Age of Conan: Black Ring Citadel Wing 3 with Screenshots

There is no individual attunement for Black Ring Citadel Wing 3, however, the raid leaders need to have one Ameythst Eye of the Serpent and one Ruby Eye of the Serpent, both of which are taken from the last boss of Wing 1 and Wing 2 of BRC. Completion of Wing 3, and receiving the Hand of Leviathus is required for individual attunement for Thoth Amon’s Stronghold, Tier 3 raiding. The descriptions here are purposefully kept more brief than those of the other BRC Wings and Tier 1 articles.

BLACK RING CITADEL WING 3
Black Ring Citadel (BRC) has 3 wings. Wing 1 is to the right of the “lobby”, Wing 2 to the left, and Wing 3 is straight ahead. The main problem is that BRC Wing 3 and the lobby are the same instance. So if your raid leader has already done Wing 3 for the week, and is taking you through the lobby to either Wing 1 or 2, he will end up locking you out of Wing 3 for the week. Wing 3 begins with a cavern similar to Wing 1 and 2. There are no quests here, so just clear enough of the trash to open a path to the first chamber. Do not forget to kill the trash guarding the large snake statue. Clicking on the statue removes death penalty.

Athyr Bast – Athyr Bast stands in the back of her chamber while her Imp Lord stands in the middle of chamber. She is a basic tank and spank, any tank that can get close to 60% physical mitigation can pretty much tank her for the rest of eternity with heals. Her fight revolves around her Imp Lord.

The Imp Lord – This is another fight similar to Sabazios, where tons of Imp adds are spawned that are meant to be dealt with, in this case by clicking on the purple braziers along the walls, but it just seems easier to ignore them instead. The Imps spawn from the braziers and walk towards the Imp Lord, when they reach the Imp Lord, he places a debuff on the person that has his aggro. If the tank gets too many stacks of the debuff, he’ll die. So the main focus of the fight is to swap aggro and for the tank to move out of the Imp Lord’s platform in the middle of the chamber. He should then get healed up and get rotated back into the tanking and aggro swapping. Tanks must spend minimum time in the platform while swapping aggro. If the tanks do not hold aggro well, the Imp Lord will one-shot someone outside of the platform. Holy Cleansing, heal rotation, unholy magic resistance, all help the tanks survive the Imp Lord’s attention. Good use of Irritate is also vital to keep the aggro swapping steady. The tanks need to keep this up while the DPS team burns down Athyr Bast. She drops Wrists, Helmet and a Simple Relic II.

Athyr Bast herself is so boring, I just decided to take a screenshot of her corpse. Which looks like any other follower of Set.

Entering Leviathus’ chamber will trigger a timer. There is a 3 minute 30 second timer before the boss spawns. In that time, the raid has to deal with two groups of trash mobs inside the chamber.

Agitators, Proctors, Guards, Agents and Supporters - Different raids kill the mobs in different orders, so I cannot say which way is faster or best. Proctors can be stunned and should be kept that way. They spawn Supporters who are minions and can be mass one-shot by minion kill spells, like Shatter. Agents will teleport all over the place but can be rooted. Focus fire on each of the trash and kill the groups as fast as possible and get ready for Leviathus to spawn.

Leviathus - Leviathus is one big ugly slug with arms that sits in a pool of boiling water (do not go in there). There are two altars platforms on either sides of the chamber. Two soldiers should be in charged of using them. They must not ever have attacked Leviathus for the whole fight. Their entire duty is to carry a buff from the altar and dropping it on the raid in front of Leviathus. Leviathus casts a spell called Test of Faith on one of the tanks that are on him, and if the tank does not receive the buff from the altar within 20 seconds, they will die.

The fight involves rotating big heals from the 3 different classes on the whole raid, with the tanks rotating aggro and getting out of range of Leviathus to heal back up. And the two players running the altars not to screw up. This is a tough fight that requires many players in the raid to focus on their status. Leviathus drops Helmet, 2 Weapons and a Jar of 5 Simple Relic II. Killing Leviathus completes a quest that gives the player a Hand of Leviathus that is required for Tier 3 attunment. Thoth Amon’s Stronghold.

Age of Conan: Black Ring Citadel Wing 2 with Screenshots

Attunement for Tier 2 raiding in Age of Conan involved completing the level 80 Destiny Quest, and receiving a quest from Kalanthes and Cha in Kheshetta for a quest for Vistrix’s tooth. FunCom has removed this attunement requirement after the release of Tier 3 raiding.

BLACK RING CITADEL WING 2
Black Ring Citadel (BRC) has 3 wings. Wing 1 is to the right of the “lobby”, Wing 2 to the left, and Wing 3 is straight ahead. Wing 2 begins with a cavern similar to Wing 1. There are no quests here, so just clear enough of the trash to open a path to the first chamber. Do not forget to kill the trash guarding the large snake statue. Clicking on the statue removes death penalty.

Ahazu Zagam – Ahazu Zagam, better known as The Fart Boss looks like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. As his nickname suggest, he farts this poison gas that trails behind him, slowly filling up his chamber. Ahazu Zagam hits hard and it will take a geared and well played tank, and a full suite of healers to keep him alive. The key is to avoid his poison gas, and to kite him around the room in such a concerted way that the rest of the raid has room to kill him before it is all covered in poison gas. Priest of Mitra’s Holy Cleansing spell can help make this boss fight quite easy for a geared raid. The YouTube video below shows how it is done in style. Ahazu Zagam drops Wrists, Shoulders and a Simple Relic II.

Ahazu Verin – Every minute, Ahazu Zagam spawns two adds, miniature versions of itself called Ahazu Verin. They need to be taunted away from the main tank, Cry of Havoc by a Guardian is probably the best way to grab them both. Ahazu Verin hit really hard so they need to be individually tanked and focus fired down.

Black Ring Reanimator – Most of the other trash mobs in Wing 2 are quite standard fare. The only exception is the Reanimators. They need to be focus fired down because they constantly spawn large numbers of regular undead mobs that can kill squishier classes.

Incubus and Succubus – Incubus and Succubus are a pair of lewd demons, whose only interest seem to be in spreading their seeds. They need to be tanked on opposite ends of their chamber. Every so often, they will break aggro and watch towards one and another. If they get to close enough, they will both Enrage and hit like trucks. Both tank groups must fight hard to regain aggro once they start walking off. Our raid usually focuses on Succubus first, killing her before proceeding to Incubus. Both bosses with do a knockback before wandering off towards each other, this knockback also wipes the aggro. On top of that Incubus does an AoE root which can be avoided if the players are alert to the cast bar. Incubus and Succubus drops Belts, Boots and a Simple Relic II.

Rooted, damn it!

Cambions – Adds spawn during this boss fight called Cambions. They can be easily off-tanked, and burn down fast. They are a small distraction for this fight.

Seruah – Seruah begins the fight inside a magical cage in the middle of the chamber. There are four mirrors, one in each corner of the chamber. Out of these mirrors will spawn waves of adds. Starting with large 4 Dust Fiends, and increasing exponentially to 64 small Arctic Beasts. At the start of the fight, the whole raid stays together beside one of the mirrors. A soldier will be at each of the mirrors and will bring the Dust Fiends towards the raid. The raid will burn down each Dust Fiend in turn. While this is happening, the subsequent waves of adds are spawned and must be AoEed down. Soldiers are to keep the adds off the squishies. When the last Dust Fiend dies, the raid must all move to the centre outside Seruah’s magic cage.

Every single member of the raid must clump up on Seruah and be within melee range of her once she comes out of her cage. Anyone further than melee range will cause her to teleport and instant-kill the character. She will knockback characters near the top of her aggro list. She would then follow up with a big hit if the aggro remains on the knocked back character. Cunning Deflection will allow a soldier to survive her big hit. It is a steady fight to swap aggro. Not a hard fight if few or no players died needlessly at the start of the fight. Seruah drops Gloves, Chest and a Simple Relic II.

You may want to drop your particle effects and damage numbers because of the massive number of mobs involved.

Chatha the Commander of Demons – The chamber with Chatha follows straight after Seruah’s. It is a two storey chamber linked by a flight of stairs. The raid should run past the Bottomfeeders on the bottom floor of the chamber to the stairs. Moving too far up the stairs will trigger the boss fight, so raids need to get themselves ready on the stairs first.

Chatha begins the fight as a normal human boss. He can be tanked and spanked for the first half a minute before he teleports away. He teleports to random places on the top storey of the chamber once every minute. He also spawns a Sartorus and 3 Utamons every time he teleports. The 2nd storey of the chamber contains pit traps that are invisible from the top. Players who walk over the pit traps will fall down to the 1st storey.

Sartorus and Utamons – While the Utamons are near the Sartorus, they get a buff that allows them to deal massive reflective damage. They can kill a tank in a matter of seconds while the buff is up. The main strategy for the first phase of the Chatha fight is to have a seperate Sartorus and Utamon tank/DPS groups on opposite sides of the 2nd storey, by the stairs and by the far wall. Once seperated from the Sartorus, and their buff allowed to run out, the Utamons can be burned down easily. Repeat this for every single group of spawns.

Chatha the Giant Centaur Horn Headed Monster with Scorpion Tails – When Chatha drops to 60%, he will stop teleporting and spawning Sartorus and Utamons. He will mutate into a giant centaur horn headed monster with scorpion tails. He hits like a truck in this form and has several special attacks. A PBAoE knockback, and a frontal cone stun followed by a big hit. Avoid the latter and position yourself so that the former does not knock you into one of the pit traps. If you did not lose many or any players during the first phase, then its a game of aggro swapping, watching his cast bar, and a DPS race to down him in his second phase. Chatha drops Chest, two Weapons and a Jar of 5 Simple Relic II. Chatha also drops a Ruby Eye of the Serpent which, together with the Ameythst Eye of the Serpent is required to open Wing 3 of BRC.

A screenshot of an EU guild downing Chatha. I need to get one of my own.

Age of Conan: Black Ring Citadel Wing 1 with Screenshots

Attunement for Tier 2 raiding in Age of Conan involved completing the level 80 Destiny Quest, and receiving a quest from Kalanthes and Cha in Kheshetta for a quest for Vistrix’s tooth. FunCom has removed this attunement requirement after the release of Tier 3 raiding. With the opening of Tier 3 raiding, I will now share Tier 2 raiding strategies with everyone.

BLACK RING CITADEL WING 1
Black Ring Citadel (BRC) has 3 wings. Wing 1 is to the right of the “lobby”, Wing 2 to the left, and Wing 3 is straight ahead. Upon entering Wing 1, raiders should pick up a quest from a box to the right of the cavern entrance. They have to clear out the groups of mobs around each of the cauldrons of blood in the cavern and click on the tiny little ladle on top. Completion of this quest will give caster characters a new spell, Shatter Stone. This spell is critical to the completion of the first boss, Excorant the Gargoyle Master. The cauldrons are defended by a group of trash mobs, some elites, some not. Most are easily manageable and not worth mentioning. Do not forget to kill the trash guarding the large snake statue. Clicking on the statue removes death penalty.

Black Ring Guards - I make a special note about the Black Ring Guards because they hit like a freight train. Under-geared tanks will truly struggle with these guys. Early raiders may need to kite the Guards around, or rotate aggro on them.

Excorant the Gargoyle Master – The raid will enter the first chamber of Wing 1 and see Excorant minding his own business next to a vat of molten lava. In the room are 6 gargoyle statues, and a bunch of broken gargoyles and moulds for making them. Excorant appears human in his first phase. He can be easily tanked and does not hit particularly hard. He has, however, a few tricks in his bag.

The first is that he can turn players into stone. Players first detect this because they get a debuff and move really slowly. Players who are stoned should try to move until they are all together in a bunch.

Every minute or so, Excorant awakens a pair of Gargoyles. There are 6 Gargoyles in total and he awakens them in order from the front of the room (where Excorant was standing at the start of the fight), to the back. These Gargoyles must be tanked and killed before the next pair awakes. Having too many Gargoyles up will wipe the raid. Everytime a Gargoyle dies, it drops a pile of sand on the floor. Casters with the Shatter Stone spell can pick up the sand and cast a cone effect on players who are turned to stone. The sand is on a timer when picked up and will run out in 15 seconds if not used.

So the first phase involve tanking the boss, grouping up the stoned people, tanking and heavy DPS on the Gargoyles, unstoning the stoned, and finally getting Excorant phase 1 down to 0% health.

Once Excorant’s health drops to zero, he falls to the floor and a gush of blood appears, in a couple of seconds, he turns into his second form, a large Gargoyle. In this form, Excorant periodically does an AoE fear and wipes aggro, so after the AoE fear, give tanks time to pick up aggro again. Otherwise, this phase is just tank and spank. Excorant drops Gloves, Belts and a Simple Relic II.

After the fight, a door opens and the players are allowed into another chamber with a corpse of a monster on a table, there is no boss fight here, just some trash. The trash up to the room with Yaremka is quite straight forward with the following exceptions.

Black Ring Cabalist - Do not use any form of Crowd Control (CC) on the Cabalist except for Stuns. Other forms of CC will cause the Cabalist to use an AoE Fear.

Black Ring Sorcerors - Tank multiple Sorcerors away from each other. Their overlapping AoE damage will kill players in seconds. They also do a root, which makes them irritating mobs.

Yaremka the Soul Eater – One of the few big bosses in BRC. Yaremka is a large horned demon in a room full of electrical contraptions. There are orbs suspended from the ceilings, and other orbs along the alcoves in the sides of the room. These orbs are all critical to the boss fight.

The raid needs to assign some low-DPS classes to the clickable orbs in the alcoves. There are 4 orbs on each side, a total of 8 orbs. Raids can assign 4 players to “orb duty”. There should be a leader for the orb team, he will call for the clicking of the orbs.

Yaremka is a tank and spank with a few exceptions. He puts quite a strong Damage over Time (DoT) spell on the 2nd person on the aggro table. So have two soldiers tank Yaremka so the 2nd on aggro eats the DoT. Keep the two tanks healed at all times. Every minute, Yaremka will Enrage and expand in size. The role of the orb team is to click the orb before he or after he Enrages to Pacify him.

The tanks must bring Yaremka to one side of the room between the suspended orbs and their lightning bolts, the orb team needs to be at the clickable orbs on the same side. The orb team will click on the orbs in synchronised timing and Pacify Yaremka. Then the tanks must bring Yaremka to the other side of the room, the orb team must run to the other set of clickable orbs and repeat the clicking. The clickable orbs have a 1 minute cooldown, so the raid has to move from one side of the room to the other every 30 seconds.

Once the raid get the Pacify down pat, this fight is really easy. Voice chat like Ventrilo is necessary for this fight. Again, undergeared raiders will struggle tanking his DoT. Yaremka drops Legs, Boots and a Simple Relic II.

After killing Yaremka, the raid would face some tougher trash mobs on their way to Sabazios. Most are standard tank and spanks with the following exception. Way back in the day, this clickable orbs were buggy and did not show their status properly. Raids used to kite Yaremka around the room and spend 20+ minutes with this fight. This is a case of the exploit being harder to execute than the intended fight strategy.

Black Ring Templars – These guys are immuned to any additional magical effects from skills and abilities. So they take quite a while to kill. Otherwise, they behave like Black Ring Guards, i.e. hitting like trucks.

Sabazios the Insane – This is an insanely easy fight, so much so that it is considered free loot. Sabazios is basically a tank and spank. There are four giant snake statues in the room that many snake adds will issue forth from. The intended boss fight is for the raid to destroy the giant snake statues before the snakes pick off the squishies and wipe the raid. However, it is not hard for higher armoured classes to ring fence the squishies in a corner of the room so that Sabazios because a simple tank, spank and AoE DPS race. Ah the joys of collision detection. Sabazios drops Legs, Shoulders, Weapons and a Simple Relic II.

So that is Wing 1 of the Black Ring Citadel. It is an easy wing if you have a few seasoned raiders to carry the rest through. Some trash mobs drop Shards of the Exiled God which are crafting materials for two weapons, Quill of the Ibis (one handed edge) and Feather of the Ibis (two handed edge), during the Leviathus boss fight in BRC Wing 3. Sabazios also drops an Amethyst Eye of the Serpent, together with another Eye from Wing 2, is required to open Wing 3. Only the raid leader needs to have both eyes.

Aion: Tower of Eternity – One month in

I have not written anything for a while because I have been quite busy with work, and also, quite busy playing games. Over a month into Aion, I have officially finished the month and a week that comes with pre-order and buying the game. I am currently into my first game time card.

I shall talk about each part of the Aion game as I have gone through them in my Beta articles.

Character Customization
The NA/EU game was launched with patch 1.5, which increased the variety of looks to include more Western style faces and stocky dwarf body types. Which was pretty cool. I made a fat guy with fiery red hair and beard, and a nice pink alcoholic skin.

Unfortunately most of the player base still made pretty standard looking characters, just varying in size.This means that it is still quite hard to tell players apart from their looks. Of course, there are also a handful of absolute freaks of nature. The high level plate armour turns out to be quite bulky, making the players look a little like Space Marines, which can be quite nice.

Class
I think there are pretty big issues with class viability balance. This is 1v1 PvP type of balance, but whether classes are needed/wanted for certain types of content.

The main problem is that the class role allocation for this game is quite old fashioned. The Holy Trinity: Tanking, Healing and Damage is overly dominated by one class each. This is rather unfortunate considering that over the years, games have successfully spread the load of such roles around to multiple classes. World of Warcraft has successfully spread the load of tanking to quite a number of class archetypes, and Age of Conan has forced the requirement of all 3 classes of healers for a raid situation. In Aion PvE, you pretty much only need 3 classes: Templar, Cleric and Sorceror.

The Templar has so many more tools for tanking compared to the next class Gladiator, who while able to tank perhaps 80%-90% of the content of the game, the fact that the Templar is able to do it so much easier makes it an automatic choice. People would rather sit around waiting for a Templar than to run with a Gladiator, while others have proven that Gladiators can tank certain content sufficiently well.

The Chanter’s healing does not come anywhere close to that of a Cleric. To a point that there is de facto only one choice of a healer class. Chanters are relegated to near passive buffing.

Assassins, Gladiators, Chanters, Spirit Masters and Rangers damage do not come anywhere close to making up for the fact that the Sorceror has multiple Crowd Control spells that are quite useful in an elite zone. A Sorceror can CC two mobs while the Templar tanks one. This takes away the role of Off-Tank and Off-Healers, effectively keeping them out of groups.

Even in PvP, the CC removal ability lies with the Cleric, so it is better to have two Clerics than to have a Cleric and a Chanter. The Sorceror has so many CCs that it is quite pointless to consider any other class for the CCing role. The Ranger CCs are lack lustre compared to the Sorceror’s. Most of the other classes are then limited to a one-trick pony style of play in PvP. The Chanter for their buffs, the Gladiators with their AoE damage, the Spirit Masters with their AoE fear, the Rangers in aerial combat, and the Assassin in stealth combat.

While the Templars can tank and damage, the Clerics can heal, damage and CC, and the Sorcerors can CC, damage and can get themselves out of trouble. The bias is quite obvious.

Graphics
While closed beta and open beta ran smoothly in terms of graphics, the live version of the game has some serious flaws. Basically, the CrySystem.dll crash. The game, being build on the 6 year old CryEngine 1 in 32-bit, is showing its age. Ironically, it is the machines that have more than 2gb of physical ram that is affected by this problem. Once your client hits the roof of rendering 2gb of graphics, it crashes. This means that people are crashing in the main cities, and during sieges. Which makes vital parts of the game unplayable for many people.

This is a game breaking issue, and if not resolved soon, will leave Aion on the scrap pile like many other MMOs. I waxed lyrical about how everything works in Aion during the beta, well, this does not work in live.

Leveling
There are several issues with leveling, they are kinda interrelated as well.

Firstly, grouping with people too far away in level puts a big hit on the Exp gained. When I say too far, I mean 3-5 or more levels apart. The issue is that it is still within the level range allowed to do certain content, but if the level difference is too far apart, the Exp hit is quite discouraging. This is the first disincentive to grouping, considering that grouping is vital to this game.

Secondly, mob and player resistance to damage is too great when there is a level difference. At about 5 or more levels higher, I only do half damage to the mobs, much less in PvP. Levels means everything in PvPvE. If you are higher level, you will do more damage, suffer less damage and will get most of the rewards. The problem is obvious when a single level 45 player can kill entire groups of level 3x players with impunity. A level 38 player can kill level 2x players by the dozens. The side effect of level dominance is that everyone then wants to level quickly, which leads to people not wanting to help lower level legion-mates because their time is better served leveling. This is detrimental to grouping, and also to the community building. One of the fun things I did in Age of Conan was when five of us in our late 3x managed to kill a level 80 assassin. That is impossible in Aion. 5 levels apart and you stand zero chance.

The last thing is, of course, the grind. It does get extremely grindy, with 90% of the level 40s needed to be grinded out, instead of quested. I can accept grinding, many traditional MMO players can, but if you couple the need to grind with the absolute dominance of level in PvP, then you create an issue of people wanting to grind instead of PvP. The “I will do this when I am max level” mentality.

This has two side effects, one of which is that people bot their level grinding. There are lots of bots in the game. To a point where it is sometimes hard to find real players. The situation is very bad and is putting off a lot of players. There is some action beginning to be taken by GMs with regards to botting, but in certain zones, you are likely to come across 5-8 bots before you come across a real player. That is very bad for player morale.

The other side effect is again that it discourages grouping up for quests. The positive and negative feedback loops in this game is very poorly implemented. The elite content is risky and expensive when you die, and the rewards are scant. The Exp is lacklustre to a point that it is better to mindless grind on mobs, mindless to a point of being a bot. If this risk versus reward situation is not addressed, it will just exacerbate the situation of botting and questing.

Combat
Currently, as it stands, ranged classes have a much greater advantage over melee classes. This is because the ranged classes all have CCs and the melee classes do not have comparitively as much snares, roots and stumbles that they need to keep up with kiting PvP. The problem is exacerbated in aerial combat, especially when the Z-axis range is quite buggy for melee combat.

This is a common problem with MMORPG PvP balance, and it would be good if NCSoft makes the right noises that it understands the problem and will address it, which it has not.

Crafting
Crafting is expensive, largely because it is a market controlled by players. Players sell materials for too high a price, and many crafters sell crafted items for too low a price. I cannot put my finger exactly on why people do that. Either many crafters are buying in-game currency and are funding their material buying spree with the ill-gotten kinah, or tha many crafters are failing at simple mathematics and just selling their crafted items cheaply in a desperate hope to recoup some kinah. My guess is that it is somewhere inbetween, which creates a little vicious cycle where legitimate crafters are stuck inbetween.

It also means that there is money to be made exploiting crafters by playing the Trader Broker market.

Economy
I said that the economy might just work. Well, I made those assumptions without considering the effects that in-game currency buying would have. The high cost of living in the game should, in theory keep inflation in check, but it appears that it has limited effect in that area, because player sold items are still too expensive for legitimate players to afford. I have no idea how much RMT and botting plays a part in this but I suspect that it is not small.

Gold spamming was a massive problem for the first month of the game. Chat channels were completely dominated by gold spam that people had to spend a good few minutes blocking players every single time they logged on. The GMs have taken some action, but it still exists albeit to a lesser extent. Gold sellers open stores in the main cities advertising their websites with impunity for days, and no action is taken against them.

The Abyss and Fortress Sieges
The problem with factional PvP games is that it is very likely for servers to have completely lopsided player population. This leads to near complete dominance of open PvP zones and PvP content. It creates a domino effect of demoralizing the weaker faction, leading the people opting for grinding levels over PvP, and people quitting the game or defecting to the dominating side. If the situation does not improve quickly, this over dominance will lead to player exodus, both on the losing and the winning side as the feeling of a lack of challenge sets in.

I am in a server where the other faction completely dominates PvP. They own 44% of the abyss and the Balaur 56%. Yes, my faction owns 0%. Ocassionally we can muster enough to take one of the lower Fortresses, but they would very likely take it back within days.

Rifting
I enjoyed rifting in the betas, where the level limit meant that we could spend lots of time doing fun stuff. Unfortunately, that did not translate to live servers. People are too busy leveling up that they do not want to rift. I have not gotten any rift groups to do any of my Spy quests. One can level safely in Eltnen/Morheim because no one wants to rift into them. With the global chat channels, defenders can organize themselves quickly which also discourages rifting.

This is slowly changing as many players reach their mid-40s. Facing an uphill grind for Exp, they have started to rift into Heiron/Belusia. It is also quite rewarding as there are a ton of bots in both of these zones for free Abyss points. The smaller number of players also mean that defence is harder to organize. Level 3x questing in these zones can do nothing to hurt the level 4x rifting through. It is not ideal, but at least it is exciting as it was designed to be.

Instanced Dungeons
These are a mixed bag. Nochsana Training Group a level 25-28 dungeon is so overwelmingly rewarding in Exp that players have almost no reason doing any other sort of Exp gaining during those levels. The later dungeons like Fire Temple and Steel Rake, are relatively much harder dungeons, with severe risk of dying, and quite rare rewards. The rewards are great but not reliable. This is one example of NCSoft’s failure to balance positive and negative feedback loops. I reckon that the Soul Healing penalty for dying in these dungeons should be reduced to encourage more daring play. Currently, players wait for hours for an “ideal” group. Legions refuse to PuG the dungeons, etc. I have no problems with difficult content, but it should not discourage grouping.

Conclusions at this stage
I think Aion has impressed as many people as it has disappointed. For many, like myself, there is this nagging feeling of not having much to look forward to when logging into the game. It becomes a case of sitting around waiting for the right group to form to do something that you need doing. I think while this game enforces grouping, it also does a lot to discourage grouping. Players are beginning to realize how thread-bare the game is. An unbalanced PvP system too dependent on levels and zergs seems to put many people off. While that may be fixed when the vast majority of players reach level 50, the steep leveling grind may mean that servers may not have a chance to see that happen.

I am still undecided whether to subscribe beyond this month’s game time card. There are adrenalin pumping moments, but there are still a lot of issues for the developers to work out. Several game breaking issues plague Aion at the moment: the CrySystem.dll crashes, the imbalanced factions on servers, the bots and gold sellers/buyers, the poor implementation of a risk versus reward system, the dominance of levels.

Thankfully, there are a slew of single player games that are capturing my attention at the moment: Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins. Has the video game market come full circle back to single player games? If MMORPG developers do not shape up, it might just happen. The MMORPG player base is blase and bored with what is on offer. Developers need to up their game, not just in creating the game, but in maintaining and balancing the game. There seems to be a disconnect between the discerning players and the developers. There might still be hope in Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2, but I will look at them with my cynical eye when they get closer.

Hello Google, I’m Human!

I am sick and tired of Google search making me do captchas to prove I am human.

How is Google determining when to put these barriers in front of humans trying to use their search engines?

I have had terms like “nvidia driver” , “best cooler for e8400″ picked up my the anti-droid police in the last few minutes. Hell, even “captcha” got caught. How are those not human things to ask a search engine?

Hello Google. For the last time, I am human. You’ll really be sorry if you keep putting barriers before your users. Perhaps Microsoft Bing will recognize my humanity.

Age of Conan: Tier 1 Raiding with Screenshots

I decided to write this after so long because I noticed quite a lot of people reading my Age of Conan: End Game post, which was nearly a year ago and no longer a fair representation of the game as it is now. I renamed it more aptly to Age of Conan: Level 60 to 80, and decided to write about end game raiding in this and subsequent new posts. Age of Conan end game raiding starts with four Tier 1 raid bosses in three dungeons. All of the Tier 1 raid dungeons are in Cimmeria.

KYLIKKI’S CRYPT
This is probably the first and easiest raid dungeon in the game Kylikki’s Crypt is in the level 40 to 50 zone Field of the Dead. As the name suggests, it is a crypt, so the environment is man-made. Kylikki is a Hyperborean witch, and she controls the Hyperboreans in Field of the Dead and through them orders the Vanir around. The trash groups in Kylikki’s crypt are perhaps the hardest trash groups in all of Age of Conan raiding, until you are fairly deep into Tier 2 raiding. They consist of groups of five mobs.

White Hand Guards - There are two White Hand Guards in each group who are minions and can be killed by minion instant kill spells that most of the DPS classes have.

White Hand Spellguard - Spellguards use cold damage spells, and is probably the most dangerous of the mobs. They do an AoE attack that can kill players in a few seconds, they usually do two of these AoE in succession, so you have to watch out for them and sprint out of range, stay out for 10-15 seconds before coming in to kill them.

White Hand Priests - These guys can hit pretty hard with their Smite attack, but they are pretty standard mobs that can be tanked and spanked. They also run and heal the other mobs when their health is low, but their heals are negligible.

Gurnakhi Honorguard - These are the warriors of the group. The biggest problem with them is that they constantly reset their aggro, so it is impossible to tank or kite them when other players are around. They also seem to rate healers very high on their hate list.

Early raiders had massive problems with these trash mobs. The players with minion instant kills are not taking down the Guards, the players are not paying attention and die in droves to the Spellguards, or the Honorguard is smashing all the healers to bits. There are a few ways to approach these groups, and they largely involve kiting either the Spellguard or the Honorguard around while killing off the other. We have a Guardian tank the Spellguard to one side while the raid attacks the Priest. The Honourguard will be smacking on players, but if the group is bunched up tight, his aggro will keep switching and he will not actually kill anyone. The Guardian tanking the Spellguard would call out when the Spellguard has finished his second AoE, and the whole raid will descend on the Spellguard, bringing the half dead Priest in with them. The Spellguard might AoE again, so the raid has to be alert, move out and back in. Drop the Spellguard, drop the Priest, and bunch up on the Honorguard and drop it. Clear about 6-7 groups of trash and you get to the first boss, the Champion of the Honorguard.

Champion of the Honorguard – This first boss is the easiest of the Tier 1 bosses. He is basically a tank and spank with a few exceptions. His most dangerous ability is Curse of Gwahlur, when he has that buff up, the whole raid must stop DPS, it is important not to use DoTs in this fight, and to kill off pets and idols and the like when the Curse is up. The buff lasts for 10 seconds, after which you can proceed to attacking him again. He also has a minor damage reflection  called Covenant of Pestilence, but this should not bother anyone who has a health pot running. At about 60% health, he starts to pulse an AoE attack every two seconds. This can hurt quite badly so everyone need to have pots running, and healers must be alert. Anyone dropping too fast should sprint out of range. He drops the Belts, Boots, Armbands and a Weapon. Another 6-7 groups of trash later, you get to Kylikki herself.

Kylikki – Kylikki herself is not hard to tank, however, she has some help during her fight. After the first 30 seconds or so, she spawns her two spectral wolves, called Kylikki’s Minions, but they are not minions in the techincal way and cannot be killed my minion instant kill spells. These wolves can be CCed and must be killed fast, they hit very hard. In another 10 seconds or so, she goes to one of the sides of her room and spawns 4 Spellguards who heals her. These are true minions and can be killed instantly. Necromancers always get a spot in a Kylikki raid if they have Shatter, the AoE minion kill spell. Kylikki will keep respawning wolves and Spellguards so the fight is all about tanking her, killing her minions and going back to DPSing her. It is not a hard fight but needs the group to be organised. Kylikki drops the Chestguards, Wristguards and Weapons.

YAHKMAR’S CAVE
Yahkmar is a giant slug in a incredibly huge ice cavern at the northern end of Eiglophian mountains. The raid dungeon is so large but has no trash mobs. The strategy to kill Yahkmar also does not require kiting it, so I have zero idea why it is given such large real estate. It is impressive nonetheless, and should have been easy to model and texture. Its a white and blue cave.

The fight has been buggy for at least the first 8 months of the game. It was either extremely easy to bug out the boss, and pretty much farm it 15 times an evening, or it was an impossible fight far exceeding the difficulty levels of a Tier 1 boss. I think FunCom has finally got the right balance of difficulty for this boss, and removed some of the exploitable issues. This is the fastest raid in Tier 1 because there are no trash, but no trash also mean no extra loot from the trash.

Yahkmar – Tanking Yahkmar itself is very easy, and a large part of fighting Yahkmar is to have the smallest possible tanking group on it, so that the rest of the raid can focus on the adds. I consider the adds the real boss split into small pieces and Yahkmar itself as the trash merged into one lump. We tank Yahkmar with a single decently geared Guardian and two healers, with a third occasionally dropping in to pop his big heal. You can have a Nightfall Necromancer and Assassins full time on the boss to speed up the fight. Another soldier supporting the tank group can be useful for bringing adds away from the tank group.

Another key to this fight is not to use fire damage on the boss. That usually relegates fire based classes like Conflagulation Demonologists and Heralds of Xotli to add duty. The boss stuns the whole raid if he receives any fire damage and that usually wipes the raid.

Wurmlings - Every 65 seconds, a group of 3 or 4 Wurmlings are spawned about 15m away from the boss. The Wurmlings hit really hard, and can overwelm a disorganised raid. Calling targets and grouping up to get the most benefits of buffs and heals help a lot. Good communication so that CCs can be rotated well will also ensure the raid lasts the distance. DPS classes that attract the Wurmling’s attention must resist the temptation of kiting them away from the group, as that prolongs the fight and can lead to a wipe. A decent raid should have 10-15 seconds of DPS time on the boss inbetween add spawns. Remember, no fire damage. A 10 min raid, in bang and out. Yahkmar drops Leggings, Gloves and Weapons. A quest from a hunter, Finelle for Yahkmar’s fur will yield an epic Bow or Crossbow.

THE DRAGON’S LAIR
The Dragon’s Lair is high on the mountains of Aztel’s Approach, you are led there by a series of quests from a Nemedian researcher Kurtz Mandros. He first gives you a quest called Trail to the Dragon’s Lair, where you have to find the entrance to the raid dungeon. He then gives you a quest called the Draconnus Hex, where you have to collect four inscriptions from within the raid dungeon. After which, he would give caster classes (all mages and priests), something called Vistrix’s Bane, more will be explained about this later. Kurtz then asks you to get Vistrix’s skull for a measly 15 silver.

There are two more quests involved with killing Vistrix. One is from King Conan himself, who would give you an epic Cape for killing Vistrix. Another is from Kalanthes and Cha in Kheshetta, for Vistrix’s tooth to make a charm for you to get into Black Ring Citadel, the Tier 2 raid dungeons. The dungeon is full of mixed groups of Chill Crawler trash. These monsters are snake like creatures with clawed arms.

Chill Crawler Mindrazers - These are the weakest of the mobs, and are in fact minions, so they can be killed by instant minion kills, and should be. They are able to stun and mind control players for a while, so get them down first. They can be CCed.

Chill Crawler Shadowbearers – These are not hard to kill and do not have any particular special attacks, usually just an annoyance. Just your average caster type raid mob. They are immuned to crowd control.

Chill Crawler Champions - The main problem with these guys is that they have am AoE fear, in fact two AoE fears, which they use back to back. Another problem with them is that they are rock hard, do tons of damage and take quite a bit of killing. A third problem is that they switch aggro very fast, similar to the Gurnahki Honorguard in Kylikki’s Crypt. Immuned to CCs as well.

Frozen Cadavers - These are frozen dead humans come back to life. They are easy to kill and can be CCed all the way.

Vistrix - Vistrix is an awesomely impressive dragon, with beautifully modelled, textured and quite good animation. Probably the most impressive boss in Age of Conan. There are a few mechanics to Vistrix, so getting them right makes all the difference. Every 45 seconds, Vistrix does a 25m radius stun. After which she would do a massive cone flame breath on a group of people who are stunned. When her health gets down to 75%, 50% and 25%, she would spawn a massive zerg of adds. Another thing that Vistrix does is to stack an armour debuff on the tanks called Vistrix Profanity. Tanks have to swap aggro so that their debuff can wear off.

The fight starts with the 2nd tank running in first to take the knockback that Vistrix does at the start of the fight. All through the fight, Vistrix will occasionally knockback a person every 30 seconds or so. This is usually not very disruptive, but the first knockback needs to be managed so the tanks have time to grab aggro, and the DPS can start earlier. Some raids like to only do white damage on the first DPS run so that the tanks build up maximum aggro.

As mentioned, Vistrix does a massive AoE stun every 45 seconds, so having someone call out the timer is essential. A Ranger can mark the 25m stun range. When the timer is called, the DPS group runs out behind the Ranger. The main tank group would then be stunned. At this point, a call is made for someone with the Vistrix’s Bane to sprint in and use it on the main tank group. The Vistrix’s Bane, the quest reward from Kurtz Mandros, acts to unstun players in a cone in front of the caster, and also removes a fire damage debuff. This allows the main tank group to survive the flame breath, and the DPS group can dash back into the fight until the next timer is called. At 75% health, everyone except the tanks should run out and await the zerg of Terrors of Tartaros, and Horrors of Tartaros, Chill Crawler type mobs.

Terrors of Tartaros - These are minions, they can be CCed and instant minion killed.

Horrors of Tartaros - These are regular raid mobs, I am not sure if they can be CCed.

It is good to have a list of Bane users and call out the next one. So the fight is a methodical one of the DPS group running in and out, and the Bane users running in, and everyone bar the tanks running out for the zerg. Not a hard fight, but it takes organisation and a raid that obeys instructions. Vistrix drops Helmets and Weapons.

So that is Tier 1 raiding. After getting Vistrix’s Tooth, the players get a few run around quests and are attuned for Black Ring Citadel (BRC), the Tier 2 raids.

Aion: Tower of Eternity Beta 5 with Screenshots

This Beta weekend saw a lot more people level to 25, so the PvP action went into full swing, both in the Abyss as well as in each other’s territory through the Rifts. While some legions (guilds) managed to get a lot of PvP done last beta, due to several members being quite busy, our legion only went into full swing this beta.

More about Rifting - An awesome way to waste time
Now that I  have done more Rifting, I can explain it a little better than last beta. Every so often, there would be an announcement that Rifts have opened in the worlds. The level 20-40 zones of Eltnen (Elysea) and Morheim (Asmodia) will be linked by an entrance rift and an exit rift. I assume that the corresponding level 30-50 zones also have such rifts. The rifts will appear in one of seven possible entrance and exit locations. Each entrance location corresponds to a specific exit location in the opponent’s zone. So rifting can be predictable, but still not easy to manage with seven possible locations.

When a rift opens, the sky will tear and have some sort of wormhole. This wormhole has a cone of aether that points to the ground. A rift entrance would appear at ground level. Rifts are not very visible from far, so knowing where to look for one helps a lot. You need to get up close to see them. Each entrance rift has a limited number of uses. I believe that they start at 50. You can mouse over the rift and it will tell you how many uses it has left.

Because of the wide range of levels in the zones, you very often ended up rifting to an area in the enemy zone with high level mobs that you need to avoid. These zones are empty now because the beta limits the level to 30. The point is to make it to the level 20ish areas and start killing the enemies trying to level there. A well organized rifting force can stay in the enemy zone for hours killing individuals. The lack of a global chat means that defenders have a harder time organizing a cohesive defence, even though they are likely to have a lot more people in the zone.

There is not a lot of Abyss Points to be had when rifting. The main reasons is to get some easy PvP done, and enjoy the suspense of being in the enemy zone surrounded and outnumbered, and seeing how far you can go, and how long you can survive. There is also the part about disrupting the leveling of the enemy players. This might be akin to why the US military wants to destroy Al Qaeda training camps, and why insurgents in Iraq bomb people queueing up to sign up for the security forces. Disrupting the enemy training means less trained enemies on the battlefield (The Abyss).

Bringing a portable resurrection point, a Kisk into the enemy zone helps the group stay in the zone for much longer. A Kisk can bought at the General Goods vendor and deployed where ever needed, 6 players can bind themselves to it. The Kisk cannot be moved after deployment, and can be destroyed. Players bounded to a kisk being attacked and destroyed will get an announcement.

More about the Abyss - Good grind spots attract PvP
As mentioned previous, a player gets to go into the Abyss after level 25. There are a handful of repeatable quests available at level 25 that are near the base camp of either side. These repeatable quests givers are of the same faction as the player, and will fight any enemy players that come near. Hence, these are reasonably safe grinding areas.

As you level up, the quest givers are further from the base camps, and some neutral quest givers will become available. As a result, the good grind spots start to get contested. This is a weird mix of PvP disrupting mindless grinding of repeatable quests, usually with a basic quest objective of killing X number of a mob, or picking up Y number of quest drops.

The number of quests available to level 25-50 players are getting revamped in the latest patch 1.5, which would supposedly add another 100 quests. This is most welcomed as grinding on the same mob can get boring. While mobs tend to be quite similar, they do have slight different skills.

The fun part about the Abyss PvP is that it is a flying zone. That means terrain in the Z axis makes a difference. There are a few areas where there are overhanging terrain features. These allow the enemies to group up above their enemies and strike hard at groups on the ground. Enemies can also fly up from the ledge of an “island” and attack unexpectedly. They purposefully made a short draw distance so that it is easier to catch people unawares, and also to reduce lag. A few seconds of flying and someone would be out of sight. So far, these features keep PvP fresh.

Instanced Dungeon – Will try it next beta
This beta weekend unlocked a level 28+ 6-man instanced dungeon, but my legion did not have enough people that got to level 28 for us to give it a shot, maybe next beta.

What I like about AION? - It is competent
AION works. The way it has designed its crafting, its economy, its gear, its classes, its factions, and its PvP look like they would all work, and work smoothly. That is much more to be said of many other MMORPG one year into launch.IT is a competent game, and it gives the right incentive to do every part of the game. You will find yourself quite out of pocket if you focused solely on PvP and neglected to grind and do your gathering and crafting.  It rewards people to PvP quite well, although it has no penalty for killing lower leveled enemies, but based on the storyline, it should not have one. It is up to powerful legions to take care of their own factions. With broken and imbalanced systems a major cause of complaints for most MMORPG, AION might buck the trend by actually delivering a solid system at launch.

Fears about AION – It could get boring real fast
One of the biggest fear for me about AION is that it could get boring real fast. It is not just the result of me playing quite full on over the past few beta weekends. The mobs are quite standard, the quests are extremely boring, and the elite zones are quite normal. Most boss fights are nothing but tank and spank. Age of Conan had this problem at launch but they eventually revamped a lot of the dungeons to be quite fun and exciting. Guild Wars and Age of Conan also make a point to write quests that are different and interesting. World of Warcraft’s newer raid boss fights are also very fun and  different from your usual tank and spank. There are no signs that NCSoft sees this as a problem.

You can say that the PvE elements are monotonous because this game is designed for PvP. But I also suspect that the PvP would get boring fast too. I suspect that the vast majority of the PvP would be whose zerg is bigger or zerg versus zerg PvP. Combat is nowhere near as engaging as melee combat in Age of Conan, and PvP is nowhere near as tactical and skill-based as in Guild Wars.

Another major issue is lag. On the beta servers, lag is quite a problem. Skills feel very spongy to activate, and none more stark as the heals. Someone described it to be like “healing underwater”. I hope the lag gets resolved in the live servers or it might be nigh unplayable. If you cannot rely on your healer, what else can you do?

The third fear is probably botting, hacking, farming and gold sellers. I seriously doubt Game Guard will keep any these out. The fact that the game is live in Korea and China means that the organisations have more understanding of the game, and have got a lot of practise cracking it. It is unfortunate that in this day and age, games are still using the Client-Server model. NCSoft distributes Guild Wars that saw and solved this problem 4 years ago.

A wormhole in the sky, with its aetheric cone pointing to the ground.

I always forget to take a screenshot of a rift. I had to steal this from someone else. This guy is an Asmodian Assassin by the looks of things.

I also stole this screenshot of an Elyos Templar and his legion deep inside Morheim, encountering a sea of red names.

A level 40 boss that wanders around the level 28 questing area. He looks like a meanie.

I quite like some of the monster designs, and many of their animations. The player and monster animations are top notch in this game.

Aion: Tower of Eternity Beta 4 with Screenshots

Immersion – Some nice details and features
One of the interesting things I forgot to cover in the previous article is the level of immersion in the game. While this game is basically based on high fantasy, with its ornate cities and over-elaborate impractical armour and weapon designs, it still does attempt to keep the game immersive to a certain extent.

All NPC are placed in associated environment. Warehouse and Trade Brokers are behind desks and counters, surrounded by many crates and boxes. Merchants are in stores with merchandise. All these are nice touches.

All NPC will fight the enemy in the Abyss, even the quest givers. The downside is that they can actually be kited quite far away, although they smash through players quite quickly. You can be quite safe talking to quest givers in the Abyss.

One of the funny things about AION is how, when left to their own devices, they would perform some emotes. If it is raining, the Elyos toons take out a fern leaf to use as an umbrella. They fan the armpits in the desert, and yawn in boredom in the city. Emotes tends to be a little over the top, but it is high fantasy, after all.

Leveling and Classes – Looks like a little grinding in the horizon
Levels 1 to 20 will seem easy mode once you get into the higher levels. It took me one weekend to get from levels 1 to 20, and another extended weekend to get from level 20 to 25. I would imagine that all panned out, this game would take longer to level to max level than Pre-BC World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. I estimate 3 to 4 months of regular play several hours a day. Nowhere near as bad as many Korean MMORPG though.

There were ample quests from level 20-23, but the quests start to dry up before 25. I had to grind mobs for half of my level 23, and three quarters of my level 24. Grinding mobs is about downtime, so pairing up helps speed up the process, especially if one of the pair is a healer. I was playing my Chanter and could solo a level 26 mob at level 24 within 30-40 seconds, have no downtime, and move on to the next. Selecting mobs with lower armour ratings help a lot. Rumour has it that the best leveling duo is a Ranger and a Chanter, only time will tell.

The best PvE soloing classes would be the Spiritmaster and Chanter, from what I can see. The Spiritmaster can tank with their pet, while DoTing up the mobs. The Chanter can Parry and HoT tank normal mobs. What I like about the Chanter is that it is very cheap to maintain. I hardly use potions, unlike all other classes, which need to replenish their HP or MP frequently.

Stigma Stones – A missed opportunity
I read somewhere that the initial Stigma system was not intended to have class restrictions, it led to many OP possibilities which led to it being a dumbed down mechanic and a shadow of a typical Talent/Feat system. At level 25, I have two Stigma Stone slots. Each Stigma Stone gives you a skill, so you can marginally tweak your class by which of the skills you choose, the possibilities would be so much better if you had access to the Stigma Stones of other classes, but alas, they cannot balance it. A missed opportunity to have a headline feature for the game, like Guild Wars’ Primary and Secondary Profession system.

Together with weapon and armour choices, the manastones and Stigma Stones represent small differences between one player and the next of the same class. It can be dramatic if you stack most or all of the manastones of a same type. A Cleric with mostly +HP manastones is a lot harder but loses a lot of damage to one that stacks +Magic Boost.

Rifts – Awesome fun, but where is our cartographer?
One of the most interesting part of getting into the main level 20+ zones, Eltnen(Elyos) and Morheim(Asmodian), is that Rifts will open between the two zones. A hole appears in the sky with a conical beam that points towards the ground. If you go to where the beam is pointing, you will find a portal to travel between the two lands. Each rift is only one way, both entrance and exit rifts open at the same time, but in different places. Each rift has a fixed number of uses, and only allows a limited number of people through before they close. The problem is that it is hard to pinpoint where the beam is pointing towards. After a while, there should be people keeping watch of the various possible points where rifts appear.

Organised groups can send a large hunting party across the Rift into enemy territory to get some great PvP fun. There are also quests that take you individually to the enemy zones, and Infiltration quests asking you to perform tasks in the enemy lands. They are all good fun and lets one faction get a glimpse of the environment on the other side. Having played on the Elyos side all this time, it was refreshing to check out the snow covered and lava spewing zones in Asmodae.

The Rifts show the difference between the organisation and the lack thereof. We suffered several brutal lashings from large Asmodian Legions that worked together and killed people very fast. Mass PvP in this game is all about Assisting your target caller, you can take out players in mere seconds, so a large organised group can roll through a haphazardly put together defence of PuGs like a hot knife through butter. This is one thing that annoyed me about being on the Elyos side. It seems that all the PvP kiddies have gone to Asmodae, and I hope I will not be stuck in Elysea with only crafting and PvE-centric players. The lack of a global chat might actually make being an Asmodian palatable as you can minimise contact with hormonally imbalanced PvP kiddies while benefiting from their fervor.

The Abyss - Not many people made it through
If you think of Elysea and Asmodae as planets, you can think of the Abyss as a asteroid belt that lies between the two planets. It is what it visually looks like. Have jumppacks instead of wings, and you can reskin AION into a sci-fi planet hopping game. You heard it here first.

The Abyss is an all flying zone, with speed boost portals floating around. There are three levels that are accessible with special portals. The Elyos and Asmodians each control one asteroid in the lower layer to start, everywhere else is controlled by the Balaur.

The Balaur are a race of demonic beings that were created to watch over the planet, but turned malevolent. The humans fought the Balaur together, and it was the Cataclysm, a moment in history that tore the human race into the Asmodians and the Elyos, that the Balaur destroyed the physical links between the two halves of the world. They now rule the Abyss between Asmodae and Elysea, while the two human factions blame each other for allowing the Balaur to tear the world apart.

Mobs litter all the asteroids, as are quest givers. Most of the mobs are either made of the stuff of the asteroids, rock monsters, or ghosts of dead Elyos and Asmodians. The rest of the mobs are different minions of varying level controlled by the Balaur. Mobs start at level 27, which means level 25 characters can start playing in the Abyss and level there. The main problem with this particular beta event was that people took so long to get to level 25 that there were not many people in the Abyss, although we did get some PvP done there.

Fortresses and Artifacts – PvPvE
The main point to the Abyss are the several Fortresses and Artifacts that dot the larger asteroids. While the Abyss is all flying, the Fortresses have a force field that kills flyers. This is a mechanic to force the raids onto the ground. The players have to besiege the Fortress and destroy the force fields on foot. Then make their way into the depths of the Fortress to kill the main bosses in there. They would then claim control of the Fortress. I assume the Fortresses would be open to attacks from Balaur and Asmodians from then on.

Each Fortress has a few Artifacts around it. They need to be claimed individually. Each Artifact can be activated to become some sort of weapon of mass destruction. I saw all these in cut scenes. Whether these mechanics are fun or prone to abuse will ultimately make or break this game, since it is the main highlights. If people do not enjoy themselves in the Abyss, there is not much that sets AION apart from other games.

Abyss Points and the Legion – Might be elitist but intriguing
On top of the regular experience points you get from killing monsters, and the regular 1-50 leveling system, there are also Abyss points and Abyss levels. Ordinarily, this would be seen as PvP Exp, but the interesting thing is that you get Abyss Points for killing mobs and doing quests in the Abyss.

They saw it fit to tag the Legion (Guild) progression to the Abyss Points. The Legion needs to earn Abyss Points and pay kinah (in-game currency) in order to add extra member slots, and to rise in ranks. This will lead to an even more extreme elitist behaviour for top guilds, and everyone would be forced to PvP or risk PvP in the Abyss in order to progress. Abyss Points can also be redeemed for gear.

This encourages PvP, but it might just mean lots of non-stop zerg PvP, not quite sure if that is my cup of tea. I prefer something structured that requires a bit of brainwork like Guild Wars Alliance Battles and Heroes’ Ascent. We’ll see how it pans out. Every player has a stake, which may weed out casual players, for good or for ill.

Screenshots

Here I am grinding my way to level 25. I look less noob now.

Here is an example of a mob that you can encounter in the Abyss. Besides Asmodians, the Abyss has mobs as well. From the elite Balaur and their minions, to monsters made from the shards of the Abyss to the ghosts of Asmodians and Elyos.

Here is how you travel from one level of the Abyss to another, through special portals.

The majority of the environment in the Abyss looks like some sort of hell. This is a scene straight out of a Ma Rong Cheng comic book. The armies of the Balaur control most of the Abyss.

More hellish environments and their inhabitants.

Its not all doom and gloom in the Abyss, a few places are quite pictureseque. Here is the Elyos home base with its giant peach tree. What’s up with North East Asians and peach trees?

This is taken from the cut scenes introducing us to the Abyss. Players have to wrestle control of fortresses from the Balaur, and we get siege machines to help us. This is the equivalent of a raid.

And that would be the end boss of the raid. I think its going to be a wipe.

Aion: Tower of Eternity Beta 3 with Screenshots

Introduction
It has been a week since the end of of Beta Weekend 3 for the upcoming English version of Aion: Tower of Eternity MMORPG. I have been too busy to put this article together. Aion has been running in South Korea for a year, and won Best MMORPG 2008 there. It has also been running for a few months in China. So this is not so much a game beta, but a localisation beta. WYS is pretty much WYG.

There is plenty of websites and blogs out there talking about Aion, so I will not elaborate. These are my first impressions. Beta Weekend 2 limited the character to level 10, which means they were still on the starter island, and could not fly. That is right, fly. If there was one thing unique about Aion, it is the fact that all player characters can fly after level 10. There is true Z-Axis range, as opposed to most games with no Z-Axis range like Age of Conan.

There are two factions: Elyos and Asmodians. Elyos dwell in the bright part of their unique planet, and Asmodians dwell in the dark part. They are originally of the same human race but a major disagreement caused them to split. The story of your character is extremely cliche, you were a hero but lost your memory, that is why you are heroic and noob at the same time. Your life quest is to regain your memory and your life. Duh!

I am not completely sold on Aion, I am personally not a big fan of the Anime look. But it is not quite as extreme as Final Fantasy, so I think I can bear with it. It is new content, and after a year and a half of waiting for Age of Conan to come up with more content, I will probably give Aion a spin while I wait for Guild Wars 2.

Character Creation – Awesome possibilities
Besides feathered wings and being able to fly, the first thing that struck me when I gave the Beta Weekend a spin was how extremely customizable the characters are. I have not seen, nor do I think there exists, another MMORPG with as diverse a possibility of base character looks as Aion. You can make your toon two feet tall if you wanted. You could make a toon whose head’s mass is about 50% of its body’s mass. Yes, ugly’s the limit. If you cannot deal with pretty boy anime looks, you can make your toon as ugly as your imagination allows. Almost everything on the face and body is tweakable. Absolutely stunning.

Classes – Standard fare
There are four archetypes and characters start as one of the four for the first 10 levels. Warrior, Scout, Mage and Priest. At level 9 or 10, there is a quest to select one of the specializations. I played a Chanter to level 19.

Warriors can specialize into Templars and Gladiators. Templars are the tank class. They also have party buffs and can use polearms or sword and shield. Gladiators are the DPS off-tanks. They can use two-handed swords or dual-wield weapons. Plate armour in this game looks unrealistic but gorgeous, as do the massive swords and polearms.

Scouts can specialize into Assassins and Rangers. Assassins are the melee DPS class. They can go stealth and do massive DPS with their dual-wield daggers. Rangers use bows and firearms, they can Crowd Control mobs and shoot them down. Scouts have trouble surviving in solo PvE, so if you are playing this game with friends, group up when you are leveling.

Mages can specialize into Sorcerors and Spiritmasters. Sorcerors are your typical magical range DPS class. They appear to have quite a bit of Crowd Control skills. Spiritmasters are pet-based DPS class. Their spirit pets can tank and do damage while they cast spells from range. I feel that the Spiritmaster is the best solo PvE leveling class. Their pet can tank one mob while they kill another.

Priests can specialize into Clerics and Chanters. Clerics are your main healers. Their ranged spells are better than their melee, and they can wear Chain Mail and use Mace and Shield or Staves. The Chanter is the utility class. They Buff, Debuff, do melee DPS and heal. Anecdotally, they are the 4th class you invite to a group after you get your Holy Trinity of Templar, Sorceror and Cleric. They have more synergy with physical classes.

Graphics - Not good enough in 2010
I cannot help but feel that the graphics is not worthy of a game coming out close to 2010. Sure it came out in 2008 in South Korea, but after seeing Age of Conan in all its glory, not just with DX10, but stretching the limits of DX9, the bar is raised for MMORPG graphics. They need to narrow the gap with the FPS games.

The environmental styling is a cross between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. The mood is definitely lighter than Guild Wars, with a good sprinkling of elements that children and ladies would enjoy. I would say that the overall graphics quality is better than Guild Wars, significantly superior to World of Warcraft, but lack lustre when compared to Age of Conan DX9.

Some textures are of disappointingly low resolution. Foliage is cover is low and some monster polygon counts are very low. However, the sophistication of the monster increase with level. Environmental moods are quite good, as are skill and spell particle effects. Character animations are quite decent, although the female toons jump, well, like girls. Cutesy more than realistic.

Considering that Guild Wars are absolutely obsessed with having as little clipping in their models as possible, Aion surprises me with how much clipping the armour has. Can be extremely bad. I suspect that it is the drawback of having such a wide possibilities of toon sizes and shapes.

Leveling – Seems easy and enjoyable enough
Over the extended weekend, I manage to get to level 19 by playing on Friday night, much of Saturday and Sunday, and Monday night. This is out of a max level of 50, if I am not wrong. So leveling is not so bad. Vast majority of it can be done solo, although you would need to ninja around monsters if you want to avoid fighting every one of them. Quests are of the usual MMORPG type. Kill X this and pick up Y that. The good thing is that they give you quests to encourage you to level your gathering and crafting skills.

Towards level 17-20, there are quests and zones with elite monsters that require a group. I personally feel that their icon to depict elite mobs is not clear enough. A friend of mine leveled to 16 without dying once, but accidentally attacked an elite mob and died. The group quests are quite enjoyable with decent loot. It is also doable with PuGs, which is also a bonus.

Combat – Pretty standard fare
The key part of Aion combat is with the skill chains. You can buy and unlock skills that need to be triggered by another skill. So you attack with skill X, and the icon changes to skill Y, allowing you to use the chained Y skill. Some skills have two choices of skills that can chain from it. This chaining allow the skill bar to be cleaner. Like many MMORPG, queueing the right skills to minimize cooldown time is important. Nowhere near as engaging as Age of Conan’s melee combat, but you still cannot afford to just do auto-hits.

There are no Talent or Feat trees, so there are no “specs”. You buy the skills you want, which is pretty much all the skills, lower level skills will get obsolete, and you just chuck them from your skillbar. Personalization of playing style comes with your armour and weapon choice, as well as what manastones you put in your equipment.

PvP is factional, the Elyos and Asmodians can fight each other. I believe that a part of guild (aka Legion) progression is tied to PvPing, I believe individual progression is too, but to a lesser extent. Beta Weekend 4 will pit the Elyos against the Asmodians for the first time in English.

Customization - No two characters need look alike
If the base character look seems customizable, Aion is a doll dresser’s paradise. You can sacrifice a piece of armour to transfer its look onto another piece of armour. So no two characters need ever look alike. Armour can also be dyed like in Guild Wars, allowing for some stunning looks even at low levels.

The practical part of customizing is with manastones. They are magical gems with stats you can use to improve your armour and weapons. White basic gear have one manastone slots, Green gear have two manastone slots. Blue gear are bind on pickup.

Another unique part of Aion is the fact that classes may benefit from wearing lighter armour. Cloth armour gives more magical and mana stats. Leather armour gives more evasion stats. Chain armour gives more concentration stats and Plate armour has the highest physical defence stats. A Cleric may choose to wear Cloth armour for more mana, or Leather armour for more evade, for instance.

Aion does not have the awesomely customizable UI that Guild Wars does. They offer two choices of UI, one with the map below, and one with it on the top. I am not sure if they will allow third party UI to be used.

Crafting - Pretty standard with its own slant
I have not had time to dabble too much in this, but there are gathering nodes and materials that drop off monsters that can be used to craft all types of items, from potions, foods to armour and weapons. Recipes for making higher grade items also drop from monsters.

For greater immersion, crafting has to be done at a furnace, or stove or alchemy labortory in the main city instead of in the middle of the wilderness. The unfortunate part is that it means that you have an umbilical cord connecting you to the main city.

Travel - You have your own wings, but cannot use it half the time
The first thing I realised is that there are no mounts. The character’s wings are their mounts, and they cannot fly in certain zones. I believe that mounts can add colour to the game, especially one with a light hearted high fantasy style. It also makes traveling in large non-flying areas such as the main city Sanctum much easier.

Travel between the main city and outposts are through teleportation. A portal is opened and you zapped across. Travel within a region is through a spectral bird. The character is enveloped with a transluscent spectral bird, who fly across the terrain much like World of Warcraft.

Character flight is limited to 60 seconds for low level characters. Wing upgrades with increased duration can be found, bought or made. The annoying part is that much of the questing areas are non-flying zones, which means you have to leg it, and cannot avoid monsters.

Economy - It might just work
Everything costs money in Aion, every mail, every flight, every death, everything. And being a South Korean game, the denomination is large. Get used to spending millions of “kinah” at a go. Aion has the potential to be the only game, besides EVE, to have a real workable economy, simply because there are so much costs of living involved. This leads to cap on inflation, encourages saving, and keeps prices stable.

There are two ways characters can sell their stuff to other characters. One is through the Trade Broker, which will levy an unrefundable posting fee, and another is to set up your own little store. When you are at work or asleep, keep your character logged in and it will keep working, selling your trash loot. The major downside to this is that the main city of Sanctum is absolutely full of vendors, clogging up load times, and draw distances. I personally feel that they should have adopted seperate trade instances like the Free Market in MapleStory.

Conclusion – Improvement but not ground breaking
Aion has learned the lessons of all the games that have come before it. Lower graphics means lower system requirements means more potential players. It is an interesting mix of Eastern and Western aesthetics that do not clash too badly. It successfully gets the mood across, with lighter elements that is more inclusive.

It runs well and will not have the launch problems that most other MMORPG are inevitably plagued by. NCSoft has the experience and the resources to keep the game afloat, especially when its pioneering market is in South Korea itself. It walks some well trodden paths and hopefully flying combat is unique enough to carry it into the future. I cannot wait to experience flying raids.

It avoids free for all PvP like in Lineage and Age of Conan. Learnt the economic pitfalls of not having living costs from almost every other MMORPG. I enjoyed myself but was not in love.

Screenshots

Looks familiar? I am sure I saw these before in some other game.

Kind of a mix between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars styling.

Flight travel within regions is with these spectral birds.

Krall seem to be a common humanoid enemy faction.

Get ready for some cute NPCs. These are Shugo, mongoose-men with Turkish clothes.

The water is not half bad, nothing compared to Age of Conan DX10 water though.
Oh yeah, you can fly but you cannot swim

A flashback of your past as part of the main quest line.

Some monster attack animations are quite nice.

The Tao of Bejeweled

The Tao of Bejeweled

When the cosmos align in your favour you can reach peaks beyond your imagination, twice as good as your usual ability.

As you set new heights of achievement, you will feel burdened by ever harder targets to meet.

Even when it seems that you are fighting a losing battle, keep fighting and the divine will deliver you. Its gifts are far greater than what you can achieve alone.

Worry only about what is within your influence, any gifts from above are bonuses.

There will be times when it seems that you just busy reacting and making very few decisions. But those few decisions might spell the difference between victory and defeat.

When you find yourself with nowhere to turn to, a fresh new slate will be delivered to you.

Simple acts can move mountains, as log jams are cleared, the dam will be burst.

Every opportunity you take will be another opportunity lost.

Every mistake you make may just lead you to greater glory.

The second worse thing to do is to do nothing.

The worst thing to do is to do nothing because of indecision.