A few Aion likes and dislikes

Disclaimer: The dislikes are minor - nothing that stops me or should stop anyone from enjoying Aion.

Dislikes first:
The personal stores. Rudy giuliani cleaned up the streets, moving vendors to their own little sections in New York a few years ago. As someone who doesn't actually live in NY I feel like they removed part of the "NY feel". On the other hand they removed eyesores.

That's how I feel about personal stores. Players setting up shop anywhere they please makes the city look bad! And their banner ads are as bad as...well banner ads. And the banners aren't set apart in anyway, so it all blends in with other text of things you actually want to see.

And many of the ones I've looked at aren't actually selling anything anyway. For example, putting up 1 cheap potion for 20 million kinah (currency in Aion) without any intention of someone purchasing it. I've read this is a way of going afk without being kicked out of the game.

Get the peddlers off the city streets!!!

Gold sellers. Cuppycake said she never wanted to hear complaints about gold sellers again. But I'm going to say it. Gold sellers. What a blight on the MMO genre. The constant whispers are a pain, and I'm not sure yet how to avoid them without removing myself from the normal social activity of chat channels.

Get the sellers off the channels!!!

Ascension.I never understood why flying was such a selling point and after ascending I still don't. Perhaps I rushed through something, because I think I missed the part where I got my wings. I didn't notice until a quest giver said, "Now that you have your wings...".

Now for likes.
Character creator. For once players actually look different than one another. The ultimate in character creators - City of Heroes, may have finally been surpassed. For once, CoH face choices seem limited.

Cut scenes. Cut scenes aren't something Aion invented, but what they've done I don't think I've seen in other MMOs - they actually include the character you created (see above) in the cut scenes. I hope I'm not spoiling anything by saying my future character looks hawt.

Innocence. I like how right now I don't know what the best manastones are for my class. I don't know what the best stats are, or what armor I should be wearing. I don't know the optimal place to quest. And that's alright for now.

Exploration. I happened on something due to simply exploring. The quests didn't lead me to it, I just happen to go off the beaten path. It wasn't anything extraordinary, but it felt good to get a payoff for doing something I wasn't directed to do.

What a Short, Familiar Journey It Was

I completed Long, Strange Trip over the weekend. I already had a 310% mount, but I do like how the violet one looks better. :)

Another ballast released.

What's kept me playing WoW consistently are these virtual goals I've set. I felt like getting Loremaster would expose me to just about everything Blizzard created for us. I set a "skill" goal of getting one of the dungeon drakes. And I felt any self-respecting longtime WoW player would complete long, strange trip, amirite?

Loremaster would have been much easier if I hadn't changed mains along the way. Had I stuck with the character I created back in 2004 I might have some rare things to look back on. But eventually I didn't enjoy playing my frist or second main, so who's to say I would have stuck with it if I had stuck with them. And actually the character I play now, kinda sucked with how things used to be. Hats off to anyone who chose a character at release and managed to enjoy playing it in all its incarnations throughout these years.

Anyway, after Loremaster I still have 25 quests in my log. Some dailies, some old quests that I fear if i drop them I won't be able to pick them up again. I might finish some of them, I might not. But if they add a "Master Loremaster" or "Loremaster: The Questening" with 500 more quests to complete? I have no desire to go through it again. Overall I enjoying completing Loremaster, but at the end it became something I was just trying to get finished.

I have never been a hardcore raider so many of the raid achievements were beyond my reach. But due to crossing paths with some great players with casual schedules (the only reason our paths did cross) this past spring I managed to get a raid proto-drake. But in the end the experience was so unsavory (guild drama), I decided I would never set a goal like that again. The journey was not worth destination.

And lastly Long, Strange Trip. As I've mentioned many times I've played since release. For some reason, knowing that fact and not completing Long, Strange Trip felt wrong to me. It's like going to Arizona and not visiting the Grand Canyon. So I made it a point to get the meta requirements done, although I had taken a break last October. Many of them I really enjoyed, but once again (see a pattern), in the end I felt like I was doing something because of the goal, not because I was having fun with it.

I want to learn my lesson here. My only goal from now on should be "have fun".

I have one last thing I said I would do, play a horde character. I made this goal fairly recently, with the announcement of Cataclysm. I found myself doing battlegrounds instead of the questing like I said I would. My old goal "complete horde quests" has been replaced with "have fun". If I get back around to doing quests so be it. If they remove some quests and I never get a chance to do them so be it. I'll live.

I've reached a fork in the road. One path is structured with checklists and achievements and endless milestone markers of virtual goals and raiding schedules. The other is unmapped.

I've traveled the first path long enough.

Aion: First impressions

Was able to purchase the game. Had a very slight problem with installation. But no queue at all when I got the chance to log on. Later on that evening there was a queue of ~600, but by then I had something else to do so it was okay. They gave an estimated time of 30 minutes, which for a new release I guess isn't so bad.

Great looking game. Runs smooth so far. If you've played WoW, etc. you'll be able to jump right into this game as well.

Disappointing to see the gold sellers. In the starter area you see as many Mxcxmsc's as regular players. And they whisper you. Do I really want someone selling me powerleveling services for a brand new game?

Did it make me feel like I did when I first played WoW. No. But that's really nothing to hold against Aion.

It's way to soon to pass final judgement. But I like it so far. I think I'll at least get my money's worth out of it.

Aion jitters

I'm hoping to play Aion this weekend. Yes I want to experience it for myself so I don't keep making unsubstantiated reviews! And yes, I want to see the graphics for myself, they really do look great from what I've seen in screenshots. But more importantly I want to start playing soon because MMORPGs are simply more fun when the worlds have PLAYERS in them!

As Jaye vividly describes in text and picture, leveling later in a game's life is tiring.

I leveled several characters to 70, but only one to 80. When I thought about how it would be to come back after quitting for a while I was daunted by the fact I would not have to just level to 80 but 85, or if I'm gone long enough 90 or 100! The act itself was daunting and realizing I'd probably be doing it in empty areas made it worse.

Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but I like seeing other players around even if I'm not constantly interacting with them. Maybe that's why I like pvping on my new horde character more than questing.

So I want to level in Aion NOW while other players are doing the same, while the world is bustling with activity. I'm getting unexpectedly anxious that I might miss it.

Getting what you ask for

I continue to prefer doing bgs on my horde character instead of leveling during my Questing through Vanishing Azeroth experience.

I always get pumped from being able to contribute in a bg when I'm on the lower end of the bracket. But being on the high end means you get to participate more than just being a free hk. So when I hit the max for the bracket I'm in I decided to go visit the Slahtz "Experience Eliminator".

Easter Egg side note, the horde EE's name is Slahtz, while the Alliance EE's name is Behsten. Behsten Slahtz (Best in Slots). They both wear level 19 twink gear and are level 19 themselves. They whisper things about wanting twink gear (Lucky Fishing Hat) and losing twink enchants (Nethercleft Leg Armor). I assume after players noticed his hp didn't match a twinks his health was buffed to 1100 with the recent patch. No detail overlooked by Blizzard!

I quickly realized how it feels to be gold poor again as the fee to turn off XP gains was 10 gold. A mere pittance for my Alliance characters, but a large percentage of my lone Horde character's gold. But I chucked the gold pieces to Slahtz and rejoined the queues. I went about my normal activities while in queue, and didn't really pay attention at first that I wasn't getting queued up. Queues in lower brackets usually don't go past 10 minutes and are usually around 1 minute or so.

I knew there had been a patch so I searched to see if something was going on with it. Turns out hardly anyone is queuing up for the non-xp bgs!


Cynwise writes "The only twinks in the upper brackets are now ex-twinks. I sat for hours in queue with my experience frozen and never played a game once 3.2 hit. With XP gains on, I play in under a minute. The queue times speak louder than anything I could write. If you want to twink in the 50s or 60s, you won’t play."


So either twinks don't like playing with just other twinks (as they cried loudly about in the past). Or there really isn't as many twinks around as it seemed.

Now if a twink comes into a XP bg, they can still rip through non-twinks but they risk leveling out of their bracket. I can't imagine anyone is going to bother twinking much if they can't get a bg or if the bgs they get level them out of their twink gear.

The weird part is heirlooms give players the same advantage original twinks had. And not everyone has access to them, at least not until leveling one character to max. It's like Blizzard encourages twinks with one hand and discourages them with the other.

The whole thing has left me with mixed feelings. I have actually been enjoying pvping around the levels there isn't such a great gear or spell availability disparity. I'm the last person who would want to turn off XP but there I was actually wanting to freeze a moment in time.

The queues are so bad for non-XP bgs that it isn't an option for me. At this very moment I like pvping more than question so not being able to pvp doesn't work. I don't need to be able to level in BGs but it was nice to be able to do so. I heard at upper levels in AV you really could fly through some levels, but I heard they nerfed it.

I paid yet another 10 gold to turn XP back on and immediately got into a bg. Oh well.

I didn't expect that!

Over at Nils blog he discussed the advantages and disadvantages of predictability in dungeons.

I immediately disagreed that unpredictable dungeons would be fun, because I feel the X factor is not the dungeon itself but the raiders.

Why is it when the boss strategies are published not soon after a first kill doesn't everybody zone in and proceed to win?

I thought about it some more and thought if I had unlimited time, then yes of course unpredictability would be fun.

But my reality is I have a limited amount of time that I can and want to raid each week. And if extra time has to be spent strategizing, well to be honest only a few raiders actually do that.

And unfortunately I cannot say there is room for both. Blizzard seems to have trouble creating new dungeons at the rate players want them.

Another Aion Review Review

I still haven't gotten around to purchasing the game. Gotta find it first.

This comes courtesy of Cuppycake at Cuppy Talk
Graphics: A
Immersiveness: A
Quest storylines: B
Character models: A
Animations: C
Performance: A
Polish: A-
Sound: B+
Combat: C+

A lot of "A" grades! That's good right??? Uh oh "C+" for combat. I remember Lord of the Rings Online's combat never feeling quite right. It affected how much I wanted to play the game.

Let's go down the list. "A" for graphics. From what I've seen in screenshots I'd agree, I can only imagine it will look even better when I actually see it for myself.

"A" for immersiveness. I'm not sure what Cuppy means when she says this. I like feeling I'm in another world. So if it gets an A that'll work.

"B" quest story lines. Sometimes I read quests, sometimes I don't. I always say I'm going to read every one, but usually end up skipping through the text. So if its a B I'm sure that's good enough for me.

"A" character models. I was about to say doesn't that fall under graphics. But City of Heroes has great character models, but graphics overall are used over and over again.

"C" animations. Hmm wonder what she didn't care for with the animations. If its jarring enough, it could affect my gameplay.

"A" performance. You don't want anything less than an A here, no matter how you describe it.

"A-" polish. That'll do as well.

"B+" sound. That's okay, how many people listen to chat or their own music anyway?

"C+" combat. This really concerns me, and I'm suprised it was listed last. Although she didn't say how she ordered the list if she ordered it at all.

If something is amiss with combat I can't imagine playing for very long. Because unless you choose a game to just socialize or craft, combat is what you spend your time doing.

Interesting how a game can have so many good points, but one bad point can potentially ruin it.

I really need to get the game so I can see for myself.

Blog list

As I change blog themes now and then (How blah is this current one?) I inadvertenly lose my blog links. I've been slowly re-adding ones I like. I especially prefer ones that are updated regularly.

Am I the only ones that go back to old blogs just to see if the blogger came back to blog or play wow. I used to check /afk for a long time before finally giving it up. But I quit checking Out of Mana and suddenly out of the blue it was active again. I think the blogger disappeared again. I gave up on checking Mystic Worlds quickly after she said goodbye, but I've found she's guest blogging elsewhere. Hogit had a habit of posting about once a year, so I never am sure he's really gone or not.

I was debating about having a blog list, because by always checking my regular ones, I miss out on seeking out new ones. I'm always suprised to come across some that have been around for a while.

My Aion Review Review

I don't have a copy of Aion yet (see previous post). But I think it is interesting how much your idea of what a game is can be shaped by reviews. I haven't even tried it yet, not even in a beta (or as one blogger describes open betas - "prepaid release") but I've gone up and down on whether I think I'll like this game or not.

So this is my review of Aion based on other's reviews or lack of:

1) Flight. This concerns me, as I mentioned before, exactly why is being able to get wings and fly such a selling point for this game?

I've been able to fly as far back as City of Heroes. And WoW has allowed us to fly as far back as Burning Crusade. And with both, yes it made a huge difference when you had to start out crawling across the landscape. But for me in both games, I eventually enjoyed participating in things where I didn't have to travel to them at all (AE in City of Heroes allowed me to do various missions from one entry point, and in WoW if I decide to just raid or PvP I don't really have to travel for that either.)

So I'm sorry flying is not enough to make me want to play Aion. I'm not sure who this is appealing to as a selling point - angel cosplay?

2) Age of Conan curse. Why aren't we hearing anything about endgame. Or forget endgame, why am I not hearing anything past level 10? Is it going to be Tortage all over again? Where after you get done with the instanced tutorial you uninstall the game? Or like Warhammer Online when you find the very thing you purchased the game, spent your time leveling for (RvR) is a flop?

3) It's like WoW in the beginning. This is one of the reasons why I'll purchase Aion. No I don't want a WoW clone, but I want a game to pull me in again. I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment. But I'm willing to take the risk.

4) It looks great. This is a see-saw selling point for me. WoW proved a game doesn't have to look all that great to be good. But after installing EQ2 again, I really was amazed at how awesome a game can look. At some point new players are going to try out WoW and wonder how us old folks enjoyed such outdated graphics.

5) What does Aion have? Where's the beef?!? This is where my review review falls flat. But don't blame me! I haven't read much about exactly what Aion has and what players are enjoying.

Guess I'll have to go get that copy.

The Gods say No

Initially I wasn't interested in Aion when a guildmate mentioned it around the beginning of the year. WoW was holding my interest well enough. Later I knew I wanted to try it. But WoW malaise clouded my feelings. Finally I decided to give it a go and I stopped by Gamestop to see if I could get a copy of Aion. They were sold out. The Gods decided for me, for now.

If I hadn't read throughout the blogosphere about horrible queues, so much so massively.com wrote a guide on how to survive it, I would have had a more dogged persistence to track a copy down from other stores.

Surprisingly when I logged on to WoW later, I wasn't met with a queue, but with lag. It was patch day, but usually the only delay is installing the patch. This time it took a while to log in and the lag was bad once you made it in. I went ahead and managed to do a few brewfest repeatables. Unless I'm missing something there aren't many ways to get tokens each day, so luckily brewfest is going for two weeks or so.

I don't even know what I'm expecting from Aion. Someone wrote it's like playing WoW for the first time. If that is at all true I want to give it a try. My expectations are low. Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, Champions Online, none of them grabbed me from the get-go. I have a feeling Age of Conan might have, I've read several times its 1-20 was great. But I think I was concerned my computer couldn't run it at the time. I have a better computer now. So maybe if Aion could give me that feeling even for just a few levels, I'd be happy with my purchase. That's pretty low expections.

Comment over at Spooncraft

"The biggest argument I always hear is “I cant ever leave WoW, not after the 180 days /played time I have invested on my toon”. I used to think the same way, but there comes a time when you realize that every hour in WoW you spend bored, running around in circles on your mount in Dalaran reading chat, is an hour you have wasted and could have spent discovering antoher game. When you look at it that way, your “invested” 180 days mean nothing, its just a counter of a game you used to enjoy a whole lot more. Its like refusing to sell your old car for a new model, because youve got 150000 miles on your old car."

Blog apathy

I think my previous post may have been my worst ever. I had an idea of what I wanted to blog about but it fell flat in my personal opinion. And I have no desire to flesh it out. Meh.

Pirate Days came and went. You flew down to Booty Bay, talked to someone and got and achievement. Achievement apathy.

Speaking of achievements. Brewfest has come back around. I missed getting it done last year and it is the last of the events I need for "Long Strange Trip."

Since I managed to snag a 310% mount back in the spring, the reward isn't all that impressive. But as someone who has played on and off since launch, I wanted to add this to my list of "been there, done that, got the achievement".

If I manage to get this done, I think I finally will be done with overarching achievements. Instead of having fun playing WoW and doing the world events in a lighthearted way, I felt tethered to the game, even more than the usual addictiveness.

I had already given up on chasing raiding achievements. Because obviously it relies on the raid team as a whole. I have my own apathy, having to put up with others' apathy as well and expecting that some how, some way, we're going to accomplish anything is asking too much.

So...before I played the game without achievements, then achievements were introduced and I played them for achievements and now getting the achievements aren't as much fun anymore.

I realized by "pvping" so much on my horde character I'm not even questing through Azeroth as much as I meant to. I'm starting to say to myself, if Cataclysm removes things I'd never witnessed or been a part of...so what?

And now I can just switch one of my higher level characters to horde if I really wanted to see what some of near end-game would be like. But since everyone can, I don't really think things would be any different at all. Meh.

And this feeling I have is restricting me from even trying Aion. Sure it could be fun for the first 10 levels. But I'm starting to wonder, seriously, what could any new MMO offer that we haven't already seen. What could they possibly do better, do so much better that you feel you're getting a new experience?

Does a game really want to be successful not because its at its core extremely good, but that its a shinier face on the same-ole-same-ole you're trying to leave behind?

Yikes this post is emo.

Raid Apathy

Oh wikipedia, you have everything! This graph does a good job of explaining how I feel during raids.



For Wrath I decided to get back into raiding behind the curve. My guild was already in Naxx and I was new to the guild on top of that. Overall the challenge level was in the middle (many will say the challenge level was nil) and my skill level (read armor into as well) was low. So yes I worried about how I'd do.

We moved on to Malygos and Sarth, and not to mention achievements like undying and immortal so I moved into the anxious territory.

When the guild went into a meltdown I moved over to a new guild. They were around the same progression as my previous guild, but overall they weren't as good. So suddenly I could, but didn't have to perform as well. I think this would fall into the Arousal area.

But eventually we kept doing the same stuff, not really moving forward or being capable of doing hardmodes to reach new stuff. So we never reached the Flow level. We were at Control mode, which is as much fun as this graph would make it seem.

The only thing I don't agree with is Relaxation, Boredom and Apathy.

When my skill and gear outgrow a dungeon, I move from boredom to apathy. But it looks like I should be moving over to the Relaxation phase.

When skill is high and challenge is low, I'd rather not be there at all.

Blog overlap

A break from after hours work for me and break in the various other social activities of my friends coincided so that we could finally play Champions Online together.

As I've played mmorpgs overall longer than they have (one of them introduced me to them) and more variety, their excitement exceeded mine and I envied the fun they were having. Because I attribute it to not playing them as much as I have. We plan on playing together for short periods each week. While I'm not having that much fun with the game itself, I do enjoy playing with friends. I just hope higher levels of CO start to get more interesting.

The blog overlap I mention in the post title is based on the fact I thought it was a coincidence that I was about to make a post about pvp twinking when Tobold and We Fly Spit Fires did the same thing. Of course its not such a coincidence when you factor in we've all decided to level new alts due to WoW's Cataclysm announcement of the removal of old content.

While questing is just fine for me, traveling to quest bores me quite often (even with my mount and copious flight paths). I can enter a battleground from anywhere so that's what I've been doing usually when I log on. I am not waiting until i hit max level for a particular battleground, so I spend most of my time underleveled for it. But I've found I only really only get pwned by players with heirloom items and spell/attack advantage (warlocks I'll have cleanse one day!)

First let me say I don't have a problem with twinking. I don't have access to heirlooms hordeside but I can purchase nice blue and epic items for my level. However since I'm not a greedy goblin with maxed cap gold, there is a limit to what want and am willing to purchase for a character who will outgrow it.

I still think it would be a neat idea to do like Warhammer Online and make everyone max cap for whatever battleground you're in. You'd still have the gear gap but maybe things wouldn't be so lopsided.

The problem is you can never balance things. It's obvious from even the lowly 10-19 bracket. If level isn't what separates players its gear (and professions). If it isn't gear its class. The classes you find in 10-19 are rogues and hunters. Both get benefits at their level that other classes don't. The only way you can create true balance is to make everyone the same class with the same gear, oh! and same faction.

Can you imagine a battleground full of nothing but one class?

To comment on later

Gamers or Raiders

Good question

Friday the Greedy Goblin asked "Why are you playing Now?

GG goes on to say there are things he enjoys in WoW and other things he does not (mostly to play with his GGf). On the latter he writes: "I guess we wasted lot of time of our life with boring and not fulfilling activity because of the ape subroutines in our head. This must change. The activity must be fulfilling for itself, and not because of the people we do together."

I've found myself several times doing thing in WoW not necessarily because I've enjoyed them but because of routine. I think raiding is the biggest culprit. I've raided many hours in the past not because I really wanted to but because as a healer there is usually a group looking for one. Never mind how few times the show has ever skidded to a stop because of lack of healers.

I've taken that knowledge and finally started using it to my advantage. I no longer worry about whether this group or that one needed a healer for the night. If I feel like raiding I will, but I no longer do it out of any sense of obligation. There won't be any successful guilds based on players like myself. But then again, I've never been in any guilds actually making serious raid progression. Quid Pro Quo.

Horde side

In general life horde side isn't much different than alliance for me. But every once in a while I get a quest that sends me to a cave or area I've never seen. I think that's still impressive, especially after this game has been out so long.

My whole purpose of leveling up yet another alt was to see all of Azeroth before Cataclysm. But what I realize is while I never leveled a horde very high before, I have at least rode through many of the areas while getting the exploration and loremaster achievements on my alliance character. I may not have fought quillboars but I've road past them. So I'm not actually seeing as many new areas as I expected but I am seeing a few.

I haven't had too many leveling lulls yet, however I think my leveling experience would have been vastly different without the addition of all of the extra flight paths and I cannot emphasize enough what a difference having a mount at lower levels makes. And if I'm not mistaken I'll be able to get a 100% mount at 40!

I would have undoubtedly been bored out of my skull running by foot to all of the areas I have so far. You still have to ride to the flight paths at least once (if you don't have a warlock and mage porting you around) so you still get to travel through the world, you just don't have to keep doing it so slowly.

I also have always wanted to see how pvp was horde side. It seems more alliance than horde are twinks in Warsong Gulch. Even with our lower levels and gear we're usually able to cap the flag first and if no one caps the flag three times we win by default. (I've heard that's been changed recently). And now that I'm high enough to play in Arathi Basin, I've played horde side and I can honestly say I'm not sure why we win so much in there. But it is a refreshing change.

Putting all your frags in one basket.

The first Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings was made back in June. As of last evening we're just starting at one Fragment of Val'anyr.

Is it the first one to drop for us? No. The person to get the fragments in our guild was chosen before I joined. That player wasn't able to show up very much for whatever reason and so they started giving it to another player. Well, over the past week or so I guess *that* player decided they couldn't raid and last night we had a random roll among the most consistent players recently. Of course that screwed over anyone who had contributed overall, but it's all about "what have you done for me lately".

This was met with no drama that I know of. I just don't think getting a legendary is special anymore. Now you can farm for legendaries if you are so inclined. Back in Molten Core days it wasn't conceivable your legendary would ever be eclipsed by anything. Now legendaries are surpassed by a quest reward and relegated to kill shots.

Our guild officers had a tendency to really pump up the two players who were getting the Fragments of Val'anyr. I don't know if they did something special before I joined, but they weren't exceptional players compared to any others I've known (once again really exceptional players normally don't stay in the guilds I raid with!) Either way I could tell they felt burned when these players quit with the fragments.

Players are going to come and go, most likely 5 years into this game, its the latter. Hand the fragments to whoever you'd like to have them and hope for the best. But by putting it to random made it feel like all of our healers, myself included, are a dime-a-dozen.

And people still continue to wonder why they have trouble finding healers.

Winding down subscriptions

After another evening of a buddy of mine playing Arkham Asylum instead of Champions Online with me, I decided to go ahead and make sure I cancelled before my subscription re-upped.

I'm just not enjoying it enough solo to want to continue to pay for it on the off-chance my friend (who encouraged me to purchase it by the way!) will find time for us to play together. I always like playing a game for myself instead of wondering whether I would have actually liked it or not. I would have been okay purchasing it further down the road out of a discount bin.

My City of Heroes/Villians ran out not to long ago and I don't miss it. I liked it for about a day or two after I hit level cap (powerleveling through the AE system). So I don't feel any money was wasted there.

I also made sure my EQ2 sub will expire. Such a great looking game on my newer computer! I may have been sucked into it instead of WoW if had the computer I have now back in 2004. Now it's just a game I'd like to have a sub for but doesn't make the cut when I eventually want to try out Aion.

WoW gets to keep taking my money by default. I'm torn by this. I want to keep playing but just don't feel it truly deserves the money it gets from me each month anymore. I feel like the subscription fee should be lower. In the past I paid for 6-months which was cheaper, but I don't want a long-term tie to the game anymore. I'm going to end up paying more just to have a sense of freedom.

So on the horizon I should only end up paying for two accounts, hopefully one, by the end of the year. I'm hoping it will be Aion, but it will probably be WoW.

What's special about Aion?

I've given the blog another new look, since I'm branching out to playing a different class for a while, I decided to change it if you've noticed.

I came across Hardcore Casual (Hmm I just went to get the link and realize I didn't have the right one I usually read).

Hardcore Casual (I'll call this one A) made a comment about being tired of reading WoW blogs. Basically because they aren't original. We complain about the grind, and talk about specs, etc.

Hardcore Casual A would be happy to know Hardcore Casual B has started a more general purpose blog, as I mentioned before isn't as WoWcentric.


Well anyway, this blogger really likes Aion. And then he goes on to say what he likes about Aion so much and I don't see what's so special about it.

Now I want it to be special, in a way I want another game to knock me off my feet. Of course what that would entail (time-sinkage) means I really *don't* want it, but the idea of it is nice.

As usual he mentioned wings, I just can't see switching from one game to another simply because you can fly. But I've read it enough on other sites to see it must really be important.

The other things he mentioned like being able to train skills out "in the field" and a aggro radius on your mini map seemed like nice to haves, but still nothing amazing.

Is it the look? I've seen screen shots and they are nice, but so are EQ2's.

I'm not wanting to be sold on it, because I plan to plunk down more cash to try it out for myself. But what is so special about it? That it's not WoW? Every game that has come out since WoW has that and usually ends up disappointing.