Just Potatoes

I’ve spent the past month playing Aion with a really great group of people, but this past week, my mother flew in from California to visit and I found myself unable to log in.

And now, I find that I don’t really want to log in. I think, “Hmm… I have some downtime. I should play Aion and see how things are going.” But then I get distracted by something else– forums, email, housework, Google Reader, Order of the Stick –and I just don’t bother playing the game. When doing housework distracts me from playing an MMO, it’s time to start thinking about the value of that MMO!

My main problem with Aion is that PvP just isn’t that complex… or fun. I’m dreading logging on and seeing fortresses becoming vulnerable, because I know I’ll probably spend an hour sitting at an artifact, for 15 minutes of frantic PvP accompanied by disconnects, lag and people yelling at each other. I don’t like how some legions run past the guards to take on the diety just so they can get their name on the fortress. I don’t like how some legions don’t bother defending forts they’ve captured, but on the other hand, it’s hard to know when your legion’s fort is going to be vulnerable. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m missing something if I’m not on when a fort goes vulnerable or that I’m not leveling fast enough to start fighting in the upper Abyss. I don’t like the way that healing, buffing and rezzing apparently give little or no contribution in fort battles. The only people I know who’ve earned contribution bonuses are melee dps and the healers who spam heal the tanks.

I really miss Warhammer’s scenarios, battle objectives, and open grouping. If I had a warband leader I didn’t care for, I could leave and join another open warband. In Aion, I spend most of my time ganking or being ganked while grinding in the Abyss. As a result, I’ve been logging on to alts more and more often.

But I love the people I play with, so I’m not sure what to do. I was willing to overlook Warhammer’s flaws (graphical issues, server and class imbalances) for so long because the lore was so rich, and the world was atmospheric (if buggy), and the people were wonderful. Friends are what kept me playing both WoW and Warhammer when my enjoyment of the games had ceased, and the lack of a social group is what led me to drop Age of Conan, and Lord of the Rings Online, though I really think they’re great games. I know I’m not the only one… At least three of my guildmates have quit Aion and gone back to Warhammer. Two of my WoW guildies who had joined us in Aion have gone back to WoW.

So I find myself looking at other games… It’s been so long since I’ve really been able to immerse myself in an MMO. I was in the beta for Fallen Earth, and I’m thinking about trying that out. I might go back to LoTRO too. My daughter would love to play with me, and LoTRO would be a good game for us both to play. It’s also the only MMO my husband has ever expressed an interest in playing, so maybe I could rope him in.

We’ll see.

I’ve gotten a number of messages in recent weeks asking where I’ve been! Thank you all so much for your concern, but everything is just fine. I moved to Minneapolis in August when my husband’s job was relocated, so between unpacking and getting adjusted to our new home, I haven’t had much time to write.

In September, I logged back into Warhammer for the first time since my move and found it felt sadly decayed. My server was like an old building with lots of character, where good memories were once formed, but now past its prime. Most of my guildmates were off playing Age of Conan or Chinese Aion or just biding their time waiting for the western release of Aion. The RvR map showed all tiers solidly locked by Order most of the time, with very few Destruction warbands roaming the RvR lakes. I noticed that morale would deteriorate quickly in the warbands that did venture out. I’d join a warband, they’d decide to take a battle objective or a keep, get rolled or wipe at the keep door, and the warband would dissolve as people found excuses to do other things. Sometimes someone would say, “Let’s go to . Since Order is here, we can take some objectives there.” I suspect Order was probably equally demoralized, because although they owned much of the map most of the time, they rarely seemed to put together an organized fort push. ( I also suspect that a tremendous amount of cross-realming was going on in the later months of my time at War.)

Uhm, sorry, but I play the game to fight. If I wanted to PvE, I’d play a different game. On the other hand, I agree that the lack of server and class balance in Warhammer is disheartening.

According to the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, I’m a Killer/Socializer, with something like 73% Killer and 67% Socializer, which means I enjoy both PvP and hanging out with my friends. When I found out that most of my Warhammer guild, War Seekers, was moving over to Aion, I opted to go with them.

I rolled a chanter, which is a buffer/debuffer class, and as of last night, I’m level 26. I provide some melee dps, but my dps is less than the true melee classes. Instead, my role in a group is to buff my party primarily using aoe buffs called mantras. I can only have 3 mantras up at a time, so part of the challenge is choosing which mantras are best for a given situation, and being aware of when mantras need to be changed on the fly. My other role is to keep my debuffs on the enemy, and to then to offheal as necessary. I have two heals: a HoT and a bigger heal with a long cast time. Clerics, which are the true healing class in Aion, have a wider variety of faster and more mana efficient heals, as well as group heals.

I have lots of criticisms of Aion, but I’ll save those for another post. I *really* didn’t like having to PvE my way through the first 25 levels to get to the PvP portion of the game. It’s absolutely silly to have a PvP focused game make you spend hours grinding. Over and over, I wished there were scenarios, or battlegrounds, or something like Lord of the Rings monster play. If not for vent and legion chat, I probably would have gone nuts grinding. As an RPer, I don’t find the lore as immersive as games like War, WoW, LotRO or AoC. But there are some really good things about Aion too, and I’ll probably get into those at some point as well.

The best part of my Aion experience has been that some of my WoW guildmates joined my War Seekers. While the killer part of me is loving the PvP aspect of Aion, the socializer part of me is having a blast too now that I get to play with my friends from both WoW and War.