The Harvest Revel Festival



Me talking to Blair

 Theres a new festival that started yesterday in Aion called the Harvest Revel Festival.  Following on the heels of the Ascension Festival,  it's been a seamless stream of back to back festivals for the last month.  For this
festival,  there are 2 quests:  What Witches Wear,  a 10 time rep quest,  and a second, also a 10x rep quest , that's based on character level.  It's the same for the Asmos,  just with different quest names.  To start the quests,  talk to Blair in Sanctum or Witcha in Pandamonium. 
The first quest asks players to obtain "castings",  pictures of the witches from their younger days.  The game directs players to go to the pvp arena of Sanctum or Pandamonium,  and kill Shulack Sugarcrooks,  naughty
shulacks who stole the castings.  Thats only one way to get the castings ;  they drop from mobs throughout the game,  which is good because I have to say that the idea of putting players in the arena was pretty lame.
The drop rate is bad,  I'm talking like 1 out of 5 if not worse,  and everyone's competing for every single
shulack that spawns!   Accidents happen,  tempers start to flare,  and since this is all going on in the pvp zone,  you can figure out the rest.  I was AOE'd by a glad,  which  startled me,  then later I was rooted by a
ranger,  which really got on my nerves,  so I pounded him out of the arena.  No,  it wasn't brutality,  he was lvl 52.
So,  in my opinion, a thumbs down to NC for that!  I think they should've placed them throughout the land zones of the game,  that would've been better. 
The second quest,  based on char lvl,  took me to Heiron for killing Senior Mage Souls and a lepharist lady,  her name might've been Senior Witch Hunter.  These quests reward with different kinds of bundles,  which contain a big variety of items:  manastones great and small,  event dyes,  event outfits - some perma, some temp,  event drinks,  enchantment stones,  medals and power shards. 
I'm on rep 2 of 10 on the Heiron quest,  and as for the "castings" quest,  I'm gonna just wait for world drops and skip the coliseum.  I'll post some pics soon :)

Guardian Deavas Takes Siel's Western Fortress!

My legion,  Guardian Deavas,  took Siel's Western last night!  Awesome! Our first fort!  Gratz to the BG of our legion, Raxu,  for being a great leader and a good friend to everyone in the legion.

Aion 2.7 - Part 1 - The Arena of Chaos

Aion 2.7 went live on 10/19,  2 days ago,  and of course I've been playing!   Two new instances have been
introduced in the Empyrean Crucible:  the Arena of Chaos and the Arena of Discipline.  Both earn Crucible Insignias and both reward players with a new form of currency,  the Courage Insignia.  The Crucible Insigs and the Courage Insigs can be used together to buy a new line of PVP armor and weaponrs that's also been introduced in the 2.7 upgrade.  An alternative to getting PVP gear was long overdue and I'm glad they finally
did something about it. 
The Arena of Chaos is a free for all PVP instance - it's Aion's version of a virtual pillow fight! After getting the quest for an arena ticket from Perbano in Kaisanel Academy,  you request a group in either of the 2 instances.  You start out  in one of 3 places: a haunted house,  a field,  a lava pit kinda place,  or a roman style arena.  Once ported into the instance,  you're locked within a ring of light,  unable to move until the game begins,  which is 1.5 minutes after you're ported in.  You can see some of your opponents and are able to click on them to know what class they are.  The 1:30 gives you time to buff up and plan your strategy.  The object of the game is to get as many kills as possible without getting killed.  When the game starts,  thats it - total madness - players attacking one another,  instance mobs aggroing on players,  players dying,  and players being rezzed back into the game to try again.  If you get alot of kills you rank up,  and the game notifies you of that.  The player in first place is marked with a winner's ribbon over their head.  Each round is about 2.5 minutes.  The game alerts when 10 seconds are left and when that time is up,  the players are auto ported to the next round,  which is always one of the 4 environments I mentioned earlier.    Sometimes there are things to collect or treasure boxes to break which give you power up items to help you in the game.  One such item is a kind of explosion fluid,  which is used to deal damage to enemies in the instance.  There's others too,  but I've only run it 3x so far,  so I don't know all there is to know about the collectibles yet.   In the Roman arena setting there's cannons that players can take control of to shoot other players with,  but I haven't tried that yet.  Killing mobs and collecting things gives points,  so if I'm tired of fighting other players and I'm in an area where no one else is,  I can do that instead.  The one thing I like alot is that it doesn't take too much time to run,  only a few minutes,  and  in addition to the cruc and courage insigs,  I  get AP,  which is nice.  It isn't as
much as I'd get running c dredge,  but its still something. 
All in all,  I give it a + rating because its fun,  new, pays well and doesn't take much time.  In my next post
I'll discuss the other instance,  the Arena of Discipline.  Until  then,  have fun in Aion - I know I will!

Elyos Take Divine

This past Saturday,  the Elyos here on the Siel server took Divine Fortress.  This is the first time since the launch of 2.5 in the summer that we've owned it.  Before 2.5 we owned it but that was reset with the patch to the default Balaur ownage.  Since then the Asmos took it once and lost it to the Balaur,  who had it up till
this past weekend.  Yesterday I was able to complete the quest I've had for ages:  Jarumonerk's Shot At the Big Time,  which awards the "Honarary Black Cloud" title.  It's one of those Aion quests that I call "step and fetch",  where you're asked to talk to a long list of people.   This quest is more difficult than the usual step n' fetch quest because you have to talk to ppl in all the forts,  and that's why it takes so long to complete.  One faction  never owns all the forts at one time so in order to get this completed,  I had to wait,  oh I don't know how long,  a few months I think.  Well,  last night,  I finally spoke to the last NPC on the list in Divine.  Not that I was able to teleport there - the asmos killed the tele NPC,  so I had to fly there on my own.  Luckily I'm a sin so I've got invisiblity.  Cheap tricks like that don't put a dent in my plans.    Now all I have to do is talk to the shugo on Black Cloud Island and I'll finally have it done,  but I decided to wait on that due to reports on the LFG that the asmos were camping that loc.  There's no rush on that tho,  BCI will always be there and it can't be camped forever :)

My Best C Dredge Run Ever!

The night before last I had a great run in dredge.  For pure excitement,  it couldn't be beat. 
Our team:  1 sin, 1 tank,  2 clerics and 2 sms.  The asmos team:  3 tanks,  1 cleric,  1 chanter,  1 sorc.   We had one group wipe,  which was our own fault but we were making up the points quickly.  We were still down 1k though.  Finally we met them in mid.  Their tanks were tough,  and we were getting pounded in pvp.  Our sms couldn't get fear going,  thanks to all the stuns of the tanks.  They pulled way ahead in score by nearly 4k as a result of our losses and things were looking grim.  The asmos were so confident that one of them shouted "Knocked you the f--- on out" in Elyos language.  Yes,  he was that happy.  He went to that much trouble to let us know they had it in the bag.  We pvp'd again on the path to Zanata,  and this time the Sms got the fear on - that was the beginning of the end for the asmo team.  After 3 more rounds of that,  we'd whittled their score down to ours and the final battle for the win was on.  Their tanks were hella pissed,  and I would be too if my team had been that far ahead and were now in danger of losing.  They couldn't beat the fear shriek though,  and cutting thru them like butter while they're little purple rolling carts was truly a pleasure.  By this time,  our score was 300 pts ahead of theirs,  with 1 min remaining in the game.  From 8K to 5K - OW! thats gotta hurt!  They tried one last time but failed and the clock ran out with us as the winners!
In the end neither team got the cap but it's ok cause we won,  with the best turnaround from losing to winning I've ever seen in dredge yet! 
Thanks to Snoop and Zophkiel,  the 2 spiritmasters who made it happen for us,  great job both of you!
And a big LOL to Dnoc,  who had to eat his words in the end.

Platinum Medals: The Goal of Many a Lvl 55 Player



 Platinum Medals - they're hard to get for one simple reason:  they're untradable,  which means they can't be sold on the broker from one player to another.  So how are they obtained?  Well,  most of the time,  not very easily.  The only quick way to get plats is through surveys.  Just click the scroll and accept your medals!  Easy! The reality is that this doesn't happen very often,  and for those of us who need alot of medals for eternal AP gear,  waiting for the next survey isn't the answer.  This brings me to the path that most of us in need of plats take:  the daily grind.  The 2 forts in Inngison each offer 2 quests to obtain plats and each quest is repeatable 40 times.  That's 80 medals per fort for a total of 160 obtainable thru daily quests.    Did I mention that these quests are kinda difficult?  Each quest demands 50 of the requested item just to get 1 plat.  You end up killing more than that for the item because it doesn't always drop.  I'd say the drop rate is about 7-8 out of every 10 mobs.  The other factor that makes these quests difficult is opposite faction intrusion.  It ain't safe out there!  The forts are located in riftable territory,  which makes grinding so many mobs a bit dangerous.  Players in my faction have solved this problem by grinding for these quests in groups,  which makes alot of sense.  It also makes for a shortage of mobs,  but the safety it offers is worth it.  Here's a pic of a mad shelled ksellid,  one of the daily quest mobs needed to get a plat.


Ksellids:  Your Key to Platinum Medals

 I'll post more on the fighting styles of these mobs and what to be prepared for when fighting them  in the near future.

Level 55 Advanced Stigma Quest Part 2

I went out to Conqueror's Ravine yesterday to work on the "Cracking the Stigma Threshold" quest for my

last stigma slot.  In my earlier post I wondered if the drop rate gets worse with each time you have to repeat the quest,  which is a total of 5 (?) times (can't remember).   Once again I'm happy to report that the drop rate has not decreased and is remaining steady  - about 8 of 10 mobs drop the aether needed for the quest.  This is good because the quest asks for 60 of them on each repeat.  Here's some new pics I took of the mobs in Conqueror's Ravine:



Inngison Trico



Tidal Seafoam - They have to be fought in mid-air



My Recent Trip To Gelkmaros




Viscum Swamp

 




The Purple Shrooms in Viscum Swamp

  




Close Up of Purple Shrooms and Windstream

  




A Pic of A Cool Animated Transparent Bubble in Viscum Swamp

   I journeyed through Silentera Canyon the other day to Gelk,  and it was a fun trip - these are some of my pics from out there.