AI: Just Another Tequila Sunrise

So far this year, weekends have been for two things: drinking and playing Aion.  Sure, I've squeezed in my WoW daily heroic, but since all my raiding is done during the week, weekends are catch-up time in the world of Atreia.  Of course, NCSoft is helping their case with yet another double-experience weekend, and hints at more to come. 

All in all, the double experience has been a great idea for a young game.  Say what you want about the game and the company, but I think they've done a helluva job trying to compete in the World of MMOs (In which Blizz is both the Lich King and the Queen of the Dragons).  A lot of folks I know have left Aion for greener pastures, be they console games, single player RPGs, or just general disenchantment with the game type.  Thus, coupled with the excitement going on in WoW at the moment (And Icecrown IS exciting.  So are easy epix, even if you disagree with the design), I've written a lot less on Aion lately. 

I'd like to point out a few things to get us started today.  First, the botter problem has been handled.  The community said "Many Bots, Handle It" and NCSoft wielded a mighty ban-hammer.  It wasn't a perfect approach, it screwed some folks over I've heard, and it hasn't completely removed all bots.  However, I think anyone playing can agree that the atmosphere has gotten 100% better.  You still get the occasional spam and see the private store adds, but there is no longer the deluge when you first log in and I haven't filled up my block list in nigh-on two months now.  I mean, that used to be a weekly occurrence, so you have to give them credit for improvement.  Even WoW still isn't perfect after five years of western market experience, though obviously Blizzard is the old hat when it comes to this stuff, setting the bar quite high.

Speaking of WoW, for those expecting the leveling/gaming experience to be as smooth as WoW... You're right, it's not.  Nor do I expect it to be this year, or maybe even next year.  What I want to see is an effort on the part of the developer at improvement, and NCSoft has done this.  They do a pretty good job of listening and responding to community criticism, even if it's not with the optimal solution.  To be honest, I think they're learning some things.  I mean, I know they've been in the MMO market for a while, but I guess I believe each game is going to develop a pretty unique community with different needs and wants than other games.  What works in WoW may not work in Aion, which in turn may not work in Guild Wars or Star Trek Online.  Different strokes for different folks. 

Which brings me back to the double experience weekends.  What a great move.  I mean, it doesn't fix the bigger issues, but it certainly alleviates them.  NCSoft needs to keep adding quests and keep tweaking the baseline experience level, which they're doing (the experience has been tweaked a few times already).  It's a great "in the mean time" move.  Not only does it help with the leveling, but, in my experience, it has really brought players together.  Everyone and their brother is getting on on the double exp weekends and looking to run stuff.  It's a lot easier to get groups and people are a lot more willing to do anything because, hey, it's all exp.  Double exp.  I think it's really been fun to be a part of.

At the end of the day though, I'm not going to sit here and preach that this game is for everyone.  In fact, if your sole gaming experience is WoW, Aion is probably not for you.  If, like us here at KeS, you enjoyed some time spent in FFXI, then you will probably like Aion.  Those are the only backgrounds I can write about.  The game is more grindy, the art is different, and the game play is familiar yet novel (whatever the heck that means).  It's not for everyone the way WoW is for everyone.  However, it is  for some people, and for those people I feel it does a very good job so far.  If NCSoft keeps working on it like they have been, I'm still excited to be a part of it and spend time in that world.  It's a lot of fun.

I guess I just wanted to say all of this because I see a lot of polarized opinions out there.  People either love it, or hate it.  It's hard to be in between.  Yet, I think that's where the healthy viewpoint is: in the middle.  It's good to keep an open mind and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  It's also good to respect other folks opinions and realize that different gamers prize different game qualities differently.  Wow, that's a lot of "differences".  Yet, isn't that what makes the gaming community great?  We have so many varied tastes and viewpoints, yet we can come together and converse in a common arena.  There are very few other hobbies that can claim so many people from so many different walks of life.

Take this weekend for instance.  We've made a friend who lives in Finland.  For whatever reason, she tends to be online at the same times we do (time changes be damned).  She's a blast to play with, has great English for a non-native, and is a stellar player.  What other hobby can I claim to have spent some time with a Finnish woman (In actual Finland) over the weekend?  To me, that's one of the coolest parts of this whole MMO thing.  It's like seeing the world without the cost and hassle of, you know, seeing it.  Not to take anything away from tourism, because I'd love to see a lot more of the world when I get time and money, but learning about different cultures is at least half the fun and it's something you can do adequately over vent.  It's not ideal, but it's better than never getting out of your own backyard.  Gaming, more than many other hobbies I can name, is probably doing more to bring folks together than we realize.  Maybe Blizzard and other developers should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.  I mean, it's been giving for some things that have made me scratch my head a lot harder, that's for sure.

While we're on the larger MMO topic, I wanted to like a good article by Spinks about Dealing with Unfairness in Games.  There are a lot of good points there and it's deeper topics like this that really can give us insight into how different people from different walks of life perceive things like "fairness".  To me, fairness only goes so far as the developers see it.  In other words, fairness is by design.  If the developers think it's fair to make my DK do as much DPS as my Warlock with half the gear, then apparently on some level it's fair.  I'm sure the design is analyzed to be fair, it just often doesn't work out that way under real conditions, and isn't that like life?  We'd like life to be fair, but when it comes to real conditions, sometimes it just isn't.  Are all men really created equal?  I think I could easily write whole articles supporting both a "yes" and "no" answer. 

The surface issue of rezzing in games that Spinks brings up is a good one as well, and something that I love about Aion: everyone has a battle-rez.  Basically, you just have to purchase the reagent that lets you do it, but then anyone can sneak a rez in.  In the framework of Aion, it works.  I'm not sure if such an approach would work in WoW though.  Still, it's nice to be able, as a DPS, to CC a rogue mob, rez the healer/tank, and avert a wipe on your own.   In WoW, I'm often helpless in the same situations.  Both game designs exemplify different standards of "fairness by design".  Where in WoW, it might be considered "unfair" if everyone was suddenly given a battle-rez (perhaps for good reason), in Aion it's the norm.

So where to end this sober rambling?  Ah yes, drinking and gaming, two excellent conduits for deep thinking and cross-cultural discussions.  Bartender, another round!
 

AI: Spiritmastering at 35

Aion had been taking a back seat, writing wise, since WoW introduced the last major patch. Game-time wise wasn't much different, but I was logging some good weekend hours to take advantage of the double exp offered. That promotion is over now, but I still am spending a lot of time in Atreia on the weekends.  Having hit 35 now, it seemed like a good time to update my Spiritmaster guide.  As usual, I start with a copy/paste and add or rewrite from there.  So here we go.


Stigmas
At 35, you will have 3 stigma slots open. Here's what I'm currently using:

• Ignite Aether I - Extremely useful, instant cast removal of three buffs.  Great for PvE (i.e. mobs that do the temporary stone skin thingy) and PvP (who isn't buffed out in the Abyss?)
• Absorb Vitality III - Hits for a good amount plus returns you health.  A great spell to have.
• Sigil of Silence I - This is great for finishing off both monsters and other players.  Being able to silence spellcasting for a bit is a great utility to have on top of removing buffs. 
  

Spell Usage
When attacking a PvE mob, I lead off by sending in my pet with an abilities or two (more on pets later). Then I put my dots up. From there, I move to nuking or utility spells. Your dots are Erosion and Chain of Earth. The nuke spells are Flame Bolt and Ice Chain.  Since Ice Chain and Chain of Earth share a cooldown,  you usually have to choose between the two.  Normally I lead off with Chain of Earth and then would utilize Ice Chain later in my rotation. 

The utility spells consist mainly of your stigmas, as listed above. You have acquire the ability to heal your pet, and summoned servants.  I like throw a pet heal if the pet needs it and immediately follow it with an Absorb Vitality, healing me for what I threw at the pet. This seems to work pretty well. Also, I like to use the combination of Summoning Alacrity (a skill you gain that makes summons instant cast) and summon one of my servants (depends on pet choice).  I tend to get a servant set up before I move to nuking.  Finally, applying things like Stone Skin or having the pet Re-taunt the mob if I'm using it as a tank also fall under the utility banner.

So for a PvE mob, my thinking goes basically like this:

1. Send in my pet.
   
2. Dots! And a Servant if Alacrity is up.
   
3. Check if any of my utility is needed.
   
4. Deal Damage with nukes and pet abilities.
   

During my damage dealing, I'll always keep an eye on what's going on to be ready if my utility is needed (i.e. dispelling that annoying stone skin buff on mobs).  I usually only use a servant if alacrity is up, and generally don't refresh it because it seems like stuff dies to quickly for two rounds to fully complete. 

It seems that Spiritmasters can really eat through the mana, so I try to be conservative when running instances and such.  The addition of Spirit Absorption to our ability pool really helps with this though, and if you use that, then a pet heal, then absorb vitality... it's almost like free mana.  Almost.

For Crowd Control abilities, it's important to note that we have both Root and Fear.  Root is great in PvE as long as the mob isn't ranged.  We're not the CC masters that Sorcerers are, but a well placed root can help things out quite a bit.  Fear is okay in a PvE when you have tons of room (where things won't aggro), but it's great in a PvP situation since it allows you to go to town on an otherwise controlled individual.

Pet Choice
By the time you hit 35, you should definitely have each pet (hopefully higher ranks too). A couple of the pets are drop dependant, but if you haven't gotten the drop for at least rank one of each pet, you should probably pick it up at the auction house. This will give you four spirits:

1. Fire Spirit - After getting rank 3 of this guy, I've been using him as my main tanking mob when duo'ing with Fuu, my assassin counterpart. He has a strong taunt and pretty decent survivability. At this point, he's probably out 80% of the time.  Until I get other rank 3's, he'll be my go-to spirit.
   
2. Wind Spirit - After getting rank 2 of this pet, he's was main consideration for straight DPS. His survivability and taunt are weak, so don't use him as a tank. He can put out some good damage though, so in a group environment where I'm with a tank and a healer, I'll use this guy if I don't feel like going Fire with the higher rank. I probably pull this guy out 15% of the time, leaving the other 5% split between my last two pets.
   
3. Earth Spirit - This spirit is stuck at rank 2 and for a while he was my main tanking consideration. His shield ability is pretty handy, giving him above average survivability, however his taunt isn't as strong as the Fire Spirit's. Thus, the only reason I might use him right now is in a group that lacks adequate CC. He might be able to output decent DPS while allowing a temporary tanking of a renegade mob. I haven't really had reason to use him yet. Once I get rank three, I may pull him out to tank a bit just for kicks.
   
4. Water Spirit - I've still haven't gotten rank 2 of this spirit yet, and it's too expensive for me to justify right now. He happens to be our lone ranged pet and is drop dependent. I tended to use this guy in large scale PvP encounters, but haven't really been in one for a while now. It's nice to have him sit back and pop damage on melee classes, goading them into getting close enough for a Templar to yank or for someone to root. Also, the ranged nature can keep him off of a player's radar longer than a pet that's gnawing on said player's leg. Plus, in PvP, taunting doesn't matter, so the weak taunt doesn't matter, though he is a bit of a glass cannon if he gets focused on.

That's all the pets I've picked up at this point in time. Higher ranked pets are looming on my horizon, but I'll probably still pull the spirits out in the same situations. The percentage of usage probably reflects my percentage of type of gameplay more than anything, but it should give you a small idea of how often I'm using certain pets. It was great when they made our spirits able to fly too, and spirit speed is definitely a consideration when trolling the abyss.  I don't want to have to re-summon all the time, so I usually run with the wind spirit since he can keep up the best.

The pet abilities I mentioned using above vary based on the pet you're using. Basically though, I try to use the Thunderclaw as a "pet attack" in my rotation above. The set up abilities include the two that are on longer cooldowns (one's a buff and the other is a debuff) and the taunt. I obviously only use the taunt when I'm using my pet to tank, and in that case it's often what I lead off with. Then, I'll only reapply when I see the mob running at me, leading to a little bit of a ping-pong effect. The other abilities I just try use when they are off cooldown, being sure to save the increased drop-rate ability for boss fights when applicable.

A small side note: I choose which servant to use based on which pet I used. Most of your pets weaken your target to a specific school of magic that is aligned them. Thus, my theory is that it helps to use the same servant, since you'll get more bang for your buck. It's hard to really test any of these theories since I don't have a damage meter like I do in WoW, but it seems to make sense from reading the tool tips.

PvP Encounters
For small scale encounters, Dots are my best friend. I try to Chain of Earth anything right away and then hopefully get a stun out of the chain. If that happens, I might throw in a nuke, depending on the situation. If not, Erosion is quick on the heals of CoE. At this point, I usually check to see how much my initial salvo hurt them for. By that, I can usually judge how much of a chance I have. At this crucial point, it's fight or flight. Either way I probably have to keep the player away from me, but if I'm doing zippo damage, I'll probably just run for it, saving my root spell for if they catch up to me.

If I'm hitting them for a good chunk, I might try to get some distance and pull out one of my servants to bother the player. Other than that, it's time for fancy evasion and keeping those dots refreshed. If I get enough space, I'll try to throw in a fire chain. This strategy has served me well, keeping me alive most of the time, if not always victorious.

For a large scale encounter, the difference is that you're going to have to really pay attention to your range. The LAST thing you want to do is get yanked into the fray by some over-eager Templar. Thus, I usually hang back, looking for the opportunity to slap a dot on someone. Most players seem to dance back and forth, so I find it advantageous to focus on one person and nail them every time they get too close, leading off with my CoE to slow them. Sometimes, this delays enough that our Templar will yank them and then they're in bad shape.

A final tactic I mentioned a bit earlier is to send you pet in to annoy a player. For melee, it's particularly effective if you use your water spirit. Some players see a spirit and run out to kill it, forgetting that they've just brought themselves within range of our Templar. It's annoying as a melee to have to sit there and let someone's puny water spirit take pot shots at you. Also, just the general harassment effect of it gives me pleasure, even if it doesn't really kill anyone. Getting in their heads can sometimes goad a player into making a tactical error.

To be honest though, I'm still learning a lot about this part of the game. I've been involved in a lot of PvE, a moderate amount of small scale PvP, and just a handful of large scale PvP encounters. I really enjoy the large scale stuff, but it just doesn't always happen and even then frame rates can be iffy (and I'm on a good machine!).  I'm not sure what happened, because the frame rates I get in large scale stuff tends to vary with each patch.  Previous patches I'd been easily able to join in huge battles and not have massive lag, but right now I can't without getting abysmal (ha, pun) frame rates.  I'm hoping they continue to work with the game engine to find a solid solution, but, for right now, there are plenty of other things to do.

Wrap Up
So here's hoping that some of this experience finds other Spiritmasters out there and is of use. If you're a spiritmaster, please leave me your thoughts. Have you found some of these tactics useful? Do you know of ones I didn't mention. With such a young game, class specific help seems hard to find, but I'd like to at least relate what I've learned through experience and research here.

A Few Random Links and Thoughts

Major patches certainly bring out the bloggers. There is always a ton to cover, and we always want to try and cover it all. And when our own fingers are bleeding and our brains are mush, we resort to links! Yaaaaay link day!

So, yeah, today is gonna be a quick, random post.

First off, Abigore (not to be confused with his namesake priest that resides among us here) over at Shadow Word: Blog has updated his Demonology guide.  I've been using his Meta/Ruin spec since dual specs were first introduced.  I have to confess that I love it.  His guide has done a wonderful job of preparing me to play like a veteran of the spec, and I can put up some very good numbers with it.  I'm not leaving affliction as my main raiding spec any time soon, but for those easy heroics we're all OP'ing our way through right now, affliction isn't the best spec: stuff dies too fast!  This is where a demo off-spec really shines, and if you follow Abi's advice, you'll be throwing our insane 20k soul fire crits and feeling like an AoE god.  Good stuff.

Second, my afflicted inspiration (the original warlockery as far my life in the blogosphere is concerned), Nibuca, has gotten some time with simulationcraft to come up with her 3.3 pawn numbers.  I shall be tweaking mine shortly to match.  Numbers are always dependent on gear level, and Nibs, as usual, appears to be right around the same gear level I am.  If you are having problems spending your fel-loads of emblems, maybe Pawn can help you out... but only if you feed in the right numbers.  Garbage in, garbage out, and all that jazz.

Finally, less of a link and more of a picture, we have this from the land of Atreia:

Yes, that is me flying, and next to me... my pet!  Spiritmasters rejoice!  Christmas has come early for us; our pets can finally fly!  They're still slow, but at least you can use 'em in an aerial battle.  Heck, I even got to test this out, as some jerk was sitting and ganking lowbies right outside of Primium Fortress.  I had gone out just to test the pet functionality and they had mistaken me for a low level toon.  One dead pidgeon later and lesson learned.  Also, pet tested, pet approved: Nom!

Also, if you haven't heard, Aion is having double experience weekends from now until the end of the year.  Log in, kill stuff, get 2x experience.  Merry Christmas.  I haven't been able to take advantage as my weekends have been pretty busy.  Then I haven't been playing Aion during the week because I've been experiencing Icecrown and trying to get my Frost emblems by religiously running the dailies.  As stuff starts to settle down, I'll get back to leveling in Atreia.

There is also a recruit a friend program going on right now where you can hook a friend up with a free trial.  Anyone looking to try Aion for free?  All you need is an email address and some free time.  Which, if you're chain running heroics like every other WoW player, you probably don't have.  We saw someone in all greens and full tier 9 yesterday.  It was sort of humorous.

That's all for today.  The next few days will probably be short posts and maybe even not happen as I get geared up for our holiday travel.  I still have a few last minute gifts to get too!  Yes, bad bad warlock.  :-)

OH!  I almost forgot.  Check out the anniversary quiz/post/awesomeness over at S&S.  There are a few KeS questions over there!  I know one for sure is in my About Us page, as awful and incomplete as it still stands.  Grats to S&S on their blogiversary: job well done!  Here's to many more posts to come!

AI: Trailer Thoughts

Today's going to be a short Aionic post.  First of all, there's a new trailer out on YouTube here.  Totally worth a watch, even if just for the fun of the cinematic. Some things to remember: It's a trailer that advertises the ideas that NCSoft has for the direction of the game.  We've seen similar things with WoW and other games.  It doesn't mean it'll all come to fruition.  However, a lot of the stuff is pretty neat looking and if just one or two ideas make it to the game, they'd be good adds.  Also, recall that good MMOs take a lot of time to create.  WoW was fraught with problems upon its inception, and now it's arguably one of the most polished and deep games on the market (duh).  That didn't happen over night.  In fact, I would say they're still learning new things today and we're 5 years into the game.

In any case, Fuu and I are still enjoying our time in-game.  I've stated before that we're moving very slowly due to WoW, Assassin's Creed 2, Thanksgiving, and various other important things that get in the way.  I don't think slow is a bad thing.  We still play at least once a week and, when we do, it's fun.  Being "behind" is sort of a double edged blade.  On one hand, you're not on that "cusp" of newness where everyone hasn't been there before.  On the other hand, everywhere you go is populated and active.  In fact, I'm not sure that we're all that far behind a vast majority of the game's populace.  I wonder if where you're at with respect to everyone else has an impact on your in-game satisfaction.  Maybe patience pays off in the MMO world?   

Well, to wrap up this short update: a pic.  Fuu and I were trolling around the Abyss picking fights when we got the message that the Dredgion showed up and it scared the bejebus out of us.  Luckily it was all the way on the other side of the map, great visual though...

Only a Shadow of Death

Just Some Ramblings

For some odd reason, my place of employment observes veterans day today, so I'm at home catching up on blogs from this weekend, to be immediately followed by some bonus game time, and reviewing our first joint marital health care elections.  Is it bad that, as a gaming couple, we really want an addon to show us the + and - of each plan when we mouse of there where they've been lying on the desks for the last month?  Seriously, WTB pawn for RL.

Insurance sucks.  Apologies to any of you out there in the biz.  Just the fact of having to pay money in case something happens strikes me as somehow wrong.  I mean, I know it's great and all when you need it, and can be totally worth it.  It just bugs me.  There's gotta be a better system.  You know, like perhaps making all this crap affordable in the first place?  Then again, that's a whole 'nother bag of shards that I'm no where near quailified or smart enough to open.  (This is one of those complaints I hate: where you just want to complain but have aboslutely no suggestions on how to make it better.  /slapsself).

Okay, real blog is real boring.  On to moderately less boring things.

I'm going to be short today so as to return to my plethora of reading and personal enjoyment.  I wanted to put up two pictures for your enjoyment.  First off, we have my personal favorite from Raid for the Cure this weekend, hosted by the Sidhe Devils.  Great time, fun for all, which was the focus.  Got to see some of my favorite bloggers, and Jess.  (Ha ha, joking Jess, you know you're my fave).  Got to run around in pink.  Good stuff.  Several others (who I linked above, but also I know I'm probably missing quite a few so feel free to leave me some comment love and I'll hit you back with a link) have already done lengthy screenshot posts about the subject, so I won't wall-o-pic spam you... just this one. 

Pink'd

You can even see Jess struggling to catch up behind me on her short wittle dwarf legs.  This was also well before we joined up with the Horde contingent, where our numbers swelled considerably.  Check out those links if you want more pics, plus BBB has a linked a rather stellar list of participants in his article.  Yep, we're on there, which is kind of neat.  It's like being on the guest list to a really sexy party.  Or something.

Also, small side note tip to any dual wielders out there: make sure you put your highest damage slow weapon in your main hand.  Yeah, seems obvious (because you'll get the best numbers on your special attacks), but like, the fail DK in me had a brain fart.  Yes, this has nothing to do with anything, just wanted to write something useful.

My final picture is from the world of Atreia (Aion).  One of the things people have complained about is the pervasiveness of bots in the game.  Fuu and I just hit 31 (well she's a bar away) this weekend, and, really, up until now we hadn't a lot of bots.  Or rather, the bots we had seen haven't really bugged us.  We're not the type to go around looking at bots and then freaking out cuz they're like, doing things.  However, in the early Beluslan area, the bots were really prohibitive to questing.  They were everywhere.  I exhausted my auto-reports in like 5 minutes.

Then, just for grins, Fuu and I single a few out and chased them around for a while, stealing their kills or gathering nodes and just generally talking trash in /say.  Why? I don't know, it feels really fun for us to talk trash to a brainless bot.  We're weird like that.

And as we were doing this, we figured out why there were so many in this area.  You see, there was a weather glitch, whereby clouds are enticed to release bots instead of rain.  It was raining bots! (Sung to the tune of "It's raining men", which just makes it funnier, IMNO.  The N is for "nerdy").  Okay, the real story is we found this bot that had gotten stuck, and for some odd reason it made them drop from the sky every few seconds.  We, of course, found this hilarious, so I caught a screenie.

Halleluja!

Fuu and I aren't really all the upset.  I mean we turned a frown upside down by being ridiculous, but I can totally see where people are coming from.  The whole bot presence in the area was ludicrous.  They even had a bot guild.  WTF is that?  Can I just report a whole fake guild?  I'm debating about finding some Elyos, opening a store to chat with them, and leading them to the promised land of bots for a culling.  As much as I dislike the pidgeons, it might have to happen.

Ruffled Feathers

A soft, white light lights up my feathers, startling me out of the trance-like state I'd settled into. The color plays through the reddish feathers that encase my blue skin, sending strange patterns across the smooth canvas. What had I been doing?

Memories of the last few days come flooding back in a hailstorm of blood and battle cries. I sit perched atop an archway outside of Primium Fortress, the main Asmodian stronghold in the Abyss. Fighting had been intense the last couple of days, and I had laid down to rest after a particularly rough battle, folding my soft wings around my battle-hardened body and falling quickly asleep atop high atop the fortress.

Standing up, stiffness swels through my body, loosing a small groan from my full, orange lips. In an effort to limber up, I unfold my impressive wings, my emerald eyes sliding shut in contentment at the feeling of my wide wingspan stretching out behind me. I was still getting used to this set of wings. Until recently, wing modification had been a foreign concept to me; I had been using the same set I'd ascended with.  Recent instruction had informed me of the modifications available to Daevas of a certain prowress.  The strength of my new wings still baffled me as I recalled my old ones.  It was easy to understand the draw for new Daevas to modify their wings.  The felt so good.  I was glad I'd taken avantage of the opportunity to improve my feathers.

Furling my wings back up behind me, I sigh as they disappeared from view, leaving me feeling rather grounded.  The surrounding emptiness calls to me: fly, and soon enough I'll acquiesce.  I carefully straighten my clothes, brushing the abyss dust off of my skirt tails.  My shirt clings tightly to my body, I note appreciatively.  The piece had just recently been given to me by the vendors here in Reshanta, courtesy of my efforts in support of the Asmodian cause.  I absolutely loved the new threads.  Not only were the colors pretty and vibrant, but the shirt appeared to be somehow tied into my personal flow of aether, resulting in a curious effect when I began to channel the energy in battle. 

Brushing one of my orange locks behind my ear, I start to pull aether from the air around me.  Similar to stretching out my wings, it is always nice to get a little aether flowing after to liven you up.  What a rush!  I quickly pull out my orb as the aether lights up my body.  Who would have ever thought that death could look this good.

Thoughts of my recent expeditions and battles bring a smile to my face as images of fallen white feathers rain around me.  Pigeons were so soft.  They didn't have the claws to face us in battle, choosing instead to lurk around and prey on the younger, more inexperienced Daevas.  Well, they'd better start watching their hairless backs, because I'm becoming a force to be reckoned with.  I fight fire with fire... and ice, and earth, and whatever other elements I feel like conjuring up to do my bidding. 

Now that my blood is flowing, I look around for Awrath, my partner in crime.  It is hunting time again.  A light gust caresses my smooth skin as a bundle of burgundy feathers tumbles to a stop beside me.  Awrath totters precariously on the edge of the archway for a moment before regaining her balance and smoothing out her short leather skirt.  She's still getting used to flying and the challenges of Daevahood.  Where the wind had embraced me as merely another breeze, Awrath still had a tendency to fight it.  I'm not saying she isn't also an impressive Daeva, because she certainly is.  Her stealth has taken many an Elyos warrior by surprise, leaving them helpless beneath the barrage of her twin blades and sending bloody feathers through the air like some sort of morbid pillow fight.  She's just a bit awkward in the air still.

With a nod, our wings flare out beside us as we take to the sky, the chaos of the Abyss whirling around us.  Word was spreading that an Elysian strike force had assembled near Sulfur fortress and was preparing to strike.  Our wings flap furiously as we hasten to aid in it's defence.  As we approach, we note that the attack has yet to begin even though a sizeable flock of pigeons sit eagerly just outside the range of the fortress archers, obviously preparing for an assault.

We quickly check in with the fortress defence and stop by the chamber in the heart of the fortress to gaze in awe at the last line of defense.  What an impressive Daeva, but what's more, our wings are starting to look more like his.  Perhaps some day we'll be as powerful.

Shouts from above indicate that the bleached bastards have begun their assault.  I glance over only in time to see Awrath's backside as she sprints up the ramp and out of the chamber, pulling her bow out on the way.  Gathering in aether, I too prepare myself for battle, releasing my orb from it's perch on my arm and causing the air around me to crackle with energy.  Those pigeons are going to pay for the Asmodian blood they've spilled.  It is on.

AI: Veteran Rewards Program

Work is really killing me right now. It's like, I'm either really bored or totally over stressed. I can never just have a consistent stream of work; it's always waves. LF New Job?

In any case, I wanted to put something up that other Aionites might find helpful. Aion Life is a pretty nice resource site that I follow on my reader because they have some good articles from time to time in addition to gobs of information. They've just recently put up a gathering database and published a nice article about the various dyes available in the game.

However, the particular item I wanted to highlight can be found here.

Like me, perhaps you've heard mention of this "Veteran Rewards Program" that NC Soft has initiated for Aion. Now, I've never really heard of rewarding long time players in an MMO except for perhaps when WoW gives us a random vanity pet on their anniversary. Still, this doesn't really account for personal time played. I have to say, I'm rather fond of the idea.

The linked article really breaks it down and lays it out well, so I won't completely rehash it, but in case the link doesn't work for you, here's the skinny. Basically, every month that you have an active account on Aion will find you eligible for certain rewards. These rewards are redeemed in exactly the same way that the rewards from the Collector's Edition were redeemed. Your eligibility will show up on your account on NC Soft's website after you've reached the required amount of active time. So, simply log into your account, check if you have items available, then apply them to each of your characters (you can apply them the same way you could the CE items).

All in all, it's a pretty neat and simple system. You're paying a monthly fee and you're getting a nice little bonus for doing so. It's nothing big. Most of the rewards are self-rez stones and/or lodas (exp) amulets. However, a few of the months are tagged for neater things like the level 40 wings or a cube expansion ticket. Now, NC Soft reserves the right to change or remove this practice at any time, but they're going to at least give it a try.

It's good because the items are useful without being game-breaking, IMO. That is, a few extra self-rezzes or an exp boost is nice, but it hardly gives you an unfair advantage from where I'm sitting. And who doesn't like to be rewarded for being a loyal customer (even if true loyalty has really yet to be tested)?

Just another clever trick that NC Soft is pulling out of their sleeve to make Aion attractive. Not saying it's a reason to play or not play, as all MMOs are not for everyone (even WoW), but it certainly doesn't hurt. Also, you can kind of think of it this way: if you've stuck with a game for a while, you've probably put up with some shit along the way. This is a way to sort of pay you back for putting up with it. Some may say that sounds bad, but in any MMO (even WoW), there is a certain amount of shit to put up with. Some more than others, but all have it. And, again, it's just nice to get freebies.

AI: Spiritmaster Guide at 25

Last time we spoke about Spiritmastering, I had just hit 16. As of right now, I'm halfway to 27. Ten levels make quite a difference.

I suppose the biggest change is that I've now been attuned to the Abyss. I mentioned it a few days ago, but getting your access to the major PvP area of the game is big enough that it sort of changes your playstyle. This is NOT a purely PvE game. Thus, unlike my warlocking, spiritmastering takes a certain degree of flexibility. Still, it doesn't stop me from doing a little research and trying to figure out how best to play my class. So, today, I'm going to try to break down a few of the things I've learned from both research and in-game experience.

Spell Usage
Somewhere along the line you pick up the Chains of Earth dot to compliment your Erosion. This instant cast spell has basically replaced my ice chaining. You even get the second spell of the chain a bit later which causes the same knockback/stun as Ice Chain. In fact, this combo has really become my primary spell consideration. Perhaps it's a reflection of my warlock origins, but I like to get my DoTs up right away.

When attacking a PvE mob, I lead off by setting my pet up with a few of its abilities (more on pets later). Then I put my dots up. From there, I move to nuking or maintenance spells. The nuke spells are pretty much your Fire chain and summoning your "servants" (the orbs of death as I like to call them). Those abilities are pure damage, and so I usually go through a small rotation at this point: Apply Dots, Summon Servant, Fire Chain, Pet Attack... rinse repeat until death. I may leave out a step of the rotation, depending on the speed of death. I also may jump around in that rotation as the situation dictates. Like I said, this game requires flexibility.

The maintenance spells consist mainly of the first stigma you get: Absorb Vitality. This is a very warlocky spell that allows you to do magical damage and then return part of it has health. You also acquire the ability to heal your pet. Thus, I'll throw a pet heal if the pet needs it and immediately follow it with an Absorb Vitality, healing me for what I threw at the pet. This seems to work pretty well. Also, in my maintenance frame of mind is applying things like Stone Skin or having the pet Re-taunt the mob if I'm using it as a tank.

So for a PvE mob, my thinking goes basically like this:

1. Set up my pet.
2. Dots!
3. Do I need maintenance spells right now?
4. Deal Damage.

After each "rotation" of damage dealing spells, I'll ask the maintenance question again (or jump to it if things start going poorly). That's sort of how it works for me.

Pet Choice
By the time you hit 25, you should probably have each pet. A couple of the pets are drop dependant, but if you haven't gotten the drop for at least rank one of each pet, you should probably pick it up at the auction house. This will give you four spirits:

1. Fire Spirit - After getting rank 2 of this guy, I've been using him as my main tanking mob when duo'ing with Fuu, my assassin counterpart. He has a strong taunt and pretty decent survivability. At this point, he's probably out 75% of the time.
2. Wind Spirit - After getting rank 2 of this pet, he's my main consideration for straight DPS. His survivability and taunt are weak, so don't use him as a tank. He can put out some good damage though, so in a group environment where I'm with a tank and a healer, I'll use this guy. I probably pull this guy out 20% of the time, leaving the other 5% split between my last two pets.
   
3. Earth Spirit - I've not gotten to rank 2 of this spirit yet, but for a while he was my main tanking consideration. His shield ability is pretty handy, giving him above average survivability, however his taunt isn't as strong as the Fire Spirit's. Thus, the only reason I might use him right now is in a group that lacks adequate CC. He might be able to output decent DPS while allowing a temporary tanking of a renegade mob. I haven't really had reason to use him yet. Once I get rank two, I may pull him out to tank a bit just for kicks.
   
4. Water Spirit - I've also not gotten rank 2 of this spirit yet. He happens to be our lone ranged pet and is drop dependant, but it's definitely worth picking up. I tend to use this guy in large scale PvP encounters. It's nice to have him sit back and pop damage on melee classes, goading them into getting close enough for a Templar to yank or for someone to root. Also, the ranged nature can keep him off of a player's radar longer than a pet that's gnawing on said player's leg. Plus, in PvP, taunting doesn't matter, so the weak taunt doesn't matter, though he is a bit of a glass cannon if he gets focused on.

That's all the pets I've picked up at this point in time. Rank 2 of the Water and Earth pets are looming on my horizon, but I'll probably still pull the spirits out in the same situations. The percentage of usage probably reflects my percentage of type of gameplay more than anything, but it should give you a small idea of how often I'm using certain pets. Sadly, since our spirits can't fly yet, I don't really use one all that much in random Abyss encounters. Things just happen too quickly to make summoning a pet worthwhile.

The pet abilities I mentioned using above vary based on the pet you're using. Basically though, I try to use the Thunderclaw as a "pet attack" in my rotation above. The set up abilities include the two that are on longer cooldowns and the taunt. I obviously only use the taunt when I'm using my pet to tank, and in that case it's often what I lead off with. Then, I'll only reapply when I see the mob running at me, leading to a little bit of a ping-pong effect. The other abilities I just try use when they are off cooldown.

A small side note: I choose which servant to use based on which pet I used. Most of your pets weaken your target to a specific school of magic that is aligned with what they are. Thus, my theory is that it helps to use the same servant, since you'll get more bang for your buck. It's hard to really test any of these theories since I don't have a damage meter like I do in wow, but it seems to make sense from reading the tool tips.

PvP Encounters
For small scale encounters, Dots are my best friend. I try to Chain of Earth anything right away and then hopefully get a stun out of the chain. If that happens, I might throw in a nuke, depending on the situation. If not, Erosion is quick on the heals of CoE. At this point, I usually check to see how much my initial salvo hurt them for. By that, I can usually judge how much of a chance I have. At this crucial point, it's fight or flight. Either way I probably have to keep the player away from me, but if I'm doing zippo damage, I'll probably just run for it, saving my root spell for if they catch up to me.

If I'm hitting them for a good chunk, I might try to get some distance and pull out one of my servants to bother the player. Other than that, it's time for fancy evasion and keeping those dots refresh. If I get enough space, I'll try to throw in a fire chain. This strategy has served me well, keeping me alive most of the time, if not always victorious.

For a large scale encounter, the difference is that you're going to have to really pay attention to your range. The LAST thing you want to do is get yanked into the fray by some over-eager Templar. Thus, I usually hang back, looking for the opportunity to slap a dot on someone. Most players seem to dance back and forth, so I find it advantageous to focus on one person and nail them every time they get too close, leading off with my CoE to slow them. Sometimes, this delays enough that our Templar will yank them and then they're in bad shape.

Another little tactic I like to use is what I call dive bombing. You see, it seems that, as gamers, we're still trying to get used to the fact that flight is an integral part of this game at all times. Most of us are used to looking at battles in 2D, so we forget to look above us. So sometimes you can pop your wings and just fly down like you're buzzing the towers in Top Gun, dropping instant cast dots as you go. Again, you have to be careful you don't get yanked, but if you're quick about it, most players won't even know what hit 'em.

A final tactic I mentioned a bit earlier is to send you pet in to annoy a player. For melee, it's particularly effective if you use your water spirit. Some players see a spirit and run out to kill it, forgetting that they've just brought themselves within range of our Templar. It's REALLY annoying as a melee to have to sit there and let someones puny water spirit take pot shots at you. Also, just the general harassment effect of it gives me pleasure, even if it doesn't really kill anyone. Getting in their heads can sometimes goad a player into making a tactical error.

To be honest though, I'm still learning a lot about this part of the game. I've been involved in a lot of PvE, a moderate amount of small scale PvP, and just a handful of large scale PvP encounters. I really enjoy the large scale stuff, but it just doesn't always happen. I'm happy to say that, while being involved in a 100+ vs 100+ siege of a fortress, the game held up and remained playable. In fact, I had to adjust some of my display settings so I could see people because other wise it was just a mob of names and winged bodies, NOT because of slow game play. There was a bit of lag (especially when we were all assaulting the gate), but it was never unplayable.

So here's hoping that some of this experience finds other Spiritmasters out there and is of use. If you're a spiritmaster, please leave me your thoughts. Have you found some of these tactics useful? Do you know of ones I didn't mention. With such a young game, class specific help seems hard to find, but I'd like to at least relate what I've learned through experience and research here and hopefully it'll be somewhat useful.

The Leveling Grind and Why We try to Rush it

May 6th 2008

A couple sat on their big comfy couches next to one another with their laptops spread across their laps in eager anticipation. Feet reclined and ready for anything. These two adventurers have just installed one of the most talked about MMORPGs in the world.

They are about to enter... The TWILIGHT ZONE! du du du du!

Ummm no, actually I was talking about the game we all know & love (well, love could also be ad libbed for any number of words here "Hate" "Despise" "Makes me want to punch a puppy""Throw someone onto a bed of sporks" you get the idea)

They are about to enter... The World of Warcraft!

Loading screens were up, both were nervous about what character to choose. They know that they want to go Alliance on Lothar because of a friend, but those are the only expectations given at the moment. Should they roll Night Elfs for their long ears & bouncy nature? Dwarves for their stout stature and drinking problems? How 'bout a Gnome for their... nah, there's no good reason for that race. Ok, how about Humans! Bingo.

Now, what about classes?

The boy always likes the pew pew of it all and something sort of ummm, evil?

A Human Warlock! Perfect!

The girl likes to be helpful. Her previous toon on FFXI was a healer but she wanted something different. She enjoyed the flexibility of healing, DPS, & tanking all rolled into one. That leaves a Druid or a Paladin. She's played a paladin before and really enjoyed it.

A Human Paladin! Perfect!

These two wide-eyed adventurers watch the intro scene and enter Elwyn Forest not quite knowing what would happen. Their friend invited them into his guild to meet the people he talked about so much. Generations was his home and wanted to welcome them into this warm & inviting place.

Generations wasn't a hardcore guild nor really ever raided very much but when they did, the Guild Chat would light up like a Christmas Tree with cheers & excitement of dropping their first Boss or someone finally getting that epic to drop. The adventurers felt so far off from ever participating with these mighty fighters. 70 levels just seems so forever away.

"Ding"s were excitedly written in the Guild Chat box. Anyone who was on, would cheer with excitement and shock at how fast they were appearing. Some felt that they were leveling at a Top Rate of Speed and it was "Frightening".

Conquered lands lay in shambles behind these two admirable foes. The forest didn't even see it coming, nor did Westfall. Gear was quickly replaced from grey, to white, to green.

The two adventures felt that this was where they should be. They would try their best to get to the highest level to be with their friends. What a game!

September 20th 2009

A new MMO has just been launched onto the scene. These two adventurers are anxious to begin. The loading screens are up. What character to choose? Will they feel the way they did before?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the past few nights, something went wrong. I was angry. Was it my class? I ended up rolling something that I've never rolled before because I wanted to try something completely new. I rolled an Assassin (something similar to a Rogue in WoW). Did I just not like the play style? This game is awesome, why can't I enjoy something new and challenging?

Then I realized, I had been cursed. (Not by Fulguralis if that's what you're thinking). I was cursed by another game.

The leveling process in the World of Warcraft forces you to believe that the leveling process is just something in the way, some obstacle to block the road before end game. Blizzard is basically telling you that you have so many levels that will teach you your class before you hit level cap. Over time, they have made it easier and easier for the new player to enter the game, and fly past zones & levels and never really enjoy them. Yes, I know that some say that leveling is a major focus of the game. I would have to disagree with you. What can a level 25 anything do in the game? A few instances and if they feel up to it, a Warsong Gulch? WoW, that's cool :P

Let me tell you what a level 25 anything can do in Aion:
-Craft extremely useful items
-Level in many different zones and areas through out the world
-Fly
-Enter Rifts to other worlds/ enemy factions land
-Enter the Abyss and join in on Epic battles for Honor and experience

These are just to name a few.

I was so frustrated because I looked at my low number of 25 and felt we had such a long way to go to get to the awesome stuff. Low and behold, I already had the ability to enjoy them.

Now, is this shining WoW in a bad light?
Not necessarily. I believe that WoW has put a ton of focus on their development into their end game. So much so, that they want more players to experience it. During the Sunwell patch in TBC, the Devs felt that they had put so much work into that instance and so few got to actually experience & enjoy it, that they would change the expectations of their players in end game raiding in WotLK. With each additional patch comes easier leveling, smaller learning curves, and more experience with every zone.

The World of Warcraft is an endgame focused Raiding game. The journey to level cap is not the adventure but the beginning of Raiding. I believe that this attitude has followed its way over to Aion. I feel like I should be easily flying through levels so that I can enjoy the end game. The thing is, Aion isn't built that way. They want the leveling experience to be... an EXPERIENCE! So, comparing these two games is totally an Apples to Oranges kinda thing. There are a few things that they have in common but that's it. When people compare the games, they are setting one of the games to fail. I love both games equally for very different reasons and I will continue to play both with very different expectations.

As for readers out there struggling to let go of these comparisons, enjoy those levels because they wont come easily or quickly but there will be more than enough to keep you happy.

~Fuu /Awrath

AI: Finding Rifts In Aion

-Or- How to Find Rifts In Aion

A Rift!

I'm hoping that the title is generic enough that search engines will be able to find this article. No, I'm not trolling for traffic. This article really has its roots firmly grounded in a desire to help other players. For real! Here's the background.

In Aion, when you are at the awkward stage between levels 20 and 25, the only PvP action (at 25 you can get attuned to the Abyss) you can get is via rifting. For those of you who are not mildly seasoned Aionites (I mean, the game is new... so we're still all pretty noobish), rifting refers to a clever little mechanic in Aion whereby portals open to an equivalent locale in the lands of the opposite faction. More of the specifics about rifts in a moment, but the point here is that it dumps players into the opposing faction's zones. Fun times.

You also get "spy" quests where you need to do certain things in the other zones. These can be quite difficult to accomplish, as you are a hunted individual on the other side. Thus, it becomes necessary to try and educate one's self on how to find these rifts in order to give yourself multiple chances at completing spy quests. Enter the Internet. You see, we all have this amazing repository of information at our fingertips. All we need is a search engine and a keyboard and whoosh, we're off on a learning spree.

Problem is, searching for the string "Finding Rifts in Aion" didn't give me many usable results. Sure, there are plenty of sites that use the words "Aion" and "Rifts" in close enough proximity that I'll get a whole hell load of results, but none of them really explained what I needed to know. It was as if everyone had already figured it out and just took for granted I had as well (not really the case, but it always feels that way, doesn't it?). Thus, I found myself wading through forums and topics looking for the magic link that would dispel my ignorance.

And I found it: here. That link should take you to a nice little blog called the Flying Bishounen. The blog itself is a tripartite effort by the authors to illuminate three classes within Aion. This particular article was written by Zot, who "blows shit up" for a living in Aion. The sorcerer writes not about his mage archetype in this case, but about how to rift. Great article. Especially the part where he gives you a copy-paste section to go into your memo pad that yields click-able locations markers for each of the rift spawn points AND where they'll dump you out. Check it out. Love it.

So this is my effort to try and get that article out to more search engines. Their title, "Rifts and You" is good, but obviously not what I was expecting. I could get into the blogging theories surrounding titles and search engines, but it's not really all that interesting. Short story, generic titles search better, but sound... generic. I think every blogger tries to find the balance between the good and the bad in order to get their message out there without boring us all to death. That might make a fun blogger oriented shared topic, but is hardly the point of this particular article.

Point here: if you haven't already, check out this link if you're looking to understand rifting in Aion (it's the same one from above, don't freak out. It's worth a double linking). It's a short-and-to-the-point article containing all you need to know about rifts.

Now, having been sufficiently edumacated once again by the interwebs, I can quickly scout the "good" rift locations when they pop up and join in the laughter and ridicule directed at newbs in general chat who want the rift location spoon fed to them on a link. Yeah, cuz I'd do that. Right, I'm soooo uber. And we're all sooo seasoned. Like slow roasted ribs. Mmmm, ribs.

(Edit: Since Flying Bishounen has recently announced that they don't plan to continue with the game for now, I wanted to copy over the snippet that you'll need to put in your memo pad to locate the rifts.  This is in case the blog completely disappears, though for now it is still up.  So here's the nice little code stuffs:)

Elyos Eltnen->Morheim Rifts
Eltnen [pos:Entrance A <12>;210020000 183.269086357947 2829.47434292866 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit A;220020000 745.420675537359 1872.32548618219 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance B <20>;210020000 824.070087609512 2023.46683354193 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit B;220020000 1364.66325486182 1334.96622313204 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance C <35>;210020000 1655.10888610763 1858.26032540676 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit C;220020000 617.477993858751 209.070624360287 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance D <35>;210020000 1024.32040050063 61.0137672090112 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit D;220020000 1820.13920163767 1309.37768679632 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance E <45>;210020000 1459.8648310388 581.664580725907 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit E;220020000 1559.13613101331 2757.68884339816 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance F <50>;210020000 2210.80350438048 2644.24280350438 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit F;220020000 2613.38382804504 2235.68270214944 0.0 -1]
Eltnen [pos:Entrance G <50>;210020000 2180.76595744681 541.614518147685 0.0 -1] Morheim [pos:Exit G;220020000 2930.68167860798 879.490276356192 0.0 -1]

Elyos Heiron->Beluslan Rifts
Heiron [pos:Entrance A <24>;210040000 2662.01160005043 434.266044634977 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit A;220040000 126.507629704985 1061.38860630722 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance B <36>;210040000 1300.266548985 1437.9225822721 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit B;220040000 1067.50457782299 313.677517802645 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance C <48>;210040000 1103.57004160888 656.180052956752 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit C;220040000 1036.98575788403 2073.59613428281 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance D <48>;210040000 649.655024587063 1821.22859664607 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit D;220040000 2125.49033570702 456.098677517803 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance E <60>;210040000 725.307527424032 2512.18812255705 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit E;220040000 2863.02848423194 542.568667344863 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance F <60>;210040000 503.393519102257 555.310049174127 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit F;220040000 2725.69379450661 2343.17904374364 0.0 -1]
Heiron [pos:Entrance G <72>;210040000 2742.70760307654 2078.44710629177 0.0 -1] Beluslan [pos:Exit G;220040000 1744.00508646999 1900.65615462869 0.0 -1]

Asmodian Morheim->Eltnen Rifts
Morheim [pos:Entrance A <12>;220020000 450 2350 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit A;210020000 718.938673341677 2779.41176470588 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance B <20>;220020000 750 920 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit B;210020000 383.519399249061 1277.53441802253 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance C <35>;220020000 250 500 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit C;210020000 1289.65206508135 2438.98623279099 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance D <35>;220020000 1650 1400 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit D;210020000 93.1564455569462 246.245306633292 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance E <45>;220020000 1630.78403275333 1099.5516888434 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit E;210020000 1329.70212765957 346.370463078848 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance F <50>;220020000 2400 2300 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit F;210020000 2295.9098873592 2278.7859824781 0.0 -1]
Morheim [pos:Entrance G <50>;220020000 2450 600 0.0 -1] Eltnen [pos:Exit G;210020000 2586.27284105131 651.752190237797 0.0 -1]

Asmodian Beluslan->Heiron Rifts
Beluslan [pos:Entrance A <24>;220040000 233.323499491353 150.910478128179 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit A;210040000 2132.44408019165 434.266044634977 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance B <36>;220040000 1301.48219735504 634.12512716175 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit B;210040000 1955.92157357206 1821.22859664607 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance C <48>;220040000 767.402848423194 2226.19023397762 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit C;210040000 871.569032908839 903.311562224183 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance D <48>;220040000 2069.53916581892 262.812817904374 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit D;210040000 861.482032530576 2194.44761064179 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance E <60>;220040000 2842.68260427263 618.865717192269 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit E;210040000 291.566511158744 2658.44962804186 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance F <60>;220040000 2812.16378433367 2561.89725330621 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit F;210040000 362.175513806582 514.962047661077 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance G <72>;220040000 1596.49745676501 2053.2502543235 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit G;210040000 1905.48657168075 2577.75362501576 0.0 -1]

About Real Money Trading

If you've been playing Aion lately, you know that the hot-button topic right now is real money traders. Gold spammers. Shitheads. Whatever you want to call them. "Aww, but those poor Indonesian children are just trying to earn a meal," you may say. "Bullshit," I reply. They're working their poor little fingers off so that some fat cat can sit back and live an average lifestyle for little or no work.

That's right, if you're buying gold, kinah, experience, kidneys... online, then you're totally slaying small Indonesian children. Slaying them from the fingers down.

Maybe that's a little extreme, but if you are purchasing in-game benefits for real life cash, you're certainly enabling the practice. For my part, I'd like to yell at you, "CUT IT OUT!".

There is nothing good or glorious about RMT'ing. You cannot justify it. It is bad for the industry, bad for the players, and bad for the developers. Right now, NCSoft is, I'm sure, wasting a whole bunch of time and energy on solving the "gold spamming" issue instead of developing. I'm sure Blizzard has put some time and money into the issue as well. In fact, name your game, and if it's at all popular, it's probably had to be regulated against RMT'ing in some way. Unless that's part of the game I guess. Still, how do games deal with the spam?

Spooner over at Spooncraft.com does a wonderful job of keeping us up to date. I'll link over to him for the latest communications from NCSoft regarding gold spamming. Read it if you'd like, but it's not necessary for this small rant. It's just the current problem.

The rant is nothing new, however. Even back in my days of FFXI, RMT'ing was a very real problem. It's been around since MMOs have gained popularity. How do we, as gamers, deal with it? How should developers deal with it?

I'd love to have your thoughts on perhaps some clever ways of dealing with it, because while we know what developers have done in the past, I'm sure there have to be some better ways. I know, I know, for Aion's part they just need to make it a bit easier to report these buggers, and have done well making blocking easy, but they could do more. Blocking and reporting are really the two tried and true methods. I think we'd all like to see something more...automated?

My suggestion is to put something in place sort of like Gmail's spam filter. Basically, let a user "block" another user as a "RMT" (a different designation from a normal block). When a certain number of users do this, it confirms a RMT identity and will be automatically blocked from everyone else. Each user could then go in and disable their RMT scanner, or even "unblock" individuals that they claim not to be RMTs. This could be highly automated, and if someone gets mistakenly RMT'ed (which would have to have been done by like 100 peopleganging up on them, which might mean they should be blocked for all anyways), they could simply send a personal email to a GM or an in-game ticket, explaining what's going on. RMTs don't contact GM's, so that would be simple as well. Periodically, the devs could even go in and ban accounts that have been caught by the "spam filter". Gmail can do it, why not an MMO?

That may or may not be possible, but from the perspective of the gamers, though, I have two suggestions:

1. Don't buy it! - I don't care what "it" is, if you are giving money to anyone, you are encouraging and basically "voting for" their behavior. You are an enabler at that point. In a capitalist market, you money is your vote.
   
2. Just block it! - Stop carrying on for 20 minutes in general chat about it, just hit the block button and get on with life. By complaining in-game for hours on end, you're giving these people even MORE air time. You're not really helping the issue unless you're trying to help others learn how to use the block feature. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

That's it, it's really that simple from our POV. Don't buy it, just block it. A slogan to live by in MMOs. If we all did that consistently as gamers, the practice of RMT'ing would go away. Since there will always be some people enticed by the "leg up" that money can provide, realistically it will probably never go away. However, by following that simple slogan, we can minimize the impact on all of us as a community. Hopefully developers will learn to use the community to help them as well, sort of like a neighborhood watch. I mean, who of us wouldn't spend an hour wielding a mini-ban hammer if it meant something as simple as maybe a free month, or just to kill gold spammers? I mean, think of the POWAH! Obviously, it'd have to be regulated somehow, but the point is that a lot of us want to help, we just aren't able to.

Don't buy it, just block it. Words to play by.

AI: On Enchanting and Manastones

I think one of the biggest headaches early on in Aion for us was figuring out how to properly use Manastones and Enchanting stones properly. Like Lando Calrissian, they always seemed to fail us when we needed them the most. You know, like when you're two stones in on a green item and, BAM, you lose all that you had. Annoying buggers!

I'm going to try and relate what we think we've figured out, but first a bit of background to make sure we're all on the same page. Manastones are the little stat additions in Aion that you can put into slots on gear. Almost all of your major gear (non-accessories) have at least one slot for a manastone. This mechanism lets you really customize your gear to your play style. As a Spiritmaster, I'm stacking +MP, +Magic Boost, and +HP. In that order. The trend seems to be that more people SM's are stacking HP, which isn't a bad idea, but I'm a big kiter. We're so clothy that if we get someone on us, it's going to be tough to live anyways, so I make my living keeping people away from me. This means my mana pool needs to outlast them. Simple as that.

Also, important to understand about manastones is that if you fail, it will remove any and all stones already on the item. For example, let's say you succeed with one stone, then go to fill up the second slot on your very first green item (yay you!). If it fails, then both stones will be lost to the aether. Sad panda!

Enchanting stones are stones you get from purchasing "Extraction Tools" from the General Goods vendors. You can extract from anything that you can enchant. Thus, use it on chest, pants, boots, gloves, shoulders, and weapons. Not ALL of them, mind you, because you'll need to keep your reserves of Kinah up and gear also sells to vendors for quite a bit, but some of them. How to pick then? More on that in a second. What I try to enchant, though, are green items that I plan to keep for a while, and I leave them at a simple +1. You see, if you fail at enchanting, it decreases the level one each time.

So, for example, if you're enchanting something that is +1, you can either go to +2 or back to 0. If you're at +2, your two outcomes are +1 or +3. Pretty straightforward, no? Hence why I just put everything at +1. If you fail at +1, there is no -1, 0 is the floor. So there's no risk except for lost monetary investment (and those extraction tools are expensive for a young daevling).

Well then, you may be asking, how can I do my job to ensure success? Glad you asked!

Both of these items come with a convenient level labelling. Manastones seem, after ascension, to go in jumps of 10 levels (level 10, 20, 30...). Enchanting stones, on the other hand, can be anywhere in between and are roughly related to the level of the item from which you extracted the stone. For example, a level 22 chest piece may yield a level 22 enchanting stone, but also anything from, say, level 17 to 27 (there seems to be almost a 5 level span on each side). Also, you can tell the item level two ways, if it has a level required to wear -OR- the level of quest that it came from. All items will have one of those two indicators and let you know what sized gear you're dealing with.

The success rate of these stones as well as the extraction level of enchanting stones are both governed by the same mechanism: the well-loved RNG. However, this RNG is not quite "R". That is to say, we're dealing with a probability engine instead of a completely random one. (R is for Random). Thus, you can envision your chance of success similar to a bell curve (or a pyramid if you don't like curves, but a very steep pyramid). On the far ends, it's fairly low, but in the middle it's quite high. When extracting from a level 22 item, you're far more likely to get a level 22 or 25 stone than anything else (I think the stones jump around a bit... i.e. there aren't any 21,23, or 24 level stones. I could be wrong here though, this is just based on observation. The may just be rarer).

This same mechanism is what governs success on these items too. If you're enchanting or socketing, you need a stone of AT LEAST the same level if not higher to give yourself a good shot at success. However, this is a cap on this. You don't want to socket a level 10 item with a level 30 manastone, because that his a high chance of failing as well. The "golden zone", if I were to define one, is <= 10 levels above your targeted item. I think in that region you're fairly likely to succeed, with your best bet being within 5 level above. Because a picture speaks louder than words sometimes, and because this concept has helped me to not waste so many stones, here's a crappy excel-generated chart on what I think is going on here. Caveat: I don't think these are real percentages, but the point here is that I think this is representative of the trend of the mechanism. If someone out there knows where real numbers can be found, please point me in that direction... this is just a reflection of what I've been able to collate through my own experience and the experiences of others.

LOLEXCEL

Because that is ridiculously ugly, here is a pretty screenshot from the game to offset the ugliness but has absolutely no bearing on today's topic...

Abyss Gate at Morheim in the background...

AI: A Quick Peek

My employer is exiting bankruptcy today, so things are understandably a bit crazy around here. As such, I've been running around signing papers and being a good employee, thus late post today. In an effort to keep it quick, I'm just going to post up a couple of screenshots of my latest Aionic activities and let them do (most of) the talking.

First, here's a look at Genevieve at level 20. You can see the stunning gates of Altgard Fortress in the background, as well as my current UI setup. There's not much to it, as Aion doesn't have 3rd party addons, but you can see I've enable all of the extra bars and shrunk stuff a bit to maximize my viewing area.

I <3>

Second, the legion had it's first "raid" in Aion last night. I walked in to find myself in a group with six others (some of whom you may recognize) surrounding a box and... um... doing naughty things to it. (There were a plethora of box related innuendos). It seems that sometimes random treasure chests will spawn in Aion's zones, and that you can kill them for some free loot. While the boxes don't hit back, they are immune to any and all magic, and can only be hit by physical attacks for a grand total of 1 damage per attack. Hence the group effort. More attacks make for a quicker box session I suppose. Hilarity ensued, and, of course, I got a screenshot of the ruckus.

That's a HUGE b...ox.

So that's it for this quick peek into Atreia. Still loving the game and avoiding the queue. Now, back to the RL grind.

AI: Sweet Sixteen

Billy Idol or Hillary Duff... you pick. I think Hillary's talks more about wings, but I'm more of a rock guy myself.

As you may have guessed, I hit 16 as a Spiritmaster last night on Aion. Fun times. The queue was non-existent at 6pm, but I think it ramped up as the night went on. At one point, we were disconnected and logged back in to see the number around 800 people in the queue. Luckily, the server still remembered me and zipped me right back into the game. So, still a queue, but it seems to be shrinking.

There are still tons of "shop afkers" as we're calling it. I have to say, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. On one hand, when I run by a store where someone is selling a single piece of Azpha for one billion dollars (*pinky to mouth*), I just get angry. It's not like they're even being sneaky about it or anything; their message clearly says: "Afk". C'mon now, you're not even trying. I'd rather see the default message than that crap.

At one point, I did have to go afk for about 15 minutes to grab some food and such, and then it was nice to have the shop and know you weren't going to get logged out and have to face the dreaded queue. In my defense, apart from it only being 15 minutes, I actually put some stuff up at a reasonable price and sat just inside the doorway to the alchemy area. Being an alchemist, I knew that Kandula is a key ingredient in some of the early potion recipes, namely the lesser mana variety. I go through these pretty rapidly when questing, so it was a good bet that I wasn't the only one who needed to make more.

I advertised simply "Kandula" and by the time I'd returned I was sold out of the 20 or so I had. For something you gather for free, it was nice to make money off of it. It's all about location. Of course, Kandula isn't going to sell right next to a Kandula plant, but in the middle of Pande? Fo'sho. That's what the private store is for, after all... not afks.

Perhaps the best "fix" I've heard is to limit the afk store to one hour if there is a queue. Putting on my Software Engineer hat for a moment, I don't think such a limit would be too hard to set up. You could have the SW check to see if there is a queue for the server (which it should already know), and then start a timer on any store. After an hour, it will close your store, requiring you to either be there to re-open it, or effectively logging you off.

I figure, if someone wants to avoid a queue so bad that they're popping in at least once an hour to check their store (something you should probably do anyways if you're running a real store), then at least they're putting in the effort. It also doesn't defeat the store purpose and allows you short afks. It's the people who leave it up overnight for like 12+ hours that bother me. In China, they have to pay by the hour, so it's not a problem there. Here, however, we don't give a shit things like wasting copious amounts of electricity and the other negative side-effects of leaving your crap on and running over night. I'm not a "green" person by any means, but it just seems so wasteful and selfish to do the over night thing. Especially if you're not even going to try to offer a half-ass store. At least put in a witty phrase or something that makes me giggle!

Like I said, my feelings are mixed because I like the idea of a private store and if there were NO queues, there wouldn't be this problem. So "fixing" the afk store is sort of like putting a band-aid on. It'll stop the bleeding for a bit, maybe allow some healing to occur, but is NOT permanent. The only permanent solution is for NCSoft to continue ramping up support and capacity (all while remaining balanced mind you), so that they are eventually able to support their entire player base. I'll be the first to admit that this is no easy task, and I applaud NCSoft's efforts so far. They haven't been perfect, but I think, in the industry, they've proven to be one of the best at handling what appears to be a common issue (we can argue until we're blue in the face about whether or not it should be an issue in the first place).

In other news, and more of what I had in mind for this post (before sidetracking myself on a mini-rant), when you hit 16 as a Spiritmaster, you start to switch up your rotation a bit. Recall on Tuesday I'd mention that around level 10, I was using something like this:

Ice Chain (1 and the bonus if it's up) > Erosion > Fire Chain (same thing here, if the extra spell is up, of course I'm going to use it!) (rooting when needed, and just sending my pet in)

By the time you hit 16, you've picked up a couple more spells. One is sort of a "pet taunt" in that it is an ability that can have "high emnity" (emnity = aggro for WoW people). Also, it becomes clear that the fire spirit is a far better tank than your wind spirit. The tooltip for your "pet taunt" spell confirms this, since, for the wind spirit, it is classified as a "weak" taunt.

You also pick up a spell that causes two orbs of fire to fly at your target and bombard it with... themselves. Pretty awesome if you ask me. I think watching a spiritmaster in action can be sort of awe-inspiring. I mean, when gladiators do their crazy-jumpy-flippy attack, it's pretty cool, but a SM in full DPS mode will have a spirit on a target, two electrified, fiery orbs bashing into the target, all the while hurtling spells from a comfortable distance away. There's just a lot going on. Here's sort of how I roll now:

Send pet in > Pet taunt > Summon Orb thingies > Erosion > Ice Chain (1+1) > Fire Chain (1+1) > Root if it's running at me (which it should be by now) > Fire Chain again (just the first part) until death.

Sometimes I may have to run a bit to give myself room. I may also refresh Erosion if it looks to live longer, but most stuff is dead by the end of the rotation. You also pick up an Earth slowing attack (sorry I'm horrible with spell names right now) which is instant cast, this can come in handy for those spontaneous aggros. Keep in mind, though, that it shards a cooldown with your ice chain. The knockback/stun on the ice chain makes it a better choice if you have room and time. If not, run around slowing and hitting erosion while your pet/orbs beat on the dude. This has saved my butt a couple times. You can always root too.

So far, loving the class... even with being underrepresented and all. I'm sure the whole grounded pet thing will become a problem in the not too distant future, but I'm going to stick it out (especially knowing they're planning to change that). How's your Aion going? What's your fave class so far?

AI: Spiritmaster Beginnings

It looks like WoW may be patching today, and I'll definitely be checking out the patch notes as soon as they're release, so look for a warlocky and deathknighty run through in the very near future. In addition to (and maybe in competition with?) Blizzard's moves, NCSoft is having a big day today with the official release of Aion. Here's hoping the smoothness and playability of the launch continues.

"But the queues!" - I know, I know. It's been really the central focus of QQ and nerd rage aimed at the launch. However, I spoke some about it yesterday and Naamah makes a great analogy about it too. Still, I realize there is no consoling those of you that paid good money for your pre-order (or CE) only to find out that you were able to take advantage of it at all because of the long waits. As a good friend put it, there really isn't a "casual" right now, since you have to really have a good chunk of time to play the game.

I'm not going to focus too much on it, other than to point out that IF you can get in (maybe a big if in some cases), the game remains PLAYABLE. This is in stark contrast to many of my MMO launching experiences, the most recent (for me) being the ubiquitous Northrend crashes upon Wrath's release. Even the all-mighty Blizzard has trouble managing the in-rush spikes, and they're probably the most seasoned MMO company out there right now. For their part, I think NCSoft is doing a pretty damned good job given the limitations and standards of the industry right now. Is there room for improvement? Definitely! It's my belief, though, that this launch has (so far) been a step in the right direction.

For those of you who feel gypped by your extra money spent on pre-orders and CEs, I hope the in-game items console you a bit. They'll still be there for you, whenever you get in. To be honest, they are the main reason I pre-ordered. That and the beta key. I sort of went into the launch with low expectations, figuring the servers very well might be down an out this entire week. Perhaps that's why I'm pleasantly surprised. It has been a hassle, but it hasn't been the catastrophe I braced myself for.

In any case, I wanted to move away from that and into a short segment about my first chosen class: The spiritmaster. For those unfamiliar with the class, the short version is that the Spiritmaster is the pet-based mage class of Atreia. It's the closest thing to a warlock that I could find. It combines nuking with pet management to produce what I think is a really fun class to play.

Approaching play from a warlocky angle, I've even started to develop a rotation. Being more of a PvP game than WoW, I think there is less emphasis on a set "max" rotation, and more focus on learning to use your abilities in a time- and situation-appropriate manner. Still, it doesn't prevent me from bring my particular approach to the game.

As such, here's what I'm doing:

• Ice Chain to lead off, finish with the second spell of the chain to knock back your target and stun it
• Follow up with either your DoT or your Fire chain. It depends on how long the thing is going to live. Since I'm duo'ing everything with an assassin (Fuu), things don't really live long... I usually skip the DoT.
• If something gets close to you, use your rooting spell.
• If you draw unexpected aggro - root it and DoT it... all while running away to get into your ice chain rotation.
• Kite Kite Kite. DoT and Kite. Great strategy for staying alive. Run in circles if you have to with auto attack on. Strafe to keep it in front of you and for the dodge bonus.
• You have a stoneskin spell, use it. You can probably take about three hits before you're in trouble. Plan accordingly

That's about it. My basic, fall back rotation is Ice Chain, DoT, Fire Chain. It's that simple... at least at level 13. I'll relate more as I learn it.

As far as pet choice goes, I have two at my disposal at the moment. The fire guy you get after ascension and the wind spirit I got as a random world drop. It seems to me that the fire spirit is better suited to tanking (definitely can take more of a beating), but the wind spirit is a bit better on the DPS end. I haven't yet found any test dummies in Aion and I certainly don't have Recount, so I can't give any numbers, only a feel.

Currently, it's sort of a pain that the pets can't fly with you, but that is scheduled to change soon in a forthcoming patch. At the very least, it's on the dev's radar. I think that's been the biggest complaint so far with the class, but it's something that doesn't bother me a whole lot. For now, I've been doing a lot of my questing in "grounded" areas anyways. Plus, I'm sort of used to the annoyance of pets and following from my warlocky background. Remember the old mantra: "Make sure you de-summon your pet before you jump?" Well, that definitely applies in Aion right now.

Love the game so far, but I'm still raiding tonight in WoW (if their servers are up: I guess my choices might end up being long queue servers or crashed patchy servers, which would you pick?). Hope everyone else enjoys the launch day!