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Anti-Aliased: Things that make you go kweh pt. 2
A wing timer? Seriously? Seriously? And now for the number one thing that drives me nuts -- Aion's flight timer. I know, I know, the other two topics were more universal and covered all MMOs. Plus I shouldn't be firing arrows into a game that hasn't even come out yet, but this just seemed to warrant my attention for how confused I was about this whole subject. Let me lay it out for you all, especially for those who weren't in the beta. At the very end of level 9-ish you get told that you are, in fact, a Daeva -- an immortal angel that protects your race -- and you are granted permission to go to your city of awesome in the clouds. There's a cutscene depicting an awesome ceremony where you're accepted into the ranks of the immortal and you "prove your divinity" by exposing your wings for all to see. It is one hell of a lead up and a great cap for the first ten levels. You come off of that story-arc feeling completely empowered, and it is awesome. Then, after grabbing yourself a very shiny new weapon from one of the other daevas, you go out to do some, well, angel-ish things? Honestly, the downer here is that things don't change that much from you being mortal. You're still someone's pool cleaner, except now you have wings. Of course, that's what you think until you hit the flight button and they slap you with a one minute flight restriction. Yes, that's right, you can stay in the air for one minute. A whole minute! Of course you can increase this timer with buffs and consumables in later areas of the game, as this restriction is supposed to make you think tactically about aerial combat. Yet, when your box art depicts a winged angel so prominently and one of your back of the box features is "where your character wields devastating powers and sweeping wings to explore a celestial world," you're kind of leading people into disappointment. Plus, it's not really a minute of flight in one direction. It's more like 30 seconds of flight in one direction, because you have to remember to reach a lower altitude before your wings die out. Yes, you will take falling damage if you're still lollygaging in mid-air when that timer hits zero. You may be immortal, but you're not immune to broken legs. And that's a wrap Well, that's all of the room I have for this week's senseless complaining. Tune in next week when I sit down and have a conversation with a moogle concerning mog slavery and mistreatment in Vana'diel. Good night, everybody! Colin Seraphina Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who is pretty much mentally unstable. When she's not writing here for Massively, she's rambling on her personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message her, send her an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow her on Twitter through Massively, or through her personal feed, @sera_brennan.
