You have questions, all of you do. "Will Aion kick ***? Will it be fun to play? Were they not lying about the grind? Where is my animatronic set of wings? How do I get from Florida to Germany by walking?" Those are all going to be answered in due time, friends, but now you see this article and the associated video and some other questions pop into your mind. The first question making its way to your lips may be "Mark, you liar, what the hell? Geif key nao!" I'm going to brush that one off and just say a very nice member of these forums who types very broken English came to me in a dream (private message) and gave me an account because he wanted someone to play with. The account's username is 14 characters long, the password 11. We Aion fans are insane.

Perhaps what comes to your mind next is "Why 'Entry 0'?" My answer: I chose to play as an Asmodian for 30 minutes to show the world what (part of) the newbie zone looks like. "Entry 1" will deal with the Elyos, since Zyuu is already playing one and I plan on questing with him (at least in this Korean beta). Don't count me out from trying the Asmodians more thoroughly in the future, you'll see why later.

Let's start off where the video does: right after character customization. I was stupid not to record that, but perhaps I will for my Elyos character. I double click on my new creation, Felicia. An homage to the character Felicia in the Darkstalkers series of games (and my main GuildWars character, a W/Mo), my Felicia has blue hair, bluish-gray eyes, mid-length hair, and a big-boned body. Thin girls, take heed: the Warrior class is not for you. If I see tiny anemic people running around trying to play one, well...don't blame me for what happens. Asmodians eyes glow red for a reason.

The game switches to a loading screen for a few moments and then the newbie area pops up for half a second before being replaced by a cinematic. Looks like I fell from the sky and bumped my head, just like my Elyos counterpart. Huh, why hasn't anyone invented parachutes yet? Disgustingly cute mobs lean over me, giving odd, then astonished, looks before running away. Let's hope they did nothing funny to my body while I was...goddamnit! Where's my epic armor?! Weapon?! No! This can't be! All I've got is a pathetic little sword and this skimpy armor to protect my beatiful legs?

Oh well. After plugging in my ancient Logitech MX510 (I'm playing on my laptop) I start looking around for the first NPC I'm supposed to talk to. Ah, there he is. Just gotta click on him and...ah hell. I can't read any of this! Let's see, click on the quest, look at rewards and click accept...now what? Hmm, my radar has new dots on it. Maybe I'm supposed to run around and kill things at those dots? I have no idea, anything sounds good right about now.

After a bit of running around and killin' doods I gain a level. Instant heal and MP recharge, that's good. I'd be having fun if I knew what I was doing really. If I had some more skills to use then I'd be much more entertained. One regular attack and one power attack isn't enough for me! The other skill next to power attack on my skillbar is a self-heal, and there's buttons for sheathing my noob sword and teleporting back to my bind point. I learn this the hard way, as you'll see. Then I'm off to kill more mobs.

Hey, what's that? Why is an NPC chasing a mob in circles? That's...kinda funny. Maybe I'll just help him out (help myself) and get a cheap kill. Hah! Killstole from a NPC, that makes me instantly feel bad. Like I colored a kid's coloring book for him because it didn't look right. I'm a horrible person...but that's a given seeing as I'm an Asmodian! OH HO! Another cheap shot, I'm good at this.

Let's cash in some quests and click some buttons. You'll see all the menu screens I felt safe to click and some of those help bubbles too. One or two of them had surveys in them, probably about the newbie quests or zone. I have no idea what I'm doing but I get free stuff if I fill them out! Click, click, "I <3 Aion", click, click, click, "I <3 AionSource.com", click, cha-ching! The idea of "tabula rasa" is bunk on the Internet, everyone is born again inherently evil online. Asmodians seem to bring out the best in people and I'm no exception, heheh. Enjoy, NCsoft Seoul! Maybe we'll get a few more hits from them now.

Alright, time to head out and explore some more. Check the map a couple times, seems like I need to head...thataway. Girls don't need to ask for directions! Screw the road, I can jump over anything that gets in the way of my beeline path straight to the next quest-giving NPC. This guy's quests, though, are more complicated for some reason. I understand my objective even less somehow. Here's to hoping I don't slam my head and yell "oh, DUH" when we finally get to read these quests in English. I hope I'm not that stupid.

A wierd noise plays after I leave the NPC's general area. It's eery. Was it a portal opening? Let's hope not, I'm too young and pretty to die! Anyhow, screw quests, I'm going to get to the other side of this zone. The land of the Asmodians isn't so bad. It's kinda pretty, actually. Purple and stuff, I kinda like it. At least my eyes aren't being assaulted by bright lights everywhere. Too many dead trees for my delicate, plant-loving tastes, though. Ah, there's a bridge! Have I seen it before? What does it cross? Water? Oh, nice, a river. Let's take a closer look.

Damn, I'm good at jumping! Now to test my climbing skills!

...****.

...****.

...oh ****.

Ohgodohgodohgod, I can't swim! ****! HELP!

*Blargh. I am ded.*

"You are dead."

No, really?

Thus ends my breif stint as a air-headed Asmodian girl who never learned how to swim at the local YMCA. Felicia, true to the instincts of the catgirl she was designed after, does not like water. Better luck next time? Perhaps. Too bad she's getting deleted so I can make a replica of my beautiful self as an Elyos.


Now, opinions: Aion looks awesome. Aion feels awesome. Mobs and NPCs are interesting and behave in interesting ways (slightly scripted, I guess, like GuildWars). I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm still enjoying myself. It's almost as if I'm playing a much more crowded GuildWars, with less sunlight and more skill slots but no skills to fill them. GuildWars threw skills at you from level 1, but that was it's main game mechanic. I guess I'm just spoiled. I really wish I knew what I was doing and reading and looking at, but moreso I wish swimming worked already. As long as they have it in by release it'll be okay, but drowning is annoying.

Alright, back to questions. Now you probably have a few more of them than when you started reading this pathetic monologue. Let 'em rip, I don't think I'll be able to answer many of them at all!