Ayase's Realm: A few notes from GC!

[Mark]

From Ayase's Realm:

Originally Posted by Ayase

Imagine a bus stop. You know, the really crowded type. Maybe a Monday
morning around 7 or 8 just as everyone are on their way to work. That’s
not quite enough. Scratch that.

Imagine a train station. You know, like on the first day of vacation
when everyone is rushing around, desperately trying to find the track
number corresponding to the one hastily scribbled down on a ripped
piece of throw-away paper. Imagine that crowd. That enormous crowd. And
I’m still not done with analogies. It’s not quite enough.

Imagine an airport. You know, the larger type. Not like the one here in
Leipzig. At least not like the one we went to where the baggage claim,
pass control, waiting area and probably a whole bunch of other
undercover businesses were all in the same small 50 sqm room. Yes, an
airport. A really large airport. That’s probably as close as you get to
imagining the Games Convention here in Leipzig. And it just barely
started. Minus the tourist shirts.

I am myself mostly stowed away in the Press Centre, giving Aion demos
to journalists and other (hopefully) important people. I’m certainly
not complaining though, it’s quite nice here. We get free sandwiches. I
am also privileged to be working with really good people and it just
reassures me every time. It reassures me that Aion is going to be very
awesome indeed.

Almost surprisingly prevalent is the fact that so many carry around our
Aion bags. They’re spawned from the depths of the NCsoft/Aion booth of
course and then trickle their way throughout the convention area. The
booth itself is filled with people waiting to get their hands on Aion,
and it really thrills me. The feedback is good, but not surprisingly
so. I’ve been convinced since day one that Aion is a slumbering giant.
A giant that, once awakened, will take the world by storm.

The hotel we are staying at has good food and I’m probably eating way
too much. In other words: I should probably make a few laps around the
booth. I imagine that it’s good exercise to push yourself through the
crowds of rabid much loved fans!

I’ll see if there’s more time later down the road for another update.
Until then - be sure to follow any other coverage made by us or those
of you attending the show.

That is all.

More...

[Felluah]

Sounds like a blast - wish I could be there

[Akirina]

GAHHH! I want a t-shirt. And a bag. and a media-pack ;~~;
But I managed to get a flight ticket to Germany only on the 23rd. And I can be at the GC only on the 24th.
UNFAIR! There shall be NOTHING left by then! ;~~~~;

[Diablo]

Silly European spelled center wrong.

[Milena]

god, it was like being in a rock concert . Think the nc stand was unbeatable with being loud like hell not only did it oversound all the other stands, it was hearable trough the whole hall 3.

Those t-shirts are incredible, will get some pictures up when im back at home with my normal pc. And having a secured preview event entry is also nice. The quest system was really fun. I really enjoyed camping the nc soft stand the whole day (but now im dead tired)

oh i nearly forgot, new trailers for the classes (you could see the old ones and 8 brand new ones for each class one)

well the day began with their server being totally bugged out and it needed around 2 hours to fix that, but after that it was an enjoyable gaming experience. (only bad thing is that they used the post beta 3 client, which had a totally crapped and horrible spiritmaster that was worth nothing in it, i really hope they remodel that class before launch completly like nc said, because as it is, the spiritmaster is like a weak sorc with a pet that adds a lil bit of auto attack (tough the chars were only l12, there was not 1 special attack for the pet, only auto attack and that didnt do much)

[dalin]

@ayase - sounds like the event is going well... as if there was any doubt... keep it up!

@Milena - more please!

[Milena]

ok please bare with the crappy webcam of my laptop i have with me here in leipzig, better equiment rests at home 900km away, so its the best i can do, in the attachements, you get the 2 aion t-shirts, the fronts and one backview (which are same for both) on the asmodian and elyos t-shirt, pics of the high res photos of the models (signed), pics of the elyos and asmodian pins and a ncsoft keyholder and the giant extremly sweet aion poster (god i love that one, i know the spot on my room wall i will get it on (i am thinking about getting a blue'ish cover for it too

the quality of those aion t-shirts is really good too.

also got a guildwars t-shirt but it got not that much amazing art on it just the guildwars logo

[Rockjaw]

Hi Milena, glad you liked the booth!

You didn't get your photos personalised? You must have done something to annoy Alma and Namiya.

Did you see 'Set the Stage'? Did you like it?

If you come back to the show, come find me and say 'hi'. Even if I look busy!!!

[dalin]

much obliged milena! quite the collection of swag...

@rockjaw... the photos were autographed... envy!!

[Milena]

oh i did get an autograph on those lovley photos (everything else on them would be blasphemy :P)

yeah i was there from the beginning till the end (god that was one hell of a siege XD, but a worthwhile one)

I enjoyed the set the stage show, the dialogues were really funny (especially the guildwars ones). Well think everyone should be able to hear us scream in leipzig for more t-shirts if he listens carefully :P (i think that was yesterdays battlecall T-SHIRTS!!!), it was a nice uproar every time someone took the magica t-word in his mouth ^^. What i noticed is that after we gave such a marvellous uproar and nice sounding through the whole hall 3, the ea stands and rockstar stands tryed to counter that by turning up their music volume, utterly failing because every show from the nc soft booth seemed to overtune that with even louder T-SHIRT and NC-SOFT and GUILDWARS shouts

When i return today i think im gonna take another shot and play a little bit more aion, i like the flying, altough i havent gotten the hang yet on gliding.
Im nearly hoping the pc's wont run again in the first couple of mins, because nc soft made up for this yesterday with an extremly big t-shirt throw and a super show :P

well see you in some hours hopefully when im back in, 3 more days of gaming madness to come


on a side not its extremly hard to get those asmodian shirts, they look awesome and it was like everyone would kill you for one of them if they could just grab it, luckily i stand a lil bit outside of that crowd when something hit me unexpected while playing aion.... yay for asmodian t-shirt, lucky me (hope i get more aion t-shirts thrown exclusively at me today)

[Baralai]

Im really happy that i havent been there on thursday, ok i missed out the nice show, but it was absolutly smooth playing, with nearly noone around you on Wednesday.

I guess i will put my thoughts about Aion in this thread and if someone feels the need to correct me, please do so!

We were able to play both sides, Elyos and Asmodian. There were pre-created characters from each class all at lvl 12. It was possible to click on create a new character and play around with all the options and believe me, there are ALOT. I guess we all knew that the character creation has an awefull lot of options, but when you have them right in front of you and using them, its still surpising. It cost me nearly 30 mins to get out of the character creation and finaly start the game.

My first impression when i launched into the world was "Damn, it really looks that great"! The movement of the characters is done very nice and the world around you is alive to some degree. My character (Asmodian Templar, i only played Asmo cuz all PC´s with Elyos were busy at that time) started in a small forest besides a frozen lake area. I accepted some quests in a small hunter camp, which send me to kill 15 wolf-like animals, collect 5 feathers and another one wanted me to deliver a letter/message. Its the quests you will find in every good MMO, but they keep you busy.

After i got tired of questing i wanted to do some exploration and i found a village with some strange looking hairy monsters, which werent that happy to see me. Then i fought my way back to a few houses where some npc´s were waiting with quests. Thats the point where i ended my adventure on the Asmodian side and went over to the Elyos PC´s.

On that side i tried all the things that i havent done by the Asmodians, that means trying every class in battle and goofing around with the flying system.

BUT, now im hungry and i will get me some food. When im back, i will continue to write what i saw and if you guys have any questions feel free to ask. Or if you want me to shut up, yep say so too!

- Baralai

[dalin]

nope, please continue with your adventures Baralai... thanks!

[Baralai]

Just got home from work and im already on my way to watch Dark Knight. So i will post my impressions of all the rest tomorrow.

- Baralai

[Milena]

new day new aion impressions

ok so first, i think i have been to every booth at the gc, played at some of them and had a great time. However, booth's like blizzards, if you dont get there when the gc opens, no chance to play at all. I was there quit early shortly after gc opened, so i just had to wait around 15 mins to get a seat and test starcraft II. Why i write this, because when i compare the other booth's to that of aion, there is seldom that loud and nice feeling like aions booth (altough i think some of the visotors as well as the team had a lil hangover from the party yesterday ^^). And, when you come to the aion booth you can normally play after waiting 10-15 mins. The playtime is not hawk watched like on the blizzard one (15 mins then you are thrown out) So i had a lil bit over 30 mins of really nice time to get a better look on aion.

God those sceneries are beatiful, lots of small and bigger stuff to just gaze at. Played a Gladiator today (tomorrow i should be done with all classes when i have tested the ranger and assasin). I have to say, glad is at least at level 12 like a warrior without its shield with a little bit more damage. (I think those l12 characters didnt have all the skills they should have because there was a quest open to go to some village and get training) I looked around the area i was able to into. I dont know which other areas are there but i hope there will be more level areas. I played asmodian side there was a circle of areas going from l10 monsters to l20. I had the slight impression if there were bigger parts of population, the mob density was too slim. (but dont know if that was adjusted for the demo or what ever). Flying is great fun, tough i didnt get the hang on that gliding (i hope ncsoft implements a button for gliding to go into that gilding state for some time.)

What i found out new today was the personal shop. There is a window where you can drag loot into, type in the sell price you want to ask and when you klick on the start button your character sits down on a small chair and got a flag behind him showing that you are selling stuff. (i like that feature, it looks nice and interesting)

Tomorrow is the last day of the gc, will miss being able to play aion, I hope i can get a good look at the elyos areas.

[Baralai]

I see Milena also continued to write, so will I.

After testing and seeing the dark land of the Asmodians, i was happy to see a bit more light, sun and color. The characters were starting in a small town with alot of quest npc´s. Outside of the village were some mountains with a river between them, everything was green (alot of plants and gras). In the river lived some real big (around 15-20m high) dinosaur like animals, which were neutral. I tested the flying system and it felt nice, even tho i didnt get the hang on gliding, like Milena mentioned.

When i was finished running around in this paradise like world, i decided to start trying the classes. Please keep in mind that this is the exp from around 15-30 mins with each class and all at lvl 12.

Templar: This will be my main class and im quiet happy with what i saw. I was surprised with the strenght, even tho it couldnt match Gladiator or Assassin, but still really nice. You have some attack skills, but mostly you are weakening/stunning the target or boosting your own defense.

Gladiator: The speed in which i were able to kill things was only matched by the Assassins. All their skills are heavy attacks and power boosts.

Assassin: What to say, he can stealth, dish out alot of damage in short time and has some real nice skills. If i wouldnt have already decided on Templar, i would play this class probably. But i guess we will see ALOT of ppl playing this class.

Ranger: Also a kinda strong class with some really nice skills, like sleeping or slowdown arrow. This made it easy to pull 2-3 enemies at once and kill them once after the other.

Cleric: Your typical healer with 1-2 attack skills. It takes years to kill enemies, but it also wasnt possible to get killed, cuz of your quick heals and self buffs.

Chanter: This is more the type of healer i would like to play. At lvl 12 he has nearly the same healing spell (Cleric has lvl 2 heal, Chanter only lvl 1) but does way more dmg.

Spiritmaster: It was nice to have a little fire summon which helped fighting, but i thought the idea behind him was, that he tanks, while i do dmg. If this was the concept, its not working, even if i send my element on the target and wait 2-3 attacks i will pull aggro in no time. The skills are a selection from the sorcerer, but again 1 lvl lower than his brothers.

Sorcerer: We know them all, Fire-Ice-Wind-and-whatnot-throwing-machines. You can kill an enemy with 2 casts, but then your Mana will look awefully low. The mana consumption was pretty high with all the skills he has and it wasnt a nice flow of fighting, more a kill 2 enemies then regen.

All in all i liked most of the classes and i think i didnt really provide any new info on them, at least not for the most of you, but i thought i share my views of the classes.

I almost forgot to tell you about the traveling system, its like in WoW (yes i said the bad-word), you are hanging under a giant green bird and flying from one destination to another. What i liked about it, was the camera, it moved a bit more cinematic than in other games.

I probably forgot hundred thousand things to tell, but for now its all i remember!

Hope you enjoyed reading it and if not, i still wish you a good day!

- Baralai