We're Moving to WordPress!

After a little debate, we've decided to move our little blog over to WordPress.  We had a few issues with Blogger, first with the firewall at work and now with a few readers complaining that Blogger ate their posts.  So, please come on over and say "Hi"!  We look forward to hearing from you!

New Addy:

http://yetanothergamingblog.wordpress.com/

OMFG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltW0IX7Qa6A

And the Crowds Rejoice!

From the official forums, and I quote:

"Good morning Daevas!

As you probably noticed, we've completed a server wide reboot without much notice on a day that we typically don't perform maintenance. It's only fair that we keep you in the loop and make sure you know what's going on. Over the last week we've been working on a list, we've been checking it twice, and today we found out who was naughty or nice. Ban Hammer Claus just came to town. When the servers come back online, nearly 16,000 accounts will have been removed from the game. If your account was banned, please read the following FAQ. "

You can read all of the gory details here.

25-28, The Abyss, Nochsana Training Grounds, Ice Claw and a New Guild

What a week!  As you can tell by the title, I've been a busy Ranger!

Here's a Lollipop!

So yes, it looks like Mojeaux (pronounced "Mojo") has become my "Main".  I don't know if it was a conscious decision or rather just the way things worked out so far, but in any case, Mojeaux is now 28 and poor Mori is still languishing at 24.  Last time we talked Mojeaux was 24 and working hard to hit 25 so he could finally get into the Abyss.  Mission accomplished!

The Abyss Gate in Morheim

The journey to 25 didn't seem all that long and I was fortunate enough to get into quite a few good PUG's that certainly made the time go by quickly.  Once at 25, I was also fortunate enough to find groups in need of my bow in, of all places, the Nochsana Training Camp. 

It's probably THE best place to score some really good XP once you hit 25.  From my understanding, it's a great place to grind XP all the way until you hit 29.  Besides the great XP (20K+ per mob), it's also probably the most fun I've had in game so far ~ well, PVE anyway.  The most fun of course is Elyos hunting :-)

Ice Claw is also a very good place to farm for XP once you get the quests at 27.  The XP is on par with that you get from NTC and unlike NTC, which has a 17 hour cool down timer, there is no cool down timer so you can do it as many times as you like.  Getting there was a lot more challenging than defeating the boss.  He was ridiculously easy once we got the adds out of the way.

Ice Claw Boss Karhel going Down

By the time I was done Sunday evening, I found myself at 28.  I also found myself a member of a small, casual~friendly guild that looks like I will fit into quite nicely.  I happened upon these folks on my first trip to the NTC and was offered membership in their guild, after our successful run.  All in all I had a great time this past week and continue to love this game.  Hopefully there will be more play time in the upcoming holiday week as I've set my sights squarely on hitting level 30.  If I don't post again by then, Happy Turkey Day all!

Network Blues

The Network Nazi's have struck! Actually, the Blogspot site, which as you all know hosts this and many other blogs, has finally been blocked by the company firewall. I guess this was inevitable. Anyway, since I don't have a lot of time to squander away (I prefer to squander what little time I have playing, not posting - Tyvm!) I prefer to peck out my blog updates at work during my lunch hour or breaks. Unfortunately I cannot do that any longer due to the above circumstances. So currently I'm debating on just closing down the shop (blog)or just moving it to another host (wordpress is still accessible from work). I'm really on the fence about this too. On the one hand, I like blathering about AION, but on the other hand, I really haven't had too much to blather about between levels 22 and now, with Mojeaux at least, 25 (yep, he's in the Abyss). Currently I'm working with Morituri to get him into the Abyss and he's sitting at about 1/3 away from 24 and running between Morheim and Brusthonin completing what quest there are (I try as much as I can to not do the repeatable quests more than 2-3 times)and grinding out the remaining gap between levels.


I've noticed that a few more of my fellow bloggers have given up on the game in the space of a week or two, Pitrelli at Kill That Cheerleader being the latest. I'm saddened by this but can understand. I still believe AION to be a good, solid MMO that will be around for foreseeable future, so therefore, for the time being, it will continue to get my gaming dollars. That being said, I also believe that it is not the huge groundbreaking MMO that everyone has been seeking. I mean, as much as I like it, EQ it's not. Anyway, I will hopefully have time a little later to post again about my first experiences in the Abyss or it might just be a post letting you guys know where I've moved the blog to. Until then ... Azphelumbra!

Ranger's Night Out...

On the Prowl

The Ranger is really starting to grow on me.  In fact, I think it's a lot closer to becoming my main after this weekend's bit of fun.  I hit 22 late last week and also came into quite a few new skills as well.  So armed with new skills and a wad of cash (over 250k!) I headed to the nearest broker and promptly bought myself a full set of Revenge leather gear.  It really wasn't that expensive and I'm really digging how cool Mojeaux looks in it.  So far, I have to say it's my favorite looking set.

                   Brusthonin

So anyway, new threads and new skills weren't the only new things that I ended up getting.  Luckily, at 22 I also picked up a few more quests for the Brusthonin and Morheim areas.  Brusthonin's quests mainly dealt with the area in the lower left quadrant of the map, the Havenjak Farm and Cemetary and these were basically a bunch of "kill X amount of these mobs and X amounts of those mobs and bring me back the result" type of affairs.  Nothing fancy.  The mobs themselves consisted mainly of Frightcorns, over-sized bugs and some undead types who had their own mini boss named Supervisor Gillers or something like that that had to be killed as well.  After completing those quests and not wanting to repeat the repeatable ones, I decided to head off to Morheim to see what I might find there...

Morheim

  

Well, Morheim was a blast!  Aside from the new quests (got new ones once I hit 23) there also happened to be a lot of Elyos action going on in just about every corner of the map.  My first contact came early on in my adventures on Saturday morning.  I was grouped up with a fellow Ranger that I had just met and we were in the process of making our way to The Fortress of Spirits in order to complete a quest that was giving us both a bit of trouble (too many Elyos camping the site) when we ran into Candylynn...

Die Pidgeon! Die!

Candy gave us a bit of trouble, being as how she was level 32 and we were both just 22, but in the end, after a long and running fight, in which I even went Mau on her ass, we got her.

Mau form anyone?!?

As fate (aka the wife) would have it, I had to take a break after that fight (something about stinky dogs and all that).  Needless to say, that really sucked too because my adrenalin was up and I was longing for some more PvP action... which luckily I got when I managed to log back on an hour later.  I logged on and happened to be at the right place at the right time to join an Elyos hunting group that had sprouted up to combat the recent incursion of pidgeons.  We had a good and fruitful hunt.

 Three dead Elyos...

 

Danmaku and Kwan, dead and dying...

 

Krausen the Cleric didn't make it...

 

But, Cashel, a bad ass Gladiator, whooped our collective butts

all by himself!!!

All in all it was a great weekend that had me wishing I was 25 and able to hit the Abyss at will...

Morheim and Mojeaux's 22

Well I finally was able to group with Mojeaux for awhile last night (almost too long as the crawl to bed began at 1am), but I do have to say it was quite a lot of fun. Here are a couple screen shots of the Morheim area.

A view looking up from Morheim with the snow falling

The waterfall next to Favyr's camp

We met up in Morheim and began our journey to start the campaign quest "Petrifying Elim".

Talking to the trees

The quest was fairly easy, kill a couple Spriggan Gatherers until an essence was dropped, run from X to Y, and back to X, and then it was complete. Then came the question of what to do next... We both had some [spy] quests but neither of us had hunted down or been through a rift yet. So we decided to go fight Elyos while trying to do the "Guardian Spirit" quest, well we didn't decided the Elyos part... they did. It was quite a jog from one side of the Morheim area almost to the other to begin the quest.


We started out just grinding the nearby spirits for the Archon Ancient Weapons, when a group of Elyos rounded the corner and I soon found my death wings out. Mojeaux soon found a similar fate and a new strategy for the evening was devised. As it seemed the area we were trying to quest in was infested with doves, we would simply grind out the rest of the evening until Mojeaux hit 22.

Grats on 22 Mojeaux!!

All in all it was a fun night of grouping. I wish we had been on the better end of the PvP, but then again we weren't hunting Elyos. Well I guess technically we were hunting the spirits of dead Elyos... but you know what I'm getting at.