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Wings Over Atreia: The top 19 ways to get your dungeon crawl on, continued
Ahhh. There's nothing like the feeling of facing down a formidable foe, beating it into submission, then finally conquering it and pulling from its lifeless corpse some rare and valuable treasure to hold above your head as a trophy of your victory. Of course, this feeling cannot be found in the PvP portion of Aion's PvPvE formula; sadly, neither Asmodians nor Elyos drop loot of any kind upon defeat, rare or otherwise (though I have to say adding in the ability to pluck a feather from your vanquished foe would be cool). So that leaves only one way to experience this rush, and that's through the PvE side of the game, and not just any PvE at that: While there is a possibility of valuable drops out in the world, your best chances lie within the instanced dungeons. Dungeons are a great way to get away from the masses and all the accompanying interruptions that come with sharing the world with others, such as KSing, unwanted PvP ambushes, and mob trains pulled by some idiot next to you. Think of it as an Atreian vacation! And Aion has 19 PvE instanced dungeons ready to whisk you away for a brief respite from the world while simultaneously giving you the chance at some great loot and XP. Last week we covered dungeons available to Daevas under level 40 as well as solo instances. Of course, in most cases, Daevas don't remain under 40 forever (or even for long if whole months of double-XP weekends crop up!), so there is a need for more places to scratch that dungeon crawl itch. This time around, Wings Over Atreia focuses on the gamut of choices for those advancing in their levels.
The Daily Grind: What aspects of DIKU MMOs make you laugh?
So I'm blowing up Triroan in Aion's Theobomos Labs dungeon the other night. He's a big nasty that drops decent equipment for 50ish Daevas, and my six-man group was running the instance for the umpteenth time in the hopes of helping out some of our gear-poor compadres. Beating Triroan with a great tank in your party is one of the most boring things in the game if you're a Sorcerer, as all you have to do is stand in the back of the room and nuke the living hell out of the boss while the plate class holds aggro. This got me to thinking how silly a lot of DIKU mechanics really are from an immersion standpoint. Sure you can argue that you suspend your disbelief simply by virtue of flinging fireballs or sprouting wings, but the fact that a giant monster ignores the people doing him the most harm to focus on the heavily armored guy who couldn't top a DPS chart if his life depended on it just makes me chuckle. DIKU is clearly the language of MMOs, as just about every game that comes out nowadays is indebted to it in a big way. It's an old and incredibly flawed system, though, and so we ask you, Massively mobsters: What other DIKU holdovers seem silly, far-fetched, or otherwise cackle-worthy to you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
