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!
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.
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.
I think one of my biggest pet peeves is when I see another chanter running around and I stop to inspect them I notice something very very scary…..they are in cloth! Chanters and clerics for that matter can wear chain mail. Please for the love of Aion put some on. Chanters and Clerics are the only class whose highest available armor designation is chain mail. And while we chanters are a buff and debuff class we are also melee. You are going to get your ass smacked from Poeta to Themobomos wearing cloth. We apply our debuffs via melee fighting. You can’t melee fight in cloth. Period. You also get no bonus from wearing cloth. Chanters have one magic skill (smite) that gets no upgrade as we learn it at level 1 and it becomes a cleric only skill at level 10. (I personally only use it for pulling if I’m soloing.) Our mantras get absolutely no benefit from magic boost and you should have no problem with mana until your early to mid twenties and by the time it gets to be a real problem you will have mantras to counteract that. You need the stats from chain mail, such as physical defense and parry (especially parry because higher up you have skills that proc off parry). So get your chain mail set together early as you will be needed it.
Once you hit 10 and head to Sanctum/Pandaemonium for your acession you will gain the passive skill to wear chain. It’s important to have a few pieces before you even get there because you will need to buy all your skill manuals as well. With that said, you should take the chain mail rewards from the last few quests you have in the starting zones. The ones you get around level 8 and 9 are good enough to get you started in the level 10 areas. If you are Elyos they are Mercenary”s Mail from the Barring the Gate quest and Mercenary’s Chain Greaves from the Neutralizing Odium quest. I usually have enough kinah after buying my skill manuals to also pick up any filler chain mail pieces I need. So be smart about saving your money. Pick up everything and vendor it this way you will have enough saved up to get you started on the path of a Daeva.
Personally I am quite happy that we get to wear chain mail. After playing Wrath of the Lich King were Blizzard decided to homogenize armor it made for a real mess as priest and caster dps all started vying for the same gear. Each class in Aion is unique and comes with their own set of gear so there is little reason to argue when it comes to that…manastones on the other hand are a different issue. Which I’ll get into next time. Until then happy hunting.
In about 3 hours the servers should be live for Aion’s head start. This is it folks. There will probably be a mad dash to the login screen, the servers are more than likely explode, and as I type this it seems as if the Aion site is down due to high amounts of traffic. Personally I think they took it down to put up all those new goodies they spoke about last week. I can’t wait to play and the excitement is building within the Aion community. My tweetdeck is going crazy right now as I have #Aion saved as a search. It’s been fun watching all the different people talk about Aion and the community of players have been very helpful towards one another. I’m still surprised by the amount of Asmodians, where the heck is the Elyos love. Either way if you are a gamer this is one to watch to be sure. With 400k in pre-orders and it being extremely popular over in Korea since the release back in November I’m sure this game will be around for awhile.
*Update* And I was right the did update the website with all the goodies. Make sure you check it out. Loads of stuff to see while we wait.
Okay, yes I am a crackhead. Yes I woke up at something like 8 this morning so that I could check on the server pre-selection status. And yes the minute I saw my server was unlocked I rushed and created my character. So here she is, my soon to be Elyos chanter Jadzia. 5 bonus points if you can pick up the name reference. ^_-
My goals for head start:
1. Get Jadzia to 20-22. Most of my legion mates have Monday off and I want to make sure I don’t fall to far behind.
2. Finish the Krall quests in Verteron. For the love of Aion I must finish those.
3. Gather every stinking thing in sight. Gathering in Aion is a sort of secondary profession. There are a bunch of quests that require you to go out and pick up stuff for people. If your gathering skill isn’t high enough to complete the quest you are missing out on xp. Plus it will help my legion.
4. Not as important but still on the list get handicrafting, my profession of choice, to a level that will somewhat match what I’m able to gather. I doubt it will happen but one can dream. I plan to have a ranger alt eventually so I figured handcrafting would be a good profession to pick. I will be able to craft staves for my chanter and bows for my ranger. Plus they make accessories and that’s just good to have in general.
So that’s about it. Let’s see how well I do.
Well the day started with excitement. I pre-ordered Aion months ago so I knew all about the pre-selection that would happen today. My friends and I planned during open beta which server we would be on. It was a well planned and thought out process. Okay not really we just pinned a tail on a donkey and called it a day. LOL. Kidding. Either way the server was picked and today when I got home I was ready. However that was what awaited me when I tried to make my character. While I understand the reasoning behind trying to balance the servers its still really frustrating. Liv, associate producer for Aion, has assured us that the servers that are locked will be open again once head start begins. So at least I have that to hold me over. Balancing will still take place during that time, I’m sure, so its just a question of will I be able to make an Elyos on Triniel.
And speaking of balancing I’m surprised at the amount of Asmodians. In my experience I’ve noticed people like to play the race they believe to be the “pretty” and/or “good” race. I’m only rolling an Elyos because I lost the vote when we decided what race we wanted to be. The majority of my friends didn’t want back hair and claws. I wanted Asmodian because I’m a semi lore nut and just admired their side of the story when it came to the destruction of the Tower of Eternity. Plus they seemed like the underdogs to me so I liked that aspect as well. I had gotten that impression that most people felt Asmodians are evil from looking around at various forums. As pre-selection drew near I noticed a change towards people declaring they would be Asmodian. I just never knew how big the Asmodian population would be.
Despite the frustration overall I’m happy with the decision of NCSoft to maintain balance with the races. It will help to create servers that aren’t totally dominated with one faction. Which is a good thing cause we know how people love to complain if they are given an unfair advantage in an MMO. Cause gaming is serious business.
Make sure you check the link to keep up to date on pre-selection server status.