12.14.09
Posted in Aion, Rant at 8:11 pm by Middea
For being a group oriented game in both PvE and PvP aspects, it seems to be surprisingly difficult to actually find a group already. In the early leveling days, groups were everywhere, but as everyone’s levels have gotten more spread out from 30-50, groups that are pugging seem to be very rare. Most people seem to have a set group they run with, as did I for awhile. A set group is pretty wonderful as I’m sure we’re all aware, you know what to expect from everyone, what folks are capable of, and pulls are a fluid and continuous chain, you trust each other.
But what happens when you get behind in levels to your group due to whatever circumstances and are no longer within 2-3 levels of them and you are abandoned? You are forced to resign to wading through the spam that is the LFG channel in the desperate hopes that someone, somewhere, needs you. Even if not for the instance you need/want. And heaven help you if you want to go to the middle deck of SR – the red headed step child deck that almost no one anywhere wants to touch with a ten foot pole.
Levels 42 and up are a plethora of group quests but not many solo quests, I have literally 27 group quests in my quest log at the moment at 43. Grinding solo is a dangerous activity with all the Elyos gank squads running through Beluslan. So what’s a cleric to do? Suck it up and grind alone, running to new grind spots each time the 4+ Elyos wreck you whilst locking you down? Troll LFG while crafting? I have tried many combos of these basic ways of passing the time in game, and it’s been over a week since I have found a group to run anything at all, from Fortress guard grinding, Steel Rake, Alquima, to anything at all. Heck, I’d even go to Mist Mane again if anyone would take me.
What’s to happen with the alts in the future, or players late to the game… If it’s already this difficult to find a pug group, and grouping is pretty much needed to effectively level at certain levels due to a lack of solo questing options, at least for players like me who refuse to grind for hours on faceless mobs, what’s a solo player to do?
I feel like a panhandler. Instead of beer, I just want exp.
Anyone else having issues finding a group to go anywhere?
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10.29.09
Posted in Aion at 4:09 am by Middea
Still working on the moving. Lots of things to be done and really not much time to do them sadly. Well, technically have the time, just Aion is so darn tempting to play.
Aether gathering right now allows me some down time while recharging flight timer and so have been updating the links to point to this blog instead of at Wordpress.
Noticed that quite a few of our Aion blog links just really are dead, either from people quitting or just completely missing in action. So, have an Aion blog you would like to have linked on our sidebar? Feel free to leave it as a comment or email it to us at quirkyquiescence@gmail.com
Have been slacking on new screenshots (continue submitting any you want to see in a jigsaw format!) for our puzzles, so brief hiatus for new ones.
What level is everyone up to? Doing any crafting? Abyss rank?
I’m up to 38 on my cleric. Stuck on the Asvata bow part of the Handicrafting expert quest, premium weapon flux just cost too much.
Currently rank 5, but I did buy a nice blue necklace because being level 28 and rank 5 wasn’t working too well for me back in the day and I really didn’t want the big SHOOT ME FIRST rank 5 tag on my head. Bad enough I’m a cleric.
Have been grinding Mist Mane Mau Hairs for the speedy boots and sneaking into the Abyss for hunting when I can find a partner in crime.
-Shameless plug warning- Also have been trying to recruit folks for our community driven legion <Natural Selection> on Lumiel. Recruiting is a nightmare, everyone has a legion already it seems. Oh well, quality over quantity is the motto.
Enough random ramblings for now, must go back to gathering that aether and beating the bots to spawns.
TLDR:
If you aren’t on blogroll, feel free to leave link in comments.
Also, keep submitting screenshots.
Subscribe to the new feed: The new feed to subscribe to is http://feeds.feedburner.com/QuirkyQuiescence
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09.21.09
Posted in Aion at 5:58 pm by Middea
In case anyone was interested…
I’ve been in game… A lot to say the least. Four hours of sleep >.> Not by design, work going on in the house and it’s going on “very loudly with much banging and drilling.” Not exactly conducive to sleep. Which leads to the next part, I fear I’ll be joining the dreaded queue, power is going off for an hour or so while they work on rewiring.
What have I been up to? Well from levels 1-6 I played with a friend (irl!) and we quested a bit and tried to get ahead of the pack, then he had to go eat pizza, rough life. I pushed on doing mainly only the campaign quests and gathering every single plant I could find. Ascended, chose Cleric, and slowed down, worked on extracting Aether, leveling up Armorsmithing, and just generally goofing off for a bit to let the crowd pass me a bit. Currently level 16, 86 gathering, 57 aether extraction, and 61 armorsmithing.
I’m forcing myself to stop and sniff the roses, enjoy the process. Every time I start pushing myself to level faster, I literally have to tell myself to slow down. It does seem to help. At this time I’m about 7 level behind the highest level Asmodian (Calix, a 23 SM and no level 22’s on either).
Aether Extraction Hint: Find a spawn location for your skill level with a nearby safe landing zone. Gather the spawn completely, land, switch to the next channel. Rinse repeat. With the 3 minute cooldown on channel switching and the time it takes to regain your full wing flight time, it’s a pretty golden method, assuming someone else isn’t camping that same spot.
Crafting hint: This may seem a bit silly, but do Work Order 1p over and over, until it isn’t in the options to do it anymore. Why? It is the only free skill ups you will get, and it gives you free mats/designs that will last you until you hit around 100 skill level. So skill level 1-50 do Work Order 1p.
Why do you want to level up gathering, crafting, and aether extraction skills? Well, they give you exp. Free experience to gather/make things you will do in the long run… Plus it will help you keep up with the expected leveling process. If you don’t gather you might find yourself running out of quests. And later on there are many more “Go gather x items!” and then if you aren’t up to the appropriate level you’ll be kicking yourself!
And the queue… the lovely queue. Before you curse at it, ask yourself, would you rather play in a stable environment or play in a lagtastic one? I’d rather be sitting in a queue for a pretty accurately estimated queue than be lagging/dying in game personally. Massively also posted a survival guide for the queue, my choice for passing the time is MindJolt games on Facebook or chasing the dogs around the house.
Kudos to NcSoft for a brilliant head start launch, spiffy new forums and keeping servers/factions all relatively balanced. I love that they share that information with us rather than us having to speculate. And don’t forget, “real” launch is tomorrow, might be a bit crowded in the beginning zones again.
All in all, I’m having a blast! Nothing is feeling grindy to me yet, players are being courteous for the most part (some channels actually formed a line to queue up for their turn at Cute Ribbit), and it is amazingly lag free.
Only negatives I have at this point are that we are missing several key emotes (sigh, hug, giggle, etc), crafting really does take a long time and is quite expensive (though that should sort out the dedicated)… Nothing game breaking woot.
How is your Head Start experience? Having fun? Any memorable moments so far? What do you do to pass the time in queue?
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09.18.09
Posted in Aion at 10:15 am by Middea
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A journey of a thousand miles begins by taking the initial step. ~Lao-Tzu
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Pre-selection is upon us, yay! Sunday is right around the corner for those of us with pre-orders and Head Start. (Dates and meanings explained here)
By now, you have hopefully chosen whether you are going to be Asmodians vs Elyos and picked a server.
- Lumiel and Zikel are unofficial RP servers (drama explained here)
- Nezekan is the official server for Oceanic players
- Israphel is an unofficial hub for Brazilian legions
What else is there to do before Sunday arrives for Head Start? Or Tuesday for NA launch/Friday EU launch as the case may be…
Well, you will need to pick a class to start with, what do you want to be? Have you decided yet? Maybe you’re still flip flopping between a few options. I know I was, so many options and each with their own niche. Perhaps you weren’t sure if you should be Sorcerer vs. Spiritmaster or Cleric vs. Chanter or some other combination. How did you pick? If you haven’t picked yet, you better start weighing pro’s and con’s, break out some paper and write it down if needed. That character creation screen is quickly approaching!
Also, for everyone who has participated in the beta events, this is one final reminder that if you haven’t taken the time to do so already, you will need to change your Aion password before you will be able to log on to the Head Start or on the release date. The process is fairly simple, but it is easily something that can be overlooked with the excitement leading up to the game!
Once you make it into the game, hopefully a lag free experience is waiting for you, because your grand adventure in Atreia is about to begin. Now, some tips to make it a little less painful.
Changing Channels: Essential to avoid the overcrowding in the beginning zones. Channels are present in the two beginner towns and outlying areas and offer a way to experience the world in a different instance, up to ten of them. So rather than having everyone in channel 1 trying to get the same basket of fruit, you can hop over to channel 10 and have less competition. Once you get to areas that have rifting, past the two beginner areas, you no longer have the option of changing channels, you can’t hide from the enemy!
Walk through of how to change channels up on Aion’s Powerwiki: 
Power Shards: There are still quite a few not quite sure what they are or how they work. We posted up a little something on it, and it seemed to help a few people. You can check it out here.
Most of all, with the upcoming servers opening and excitement and rush and hullabaloo, do not forget to have fun. You only get one chance per side to level to max for the first time, so enjoy it in a way that suits you. There will be plenty of time to enjoy the max level game, and even if you are not in the first crop of level 50’s, you will get there. So stop and sniff the roses along the way!
Oh and one final thing I should probably mention in case anyone was curious, Fedoldinn and myself chose to go Lumiel with our legion, Asmodian side of course. Apparently it’s quite the popular choice amongst bloggers with Toque, K&G, and Naamah along with the AionRolePlayers (ARP) group all headed there. I personally voted for Lumiel on our legion vote due to the description of Lumiel and her personality, prior to the ARP server vote. She kicks ass heh 
P.S. These characters won’t be deleted! Unless you do it! *happy dance*
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08.07.09
Posted in Aion, Guide at 9:10 pm by Middea
Coming from WoW as a priest, I’m finding the easiest way to compare a cleric and a chanter in play styles is to compare them to discipline and holy priests prior to the conversion of +healing and +spell damage to +spell power. This does not mean that you should expect to play either in Aion, I mean, could you imagine someone seriously trying to melee as a discipline priest? Eeps!
A Discipline Priest can heal effectively by preventing a ton of damage done to them and group members. They maintain the ability to level solo with next to no downtime or long waits to kill mobs due to built in mana conservation talents. In the same way, a Chanter has mantras that prevent damage that needs to be healed.
A Chanter’s strength is that they are a strong hybrid — they can heal, dps, and buff. As a Chanter you will be in melee range smacking the mobs, keeping up your mantras, and single target healing as needed. The Chanters main options for healing are a strong hot (that overwrites a Cleric’s hots) and a single target cast heal. A Chanter also buffs the groups stats which in turn increases the groups dps and defenses. Mostly in a group setting the Chanter will be contributing to the group dps, and occasionally throwing out a heal or two.
A Holy Priest is not as strong solo because their shields aren’t buffed and does not hit back. The Cleric has nice survivability when solo’ing but still requires a break between mobs while a Chanter can go from mob to mob.
Both the holy priest and Cleric’s strength is in their versatility in heals. Clerics have single-target heals, group heals, instant heals, battle resurrections, a self resurrection, and hots. As a Cleric your first and main priority will be to heal. While in a group, expect to be standing still and healing constantly, your dps isn’t significant enough to waste your MP on, though throwing in a stun or root might still be something to watch for.
In instances and PVP both appear that they will hold their own. Keep in mind when picking how you play; do you solo a lot, pvp, instance, farm, etc. If you prefer standing in the back and having a wide array of choices to heal with-including AoE heals, go Cleric. If you prefer to be in the middle of the action, with mantras and other such preventative measures to require less reactionary heals, go Chanter.
Pick which one fits YOUR play style best. Both will be used in all aspects of the game as they each offer something different. Your effectiveness and enjoyment are tied to how much you enjoy playing your class, so keep that in mind when choosing!
Personally, I’m a healbot and I love a variety of choices to heal with. I’m going Cleric. Rawr!
Are you rolling a priest? If so, Chanter or Cleric? Why?
If you’re torn between Rangers and Sorcerers, check out Weekly Ranger’s article here.
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