by Drusilla

Some may know this, some may not, I’ll tell you anyway. I am  constant skimmer of the public channels in Aion. So I was sitting in my little couch seat thingy that I use when I veg in front of the TV playing Aion and I was reading a ridiculous conversation in the Sorcerer Channel s I have a tendency to do when I want to be blessed with lines of ‘dude I blow shit up fast’.  I noticed some random low-level sorc asking the usefulness of putting effort and stats into concentration. Of course this led to the whole ‘what the hell does concentration do?’ Now this was a question I asked in Beta which went answered by simple speculation as there was no real information available.

So I, in all my boldness, stated ‘where’d you read that? Last I looked there was no official documentation stating what Concentration did beyond speculation and rumor.’ I know right…way to go me…start stirring that shit…anyway..after a series of comments best not replayed here, I got pointed here. Official, yes…dependable…maybe not so much. One thing that seriously irritates me the most is the standpoint that many people seem to take in which PowerWiki, Aion’s very own Wiki database, is infallible and all-knowing.

I just want to take the time to point out a few things.

1. Wiki is a nice way of saying ‘mediocre collection of half-wits’.  No, really, there is no such thing as a dependable wiki. The reason behind me saying this is that it’s usually edited by a collection of people.  While most wikis people can sign up for to be administrators, the PowerWiki is not a beast of the same caliber. I’m really not sure which group of people on the earth in the Aion basement is responsible for it, but I know I can’t edit it.
2. The information is constantly changing. Corrections are always being made and information is always being entered. Something that is constantly being edited will always have flaws.

Now, some may say ‘How can you say it’s wrong?!? You don’t work for the Aion staff!’ In the legal world, all it will take is once contradicting fact to derail an entire case. If someone lies once, they are forever a liar and undependable. If someone overlooks one detail, they are unobservant and undependable. To take the Dogma(let me get you the right link for that) approach, proving God wrong once, will prove him not as infallible as people think and the entire universe will unravel!

So here’s my proof:

Step 1: Look up any crafting profession on PowerWiki (Cooking, Alchemy, Handicrafting, Armorsmithing, Tailoring, Weaponsmithing)

Step 2: Look at the cost of Step 4 in progressing your crafting. 1.5 million kinah

Step 3: Get any profession to expert to see the cost of it.

It is a flat out lie/incorrect statement that getting to tier 4 in any crafting profession costs you any amount of kinah.  There are quests to do that will get you there, but there is no kinah exchanged whatsoever.

1 wrong…well…times 6 = undependable source!

From Player to Roleplayer and Back to Player Again

by Drusilla

I think the proper place to start this would be a declaration. I am not an RPer. I’ve pretty much never been an RPer…hell prior to like 3 years ago, I wouldn’t even associate myself with RP.3  years ago, I was playing Guild Wars with characters named Rage to Survive,  Saaad Panda, and Dwayna’s Biotch.  I’d run around and laugh at people in town and the guild I was in ‘Slightly Inebriated’ often had such things as ‘Dude, stfu’ in guild chat.  The term ‘zomg (zoh my god for the noobs’ was in my daily vocabulary.

That was then, this is now. There was like a big drama with some mechanics in Guild Wars that basically wasted several hours of our time and we got a little tired with the game. A friend of mine was like ‘hey, I signed up for the beta for Lord of the Rings Online’ and of course my first response was ‘dude that’s so gay.’ One thing I should learn in life…never say ‘that’s so gay’…this is the same thing I said before I got wrapped up in a whirlwind of Magic: The Gathering that cost me well over a thousand bucks in the matter of months. But I digress…

So, to say the least, LOTRO kicks ass, and I have a lifetime account, and I’m a founder for being in beta and they shower me with nice gifts simply for being devoted…right…my friend and I…we form this guild called Bunny Thumpers…this is a Guild Wars term…(let me look that up for you). Anyway…my friend and I, we’ll call him Kitsune as that’s his vent name, we spend about 40-45 levels of pretty much just the two of us 2 manning the game…we scoffed at people looking for groups for things that we so boldly threw ourselves at, no matter how many times we died…fast-forward to level 45, shit shit group stuff that’s kicking our asses…zomg instances…wtf is this Carn Dum and Urugarth that we need full groups for!!! The sacrilege! QQ no more PewPew…

Anyway, thus reasoning we venture forth into the realm of LFF (looking for fellowship = looking for group middle earth style) in which Kitsune finds a new friend…a pudgy little dwarf named Allecto. Turns out, this dwarf isn’t so bad a guy, and neither is his little healer buddy Fade. They’re in the same Kinship (middle earth speak for guild) and this guild which will be known as SC, turns out to be an RP-lite guild.

For those that don’t know…RP is role-playing. You know how every time on TV they show people playing Dungeons & Dragons and some dufus is dressed up in a pointed hat and a cape screaming ‘I’m a mage!’…yeah that’s RP…but in a game you don’t have to dress up. RP-lite basically means you run around, salute some people, shout out Hail and Greetings or Hail SC, I Gregorian greet you on this day…whatever floats your boat. Although usually really nice people that sit around talking about eating pie and sometimes sneaking away into the back room of the Prancing pony for a little ERP session (let me look that up for you), RPers generally suck at raiding…not because of lack of dedication or trying, but imagine Martha Stewart versus the Balrog…ok…bad example…um…imagine Julie Andrews nun character from the Sound of Music versus the Balrog…there we go…that’s pretty much why I’m saying RPers suck in general…not saying there isn’t usually a handful of good players.

Back to the dilemma, here I am, a lol’er at heart, contemplating joining an RP guild. So, I jump through the hoops..I fill out the application, I do the in-game interview (which I barely am able to be creative enough to stumble through some RP stuff) and bam I’m in…group of great people…only I have to change how I talk.

Hey becomes Hail or Greetings. /wave becomes /salute. Peace out becomes ‘Fare well’ when saying goodbye. Time to remove the Zs from the end of every word. No more calling people noobs and telling people to STFU. Now is the time to actually start watching what I say and to who and worrying that any public display of hostility or general unkindness will look bad on the guild and the long legacy of guild history. A time for loyalty, respect, honor…etc etc etc. I’m so wrapped up in this RP thing that at work I’m greeting people with Hail. Anytime I type what I’m doing like ‘I’m gonna take out the trash’ it becomes surrounded with asterisks and changed to present tense like *takes out the trash*.

Two and a half years I did this. I worked my way up to officer and suddenly became the one doing the RP interviews, rallying troops, participating in RP events, creating a character solely for the purpose of RP, spending hours constructing proper bio’s for each toon which included lots of research and study on probability and dates and events…I launched the guild in Warhammer Order side and got pretty much run ragged trying to do everything myself. I was a launching officer for the division in Aion and this is where the story of me and SC ends.

About 3 weeks ago, I decided to part ways with my guild. This was due to a conflict in leadership direction as well as looking forward to living a normal in-game life again. I feel as though I have to be re-acquainted with the real world again. The past few weeks, in combination to being pretty damn sick, I’ve had to re-learn to say ‘Hi’ and ‘Sup’. It’s pretty funny. Yesterday I was speaking with the leader of another guild that was in alliance with my previous guild. His guild is also an RP guild, a little heavier than SC. What he said to me pretty much started the wheels on this little blog. He said ‘It’s nice to talk to you in game like a real person.’ I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a leader of a multi-game RP guild and not being able to just ‘talk’ to someone like a normal human being.  It’s like, we all play these games to get away from things, to get wrapped up in slaughtering the enemy, becoming a master cook or whatever…but sometimes…you just wanna be like ‘Sup, man.’

It’s nice not having to be nice all the time. Almost as nice to have the Bunny Thumper name under my characters as well.  It’s nice playing by my own rules and not having to worry about putting a bad name on a guild. It’s nice to be just a player again.

Recently, Drusilla has established a new guild/legion called “The Bunny Thumpers” and currently it consists of a few main characters that recently quit their previous guild/legion (”Shadow Company”) and a ton of new and upcoming alts. From what I know, there have been jokes, and talk for a while now amongst these Shadow Company guild-mates about creating such a guild, but never created it as Shadow Company was the guild they rode with.

Well, after some issues had arisen amongst a few guild-mates, Drusilla took it into her own hands to create this new guild and has pulled all of her toons from Shadow Company. “The Wench” has joined up with her and her friends in “The Bunny Thumpers” and within a day we were at Level 2 and the next day we were at Level 3 which is a huge accomplishment from what I can see. Here are the Level Requirements for Legions in Aion (courtesy of Aion Source):

There are benefits to creating a successful Legion. You may not need much to start, but you will need to continue to recruit and grow in order to take full advantage of being in a Legion.

Your Legion level directly affects items that you can purchase and use in the Abyss.

Congratulations to The Bunny Thumpers, and I hope that they prosper and grow as bunnies inevitably do.

Drusilla here…

So one would think that in a game so recently launched that one wouldn’t have to worry much about being drawn to creating alt characters. You couldn’t be more wrong. I suppose it’s true that any game that comes with multiple classes that play quite differently would naturally draw you to create different toons, but that’s not the only reason. Through a clever lure of epic blue armor (which is probably the 2nd best sort of armor you can get) as a reward for a quest which starts with the chain A Meeting with a Sage, they take you through a series of trials in which you complete various tasks and in the end, can choose one piece of blue gear. Now, this would be your normal quest, if you don’t notice the text that states, only a true Daeva can attain all the pieces…Question mark question mark…Then it is revealed…that this armor does not bind to your character (a process usually done with all non-common armor to prevent reselling), but rather to your account. What you can do, is store it in your warehouse, and grab it on another toon to use.

What about different armor types? Surely if you are a mage-class wearing cloth armor, this gear will be of no use to a heavy armor wearer. Worry not! You can take said gear to an npc in the Lyceum of Sanctum and trade in the piece for any other piece. Got cloth boots? Turn them into a chain chestpiece!

So, to get a full set of armor, you will need 5 characters to level 30. Does the fun stop there? NO! When you have gotten all 5 pieces, you are given another quest to get an epic blue weapon! A weapon which you can use on any character and barter it for any other weapon much like the armor pieces. Interesting stuff no? Yay for altitis. I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on leveling all my alts to 30 before I start working on a second toon. This way any toon I work on will at least have decent gear for a few levels.

As of yesterday, I have officially decided Wednesdays will be my gathering/crafting day. I did a lot of gathering yesterday in the Contaminated Swamp area of Verteron (about 20+ points worth) and it was definitely needed. I got up to 85 points for my gathering, and well, that is the bare minimum needed for gathering in Cantas Coast.

I was obviously way behind. I will continue to gather during my quests, but will not make it my primary goal throughout the week. Lourdess, my sexy little Ranger, is currently at level 18, but not for long. Here is a link to her profile: Lourdess

Feel free to send a tell! I may not type as fast with my new Aion Zboard, but I will respond if I am not afk! Enjoy Atreia folks!