Sylvian's Chronicles

It’s more then 6 months since European and North American launch of Aion. I belive it’s best time to take a second look at Aion and see what it became.

Most of us had a hope that Aion gonna be spritual successor of Lineage 2 with great PvP concept and grindless leveling. And looking at Aion from that perspective… it’s dissapointing. It’s because Aion is missing an intensive (open?) PvP. Of course in Aion we have a lot possibilities to get a fight – unfortunately only in theory. We have sieges, rifts and of course Abyss – the problem is that everyone of those is missing something.

• Abyss is quite wast… and deadly empty place. It’s because it doesn’t offer almost anything to characters with level cap reached. You can meet there only people which have their 50level still ahead, or those who gank the first metioned ones.
• Rifts are really great feature – so what’s wrong with it? The same thing as with Abyss – it’s hard to find any players there. The only chance to get 100% sure PvP is to attack some enemy city, which of course limit PvP possibilities. Alos you will need quite a few team mates to make fight more fair, coz as soon as you show up near guards enemies will appear in great numbers in no-time.
  Of course you can try to find enemies in the field but it’s very flustrating when you find out that in last 2 hours you have had meet ony 1-2-3 persons.
• But the thing which dissapoint the most is… siege mechanic. Siege in Aion is simply zerg fight, without any sophisticated tactics it’s pure mass against larger mass. It had to be one of main features of Aion but in the end it became a nail into the coffin. Sure sieges are few times a day, they are random and it’s great – really, but also they are open to anyone without any restictions… which means zerg. The most funny thing about sieges is it was looking really great at the paper/concept but in practice it’s simply not working at all.

Well it’s not as bad as it seems, you just need to get used to this – to controll large amount of people, less tactical and more global wise. Rifts are still great and excting expierience, but if you want guarantie PvP you need to force attack a city. There also is a Dreadgion which shows true PvPvE mechanic – loved for ones and hated by rest. Definityvly PvP in Aion is different then in other mmorpgs.

By reading the part above you can get feeling that Aion in general is a fail, which is finally not true. Even if it have some flaws it’s really addicting mmorpg which offer a lot of good fun.

There is quite a few aspects that are done without a flaw:

• Grind: It’s really huge step forward in term of grindless gameplay. Generally speaking I would say there is no grind (xp wise) at all. In my opinion sometimes even you level little bit to fast. Specially when you completing all quests you can find out that you where is some specific instances only once or maybe two, because your progress was so fast and there is no point to visit them again. Thats why i’m quite suprised when i hear opinions acording to which Aion is grind fest and only hard work make you level. I cannot agree with such opinion – especially when most XP you earn simply by doing quests – there is no time for grind. Of course if you really want you can chose hard way… but the question is “in order to what”? Sorry to say, but some people are simply spoiled… for those only after successfull creation of avatar you should get mex level with epic grear. Of course there is a grind for gear afer reaching level cap. But it’s whole another story, and it’s nothing different then we know from any other mmo out there.
• About quests I mentioned a little bit above. They are divided into 2 categories (3 in fact, but the 3rd one “work orders” is only to level crafting skills). First – campagain quests, which push forward the story and second – normal quests from random NPCs. Both for sure are not the new definition of quests (with few exceptions) but i have to admit they are really nicely written and done. It’s good to acomplish them not only for large amounts of XP and items as rewards but also to get know the story behind them and to learn little bit about world we are playing in.
• Another thing is flying and gliding, which are 2 main features of Aion – both are done simply great. Even if free unlimited flying is available only in few areas and of course in abyss, then gliding is available everywhere. Both mechanics makeing PvP in Aion a very unique expierience. The abilities they gives to players make the tactics totally different from what we get used to.

Sumarizing. If in Aion you where looking spiritual successor of Lineage 2 then this tile can dissapoint you. Luckily for all the others it’s quite good and solid mmo with rich and interesting world as well as fun PvP. Not without the flaws but exciting for sure. What’s more important incoming updates Aion Patch 1.9 and 2.0 hope to bring new content as well as fix some existing, which mean only one thing – it will be even better.

I have to admit that I wasn’t playing my second sub-class (tyrant) for a quite long time. There was few reasons of that thing. First and most important – i was trying to reach 78lev with my Fortune Seeker. Second, with last chronicle NCsoft nerfed Tyrants pretty bad, taking away their main totem, which was Bizon (it reuse time increased to 5min). After that i lost a heart to my tyrant and focused on FS.

But as you can see, last days i managed to get this 78lev on my FS so this is a best time to start playing Tyrant again. Of course, I do play in duo with my Shilien Elder (and her Greater Wolf)… at this point you can ask “and what happened”? Well it was like a blast, i got shocked – Tyrant with SE and wolf are ultimate duo (or trio maybe?). I’m not sure if patch notes mentioned any change to Ogre totem (which is now our main skill) but i think it recived pretty nice boost. But it’s not about Ogre totem which is nothing special itself. The difference is… new SE skill called Stigma. This “thing” causing target to recive 50% more melee damage and last 30sec.! If you take it with VR, natural hight DPS of Tyrant and Greater Wolf reasults are trully amazing – mobs are vanishing in matter of seconds. Seriously you have to see thins on your own eyes.

There is one upside tho… if you are using VR there is no damn chance to get below 30% of your HP to use Zeal or/and Bizon. I don’t know how do you feel about that, buy I myself can live with that

In last weekend for a first time we had a chance to test how the Territory Wars looks like. You may ask “what’s it at all”? Well, NCsoft gave us another sige-like event in which we can fight not only for one castle/fortress but over whole territory/zone (like Oren or Giran for example). In every castle, there is a flag of current zone – every clan which signed for territory war can try to capture that flag, take it to siege camp (made by clan leader) and crest there. What’s most interesting we are not limited to one area only and what’s more – state of territory wars is “saved” to next one (which mean – if one castle take control over few others territories those flags gonna be in their castle when another war launch).

OK, everything is cool but what is the event where there is no prize! And here is the coolest thing about Territory Wars. While the event last you party recives orders / tasks to acomplish (like “kill enemy buffers”) and for each completed task your team reacive some points. At the end you are able to spend those point to purchase few different things… and belts in specific. To each belt you can attach a pin (which increase one total weight) or pouch (which increase inventory slots). Both pins and pouchces are in all grades and rarity (low, normal, top).

In general, Territory Wars are pretty cool – way much more intensive then regular sieges, with non-stop battle and possibility to take every territory.  Unfortunetly nothing is perfect, so does the Territory Wars are. Distance between castle and camp is so small, so with a force you are able to take every single territory flag for one clan. Also, when you kill someone not signed for specific area (who is not in war with you) you… going red (at some point i had almost heart attack when my dwarf went red with 8 PK points just in front of huge enemy lines). Anyway i enjoyed whole event pretty much

Last days i’m playing my Fortune Seeken more actively. No matter if I have any party or not, if I play couple of hours or only 1-2 buffrounds. Slowly but methodicaly I’m heading to 78 level. Even if last 3% was really long – of course our enemies started to jump up out of the bushes, I finally made it, and today my fat dwarven ass hitted 78 level.
And it’s OK that i had SP only for 1/3 of my skills

Last day i put my hands on Naga Storm dagger recipe. I took it with idea of reselling for profit, but as you can imagine my small dwarven brain was tempted by other idea. Did you ever heard those voices? “Let’s give a try!”, “We gonna be rich” and so on, etc.
Well, normally i would craft it without thinking, but last days i’m quite short on money. So I prefer to use them for Elemental Stones since i lack some element in my second weapon and armour. And then i though… “man my TH gonna rock with such weapon”. And this in fact made my final decision.

I was looking for main parts on the market, but it’s not easy thing to find those. Thanks god, I found 4 pieces which allowed me to setup shop and to my suprise i bought in 1 night all i wanted. I thought i have everything i need and then 2 difficulties went up. I lack 1200 charcoal and bloody crafter with Naga recipe. First issue was solved thanks to KRWAWYMARKUS (thanks mate!). The second one i found almost when I gaved up. Crafter was a guy called Bohemond and damn he was pricing his services pretty high, but the hell he sucessfully made my dagger. Yay lucky me!