually be answered.

So two weeks ago it was announced that Aion would be having a Halloween event. I was excited to say the least. When the 25th rolled around I was waiting for something a bit more than what I got, a stack of 5 candies that transformed you into sparkie via an in game survey. It was ok because I figured “no biggie its just the 1st day.” Next day was the same thing. I’m like perhaps they are waiting till the end of the week when more people will be on. I mean they’d want to have to time set up. You know since Asmodians would be what was that again “celebrate (ing) by racing after the Wild Kurthanir hunt leader during the Wild Hunt and cooking special traditional dishes.” While us Elyos would be “roving Dark Night bands to hunt and destroy the undead before they invade Elyos villages.” To my surprise however neither faction would be doing either of these. Instead the Halloween “event” consists of in game surveys that give you transformation candy. I mean sure I should be glad that each survey offers little chunks of lore goodness. ‘rolleyes. Not only that answer a survey on one character and none of your others get a damn thing because you only get one survey a day and the candy can not be put into your account warehouse.

Note to NCsoft West -this- is not an event. This is a load of crap. And while you might have later clarified what exactly would be happening this week its still a load of crap.

While it seems on Triniel that we are out numbered out in the abyss its nice to know that for one day we can all come together and win. Tonight the Elyos on my server came together and claimed not 1 but 2 fortresses and on to make it even better one was in the upper abyss. My lag was unreal but it was fun as hell. Hopefully we can keep the team work up and realize that while our names can’t all be on an artifact or fortress we are still one faction. Who am I kidding….the drama llamas will not stand for coordinated action. Either way I’m going to try and be at every fortress siege kicking ass and taking no prisoners!

I am a sucker for a good in game event. I’ve run around WoW looking for easter eggs, stupid candy hearts and gifts under the tree in Org. I’ve trick or treated in City of Heroes. I’ve ran around with a witches hat in Guild Wars. So I’m very happy that Aion will be having in game holiday events. There aren’t much details on exactly what will happen but here is the info they’ve posted on the powerwiki.

During the fall harvest, from time immemorial, the people of Atreia have celebrated the bounty of the land. Years ago, the joy of the annual revels was troubled by an eclipse – a peculiar and magical eclipse that brought darkness to Asmodae and Elysea. Ever since, for days during Harvest Revel, the sky goes dark and the peoples of Atreia join the hunt.

Asmodians find soothing peace during the dark days of the Harvest Revel. They celebrate by racing after the Wild Kurthanir hunt leader during the Wild Hunt and cooking special traditional dishes.

Elyos endure the dark days because during them the dead of Elysea are restless. Undead creatures rise from the grave every few hours, pulled back into a semblance of life by the power of the eclipse. Elyos must join roving Dark Night bands to hunt and destroy the undead before they invade Elyos villages.

Log in each day during Harvest Revel. Celebrate with us and every day rewards your investment with new Aion lore and tasty treats!

Harvest Revel

Begin: October 25, 2009

End: October 31, 2009

May your wings be strong and swift! We’ll see you in Atreia!

Woot! Can’t wait.

P.S. It really annoys me that I can’t get my screenshots to look centered even though I’ve told it 50 million times to center. Grrrr!!!

My legion is looking for a few more players to fill our ranks. We are a group of friends that have played together in a whole bunch of games from Guild Wars to WoW. Right now our main goal is to just have fun and have a dedicated group of people to quest and run instances with. Our only real requirement is that you be 18 and over as I curse like a sailor on vent. So if you are Elyos on the Triniel server and you are looking for a casual place to hang out give us a try. You can apply on our forums.

So after flying around doing some small scale PvP some friends from my legion decided “hey let’s take an artifact”. We had no idea if we’d make it. I mean there were only 5 of us and our highest was only level 36. Some how we pulled it off. I had to fill in and back up heal. This is the part about playing a chanter I do love the most, bringing utility to a group. I had to keep up buffs, off heal, and dps. Nothing feels better than pulling off something that is damn near impossible. Please excuse the semi crappy screenshot. In all the excitement I just through something together. The assassin over there is filling in for our gladiator who I some how cut out of the picture..sorry Sauron.

The other night I went into Fire Temple with a few of my legion mates. I was lucky enough to face Vile Judge Kormede at the end, not once but TWICE! Eeeeeeeee!!!! Yes I am a lore geek and I squealed with delight on vent when I saw her. I’ve been holding off posting this only because I wanted to put up some info on her as well. Unfortunately I lost my link to the Aion Lore Wiki I found a while back that had her full story and I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I love it when we get to go up against iconic in game characters. What I can tell you is she didn’t drop a damn thing the two times we killed her that night.

I haven’t logged into WoW since I think June. When my computer crashed I didn’t even reinstall. Yet for some reason I still follow WoW Insider (I don’t care that they changed the site name) faithfully. I still read WoW related blogs. There is something that still draws me to the game so much that I just can’t let go. ’sigh

I started playing WoW back in August 2006. At the time I was alliance because the friends I had playing were all alliance. I remember creating my very 1st night elf and watching as the intro cinematic came on and finally the camera landed on my character. It took a good long while before I realized that the people I saw running around weren’t part of a cinematic but actual players. I’ve always thought that was damn cool. I got caught up in the excitement that was the upcoming Burning Crusade but WoW didn’t really stick for me just yet. I still pre-ordered BC anyway and decided to take a break until it was released. During that time I found WoW Insider and read it everyday, as I still do. When BC was finally released I was ready. More importantly I made a character and I finally became connected to the game.

It’s a strange thing what a few well placed pixels can do for your gaming experience. Alyania as you see up there was my very 1st main. I left WoW back in June with her becoming my main again after I took a Death Knight to 80 and tried my hand as melee dps in the end game. In the end though its always been Alyania, my often misunderstood Warlock. I created a story based around her and her sisters, my various alts. I don’t roleplay but i felt it fitting that she have a story as dramatic as the one that I seemed to be playing out. I never did finish their story and that’s something I still regret. But now that I’m well into Aion a creeping little thought keeps coming up in the back of my mind and it shocks me. I miss WoW. I don’t know why, well ok that’s a lie I do know why. I just don’t care to admit it out loud. Perhaps sharing it here will help. I don’t feel at all connected to my character in Aion. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy the game. I love a challenge but there is something lacking. I find myself not even reading quest text anymore. Which for me is a shocker. The lore for Aion is all there. I’ve read it, i’ve researched it and I do enjoy it but for some reason I’m not connecting what I’ve read to what I feel about my character. Perhaps that’s just me and hopefully this will pass. None of my friends plan on going back to WoW and I don’t really blame them. But if I don’t get connected to Aion soon I might find myself for the 1st time in a very long time going it alone in game and going back to WoW.

I’ve done /anon, i’ve set up different chat tabs to get away from the mountain of spam flooding all the chat channels but this…this is what I came home too last night. I guess the methods of addressing chat spam are working so well they need to send mail now. How quaint.

My orginal goal was to hit level 25 within the first week but as they say the best laid plans. Not really sure what the rest of the saying is but whatever. Last night after grueling repeatable quests I finally hit level 25. A few of my friends and I had run out of quests around level 24. I’ve found that soloing by far nets you the best xp but let’s face it this is an MMO and soloing gets boring after awhile. In theory if you are gathering, crafting, and questing it should be ok but one doesn’t always have the option to do first too which was what happened to me. Due to ques I had to make the best of my time as possible.

After hitting level 25 I ran over to Sanctum and did my “quiz” where you run back and forth from person to person in the library answering questions. Thankfully I did all of this in open beta plus I’m a bit of a lore nut so I knew all the answers. After that is the quest to prove yourself, by far the fight in the dugeon under the arena is the easiest of the three but honestly I’ve only done the other one that sends you to Veteron to hunt for that little short midget general. Speaking of why the hell is he so little. I feel like I should put him on my knee and bounce him up and down. Well after you do the fighting portion the next part of the test is to take the flying quest. Which in and of itself is easy but they hide that last damn ring and I totally forgot about it and failed the test…twice. >.< Well after that was all said and done and midget general gave me the a-o-k off to the abyss I went. The place still amazes me. The idea of free flight, although limited at times, is so much fun. Being the explorer that I am I just want to fly all around but that’s not possible because the abyss is open PvP.

And this is where our joyous omg I’m 25 and I can go to the abyss with the big kids comes to an end. I might have a different mindset than others. I am of course by no means an expert when it comes to PvP and all that. One thing I do know is that you come after me regardless of the numbers I’m going to go down fighting. I’m not going to run away and be all “oh noes you haz PvPs and my PvEs.” That’s not why I’m playing Aion. If I wanted purely PvE there are plenty of games out there for that. Last night when my friends and I picked up some quests we flew out to this one area to see a huge hunting party of Asmodians. They were gunning right for us. I died. I came back. I noticed that the other Elyos in the area were running away. I died again, mainly my fault as I got seperated from our main healer and my own personal heals aren’t strong enough to outstand getting jumped on by 5 people. I came back again and finally we worked together with a group of other people and pushed the Asmodians back. I’m just hoping that running away is just an isolated incident. I’d hate to be part of the carebear camp in a PvPcentric game.