Anjasaurus

Anno 1404

My sister has been talking about this new game she loves, Anno 1404. I didn’t think much about it until I saw her playing when we were both home for Christmas. It looked a bit live Civ, but less strict and more fun.

I got to try it on her laptop, and I was hooked. It is so addictive! It’s not very innovative or anything, it’s just simple and fun. You build your own “empire” starting on a small island building resources and expanding as you need new resources and more space. There are two areas, the Occident and the Orient. The Occident is like Europe or North America, and this is where you start. Later you can expand into the Orient, and this is needed to develop your empire.

It was really cheap on CDON (Swedish web music/film/game shop) so I ordered and it arrived this Friday (8/1). I’ve been playing over 10 hours since then. Simply addictive!

Gaming and reading

My interest for stories, reading and gaming has been renewed, I think partly due to discussing it more with friends. I also had a bit of a dip in my Aion experience, feeling left out of my guild. I gathered up some courage and posted on the forum about it, and voila!, everything is fine, more or less.

Aion is grindy, there’s no point in denying it, but I’m trying to find my place in the grind and enjoying it in my own way. I enjoy the social parts way too much to drop the game, the community and chat is 50% of my gaming. Hopefully I’ll find good friends in this guild, and find a wiki-like community to join in with.

I’ve also tried Dragon Age recently, and it has a play style I’m not really used to from any other game (I know I’m a bad geek for not having played Baldur’s Gate or NWN). The first tutorial is including a lot of information and I got confused and tired quite fast. It will get another chance though, once I can convince myself to take time off studying and Aion.

One of my friends just bought the New Super Mario for Wii, and it sounds great! Every now and then I really wish I had a Wii. But on the other hand, I am a social gamer and I would never play it without friends.. I’m frustrated, there are so many games I want to play and so little time!

Fan art for games

The winners of the Halloween Art Contest for Guild Wars were just announced, and I’m amazed. People are so creative, dedicated and skillful. Art is not something I generally care about, it’s pretty but I don’t know much more, but art revolving around my favourite games, stories and film are something special, since it also ties to something familiar and known. And something I love.

Just look at this amazing piece:

Leon Of Troy
Art made by Leon Of Troy.

Impressions of Aion, three weeks after release

Aion was officially released on 25 September in Europe, with the headstart for the preorderers starting at the 22nd already. So, depending on if you preordered or not, we have now been able to play Aion for a full three or four weeks.

I must say, Aion has not made a great first impression. Not because it’s a bad game, not at all, but the queues and lag makes the gaming experience less than optimal. For the first two weeks it was more or less impossible for a casual gamer to play, since the queues ran up to 2 hours as early as 18:00. This has now been solved by adding new servers, and the queues definitely seem to be gone. Instead, last week, we were given sick lagspikes of 30-60 seconds. It came to the point where you would kill a monster, go into town and by the time you reached your warehouse (storage/bank), then you would start taking damage. Luckily, this lag wasn’t around for too long, and the problems seems to have disappeared now.

Reading all this, you would probably assume I don’t like Aion. But I do. My evenings are usually quite busy, but since I’m studying, I have odd times off when I can play. This means I could play off peak time, and avoid some queues. I also want to give Aion the chance it deserves, and not discard it because of server problems at release, a lot of good games had that.

I’ve only reached level 21 so far, with most of my legion (guild) being in the 30s-40s, so no group play for me yet. I’m sure they would join and help me with the earlier group quests if I just asked, but I am mainly a solo player who loves group/legion chat. The path to lvl 21 has been quite enjoyable so far, in a stereotypical MMO way. Aion really feels like a stereotypical MMO, but really there’s nothing wrong with that. Not for me, I’ve never played one seriously. Crafting is quite unexciting, the usual “buy mats and grind” type, it’s the kind of items you can make that might make it stand out a bit. You can actually make useful stuff, as long as you spend money and time on keeping up with your level. Leveling is killing monbs and questing, so far. Not until level 25 can I join what is so typical for Aion, the Abyss with PvP and PvPvE questing, hunting and fighting. This is my next goal, and I need to reach it before I can fully evaluate Aion. :)

A new Aion Beta

There’s a new Aion Beta weekend coming up, starting tomorrow night at nine (CEST). This time the level cap will be 30 (I will never reach that..) but the biggest change is that they’ve added English voices. This means that tutorial videos, cinematics and NPC voices will be available, which is awesome. I didn’t think it would make a big difference, but when I’ve listened to the different voice samples posted on twitter, I feel the game will feel more alive and real with those voices. So I’m really looking forward to beta testing this weekend!

Since I’m an armor nerd, I’ve spent some time at forums trying to find armor screenshots, and there really is a lot to see. Aion’s armor system is a bit similar to Guild Wars’, in that you can combine looks and stats in a way that you want, instead of being forced to wear one kind of armor due to its better stats. I like this, since it means you can find your favourite looks and then strive to find the stats for it, which are copied from items you find.

Just look at some of the armor screenshots :)

Asmodian Robe Elyos Robe Asmodian Chain Elyos Leather
(found at Aionsource)

Aion Online

I’m currently playing in my second closed beta event in Aion (the fourth event so far) and I have a feeling this game will be my new addiction.

It’s not that it’s addictive and perfect, but rather does a lot of things pretty well, things that I care about. Aion is originally Korean, and it’s noticeable. It’s more grindy and repetitive than for example Guild Wars, but not more than WoW (but then again I only got to lvl 60 in WoW and only just over lvl 12 in Aion so far). Grinding is often frowned upon, especially in the North American and European gaming community, but I think grind can also have its place in a game like Aion. Through grinding you perfect your skills with your character.

Even on lvl 12, you might have to grind a bit to reach the next level, but this is easily done while moving through the area, questing. I’ve only read marketing articles about high-end Aion, so I can’t say I don’t have a biased picture. But being able to craft my own armor on a comparable level to PvP or instance armor is a big plus, and I hope it will still be like that after the European release. There is talk that you will be able to get all the way to level 50 (max level) without playing PvP at all, but as many of the zones at higher levels seems to be open, there will be ganking and PvP still. You can quest all you want, but as long as you play on a server with players of the opposing faction, PvP seems inevitable.
I kind of like that too. I’ve never been fond of the idea of PvP, I want to know what I’m up to and I don’t like competing, but now I look forward to being forced to slowly adapt to PvP and I think I will enjoy it if I find a good legion to play with :)

Aion is also very pretty, the surroundings and areas are all nicely designed. I’ve still not understood the armor system, with stats and looks, but from what I’ve seen in screenshots, armor will be one of my favourite things in Aion :) Can’t wait for the release!

Clichées

Today I have confirmed a stereotype, or clichée if you want to call it that.

The apartment is never as clean and tidy as when you have an essay to write or an exam to study for.

I actually got some school things done, but mostly I’ve been sitting around or cleaning my room. Tidy is nice. Now I don’t have a reason to not study anymore. Bleh.
But the important part in my life is to feel good. Therefore I’m going to finish of the rest of the small things I have to do, set up tomorrow for writing and actually play some World of Warcraft tonight. Probably call some friends, or mum, or both. I need to talk.

Sundays aren’t that good to begin with, but this one is quite ok.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

It has been an unusually good Sunday. Woke up quite early, chatted a bit, studied a bit (tiny tiny bit), had some breakfast.. Then I started Sims. And now I’m here, more or less. I got stuck. It’s really addictive :) I build up these huge stories and scenarios in my head, and then try to get the sims to act that way. It usually doesn’t work out, but it’s fun to try. Since Helena sent me the two expansions, I now have pets and seasons to play with too. Makes a big difference, I might buy the nightlife expansion too.

It’s grey and windy outside, probably raining and I’m still walking around in my pyjamas. Maybe time to take a shower and get dressed. :P

Perfect Sunday.