AION Revisited: Population Balance

When Aion first launched, I predicted that Asmodians would attract power gamers and pre-established clans, and Elyos would attract a larger population but larger number of casual gamers. Whether or not that prediction was accurate, one year into the game it is clear that Asmodians have lost a much larger amount of their original population. The ramifications of this loss are colossal for the remaining players.

Earning PvP items takes a great deal of time because they are purchased with Abyss Points earned from fort sieges, killing players of the opposite faction and killing NPC monsters in the Abyss. With the Elyos holding a serious and consistent advantage in both numbers and the quality of their PvP gear, they are free to hunt in the Abyss at all times, amassing points and widening their lead. Those few Asmodians remaining on the merged Zikel server do not venture there due to the overwhelming presence of Elyos and this puts them at a severe disadvantage.

In the new zones, the Elyos have already conquered their two forts from the Balaur, which enables them free passage into the Asmodian zones, where even small groups are able to cause great disturbances. In the early days of the game, the Asmodian population was dense enough to immediately muster forces and push back any advances made by the enemy. These surprise attacks and counter attacks provided great enjoyment and added an unpredictable aspect to the experience grind. On the new merged Zikel, however, the population is so horrendously imbalanced that I almost never see any other Asmodians hunting and harvesting in our own lands. This makes it impossible to survive, as I am constantly encountering and being killed by Elyos players roaming in the Asmodian zone to hunt and torment us.

It's really a shame - the new areas and content added in Assault on Balaurea are fantastic, and the game would be terrific fun if the population were only balanced. During the times that the Elyos were barred from our zone (thanks to the NPC faction conquering one of the Elyos frontier forts) I had a fantastic time exploring our area and completing quests. Though frustrating, I did enjoy my return to Aion, if only to see how they expanded the content before my final exit.

AION Revisited - Goal Status

Here are the unfinished goals I had in January when I quit Aion:

• Done! Acquire 2,000 coins and purchase Shadetouched Staff
• Done! Reach 449 Handicrafting Skill
• Done! Obtain Fenris Shoulders
• Done! Complete Advanced Stigma Quest

Here are some more advanced goals I might be able to achieve before I permanently retire:

• Done! Reach level 55
• Failed Twice! Obtain Fenris Pants
• Failed! Obtain Fenris Chest
• Failed! Obtain Fenris Weapon
• Failed! Collect Anuheart Chanter Armor Set
• Failed! Reach 549 Handicrafting Skill
• Failed! Become Alchemy Master

Aion Revisited - Launch of Assault on Balaurea

The new content has launched quicker than I expected, so I am dealing with frustrating patching errors that are keeping me from accessing the game. I am excited to explore again, and have been sorely missing having an MMO time sink, but I am sad that I was not able to polish off any of my goals before the new content released. They’ll have to take the backseat while I level up and explore the new areas and lore!

The new character selection screen looks awesome, but the art has always been the greatest feature of the game so I am hardly surprised. I’m really looking forward to digging into the new Asmodian zone, since I was only able to play as Elyos at PAX. After many attempts, I've finally managed to finish patching and I am ready to explore. The new Asmodian zone looks like the Elyos zone - since they are both part of the same area, Balaurea, there is no longer a large disparity in the vitality and beauty of the terrain. The new zone is really nice looking, and so are the NPCs - the old models look a lot more defined, and the new models are nice. Lots of different types of critters, and even some decaying statues that remind me of the Weeping Angles from Doctor Who.

My first reactions are positive. There are lots of quests to be had, even a good selection of repeatable quests with a low threshold - only 10 or 20 repetitions for an extra reward. The experience offered for the quests is good, and the money is excellent for many of them. The new coin quest is quick and convenient to repeat and offers affordable armor options. I'm looking forward to exploring the new zone in greater depth in the coming weeks. I also bought a vanity pet because the "white dag" looks just like my own puppy, Oliver. Now I have a cute little digital pup to accompany me on my trip through Balaurea.


A lot has changed since I quit but the general game mechanics are the same so I haven't had any problems playing my own character. In the months my account was inactive, the dozen or so servers were condensed and Azphel became a part of the combined Zikel. This is unfortunate as the combined servers all had active, high powered Elyos guilds who dominate the PvP on the new combined server. The Asmodians are outgeared, outnumbered, and severely disorganized. It's a completely uneven political situation that makes the game much less fun to play. The Asmodian players I've met thus far are poor players, too lazy to do any of the fights properly even though they are relatively simple. I expected mostly serious players to be left at this point, but it's still a lot of unskilled people. This is especially painful for me, since support classes are largely at the mercy of their group's capabilities. I definitely miss my friends, and our smooth groups. I joined a legion of Azphel players and had high hopes that they might be skilled enough to run painless dungeons and small scale PvP encounters, but my experiences thus far do not leave me with much hope. I'm enjoying the solo play, though, so I will be able to get my Chanter to 55 without much effort. I'm looking forward to finishing up the expansion lore and then calling it quits in a more conclusive manner.

Aion Revisited - Account Reactivation

Following PAX, I made what is likely a poor decision - reactivating my Aion account. I deactivated the account in January, only 6 months after the game’s launch, and it was an unexpectedly sudden end that left my character in limbo. I’ve wanted ever since to return, at least briefly enough to finish several projects I had been working on with her. In an attempt to find a bit of closure for my character and to feel as though I was ready to leave the game, I am revisiting it for one or two months.

Firstly, I had been farming religiously to earn 2,000 Platinum Coins. Coin quests are a carryover from Lineage 2, where you could kill certain NPCs for a low chance to earn specific types of coins which could then be redeemed in combination for different rewards. It was a way to earn added benefit from killing NPCs to gain experience. In Aion, each subsequent tier of coin requires significantly more coins to earn a reward. The early tiers provide a random reward within one “school” of item type, so that you might wind up with an item you can’t use or a duplicate. This is often frustrating, but can still provide a reasonable amount of profit.

Once you reach the higher tiers, such as the Platinum Coins I was farming, you are able to chose much more specifically. My 2,000 coin quest was to earn an attack speed staff for my Chanter, and when I suddenly quit the game I had personally farmed over 1,400 coins - quite an achievement as they were awarded in small denominations for repeatable quests. At that time, buying the coins was cost prohibitive (roughly 25,000 adena each) so I kept soldiering forward on the repeatable quests. However, I discovered on my return that the price had dropped significantly, and I was able to snap up several bulk lots for 10,000 per coin. This, combined with a heavy night of farming was able to put me at my goal. The difference with the new weapon is unbelievable!

I am hoping to finish up two additional goals, though I am not sure I will make the deadline before the new content goes in. I would like to earn my Fenris Shoulders - I am just over halfway done and now I am able to complete the quest much quicker now. I also need to complete 2 more runs through the Dark Poeta instance in order to gain access to my advanced stigmas, since I frequently sat out for a friend. This is key for my character, and I really want to complete this so that I can feel she’s “done” before I quit for good. It’s a lot more difficult to complete group instances though, since everyone I know has quit the game. I’ll be at the mercy of strangers for the next month as I attempt to finish these goals while exploring the new zones and content.I’d also love to finish out my crafting - I was three points shy of the cap when I cancelled my account, and this has been raised slightly so there is additional incentive to finish.

Game Watch: Tera

I've been intentionally ignoring all chatter about Tera, a game in development and felt by many to be the replacement for Lineage 2, but I broke my self-imposed media blackout this past weekend at PAX and am now intrigued with what little information is available.

The game is undeniably beautiful. I was able to spy on a game tour given to my left while I was experimenting with the spellcasting character gameplay, and I was impressed. As with Lineage, the cities are beautiful and grand, massive in scale and full of fanciful interpretations of various forms of classical architecture. There are 6 playable races, each with their own very distinct aesthetic, architecture, lore, and clothing. It doesn't appear that there is any restriction on race and character class combination, and it will be a faction-free game. Players will be free to form alliances and declare war on any player as they see fit, and the designers are working on a political system more complex than the simple castle ownership of Lineage 2.

As a former Lineage player, I recognize many similarities between the art in both games. Certain locations seem to be flushed out, polished versions of locations from Lineage and this is not a bad thing. If they are able to extract and build upon the successes of Lineage (the art, the open gameplay, the beautiful music) and correct some of its shortcomings (primarily the combat system and steep death penaltys and extremely difficult progression) this has the makings of an incredibly wonderful game.

The gameplay took a bit of getting used to, but that is the point - wings and flight combat were Aion's revolution and the combat system is TERA's. All previous MMORPG games have been built on variations of the same combat system: select a player or NPC by targeting them with your mouse and select offensive skills to attack or restorative skills to defend. The restrictions on skill usage is primarily range based - each skill can only be used a certain distance from the selected target.

For TERA this has been completely redesigned to incorporate elements of first person shooter games. Rather than selecting a target ("locking on") and mashing skill buttons, a player must mind their range to ensure the selected skills will actually hit the target and aim the skills in order to hit. The player never "targets" anything at all. This is very different than all previous MMORPG games, and requires a bit of getting used to. I liked it, but it was still a bit disorienting.

The funniest part of my time at the booth was, of course, listening to confused World of Warcraft players who didn't understand the gameplay. The first question they all asked was "so is this like WoW" or "What's different than WoW" to which the booth staff would try not to wince and begin to explain all the differences. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive WoW for spoiling the MMO market by flooding it with unskilled players who have no experience other than WoW's quick rewards and easy gameplay. Every game that comes out is compared to WoW as though it's a golden standard, and players expect the same type of experience and level of difficulty. Hopefully the differences in TERA's combat system will be enough to set it apart from WoW so that people judge it on its own merits.

PAX!

This is my third year @ PAX, and I am still finding each year more impressive than the last. This year in particular was surprising - the addition of several new floors and satellite theaters at Benaroya Hall, local hotels, and even the expansion to GameWorks really helped thin out the crowds making it easy to navigate in the expo hall. It also allowed for more of everything! More handheld lounge space, more expo space, more console and PC freeplay, and several new rooms like Jamspace. All in all it was amazing, and I didn't explore much beyond the expo hall!

I was impressed by a lot of the console titles, even though they were not exactly my preferred genres. The new Infamous and Fallout titles look awesome, as does Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I hadn't even heard of the Epic Mickey project, but it looks brilliant - a really clever use of Mickey as a hero, with the magic brush as his weapon. It's very classic Mickey meets the Sorcerer's Apprentice crossed with Scribblenauts and an action RPG style gameplay. Their booth was one of my favorites - playing several videos on a constant loop and displaying large scale artistic renderings of game scenes. I love the idea, it's such a great homage to Disney as an animation studio that it actually works, whereas most "franchise" games (movie tie ins and the like) are poorly imagined and executed.

I was surprised to see some interesting FPS and RPG shooter titles that actually interested me. I tend to shy away from violent games because I dislike gore and have poor reflexes. However, these new types of FPS games that don't necessarily prize headshots intrigue me.

I spent a lot of time at the Aion booth playing their stacked (level 55, with lots of stigmas) Elyos Chanter. The expansion looks beautiful, of course, and I had forgotten just how much I adore the Chanter class and how it plays. I may even reactivate my account just to fool around and farm, something my twisted mind misses greatly. The new attacks look awesome, and apparently I can upgrade to the expansion for free. The features I was hoping would be implemented have not, though. There are vanity and practical pets - different pets offer unique bonuses such as extra storage or combat warnings. However, nothing about the dynamic seasons or player housing.

I also spent a lot of time at the Tera booth, watching the cinematic and gameplay. I nabbed a console for a while on Saturday afternoon, and explored the caster class and also played one of the melee classes a little bit. The combat system is brilliant, forcing players to actually aim their skills and position their character in real time in order to launch effective attacks. It does take a bit of getting used to, though. It plays a bit like Diablo 2, in the sense that they had one skill stuck to left and right click, allowing you to easily control the basic combat by maneuvering with your left hand (W A S D) and launching attacks with the mouse (left and right click). The Alt key allows you to toggle combat and passive modes, which remove the "aiming" function of the mouse and allows you to mouse over skills and navigate menus. The mage's skills were neat - a good variety that allowed for different combat styles. There were single direct damage spells that I aimed at single targets, and "wave" attacks like the old school "flame wave" from Diablo 2, that allowed me to sweep through multiple mobs when I got swarmed.

The booth guys were chatting people up, helping them figure out the controls and answering general questions. I am excited about the "no faction" aspect, but wary that the PvP system won't be fully open like Lineage 2. They hinted at a built in political system that is still under development, and assured me that PvP servers will offer "nearly" free-pvp that is still being tweaked. The gameplay was seamless - my main concern with the "no targeting" system - the most radical difference from previous MMOs - was server lag. One of the most frustrating experiences, especially in large scale pvp, is trying to target players who are not where you think they are. The game ran without any positioning issues due to lag at the demo booth, but that will be one of the things I need to test for myself on my own PC before I register a real opinion.