Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Xanthippe]

Half through 22 on my templar now.  Got aether gathering up to 120, vitality to 150. Alchemy is about 115.

LOVE the gathering/crafting system.  Love the private store option.  Love having a new economy to game.

Aether gathering is a bit of a pain, as Morheim is very crowded.  Ended up getting into a rhythm of gathering until I can't fly anymore, kill a couple of mobs, and then gather some more.  It's fine in the mornings, afternoons too crowded for that.  Flight potions and pluma candy and Rose Quartz Ring ftw.

Got beat down in my first pvp encounter - double teamed by a cleric and templar.  But it was fun while it lasted.  Those healing potions are nice - the ones that remove spell effects. 

After the pace of WoW, the xp curve seems too level, but then again, there's not as many quests, not as much running around (at least from 20-22) and I find that killing slightly lower mobs is more efficient than trying to kill orange mobs for my orange quests.

Too many goldsellers in this game without proper tools to report them.  I've seen a few bots as well (there is a /reportautohunt command for that).

Wish I had more kinnah so that I could craft more, but one craft is wiping out my gains. Pretty sure pure gathering pays well, though.

Video card burned out, so taking a day off until it gets replaced.

[Sobelius]

The moral of the story is, if you dont want to have to grind much, solo most of the time.

Good observation.

In the end, though, the PvE game comes to feel like a grind pretty soon no matter what you do. (True, IMHO, for most MMOs). I played all but two AION CBs, and created numerous toons on both sides. Once you do the starter area quests for the 5th or 6th time, even though you can do them blind-folded, it will feel grindy due to an overall change in your goal as a player. When the content and game mechanics are new, the grind is hidden by advancing to the next new thing. When the next new thing is 20 levels away instead of one encounter away, that old grind feeling sets in. Making matters worse, is the sense that higher level quests are just retread versions of the lower level quests, with few exceptions.

I downloaded the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ($5 on D2D) this weekend and played it a bit. I smiled in relief when I found quests where I could choose between killing someone for a bounty, help them fake their own death to scuttle the bounty, or agree to kill the person who put the bounty on them. I am so very curious to see how Bioware will be bringing this kind of branched storytelling to MMOs in SWTOR. Maybe it will relieve some of the current grind-flavor of MMO questing.

[Shatter]

Soloing I have found to be the best xp and loot.  Once you hit the Abyss there is a repeatable quest you can do starting at 25 and you can repeat it 150 times.  Its basically a kill x,y,z mobs and hand in.  By grinding these mobs you get the XP for each, loot(I have had 3 stigmas drop + gear I have sold for some decent cash) and the quest handin nets 5000Kinah + 48000xp each time.  I can get a lot more xp per hour this way then I can grouped or running quests since at level 28 I get 11000+xp per mob and they are only level 25-26.  So if I hand in the quest 5 times an hour that alone is 240000xp alone. 

[Checkers]

So I finally spent some quality time in the Abyss and had a blast with the PvP.  I was surprised by how fun it was.  I can't even really qualify why it was so enjoyable, other than the fact that it wasn't in an instanced battleground.  I've never felt tension in a battleground, which is most of the fun of PvP for me.  I felt tension fighting in the Abyss.

I don't get the complaints about grinding pre level 20.  You people are doing something wrong.  I know on my first character I didn't notice the coastal area in the southwest of Verteron and ended up grinding most of level 19.  I found level 24 a kinda grindy.  Other than that it's been a pretty standard leveling experience.  In the Abyss there are a bunch of repeat quests that you can do, which aren't ideal, but the PvP is enough of a distraction that I really don't care.  Also, the 25-28 daily instance gives a huge chunk of XP.

[amiable]

So I finally spent some quality time in the Abyss and had a blast with the PvP.  I was surprised by how fun it was.  I can't even really qualify why it was so enjoyable, other than the fact that it wasn't in an instanced battleground.  I've never felt tension in a battleground, which is most of the fun of PvP for me.  I felt tension fighting in the Abyss.

I don't get the complaints about grinding pre level 20.  You people are doing something wrong.  I know on my first character I didn't notice the coastal area in the southwest of Verteron and ended up grinding most of level 19.  I found level 24 a kinda grindy.  Other than that it's been a pretty standard leveling experience.  In the Abyss there are a bunch of repeat quests that you can do, which aren't ideal, but the PvP is enough of a distraction that I really don't care.  Also, the 25-28 daily instance gives a huge chunk of XP.

Checkers, seriously, do you work for NCSoft? 

[DLRiley]

There is no way to prove he is lying if he answers no. 

[March]

I didn't play Beta and my first characters are winding their way through the teens... question: is the Abyss one big zone like, say, DAOC RvR or is it Tiered?

The reason I ask is I am wondering if the Abyss will be such a blast when we slower folks hit it and you cool people shit all over our newbie 25s with your uber 40s?

Are there restricted areas or at least sections that would have 0 value for a max level character?

[Ashamanchill]

On the note of the Abyss..my friend and I have finally made it in there (after a brutal quest chain to become keyed or whatever), and sure the pvp is fun, but the downtime is ridiculous. We flew around looking for a fight, and had a blast when we found one. Sweet. We all died, and yup, back to our oblesks. I mean, we all bound in the abyss this time, but we would have to fly halfway across the place to get back to that fight. Fuck that.

[Ard]

You know there are obelisks you can buy from the general merchant and place wherever for two hours right?  The only catch is the other side can destroy them pretty easily if you don't hide it well enough.  Only your group or alliance can use them, depending on which version you bought, and they're kinda pricey to use randomly, but the option does exist.

[DLRiley]

I'm waiting for organized groups to form once people hit max. This game is still at "it has pvp!?!?!" stage.

[Ashamanchill]

Yeah I know about the oblesks. They cost a little bit too much to just be throwing them around. I don't know how much you have, but the four of us are a little light on the kinah. I didn't know they can be destroyed though  . Do they come with a healer to cure that gay one minute slowness that comes with rez sickness?

[Sobelius]

Do they come with a healer to cure that gay one minute slowness that comes with rez sickness?

Do tell about the gay one minute. I'm dying for a try at it. Most MMOs need more homosexuality, frankly, since almost all the NPCs and monsters I've ever interacted with or killed are heterosexual. At least with players I can be sure of a finding a few flying the rainbow flag. :)

Also, as is typical, making a beefcake toon is an exercise in frustration, even with AION's sliders. Yeah, musclebound and whatnot they get, but still no "package size" slider. Sigh.

[tazelbain]

LOL, I was just thinking Conan needed "package enhancement" potion to match the "breast enhancement" potion.

Since monsters seem to reproduce asexually, that's kinda gay right?

[Checkers]

Checkers, seriously, do you work for NCSoft? 

Lol no I don't work for NCSoft!  The game has problems, but honestly things have been more enjoyable than I expected them to be.  Coming from games like Lineage and Eve, I still have serious doubts that factions are going to agree with the kind of PvP I enjoy.  The end game is still a big fat question mark.  I have no faith that botting and RMT will be handled well, either.  The game is fun right now, though, and I'm happy enough for the moment.

[amiable]

Checkers, seriously, do you work for NCSoft? 

Lol no I don't work for NCSoft!  The game has problems, but honestly things have been more enjoyable than I expected them to be.  Coming from games like Lineage and Eve, I still have serious doubts that factions are going to agree with the kind of PvP I enjoy.  The end game is still a big fat question mark.  I have no faith that botting and RMT will be handled well, either.  The game is fun right now, though, and I'm happy enough for the moment.

I'm just joshing you, but I'm glad you are enjoying it.

[Redgiant]

Is anyone else on Fregion? I've got a 11 Cleric (Asmo).

Or is there a sticky list somewhere of char/servers.

[Lantyssa]

Also, as is typical, making a beefcake toon is an exercise in frustration, even with AION's sliders. Yeah, musclebound and whatnot they get, but still no "package size" slider. Sigh.

I might tease some of my friends about being size queens, but that would be a dangerous tool in most guy's hands.  Or pants.  Or both I guess.

It makes me wonder though... Is the gay one minute additive or does it change one's polarity?  Do I go straight under its effects or become more butch?

[gryeyes]

Having fun even with the shitastic zone design (only seen two so far), I really like gliding around heh.

[Threash]

The abyss fucking rocks.

[tmp]

Also, as is typical, making a beefcake toon is an exercise in frustration, even with AION's sliders. Yeah, musclebound and whatnot they get, but still no "package size" slider. Sigh.

No need for package slider, it seems default pose of male gladiator is to thrust the groin out in a suggestive and size enhancing manner.

... or would that be rather.

[Ashamanchill]

Lol I'm choosing my words more carefully around here. Let me re phrase this. Do they come with a healer to cure that gay one minute rather irritating speed debuff aqquired upon death? or do they go all Jewish on you? Lets see you twist my words now!!!

[gryeyes]

1 minute? wtf is mine 3 minutes! I can now glide on all surfaces and inclines till my fly power is out.

[Chimpy]

My enjoyment of the game went up 1000% when my ranger hit 16 tonight and I finally got a damn chain ability on ranged attacks. 10-16 on a ranger is brutal (though I did manage to get better with the whole movement bonus/penalty mixed with kiting thing over 14 and 15).

[gryeyes]

Im experiencing some strange rubber banding and weird errors with range and skills. I have a ping that rarely reaches triple digits and a min 45-60 fps, and my character is demonstrably "slower" than others. Running side by side no speed buffs at all I kind of flicker back a teensie but often amount that you almost cant even see. And the person pulls ahead, even with sprint assassin skill which is 30% increase, I still fall behind when running abreast others, at the very best we will stay neck and neck. When I use the sprint skill it looks like im moving at normal character speed (30% speed increase). I cant figure out whats wrong, no debuffs of any kind, no speed enhancements on the people I tested it with.

Its extremely noticeable and constant.

[IainC]

Gliding is a fun minigame in and of itself.

I also get terrible rubberbanding issues when running about. It makes navigating around aggro mobs pretty hard as there's always the chance that the server will snap me off to one side and on top of the thing I'm trying to avoid.

[Gunzwei]

Personally I don't mind the xp grinding all that much but the time involved with crafting is very tedious at best. It makes me wonder if crafting is worth the time at lower levels due how heavy a time/money sink it is.

I've spent hour after hour collecting materials and leveling weaponsmithing, and a huge chunk of money.  I have yet to get one useful weapon out of it.  I've crafted at least a dozen durable steel swords and not gotten a single critical.  With the money I've invested in craffting so far, I could have bought equivalent or better gear from the trade broker.

I actually stopped playing my templar (lvl 27) due to the cost in crafting,  but I was trying to level 2 crafts at the same time which I don't think is economically possible solo. I rerolled SM and just went with alchemy and by level 20 she already has over 300k due to SM's not really needing to upgrade gear hardly at all. Not to mention going from the slow killing templar to the 2--3 mobs kiting SM was pretty awesome.

We staged an organized PVP event using that quest mechanism, and had a blast and we're getting some steady PVP in the 20+ zones.  We're too busy leveling so we're saving a lot of Abyss stuff until later.

Personally I am level 19.5, I ran out of quests at level 18, and I've been grinding my ass off.  If you don't grind a little during your quest chains, you end up having to grind a bunch of mobs to push into the 20+ area.

To me this game isn't very solo friendly, and getting in grind groups isn't optimal unless you have 2+ hours in one sitting.  If this game was more solo friendly, the quest chains rewarded more gold/exp, and you had to grind less then it would be a much much better product. Considering that WoW has done nothing but speed up exp gain, its a bummer to go back to a game that feels like an EQ1 era grindfest as well as not being extremely solo friendly.

There are few areas and level ranges where it's best to grind off the rest of your level and float the quest xp. Doing that early on you'll always hit 20-21 by the time you finish BC on Asmo side. 23-24 I've found was probably the worse leveling unless you can get into a good Lava Caves group. 25-29 is a joke because the abyss XP and the daily instance (18 hour lockout) level you up incredibly fast. Abyss XP is so good at 25+ that I didn't even bother with non-abyss questing aside from the campaign quest chain for Morheim. Also PVP in the abyss is great fun to break up the grind and should really start earlier than 25.

I can only see duoing being viable if you can kill mobs insanely fast with very little downtime. The XP hit on a duo is 50%.

[Jerrith]

I didn't play Beta and my first characters are winding their way through the teens... question: is the Abyss one big zone like, say, DAOC RvR or is it Tiered?

The reason I ask is I am wondering if the Abyss will be such a blast when we slower folks hit it and you cool people shit all over our newbie 25s with your uber 40s?

Are there restricted areas or at least sections that would have 0 value for a max level character?

The Abyss is one big zone.  The map shows it in three parts, representing the bottom, middle, and top.  I had two travel quests in the Abyss last night that helped me learn a bunch. :)  One: You can fly straight up from the town/outpost (on the bottom level) and get to the top level.  Two:  There are teleporters on some of the islands that will teleport you up there.  Three:  The big red globe in the center is instant death.  Four:  There is an unmapped island underneath the big red globe that you can't see until you get really close to it.  (Yes, they tell you it's there, and to fly there, but I'm not all that trusting of the quest text sometimes. :) )

There are no level restrictions.  This does cause exactly what you might imagine - one of my deaths last night was due to a level 38, with level 35 & ?? friends pwning my level 26 templar and others, in an Abyss area with level 25/26 mobs.

[Falconeer]

Oh, so there's a way to see your enemy's level? I only get "??".

[Shatter]

Oh, so there's a way to see your enemy's level? I only get "??".

Not that Im aware of, every enemy regardless of level shows ?? so I dunno how he knew what level they were *all ears*

[Falconeer]

Not to mention that there IS a criminal system in place to prevent that kind of crap. Actually, that's what I read: by killing lower level players you get so busted that it's absolutely masochistic. So, either they weren't 35 and 38, or the Criminal system is broken. And that would be surprising since so far nothing is broken. I can't think of a single bug so far.

[Xanthippe]

I don't know of a way in-game, but you can look people up here (at least in North America):

http://na.aiononline.com/

I've seen a couple of bots - gladiators.  At least I think they're bots.  They kill in a circle, the second something spawns they're on it, and have names like "Cfjfdsk."  The goldselling spam is ridiculous.  I typically get 3 within minutes of logging on.  It's annoying to have to type out their stupid jibberish names with the block command, without a way to report them.

[gryeyes]

Its pointless to even /ignore them. Its a new fucking name every single time. /ignore apparently does not block their text if they are talking in a channel either. There is a command in the options to display enemy information, I have yet to see an enemy to see what that info is. Maybe its like other games ? means way fucking bigger than you?

[Falconeer]

I really think the whole point of the game is you CAN'T see enemy players levels. You can only see their rank, which I think is a cool thing.

[Falconeer]

Someone told me that /anon stops goldspamming messages.

[Draegan]

My enjoyment of the game went up 1000% when my ranger hit 16 tonight and I finally got a damn chain ability on ranged attacks. 10-16 on a ranger is brutal (though I did manage to get better with the whole movement bonus/penalty mixed with kiting thing over 14 and 15).

It slows down again in monotony at the late 20s and doesn't pick up again until 40 or so.

I just hit 30 last night.  I need a new weapon.