Diary of a Female Aion Newbie
Aion is a newly released MMO where all the characters are angels, not that they call them that, but the world is populated with beings that can fly. From what I have read, flying is the thing to set this MMO apart, flying around the world, and even more importantly, flying combat.
Since at our house we like to try out many of the new MMOs that pop up, we couldn’t miss this one. And since I wanted to share, writing a diary of my daily Aion activities seemed the best option.
Day 1
(2.5 hours total play time)
The first day is always filled with the most exploring, discovering, and hope.
So it was with great dismay that I logged into the game only to discover that there are sides, light side and dark side. The only reason for this sort of early commitment requirement that I know if is PvP. Ugh, right off the bat my game play is limited.
I pick a side (dark, even thought it doesn’t really matter. They look almost identical) then I move onto creating a character. First we are off to pick a class. This reminds me a lot of Diablo 2. The various class choices are displayed resplendent in their higher-level gear. When selected they perform a small animation. Priest, Warrior, Scout , or Mage.
Then it’s on to character looks. I suggest using the random option since the body and face manipulations are quite extensive and don’t seem to have any fail-safes. It’s easy to make quite odd and creepy looking characters, with tiny bodies and huge heads, or huge feet and hardly any legs.
My original character I tried to custom make and at first I thought she turned out okay. Much later on I noticed that her feet are tiny, oddly tiny. /sigh
After class, looks and naming, its time to play. My new female mage got dropped in the middle of nowhere. The remote location gives the impression of being the padded room for newbies. Give them a safe area far away from everyone else where they can blow themselves up a few times before being allowed into civilized MMO society.
Being a veteran MMOG player made it easy for me to get a grasp on the interface, moving, and character information – nothing new and unexpected there. But they did have handy little help videos that popped up if you needed the extra guidance.
Once questing began it all happened very quickly. Lots of moving from one little camp to the next, which resulted in very rapid leveling. The change of scenery helped break up the monotony of the quests. Most of them were of the collect x amount of something genre.
Around level four I finally make it too a larger town and am presented with a few different types of quests. One was a “get a new spell” quest, which is completely brilliant. There is no real way to know when or how you can get a new spell, so having a little quest to explain it all is genius. The other was what they called a campaign quest, which involves cinematic and lots of talking to NPCs. It seems to be the huge story quest, very grand.
Also a few of the quests I run across have offered choices, giving two possible outcomes. Not sure if they are different, but its quaint to be given a choice for a change.
Finally made it too level six and the larger town. Time to log.
Likes thus far:
-Made level six relatively quickly.
-Keeps things entertaining with quick change of scenery.
-Combat and Movement and Interface is all pretty standard, thus easy to master.
-Relatively simple character creation with decent versatility.
-Graphics are pretty and the characters are actually good looking.
-Question mark hints are fabulous for beginners. Simple easy instructions just when you need them.
Dislikes thus far:
-There seem to be some interface indicators missing. I can’t tell if or when I’m auto attacking as there is no visual indiactor.
-Moving, even rotating, interrupts any spell that the character is channeling. Oh this drives me crazy since that’s one of the times I am used to looking around.
-Quests are super boring mostly.
Day 2
(2 hours played)
Once I made level six and bound myself in at the larger town things started getting harder. I died a few times, which hit home the fact that I loose experience when I die, my manage and health regenerate very slowly so am sitting down (sitting DOWN!!!) to get it back. It feels strangely like EverQuest again, and not in a good way.
Leveling has slowed down quite a bit, but that might only be because my quests are having me run around the entire known universe to complete them.
One incredibly handy feature that was put into the game is that any person (place or thing) that is underlined in the quest log can be located on the map by clicking on it. I use this feature all the time.
I did get one very awesome quest though, a look into the future. Essentially it was a cinematic of my character flying to the PvP lands (I am totally guessing here). Whatever the case it definitely inspired me to plod along and keep going.
At level six I also got my first chained spell. All the classes have these, but essentially what they are is a second spell will become available after the first spell has been cast. It’s only around for a short period of time so use it up before it’s gone.
Finally after being a huge amount of experience in the hole I went online to look it up. The Sprithealer will give you your lost exp back for a nominal fee.
Too irritated. Had to log after that.
Likes:
-Love the chained combat spells. Gives a nice little twist on the procing idea.
-The good quests are really great when they show up. Too bad they are so few.
-At least you can get your experience back that you lost when you died.
-Person, place or thing located by linking on the map. This is soooo handy.
Dislikes:
-You have to pay to bind.
-You loose exp when you die, and than you have to pay to get it back.
-Sitting to regenerate at low levels is beyond antiquated.
-The quests have gone from boring to tiresome. I want to be a hero not a messenger.
-There is so much chat spam. SOOO MUCH!
Day 3
(2.5 hours)
Day three is the day I realize that this game is not balanced at all. My husband decided to play a priest and had no idea about the experience penalty when dying because he had never died. Not once.
In fact I had to get his help with a quest mob because it was too difficult for me to do alone. A mob his character had no troubles with (at the same level as mine).
Also the entire newbie area is overrun. Good for the game, bad for me since I can’t find any of the quest mobs I need. Finally after an hour of just sitting around and grabbing every one that I could I move on.
The following difficult quest I do better and group up with some other newbies that are completing the same quest. And what a good idea that was because there is no way I could have succeeded alone. Should have played a priest.
I am told that I get my wings at level ten, that’s the goal before I log. Before that can happen though I need to finish my messenger, I mean, my campaign quests. Lots more running around.
Finally, finally I am transported away from the newbie area (does this mean I am no longer a social outcast?) into a proper city and am dedicated and given my wings while the people of the city look on and make rude comments about me (guess I’m still a social outcast after all.)
Turns out, there is no flying in the city.
Ha, logging time.
Likes:
-Flying seems like it would be awesome.
-The city looks great!
Dislikes:
-I get my wings and can’t use them; you have got to be kidding me!!
-Game is soo imbalanced between different classes.
-Low levels should be a gimmy.
Day 4
Patching….oh error. Try again. Patching…..error again. Hmmmm, says to get the repair patch. Okay get that….hmm that’s not available yet.
No Aion for me!
I do like the idea of a repair patch. Too bad it didn’t work.
Day 5
(30 mins played)
Time to explore the brand new city a bit. It’s all bright and shiny and pretty.
I get some quests to explore and a bright little Tinkerbelle like ball of light leads the way to my destination. It’s quite handy even though it vanishes a few times.
Its turns out that its character maintenance time as well. Beyond getting new wings at level ten, it’s also time to choose which class specialization I would like. Each starting class is presented with two different options to choose from.
Not really knowing anything about either of the Mage choices I read through the various descriptions, but then follow the menus options down one level too deep and commit to a choice on accident. There isn’t a last warning prompt for dummies, so be warned, dummies. =)
But it turns out that the city is not the place I am supposed to be. So on I travel to the outskirts to fight yet more bugs and tigers and bears (oh my).
Yet when I get to the new outskirts town, the lag is so bad I can’t actually accept a quest from the NPC. I spend fifteen minutes just trying to pick up new quests.
Giving up I decide to check out flying (finally) and that’s all nifty and stuff, but I only get to fly for a minute before I come crashing back down to the ground. Then I have to wait for my flying meter to replenish.
No quests and limited flying, ugh, log time for me.
Day 6
(1 Hour of meta time)
After all the hassle thus far I start to wonder why I’m actually playing this game anymore. (However much I might deny it, the knowledge that I will write a review of the game always makes me try that much harder then I would otherwise. Aion is a perfect example!)
Mostly what I want to know is about the end game of Aion, is it really just PvP? Because if so there is nothing for me to look forward too. (Read: I hate pvp!)
So I googled Aion endgame and come up with this article.
Essentially from that article and a little more digging that I did, I surmised that currently there is no high end PvE content, its all PvP, and shitty PvP at that.
You get points for killing player of the other faction, but you lose points for dying. The more PvP points you accumulate the worse the ratio is for you. These points of course determine your rank and also are used to buy high-end PvP gear.
Ick.
Day 7
I haven’t been able to convince myself to log in and play in over three weeks. So its time to admit that I’m never going back. Thus I canceled my account.
There are still two weeks available on the account so I made a little light side priest on a different server. She is level four now and she will probably stay level four as I haven’t been back yet. And really the game is very pretty.
Bye bye Aion.
