Quinner’s Ramblings

Aion, the latest offering from NCSoft, one of the juggernauts of the MMO arena, is in closed beta in the US as we speak. Rather cleverly, they are doing this as a series of frequent weekend events; this allows adequate time for fixing issues AND keeps it fresh for those currently testing. Well done, NCSoft!

I started at EXACTLY 1 minute after the launch of this weekends beta, and thought I’d dash down a couple of first impressions and some screenies of my early game experience. I rolled a priest (one of four archetypes that you can select at start, which diverge into 8 classes at level 10 (2 per archetype)). Aion is DEFINITELY an Asian flavoured game. It has that very Final Fantasy type feel; the look, the way the text reads…try it, you’ll see what I mean. I’m not a huge fan, generally speaking, but if the meat of the game is there, I can overlook and possibly even appreciate this. It definitely looks good; not AoC good, though that game has set a bar that will be VERY difficult to match, visually (and one could argue, at what cost the game overall?). There is an ethereal feel to the visuals, and to the music, that is pleasant, if not jaw-dropping.

Gameplay seems…traditional…so far. Certainly nothing in the first three levels that made me jump up from my seat. There were a couple of nice touches; on the gather quests, early on, the loot to collect from the ground respawned FAST! Given the enormous amount of people in the starting zone, this was VERY nice. Also, the quests come with the option to click on information therein, to get some little tidbits of information, and also target the next place you need to go on the map. I found moving around and navigating quite easy.

Anyway, I am at level three, so I won’t waste your or my time with too much babble here. I have high hopes for this game. At the very least, it can’t be another WAR! (Please god no!)

Apparently, as you can read here, there is a small, perhaps infinitesimally so, chance that the Earth could crash into Mars, Venus, or both, in a bizarre, galactic menage a trois. Scary stuff, huh? Well….no, not really. Apparently, the small, perhaps infinitesimally so, chance of this occurring, is approximately 1 BILLION years away. As such, this becomes several things, not least a) NOT current events. This is futures, and b) information I have no possible use for. I am NOT going to worry about it. Why foist it upon me?

That said, there remains distinctly more chance of this happening, than Mythic ever making a go of WAR.

Since I started playing AoC, I’ve wanted to get to the top of the Bridge of Vilerus I near the Noble District in Old Tarantia. It needs a climbing skill of 600 to do it, which doubtless to say, takes a while to amass. But…I did it. And the results were…unexpected. Not wishing to spoil what you find up there for those that are yet to climb the summit (don’t get TOO excited, I may add), the view was quite stunning. However, it made me realize that there are still little things in gaming that make me happy. I was genuinely delighted with myself for acheiving this, despite the fact it adds nothing to the game, in any tangible sense. There is, though, something to be said in setting goals, however trivial and ultimately meaningless, and reaching them.

Of all the games on the market right now, at least those of a triple-A level, I think AoC wins the realism award hands down; far less monsters and ghouls and…thank the gods…emo-elf barstewards, than your average game out there. Add to that the most impressive visuals not only in an MMO, but for my money in any game I have played in recent times, and you have a world that is immersive and believable. But…have they gone to far?

 I was speaking with my Dad recently, back in Blighty, and he was complaining about his arthiritis, and generally berating the trials and tribulations of aging. He turned 63 this year. In general, he’s in pretty fine fettle. However, advancing in years is definitely making him less active and less inclined to do those more strenuous activities. It was after this conversation that I put two and two together, and came up with the square root of sixty-five, in all likelihood. AoC HAS AGING BUILT IN! It must have. Bear with me on this one.

When I was a young barbarian, I hit like a freight train, and could take on multiple mobs of my level or above with relative ease. Sure, I got my ass handed to me on occasion, when impetuosity (is that a word? it is now!) got the better of me; but, by and large, progression, when not grouped seemed straightforward and fun. And then I hit 65. And now Daccus has become, for want of a better word, mature, he appears to have taken on ALL the traits that one would associate with our societies elders. That is, if my Dad, to continue the example from above, was a scantily clad, dual-wielding psychopath with a penchant for stabbing people in the throat. With a beard. (I strongly recommend that you don’t try and imagine your father using ANY of the imagery from above. Freud would have a field day). But the simple fact is, since hitting 65, it has become very difficult to grind out quests alone. I have died SO many times in Atzel’s Approach and Thunder River that I have literally yelled at my screen in frustration. (The absence of easy to find res points in Atzel’s DOESN’T help here, by the way). It seems that either my barbarian is not as potent as he once was, or the mobs he fights are suddenly more so. Perhaps it is level design; there seem to be more clusters of mobs, that are not so easy to pick off in ones or twos as they were in previous levels.

”I remember when this was all fields…oh…wait….”

Either way, the world of Hyboria got a whole bunch more challenging suddenly. So much for growing old gracefully, eh?

OK. I think, for the first time ever, I lost my patience AND my temper playing a bloody game last night. I have limited game time, as a working professional, and a father of an 18 month old, so I do somewhat cherish it. As my game-mates know, I also tend to go to bed reasonably early (about 11pm Eastern). Last night, I spent about an hour, standing about waiting to go and do a dungeon run in AoC, to a dungeon we have all been itching to go through, as Cal has mentioned in his blog. Part of the chain of quests that lead you in there involves taking down the Son of Ymir, a particularly challenging level 63 Epic Boss in Ymir’s Pass. We had a full group of 6, and there was an additional group of 6 there also; neither groups had been able to take him down, and it was not looking like we were going to team up with each other (yeah, that may have partly been my fault too…bad Daccus). So instead, we just stood around, either watching them die, dying ourselves, or waiting for some politicking between our group leader and theirs to take place.

What this wasn’t, was fun. After we finally decided to have a decent go at the aforementioned boss, and wiped, we got a ticking off of sorts from our group leader, and I lost it. In a move that is not in keeping with my normal behaviour, nor what you would expect from a 31 year old, I just logged and bid my buddies on vent a goodnight. Not my best moment, for sure, but I had officially had enough. Hopefully, we can get a dungeon run going in the near future, quests or no quests.

At the same time, I have been trying to play around with Testlive, and the upcoming game update. However, they have been having some challenges with character copying, to the point that my main, a 65 Barbarian, has not made it across. They do however have the ability to insta-level any character you roll on the server; this has proven not without it’s challenges itself, and is making me rethink the benefits of the promised “free 50 for the over 50’s” that is coming with the next patch (that has to be an AARP marketing scheme right there). I rolled a Ranger, and brought him up to 65, once I got through to Tortage (no way to skip the first five levels). There is an NPC called Fate at the gate of the Tortage zone that provides you will all the trappings of a level-specific character; a very nice touch, but could this not be at the VERY beginning of the game, and save me 30 mins of grind?

Anyway, the challenge I have had, and that I feel that I will have with the free-50, is that I have NO IDEA how to play ranger, having never levelled one. Yeah, I could experiment, and no doubt I’d get it, but it just feels like I’m missing half the fun, namely learning the class on the way up. That said, I am more than happy to leave Tortage behind. Perhaps the option to create a level 20, starting in your race hub, would be a better option?

Anyway, I am off to take a valium, and wash it down with some humble pie, and hope that we can get a dungeon run going tonight!

I tried again recently to get into EVE. On the surface, it has all the elements that I want in an MMO. Rich environment, player driven economy, deep crafting…but for whatever reason, it just won’t grip me. I have downloaded the client three separate occasions over the last couple of years, and each time, I have gone through the tutorial stuff at the start, and begun to feel that first little sense of excitement at the sheer grandeur of the thing, only to be swiftly hit with the anti-climax bat.

It’s a popular game, by all accounts, and is on one server only, meaning that everyone plays with everyone else. It really baffles me that I haven’t stuck it out; but perhaps it is a victim of it’s own success with me. The scope seems so liberal (by that I mean free, rather than left-leaning ), and the possibilities so vast, and as such is a very daunting prospect for my tiny little mind. Maybe the problem is that I don’t like games that are too “sand box” in nature, as EVE appears to be. When I look at the games that have held my attention for any length of time, there is a certain linear design to their structure; this goes for MMORPG and offline RPG in equal measure. I have had fun with Elder SCrolls and Fallout 3, yet I find myself more intrigued and having more fun with Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR I and II. So, it would seem, goes my penchant for their online siblings (AoC, WoW, WAR, to name the three I have probably devoted the most time to). These games still have a degree of choice about them, but there is a linear progression feel to them. This would certainly explain why EVE, then, has difficulty keeping my attention.

 I wouldn’t count out a fourth attempt at EVE. I feel perhaps it will help me grow as a gamer, broaden my horizons perhaps.

That could also be a lot of bollocks. But we shall see.

Well, disappointing, if not entirely predictable; yes, folks, that is the reaction I have had to my ability to blog on a regular basis. Ah well. Will this entry be the turning of a new leaf. Highly doubtful, but we shall see.

I’m an avid, avid, AVID, video gamer. I have been since the early 80’s, and my collection of both wife and offspring seem to have not deterred me from my passion. I swing between two main forms of game; MMO’s on the PC, and sports games on my XBOX. Most notably football. Proper football. Not the weird “rugby with helmets and too many commercials” that they play in my adopted nation.

It is the former that I think I will write about; firstly, there is nothing exciting or unusual about an Englishman that loves proper football. (Yeah, I know…there’s nothing exciting to most people about MMO’s either so what’s my point?). However, as I reckon there are only two people likely to read this, and they both blog about the same thing, I figured I might as well encourage their following somewhat.

Presently, I am embroiled in the worlds of Hyboria, playing Age of Conan. I picked this AAA title up amidst much fanfare about a year back, played for a couple months, and got bored. However, I see no such signs of boredom creeping in second time around. The problem with AoC back then was simple; content, or the lack thereof. If I had one complaint right now, there is TOO much to do, at least up to my current level (64 as of the time of writing, with a cap of 80); I’ve been able to do so much PvE questing that I’ve skipped a whole host of dungeons. This, boys and girls, is a good thing! This gives me an opportunity to experience different things with a different character, something that has hitherto eluded me in MMO gaming to-date.

There is also a pending patch to the game that will insert a good deal of change to the way it plays. I have read a lot of pro’s and con’s regarding this on the offal forums; some suggest it will take the game in a SWG direction, which is certainly a bad thing. Others are more positive, seeing it bring better balance as well as more meaning to gear and such. This excites me, as I hope it will generate a more robust player driven environment.

Well, I promise to try and keep this going a little more, and in more detail than this rambling return has been. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must run to Hyboria.