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Wings Over Atreia: My date with Kromede's Trial
I couldn't help myself. It isn't you, really -- it's me. I mean, you offered so much. The nights in Taloc's Hollow were rewarding. But I needed more. I craved a new experience. I craved excitement. I craved hawt armor! So I needed to step outta my skin -- literally -- and expand my horizons. This decision wasn't easy for me, but I think it was worth it. I know, I know... after admitting my difficulties with (and distaste for) playing alts, here I am sharing with you my adventures on just such an alt. But truly, how could I resist? With the great things I have heard about Kromede's Trial coupled with my desire to see and experience everything in-game, what choice did I have? Why the excitement to run this instance from the tender levels of 37 to 44? There are plenty of reasons: a horde of XP; bucket-loads of kinah and cash drops; the corrupt judge's armor sets; satisfying the urge to parade around as an Asmodian female for a while; experiencing new game lore; a chance at a gold weapon; a sawteeth rotan pet; and the ability to upgrade a blue weapon from the Fire Temple into a gold -- just to name a few. Now, is there any reason not to go? Certainly not now, since the usual 22-hour lockout timer has been reduced to only four hours for the Reactivation Celebration, which is going on until the 13th. Not to mention the double XP during the same time! So it was with eager anticipation that I moved my way up the level ladder until I could finally experience this solo instance for the first time. And why I keep going back. Again and again. Zone past the cut to follow along on some of the of the best action available to the mid-level Aion player.
Wings Over Atreia: Easy button
You young whippersnappers don't know how easy ya got it! When I was your level, we had to delve deep into the heart of KHQ to do our campaigns, uphill, both ways! And it wasn't no namby-pamby walk in the park, either -- you wiped multiple times just to get where yer going! Why, back in my day, we could go days, sometimes weeks without skills, trying to scrimp and save enough for the books. There is no question about it: The Aion of today is much different than than the Aion of yesteryear. Heck, it's not the same game as last week! Yup folks, with each successive patch and update that NCsoft rolls out, the game we love (or love to hate, as the case may be) gets progressively easier. Patch 1.9 saw the addition of repeatable quests to ease the leveling curve; 2.0 brought more quests and higher kinah rewards from them; and Wednesday's 2.1 increased drop rates to astronomical levels. All good news, right? Personally, I am leery of this seeming accelerated trend towards installing an easy button in the game, and I think that there are some serious repercussions to over-simplifying. Now, don't get me wrong -- I am all for lightening the load and eradicating flawed designs that have a fun factor of zero (hot heart of magic, anyone?), but at what point does making the game a bit easier go too far? While the game certainly shouldn't be a job in itself, do we really need to cater to the instant-gratification crowd by dumbing it down completely? I firmly believe in the old adage "you appreciate what you have to work for," and I think that spoon-feeding players is a bad idea that is going to come back and nip NCsoft in the... ankle. Glide past the cut to explore for yourself the new easy buttons within Atreia.
Wings Over Atreia: Taloc's Hollow speed runs
The tropical breeze rustling through the branches. The exotic wildlife. The blessed solitude. While reminiscing about your previous excursion to famed Taloc's Hollow, you find yourself wanting to relive those great moments. OK, maybe you just want to tank up on some XP and loot. And who can blame you? Taloc's Hollow is one of "the" destination hotspots in Aion for those over level 51 to gather both kinah and experience. If you are in it for the XP, chances are you want to just clear everything in your path; after all, it isn't often you get to be in deity-mode, killing elite mobs on your own. However, there comes a time when you simply you don't want to or can't spend a couple hours clearing the instance out. Then what? Well, then you aim for a speed run. These runs are often considered money-maker runs and are factored into a Daeva's wealth portfolio. While decent loot can and does drop off the trash mobs, many people reach the point that they only want to focus on a boss run and ignore everything else possible. Can you do it? Yup. Dash past the cut for hints to help you get through Aion's highest-level solo instance quickly and efficiently.
Wings Over Atreia: Greed is Good
The world of Atreia can be a bit unforgiving to the uninitiated, particularly when it comes to providing for your Daeva's economic well-being. Gear costs kinah, Aion's currency, and new skills cost even more kinah. Attaining level 40 last week set my sorcerer back over 800 thousand smackers. Granted, I got some nifty new death-dealing skills for my trouble, but I also parted with nearly all my net worth. What's that you say? You want to advance your crafting and gathering skills beyond the newb tier? Yep, you guessed it, get ready to shell out some more kinah. In fact, skilling up a single crafting discipline to the mastery level will cost you between 2 and 2.5 million kinah, not including the cost of the materials needed to craft the work orders. Gathering is similarly expensive, though it doesn't require materials like crafting, only level tier purchases. Finally, there is the Soul Healer, that bank account black hole that has sucked many millions of mah money into the nether regions of NCSoft's server nebula, for, every time I die in PvE, it's off to see the Soul Healer to regain a bit of lost experience. As of level 40, my average trip to this big-hat buffoon costs between 40 and 50 thousand kinah. Last week, after a particularly unfortunate pickup group, I wracked up a 300 thousand kinah Soul Healing bill. Fly past the cut for some Aion kinah-making strategies.
Aion money glitch gives trillions to players
A few Aion players on the Azphel server got a bit of a shock yesterday when a bug in the system presented them with more than 30 trillion Kinah as a reward. With that much extra cash floating around, the economy predictably went...well, completely insane. The Auction Hall looked like opening day at the NYSE, and even fairly common items were selling for outrageous amounts of Kinah. The news spread outside of game very quickly, sending the Aion team into overdrive as they tried to figure out what had happened. (Since this isn't the first time something like this has happened to an NCsoft game, we imagine there was a game plan in place.) The Azphel servers were taken down for "emergency maintenance" shortly afterward, and news of a rollback came down very early this morning, surprising absolutely nobody. As of now, the Aion team is planning to roll the servers back to 6:00 AM CST Monday morning, but they're not quite out of the woods yet. They have since found "a few additional bugs that are having a direct impact on the stability of the Azphel economy", and promise more information soon.
Five quick tips for Aion
For those lucky enough to get past Aion's login queue, we're happy to announce five quick tips that will enhance your gaming experience. You can expect more of these kinds of posts in the weeks and months ahead. Let's get right into it, shall we?1. Change the channelThe initial rush of new players coming in to Aion can really bung up certain areas of the game. While we're all for being social (see #5), this can lead to some long and frustrating waits for shared PvE content. Or maybe you're on a lower end rig and the massive amounts of players on screen is causing you performance issues. There is a remedy and it's called channel surfing.Click the menu tab near your skill bar > Click 'Support' > Click 'Change Channel' > Pick a channel from the drop down and press 'Okay' -- You will be teleported to the exact same spot in another channelYou may also need to change your channel to meet up with group mates or rendezvous with another player to make a trade (item, gold, etc.).
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Everything Aion: Five things you need to know about surviving in Atreia
With NCsoft's release of Aion coming up on the 22nd and 25th September in North America and Europe, we thought we had better give you the basics on the land of Atreia ahead of the open beta which begins today. So, we're going to give you all the info you need to dive into their beautifully detailed world. After the jump, we're going to look at the five things you need to know if you've never played Aion before.
