As you all might already know, I've been on Aion for the past month or so and I've mostly been on the Asmodian side. To be fair I DID level a few Elyos characters (Cleric/Mage/Scout) but that faction just didnt do it for me unfortunately :/ They were however, the first faction I tried and the first Ascension for me. Gods will be going with the Asmodians as we agreed that they are more interesting by far. We are currently on a Chinese live server, on paid time, trying out the game until the US servers open.
Classes, factions, and you.In Aion there are 8 classes in total, but there are 4 classes to choose from when you start and after you get to level 10, each class then splits into 2 career paths. Read more about the classes
here.
Character creation on Aion is a dream come true for someone like me ^^; There are a million options to tweak your character's looks with... Besides the usual skin/hair colours (you get a whole colour picker!), there's also the facial structure (make your own face! pointy ears?), body structure (adult figure? childlike? I made a warrior once that looked like a 10 year old), down to the voice of your character! Only natural that I spend 10 on my character sometimes. lol. There are preset examples available or you can always hit the randomise button :)
I've linked the Aion faction lore below. Read it if you have the time since its fairly short.
ElyosAsmodianYou start of as a bandit in Ishalgen (Asmodae) when you first enter the game, and Ishalgen is lovely with its dark greens, purples, and glowing blues. Then they introduce you to the game quests. Basic quest concepts like killing 4 Spriggs, collecting grain sacks, gathering from plants etc. Very easy stuff, and if you're in a highly populated server you might want to change channels to quest simply because you might have to fight for mobs or quest items. You'll hit level 2 by the time you complete the 1st quest, and level 3 by the time the quests send you to the first town. Your first spells become available to you starting from level 3 and every 3 levels after that. You start having to pay for soul healing after deaths past level 7. It recovers part of your xp and gets more expensive the higher level you are.
Elyos land is alot sunnier, with lush green forests, shades of green/yellow/brown/orange in the landscape. And where it snows in Asmodae, it rains in Elysea... when that happens your character does the awful emote of holding a huge leaf over his/her head. Looks alright on a girl but terribly ghey when a male character does it. Technically, every Elysean should have dark skin due to the amount of sunlight they're exposed to at all times... instead of the pale angelic skin colour. L2biology. They've got it all wrong.
Oh, and leveling in Morheim (the level 20 above) area is a challenge as rifts into and out of Asmodae are created randomly all the time :D Thats when Elyos can enter the place to gank us or we enter their land to gank them.
Leveling: 5475 Frightcorns to next level.Leveling progresses at a pretty fast pace before level 17, and after that it starts slowing down noticeably. You WILL have to grind to level at some point as quests will not give you all the xp needed to level by level 18 or 19 (most evident after 20). If you're lucky enough to get competant groups going for the Black Claw quests, level 18/19 will not be a problem. On the positive side though, the music in-game helps alot with the grind. Ravenz mentioned something about the developers changing the game for the US market when the servers start... something about reducing the grind involved in leveling. Pros and cons I guess. We wouldn't need to grind so hard to level, but meh, they're too soft if they cant handle a grind every once in awhile lol. But Ravenz does have a point about how the game will die if the new servers had the same amount of grind involved lol. No one will get past level 20. It weeds out the weak.
At level 9, the Ascension quest becomes available to you, and upon completion of the quest, you will have gone through the Daeva ceremony in the city, be given your wings, and ding level 10. 10 levels later, you will once again be sent down to Ishalgen for your Stigma quest, and at level 25, you'll get the Abyss entry quest (a prerequisite for entering the Abyss).
Gathering and Crafting Professions.Gathering is an inate skill that everyone has. You just need to level it up by gathering stuff you find along the way.
Professions: Alchemy, Tailoring, Cooking, Crafting, Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing.
In conclusionPersonally, I love being a spiritmaster, even if I'm still a little unsure about using my pet in instances and will probably need more experience at it. They have nice DoT damage that kicks in after awhile, and theres a pet to hold aggro for you. Sorcs -- amazing damage, a string of CCs that can lock down something forever if needs be. Clerics are pretty good too, they're mana efficient, have strong heals, and deal decent damage too if geared well. Templars are really cool, decent damage, good tanks, great looking gear. Rangers have lotsa utility and are great fun (according to Mori, as he's really loving his ranger). Chanters have awesome buffs (they work like auras) that affect the whole group. Three buffs at any time (HP/Def inc, Mana/HP gen, movement speed inc, damage inc, etc). Chanters are like DoKs in a sense because they're melee classes with strong HoT heals. Dont bother duelling one because they'll never die.
Aion Gameplay *No pics for now as I'm on my work comp ^^
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Currently:Ael's Cleric - Level 24
Mori's Templar - Level 16
Mori's Ranger - Level 24
Ravenz's Sorc - Level 25
Blaz's Gladiator - Level 23
Gods is looking for more competant players to join us in Aion: The Tower of Eternity. We are looking for Chanters, Clerics, Rangers, Assassins, Templars, Sorcerers, Spiritmasters. Vent/Forums. Vent is compulsory for pvp and dungeons. Oceanic/Aus/Sg timezone. Apply HERE.
Our rank 33 Warhammer Online guild, Gods of Slaughter, has closed as of yesterday and will no longer be functional. We've had really good times and would like to thank everyone for their support and contribution since September 2008. 
