Aion: Tower of Eternity

New stuff, different day...

2009-11-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

Alrighty so its about time I update this. Hopefully if things go as planned this will be a weekly thing now that school is out(soon) and things are going the way I want them.

Lots of new things, one of which is the new trailer for the future of Aion which can be found here and it looks amazing. I can't wait for it to come to fruition with the graphical updates to towns along with seasonal changes and weather affecting the environment it's going to change this game for the better. The question on my mind is can the system handle it? I already lag a bit in town with graphics at half settings but will this put it over the top performance wise for half the player-base so that they will need to lower their settings to the minimun to make a sale at the broker without lagging? Thats one line of thinking, the other is that they can code the updates in a smart way where it wont wear on the users system as much allowing for all systems to enjoy the update without it hampering performance. All things considered I feel that we will have to wait and see what the future of aion brings before we will know for sure...

On a side note I wanted to show 2 videos I have made with my C-Aion character before open beta was launched. These videos are of some really great kisk spots in Eltnen for the Asmodians to kisk at as they allow for multiple exits and are somewhat hidden and not know about by the Elyos. Now I am aware releasing these will let people of both factions find these spots but if your clever you have your own spots they can't find or get to that work for you and if you don't then add these to your list.

Kisk spots 1 and 2
Kisk spots 3 and 4

I will be making more soon but enjoy these for now...

Lots of new stuff and hopfully another update in the coming week.

Forever and a day....

2009-10-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

So I know its been a while since an update, over a month for sure but with school and work along with the rush to hit the level cap it has been very busy. I currently am 35 right now with many professions leveled up which is the only reason I am not 40+. The crafting in this game is addicting and I wanted to make bows for when I level which has been working out good as my weapon is up-to-date although it isn't blue currently due to the massive amounts of logs needed. I find spending all day getting 1000 longs for 8 synths isn't worth the time when I can outlevel it.

Currently I have 299 Aether gathering 289 Vitality gathering, 334 Handicrafting, 313 Alchemy, and 67 Tailoring. I thought it would be a good idea to level alchemy on a mule because I intend to uncap tailoring and handicrafting on my Ranger. Turns out that was a good idea because now my Spirit Master is 19 without ever leaving town since 10 and soon I will be making another mule for Armor/Weaponsmithing which will be a Templar.

Enough about alts and crafting lets start getting into the important stuff... Right now I have 5 empty sockets on my PvP run speed boots and they are a pain-in-the-ass to socket as I have blown 20+ stones and it keeps blowing up at like 2-3. Also if anyone is thinking about getting them, don't. You can't remodel abyss items or dye them and I am stuck with olive green boots until I get the level 40 or 50 ones which won't be for a lonnnnnnnnnnng time. :( Instead I should have got the 37 boots from the mist mane hair quest which seems like it would take a long time to get 100 hairs but I have sold like 30 not even trying to get them and now I am stuck with fugly boots...

Well enough about that, there has been one thing that has been plaguing my mind and that is how traps are affacted by ranger buffs, mainly Destruction Trap I which does like 2k damage but does Devotion or Bow of Blessing or even Strong Shots increase its damage? Maybe it does? If it does then how is it affected? Is the damage based on the buffs you have at the time of laying the trap or when the trap is activated and deals its damage it checks your buffs? It is possible that the trap itself completely ignores any and all PC buffs and is independent of anything but the damage verses the targets resistance and/or level of the Ranger who laid the trap.

So far I have only been able to lay 5 traps or so and have tried with multiple buffs but its damage regardless of buffs hovers around 2.1k so it looks like it might not be affected but 5 traps is hardly a reasonable sample size...

I think this week I will make the push to 40 before I do any more crafting other then the side project for money but thats more or less hit craft all, afk for 10 minutes then list items on the broker for profit.

I will work on updating this blog on a bi-weekly basis so look back later this week for an update, until then I am Syntex of Triniel of the Asmodian Army signing off.

So are you ready to play?

2009-08-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

So you want to play Aion?

So for those of us who are still awaiting the September release of the the game which is now just 35 days away it seems that we have been waiting for an eternity. Aion is already out in Korea and China but if you want to play you are going to need a few things set up first.

There is a guide that I followed to get my C-Aion setup which can be found here http://sayasun502.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DF5D8DC071D53FEC!166.entry and although it says to join the open beta testing(OBT) which is over, this still applies to the now live servers.

The client can be downloaded here http://aion.sdo.com/project/index/index.htm but the size of the file should take some time to finish.

Once you have downloaded the client you need to set up an SDO account, then once that is setup the last thing to do is install the English client so you can enjoy the game in full English. For the English patch go to http://media.cn-usa.com/games/ENU.pak to download it, then place it into your C:/Program Files/Chinese Aion/L10N folder and from there put the ENU.pak in there. What I was told was to take the CHS folder, make a copy, and rename it ENU in addition to putting the ENU.pak into the folder. Some people have said you don’t have to do that but it never hurts to take the extra 20 seconds to make a backup.

After the client is installed and the SDO account set up with the English pak ready to go then you can start playing! You have a starting amount of 5 hours and if you would like to play more than that you will need to purchase time. To purchase additional time you will need to go to http://www.cn-usa.com/?cmd=buy&loc=170404&lan=EN and put in your ACCOUNT name and not your character name, then select your region and how much time. Buying time for CAion is cheap and 5 dollars will get you about 100 hours of playtime.

Now you might be wondering what the region means. The region is the part of china that has the servers which is the same as east/west coast but China is divided into about 13 regions. The picture on the right shows you how to select your region and start your game in the launcher. I am on region 2 personally and I know a lot of other English speaking players are also on that region with the Azarial server being the one that most of us are playing on, Elyos side of course J.

One last thing to note is that you do not need to download the patch because if you do and update it then you will only be able to play on the servers who have the patch and only those until they all update. As of right now only some of the servers have the patch and some don’t and region 2 Azarial doesn’t have it so it would be best to not update it if you want to play on that region/server.

What is Aion?

2009-08-06T19:10:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my blog...

As you already can tell by the title at the top this blog is about Aion: Tower of Eternity a new MMO from the makers of NCsoft creators of City of Hero's, Guild Wars, Lineage I & II, just to name a few. The game is already out in China and Korea but has yet to hit the US or Europe but its schduled to be shipped out September 22nd with a 2 day head-start on the 20th for anyone who preorders.

Thus far the game is amazing and the graphics of the Crytek engine allows for beautiful environments with little to no slowdowns and a high FPS in a variety of different places. If you can run WoW at about 30 FPS in Dalaran then this game will look amazing. The character models themselves have the most customization out of any MMO to date with more then 15 different features to change on the face alone such as brow height, lip shape, eye shape, smile, chin jut, and brow angle just to name a few which allow for a very unique looking character and not another genric clone that you get with WoW or WAR. On top of being able to make your characters look unique the items in this game have some of the coolest designs and looks on even some of the beginning gear then most games have over their entire levelspan and both PvE and PvP gear have their own unique look without being the same red sword you got in a raid just brandishing another color.

That brings me to my next point which is what this game offers people with its PvPvE system that merges PvP with PvE to make a truly different style of game that caters to the people who like to do it all. The PvP is the main aspect of the game with the Elyos and Asmodian forces at constant war but what makes this game interesting is that they allow both factions into the instance and have to fight your way past enemies and each other for the loot which puts a different twist on things. There is also plenty of fighting in the Abyss which is the endgame PvP area where both factions are thrown head-on at each other with rifts teleporting you behind enemy lines every few hours to cause plenty of confrontations.

All in all the game from what I have seen and played on the Chinese servers and the closed beta is very well done and the details have been polished to a mirror shine that sets a new standard for future MMO’s to follow. The only downfall is having to wait another month and a half for it to finally hit shelves in the US but if that wait is too long you could always give the Chinese Aion a try to see if it’s the right MMO for you. I should have a guide up soon on how to set up C-Aion for those that are interested and have a step-by-step so you can play around with the game while waiting on the release like I am. For now here are some pictures you can enjoy…