So, you’ve decided to play Aion, yeah?

This guide is mainly for the beginners, between level 1 to 25. We’re going to mainly focus on less advanced equipments and players, though some of the tips might apply to higher level Aion players.  And we’ll be focusing on PvE, since  you won’t see many PvP engagement early on unless you really really want to.

We’ll pretend that you just stared the game, without any help from anyone else. You want to keep playing, but somehow you keep dying. You seem to have made a fair amount of Kinah, but you can’t save enough to buy any new equipment. We can’t tell you how to become the best Aion player of all time, but we’ll definitely help you out on some of the basics that can save you time and Kinah.

• Try as many different classes as possible – Just because you’ve played certain classes many times over on other MMOs, it doesn’t mean you’ll have the same experience. If you pick one and get bored, try another class. You just might find that the class you’ve always hated, is one you will enjoy in Aion.
• Take quests – Whether you like taking quests or not, many of them involve killing mobs, so why not take quests and kill mobs for extra Kinah and XP? Besides, quests give you enough XP to level you up in the beginning of the game. In fact, you don’t even have to mob grind to reach the high teens or even level 20.
• Use the Obelisk wisely and plan your trip – We’re not saying sit down and draw your own maps and navigation points, but many times you can get all the destination information from the quest log. Once you know where to go, make sure you set the place for your return. We recommend binding the obelisk to a location that is convenient for many places, such as a Warehouse or Trade Broker NPCs.
• Fly or glide – One of the coolest features that Aion offers is your wings! Use them. Many times flying and gliding is much faster than running. Are you in the flying zone and engaging in unwanted battles? Just fly and they will usually run away after seeing your wings. If you’re in a no-flying zone, you can still glide and it will save you minutes, and eventually, when it all adds up, hours.
• Equipment – If you’ve reached level 16 and have a chance to upgrade your equipment, check again and do the math; a slightly lower level equipment with Manastone slots is usually better than a common high level equipment. We’ll explain why on our next tip.
• Manastones - Many people might underestimate Manastones, but many times it can be more important than your actual armor and weapon. Here’s a tip: concentrate on one or two Manastone stat bonuses. Do you want to increase damage in battles? Socket nothing but offensive Manastones on your equipment. Want to save Kinah rather than spending it on potions? Use a bunch of defensive Manastones and you’ll notice the difference.
• Use Trade Broker for purchases – Unless you hate everyone in the world and don’t believe in mutually benefiting, use a Trade Broker. It can save you so much money. But remember, always check the price with auto-priced merchants and see if you’re getting a good deal. The Trade Broker system has a tax system that is, for most part a negligible amount (unless you’re going for the expensive rare stuff). Wouldn’t you rather pay a very small fee and let an NPC sell your stuff while you go out and make Kinah? Much more Kinah for your bang if you ask us.
• Make use of your cooling time – Yes, you can just sit down and rest for your HP/MP regen. Or, you can try to use extract (a.k.a gathering) skills such as Lesser Extract Vitality or Lesser Aether skills. Some of quests will ask you to gather materials by using those skills. It also comes in handy for crafting later.
• Keep dying? – Check your equipment. Check and see if you forgot to buy new skill books. And rather than buy potions and food, be sure that you have correct Manastone management with your character’s class.
• Do not get into crafting unless you’re settled – Yes, crafting can make you Kinah, but not from the start. You’ll have to spend a lot of Kinah and many, many hours to make profits. Unless you have a stockpile of Kinah saved up on your account, we recommend you leave crafting for later. It’ll be better for you to just use the items that other people have crafted and level-up your characters.
• Group up – Some parts are just easier with a group. Many quests will allow you to do it as a group, rewarding everyone in the group.
• Craft while transformed into a Fungie/Wasteland Drakie – Not all crafting needs to invest long time, but if you’re the crafter that needs to fill in the bulk order, we really suggest you to use Fungie (for Asmodians) or Wasteland Drakie (for Elyos) transformation. These transformations do not allow the character to use any skills, which means no emotes. It’ll skip the “happy” or “sad” emotes after the success/failed crafting, saving about 15% to 20% of your crafting time.
• Log into your account on Official Aion website for in-game information – Did you know that you can check your mail inbox, Trade Broker status and leveling progress using the official Aion website? Use the same login information as in-game to check your status! – http://na.aiononline.com/
• Use Macros – Though botting isn’t allowed, some automation of commands are allowed in Aion. – http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Macros
• Command under your fingertip – Yes, shortcut keys are helpful, but sometimes command lines are much easier to use. – http://powerwiki.uk.aiononline.com/aion/Chat+Commands

So, how did you like our mini guide for Aion?

All of our community members and readers are welcome to leave useful information on the comment section. You’re more than welcome to share your tips!

It’s that time of the year again.
Kids ask for candies, and we adults ask for Halloween event items for the MMO that’ we’re playing.

If you’re an Aion player, we got few screenshots that might interest you.

Aion’s 2009 Halloween’s event, Harvest Revel will begin at October 25th, 2009 and will end at October 31st, 2009.

Continuing from our first Aion coverage, we’ll talk more about the environment, which for those between level 15~25 will find themselves in the world of Atreia.

One of the first things that we talked about in Aion was the character customization. The more you play Aion, the more you witness the flexibility in character customization. Some people don’t take advantage of it, but many will stand out from the crowd. Funny or hot, we love the diversity in characters.

Yes, I know. I'm hot.

We also mentioned that you don’t have to grind much to level up. Like many other MMOs, constant quests can feel a bit like grinding. At least with Aion, you have a choice; you can either follow the main story campaign without being sidetracked, or you can try to do every quest out there. Or, you can just kill mobs and try to look for rare drops. It seems like as we level up higher, the quests don’t give out enough experience points for you to just stick to the main story. We will have to see how far we can level up before we grind.

Still feels like you’re out of options? Well, from around level 15, you can start getting quests that require you to group up with other players. That’s right, they’re dungeon style quests. Loots and boss fights; one of the true meanings of life in an MMO world.

People wouldn't go to dungeons with me since I rolled a couple of 100's on my dice.

Now, forming a group and going to the dungeons can be a great experience, but not always pleasant. Even if all five members are dedicated to teamplay, one single selfish player can ruin the fun. One time  I (as ClassicMoments) was in a group with five other people, but one Spirit Master couldn’t control his summoned pet, aggro-ing many elite monsters and ended up killing all of us. And there was this one time where two other people and myself formed a small group, but since we all knew what we were doing, we never had any problems killing mobs even with a couple of elite monsters trying to make us taste the dirt on the ground.

But isn’t that all part of an MMO life? Sure it is! Just remember though; no matter how good you (think you) are, you just won’t be able to overcome some of the obstacles that the dungeons will throw at you alone.

Just another typical day in Aion.

The difficulty of these group quests/campaigns/dungeons are well balanced, and so are the classes. No matter how high your level and skills are, you can never take on a dungeon all by yourself. Some players however, may prefer more options to the difficulty and class design. It’s always fun to find some clever way for a Cleric to become the ultimate tank or an Assassin with a one-hit-kill damage but with only 10% success rate of landing any attack. Yes, these alterations can sometimes result in a catastrophic unbalance, but options are options. If you’re worried about balancing though, you shouldn’t because it looks like NCsoft is keeping a close eye on it. Since Aion is well-balanced, it comes down to the skills of the players, and with the group, you can determine how good the player really is.

MMOs are all about varieties, and no one will enjoy Aion to the fullest by doing quests alone.  Sometimes you want to loot good items. If you’re into crafting, you might want to gather up some materials. However you want to play, the environment changes as you progress throughout the levels.

A scene I captured while resting between flights.

Aion is a very colorful MMORPG indeed.
If you’re a tech-sensitive guy/gal, you might notice low-res textures here and there, but compared to many other MMOs out there, it’s not only pretty and beautiful, but also vivid in colors. This was one of the reasons why NCsoft chose CryENGINE, and good for us that they’re fully utilizing its potential.

The art is also distinctive. We could tell that some of the designs are either western or eastern culture influenced, but many times we enjoyed the creativity.

We like the design so much, we're killing them with joy!

As the environment changes, we were hoping for fresh monster designs each time.  Compared to other MMOs, we witnessed fewer repetitive designs, but we could still spot a few of them. We’re not concluding anything about the monster designs yet because first of all, we’re (probably) only half way done with the game and second, many of the monster designs were still very impressive. Some of them were surprisingly ‘different’, but we’re not going to spoil it for you. You shall meet them in due time.

Once you get used to the group environment while following the main storyline, you’ll reach level 25. What’s so significant about level 25? I just have one word my friend, one word; Abyss.

The Abyss is where the various raids are happening, anytime, any day. What’s so intense about the Abyss is that it’s PvPvE, which means that monsters can attack either race, Elyos and Asmodians, while Elyos and Asmodians can battle each other as well. Simply put, anything goes.

I was playing with an Elyos character in Abyss, and another Elyos characters came and pointed over the horizon. He told me that there were many Asmodians getting ready to attack the area where I was. I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about, so I just ignored him and focused on the monsters. Couple of minutes later, I was screaming for help (literally) to my fellow Elyos, while I lay kissing the dirt on the ground I was standing on, under the feet of 6 Asmodians. An Elyos came and helped me, but we couldn’t take on 6 Asmodians, of course.

Flying itself can be heart pumping and intense, and now I have to look around and make sure that I’m not too far away from my race while hunting monsters. It can be stressful, but in a good way and same time it can be so much fun.

Because the Abyss can easily turn into a PvP battle ground, there are rewards for the players that survive. For killing the monsters and enemy race players, you can increase your rank within your Legion while ranking higher for Abyss Ranks.  You can also earn Abyss Points by killing monsters and enemy race players, and spend those points on Abyss weapons and armors. If you’re into the PvPvE stuff, Abyss is the playground for you.

Abyss can be fun, even if you don't like PvP too much.

Trying to reach level 25 can feel like a chore because accessing the Abyss is such a huge step forward as an Aion player. What we would suggest though is to enjoy the moments instead of watching your experience points bar slowly fill up to your next level, especially from 24 to 25.

So, we’re on our second impression of Aion, and so far it’s been a great experience. We might do another impression on Aion, and we’re planning to focus more on the game systems and varieties. Aion so far has been very satisfying and it is often compared to the best-selling MMORPG yet, World of Warcraft. You can’t deny that WoW has more content, and many times you might have more choices between styles of gameplay (quests vs grinding).

Aion is a relatively new game though, and what we want to find out is not if it’s a WoW killer, but to verify that Aion will have enough content to build its own fan base, large enough to survive for many years to come. No doubt Aion is good and that is why it’s compared to top-of-the-line MMOs out there, but we’re not even sure if we want to compare Aion with other MMOs. We just want to see if it has the originality and fun elements, and from what we’ve seen so far, there are a lot, and in high quality too.

As we reach level 25, it looks like it’s just another beginning. We’ll come back to it once we find more about Aion.

Aion sure got a lot of attention from MMORPG gamers.
And somehow, it was compared to the best selling MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

After many days and nights of test-driving Aion, we now understand why people are debating and comparing Aion to the best selling MMORPG. And through our experience, we agree that Aion well deserves the attention it’s received, and then some.

Before we go on, we want you to know that this won’t be our only Aion impression. As you might already know, MMORPG is a very progressive genre that can change dramatically with patches and expansions. It wouldn’t be fair for us to do a review and give them a static score for an ever-growing world.

One of the first things you encounter before playing Aion is the character creation system. We wouldn’t usually make a note about obvious steps like creating an avatar, but Aion’s a bit different.  Aion features an incredibly advanced character customization system like no other. Take a look.

That is some serious customization.

If you spend some time with it, you can re-create almost anyone you can imagine, physically of course. Handsome, cute, nice looking, mean looking, fat, short, thin, buff. You name it; you can do it. You can select your favorite out of the avatar presets and start your adventure there. Or you can select one from the presets, then change every major body part to be original. And while you’re creating and customizing your avatar, you have options to put clothes or armors on and off.  It’s like a whole new mini game.

Run little friend, run!

Obviously, we haven’t tried EVERY MMORPG avatar customization system out there so we can’t say Aion is the top of the line, but so far, it’s definitely high on the scale for character customization. And with CryENGINE under the hood, the game runs great with rich colors and details even close-up.

With a video card that costs little over than $120 (we used Radeon HD 4850), we set every visual setup to the max, and it had no hiccups at all. And for those of you a bit behind on the video card roadmap, Aion gives a nice optimization graphic option so that if the player visits areas with many players and NPCs, it’ll automatically tone down visuals a bit so that your computer won’t slow down.

The animation of NPCs and their AI was very nice too. Some of the action emotes are very well done. Characters don’t move around like robots, and if different territorial monsters see each other, they actually interact with each other.

"There's a perfectly good reason why I pee there!"

The background music and audio quality is something you’ll enjoy as well. There is a little bit of bad voice acting here and there, but not compared to many games out there, and you probably won’t even notice them with the great presentation and visuals. Sometimes the music can sound over epic, but not too much that players would notice. It blends in nicely and gives the game the right atmosphere. Yes, we haven’t played too much on the later chapters of Aion, but so far, none of the audio work has disappointed us.

Enough with the technical stuff; let’s get to the game systems and interactive experiences.

As we said, this is only part one of our Aion report, and as of yesterday, we have reached level 14, which is about 20 something percent of the max. level cap; 50. We’ll share our Aion experience to the point where we are at today, but some stuff can change over the duration of our play. And we don’t want to spoil you with anything so even though our information can be limited, please do understand our purpose.

Before you create a character, you have to choose a server to play on, then you have to choose a side; between Asmodian or Elyos. Be careful which one you choose; once you pick a side, you have to play as that race for the server you decided to play. It’s very hard to communicate between Asmodian or Elyos, so I suggest that you consult with your friends, or just check out the Aion galleries around the internet and pick your favorite.

The one thing some gamers point out about MMORPGs is that players have to grind a bunch to reach a point where they can actually enjoy the game. This is true with some games, but not entirely true with Aion, at least thus far. We’re at level 14 and we haven’t had a moment where we had to level up or beg hunt for money to enjoy the game. We simply did some side quests along with the main campaign, and so far it’s given us enough XP to progress to the next level. Yes, some quests involve dealing with monsters, but compared to many hardcore-grinding MMORPGs out there, we really felt like we were following the main/side storyline with undivided attention. If you hate quests and love hunting for goods/rare items or money, Aion provides that as well.

Quests or hunting, you'll be leveling enough to progress..

If you’re an avid MMORPG player, you won’t have too much trouble learning Aion at all. If you have a limited experience with MMORPGs, you might want to leave the key settings as default because it feels like any other major MMORPG controls. If you haven’t played MMORPGs at all, you shouldn’t have too many problems either, thanks to the helpful tutorial with videos. If you’re a space monkey from another planet like ClassicMoments, you might need some time to figure everything out, but it took less than an hour to master the keys, so kudos for the video tutorials.

One interesting control system that we can point out is the macro system. Gamers who want to cast several spells or skills in order, won’t have to press a bunch of keys to make it happen; you can just macro it so that one key can cast many different spells or skills to your enemies/group members. One step away from carpal tunnel syndrome before we quit gaming, yeah?

Once you reach level 9, it means that the avatar is qualified for Ascension. The main thing about Ascension is that you’ll be able to pick a class to carry on with the storyline, and you’ll get a nice set of wings! First when we heard about flying around with wings, we didn’t expect much. But boy were we wrong. We didn’t realize how much of an impact these wings had on gameplay.

How do you like my wings, you mere humans?

Whenever we fly to do quests, fight or just mess around, we felt our hearts pumping because first, you don’t get to fly around forever. You have a limited time to handle your air-time, so whatever you’re doing, you better use your time wisely. And second, flying around feels just damn cool. Controls are tight and simple, so anyone who can use a mouse and a keyboard simultaneously shouldn’t have any problems.

Another very interesting system is the “Trade Broker” system. In game, there are NPCs throughout the world who act as item trade brokers. You can give these trade brokers items to sell at the price that you want, while you’re concentrating on gameplay. It’s like a simple trading forum, and a very useful feature that’ll save many people’s precious time.

Trade Broker will do the dirty business jobs for you.

Another convenient feature we found is the ability to sell all the ‘misc.’ item drops to NPCs with a single click. There’s a “Sell All Misc.” button that will automatically put all the non-equipments and non-crafting materials to the selling cart. These little touches will be really appreciated by the time-sensitive gamers.

The only thing we had trouble figuring out was changing certain option settings. Aion has option settings for almost any player’s convenience, but some of them are hard to find. One of the settings that we wanted to check out was in between options that had no relevance to the settings we wanted to change whatsoever. It’s very nice that they thought of every possible taste; we just wish that the list of settings were a bit more organized. One of our editors pointed out that it would be cool to add more hotkeys like selecting the nearest item drops. We’re sure that they’ll patch things up once they receive requests from players. After all, this is the mere beginning phase of the game.

And though cinematic presentation was excellent, we wish there were more informative cinematics about the storyline itself. Though we can read texts and find more information about the story on the internet, good storytelling is never a bad thing, especially for an MMORPG.

If anyone asks about how Aion matches up to other major MMOs, I can safely assure them that we’ve found many good, working and proven elements of MMORPGs, with relatively standard controls and very nice graphics; yet, it’s very original. It’ll take us more time to make our words final, but we understand why almost 400,000 copies of Aion were pre-ordered. We haven’t reached the high levels yet, and we haven’t discovered all the cool places either. But we’re eager to find out more about Aion: Tower of Eternity, and we’ll definitely keep you in the loop with our future impressions.

The future of Atreia looks bright.

Get Aion: Tower of Eternity from Amazon.com
Get Aion: Tower of Eternity Collector’s Edition from Amazon.com

Was that a lame intro?
Whatever. You guys got it and you know you love NCsoft stuff no matter how corny I am.

NCsoft is bringing many cool stuff (and swags) to show off their awesome games.
It’s a triple play; Aion, Guild Wars 2 and City of Heroes. It’s one of NCsoft’s strongest line ups yet.

One of the most anticipated MMORPG this year, Aion (PAX 2009 booth #642), will be introduced to attendees of PAX 2009 with the playable version of Aion 1.5. The newer version includes a better balancing out of the classes, more customization options for the characters and more. You can visit the Aion website or watch our screenshots gallery for Aion 1.5.

Guild Wars 2 (PAX 2009 booth #842), free-to-play (once you buy the title) MMORPG will have many events that wil satisfy many Guild Wars fans out there. They will also host a giveaway of The Art of Guild Wars 2, a 128 pages long, hardbound book with illustrations of Guild Wars 2. Artists will be there to sign the book throughout the show. They will also have Q&A session for upcoming Guild Wars novel, The Fall of Ascalon. If you’re wondering what Guild Wars 2 might look like, you can visit our Guild Wars 2 screenshots gallery.

The City of Heroes booth (PAX 2009 booth #542) will have a showcase of the latest update: powers customization. It’s the 16th free expansion update. The booth will also have giveaways and a PAX exclusive Costume Power code for you to use it in game. More information can be found on the City of Heroes website.

Looks like NCsoft really worked hard for this year’s PAX.

NCsoft and ArenaNet sure made Guild Wars fans excited.
They have released a bit more information, screenshots, art work and a teaser trailer for Guild Wars 2 at GamesCon 2009.

The gallery list is huge, so wait a bit until your web browser downloads them all.

The Guild Wars 2 story is set about 250 years after the first Guild Wars.
The teaser trailer shows off the high quality graphic of Guild Wars 2.
You can also check their website here: http://www.guildwars2.com

Guild Wars made a huge success without forcing players to pay the monthly subscription fee, having over 6 million copies sold.

Aion, one of the most anticipated MMORPG of the year (it really is) has gone gold since last week.

And today, they have released a trailer and bunch of screenshots of Aion 1.5.

If we are correct, Aion beta service was on version 1.3. South Korea had the Aion 1.5 version for awhile.

Anyways, it looks really good.

Well, Aion utilizes tweaked version of CryEngine so no wonder it looks good.

NCsoft released the second version of Developer’s Diary video for Aion, one of the very highly anticipated MMORPG of this year. This podcast includes the in-game footage for you to discover more about world of Atreia. If you’re fan of MMO, you probably already know what Aion is. But if you do not have many information about them, here’s your chance to catch up:

You’re welcome.

If you have a place in your heart for some hardcore MMO love (without WoW addiction), you’d already know who NCsoft is and what AION is all about. They develop and publish Lineage series, and also known as the publisher of Guild Wars series in the western market. And recently, NCsoft’s latest MMO, AION has been a huge hit in the Asia market.

And finally, they’re coming to US (and Europe, possibly).

The NCsoft rep. told us that it’s coming to US in fall of 2009, and most likely, they might skip the long BETA testing period since it’s already stablized by updates for an Asia markets. The team is hard at work for localizations and QA process, and it’s almost safe for us to say that we can expect a full experience within 6 months.