Sep 17, 2009
Just finished watching the season premiere of “Bones” and I have to commend them on it. That made up for the shitty finale last season. I’m really curious to see how they develop Booth and Bones relationship. On the one hand it’s cute that he’s finally realizing his true feelings for her, but on the other hand I don’t want to see it happen because I think it’s going to severely change the dynamic between the two and could possible ending up killing the show. They’ve skirted it this long so I’m curious to see how long they plan on carrying it out before they follow through with it. I’ll be frank in saying, I do not want it to happen. 
Tomorrow is pre-selection for Aion and I’m uber excited. I cannot wait! Though I need to sit down and think of good names to use because right now I’m at a loss. I’m thinking that I will play on Lumiel for my Asmodian toons and then play on Triniel for Elyos. I just like the names of the servers as they struck me most. I can’t quite explain it though. I’m so excited to start playing and really leveling and getting geared for the instances and what not. I haven’t been this excited about a game in a long time. It’s going to be a blast and what’s best is I have some close friends of mine (Shawna, Danika, and Vala) playing with me. It’s going to be so kick ass! *squee*
The time off that I took from Ecstasy has helped severely. I’m less grumpy and I also got a lot done while I took that time off. Plus, I have something to look forward to next month! Robby and I have decided that we do want to take an extended trip to San Diego, so I’m currently working on getting the days off that I’ll need to make it happen. It’ll be so good to get out of this state and see family and friends. I’ve missed them! Plus, I’m actually in the mood to go dancing so it will be so fun to be able to do that as well. *nods*
Well, I’m off to do some more admin stuff on Ecstasy. If you haven’t joined yet, you should! The members there are famtabulous! 
Sep 8, 2009
It would appear that my internet decided to fail hardcore on me– of all days and thus the lovely Danika has offered to post this blog for me so I’d still be on track with Project: Blog. In any event I hope they fix this shit soon because I’m seriously not happy about it– though I admit I’m not as frustrated as I normally would be since in the 4 months we’ve been here this is the first time we’ve had any issues. Take that Cox! 
Last night I promised you all a review of Aion which is the MMORPG I have been beta testing which officially launches on September 22, 2009. Now, I have to forewarn you all that I am by no means a game guru, however I have played World of Warcraft so this review will mostly be in comparison to it. Remember these are just my thoughts upon playing the game– I wouldn’t take this too seriously.
Upon first entering the game, you’re tasked with choosing which faction you’d like to play (I choose Asmodians), what class you’d like to be (I went with Scout), and then finally you stumble upon the character creation screen. Now this little bad boy can have someone there for hours as you get to literally customize almost EVERY single detail of your character. From the size of the head, body height, chest size (yes, you can put some knockers on your character), to tattoos, and more– if you’re quite the detailed individual, expect to be on this screen for some time. I, personally, thoroughly enjoy this aspect because it gets tiring looking at the same old boring character five million times, no matter how much you changed the color of hair, skin tone, etc to try and make yours “unique”.
Alright, moving on.
Once I finished creating my character, I entered the game and thought “oo, pretty”. I do have to admit that NCSoft knocked themselves out with this one and compared to Blizzard– the graphics are absolutely breathtaking. The one thing you must be wary of however is when you first start to play is to make a point to chang your controls– otherwise you’ll start out pretty frustrated if you’re used to maneuvering with your mouse. When I first started I could run holding both the left and right mouse buttons, but I could only run forward as it wouldn’t let me move my character. After googling to figure out how to fix it (which is to go into the menu and disable left click to change camera angle), the game was much more enjoyable.
Some of the major differences that I found within the game:
- Food/Water: Unlike WoW, food and water does not give you HP or MP. Rather it gives you buffs, depending on the item.
- HP/MP Regen: To regen HP/MP, you simply have to rest (hit the “,” button on your keyboard) and after a few seconds you’ll be back to full HP/MP– however in the higher levels this can take some more time.
- Loss of XP: You do lose some experience when you die HOWEVER you’re able to buy back that XP by speaking with a Soul Healer.
- The ability to fly: You get wings in the game (which by the way kickass) and you have the ability to fight in air. Flying is limited to begin with at 1 minute, but you have the option to go aerial heavy and get additional buffs etc, to increase flight time or you can choose to monopolize the ground.
- Travel: No mounts in the game. Travel is done through flight masters and teleports.
- Professions: You aren’t tied down to 2 professions. Aion allows you to pick up as many professions as you want.
- Channels: For those of you who played BC when it was first released, you probably remember a HIGH server population in the starter areas for BEs and Draenei as well as the inability to complete collector/killing quests because there were just too many players collecting and killing what you needed to. Aion has seemed to solved this issue by introducing channels on realms in the first two zones (Lvls 1-20) which allows you to select a less populated channel, increasing your ability to complete collector/killing quests substantially.
- Minor Additions:
-You can instantly locate the location for a quest item or individual by merely clicking on the item/person’s name and selecting locate. After which a map will pop up displaying the location you need to go.
-The “N” button will cause the map to become transparent so you’re still able to navigate while having your map out.
-No more errors about how you’re facing the wrong direction as the game auto corrects your stance which makes fighting much easier.
These are just some of the differences that I’ve noticed between World of Warcraft and Aion and I have to say I am completely happy with what Aion has to offer. Will I keep playing after open beta? Absolutely. Will I dump WoW for Aion? That’s yet to be determined.
Sep 7, 2009
Okay so after I blogged last night, about an hour after, Aion experienced a ton of lag which made the game pretty much unplayable. After trying forever to get it to work, Robby and I just ended up saying fuck it and logging out. I was really saddened by it because I wanted to get my wings last night, but obviously that wasn’t possible.
We logged on this afternoon and ran into the same exact issue. Obviously people were upset, but we kind of just barreled through it. I was reading the chat and noticed that some people were talking about how they had no lag whatsoever and come to found out that it really was a luck of the draw thing. If you were routed through the company’s routers in the U.S life was awesome. If you got stuck being routed to the company’s routers in Korea, well you wanted to chuck your computer out of the window. After reading that I decided to release and renew my IP to see if that would fix the problem. It did, but I’m not quite sure if that solved the problem because shortly after the lag disappeared.
After a couple of hours I finally got my wings and I have to say, I can’t be more thrilled! Wings are fucking awesome. 
In my next post I will go more into reviewing the game, but for the time being, check out my wings!
Oh and I fail at life and have yet to upload my 365 Days project pictures– I’m two days behind. 
Sep 6, 2009
I pretty much almost failed at life and completely forgot to blog today because I’ve been too busy playing Aion! As of yet, I still need to upload yesterday’s 365 days and today’s since I forgot to do so yesterday but I didn’t forget to take the pictures! Yay! Lol. It’s the little things right?
Anyway, I am really enjoying Aion. It took a bit to get used to and after figuring out how to fix the controls, it’s much better and easier to navigate all around. Obviously there are lag issues and what not, since everyone and their mother is currently playing, but it seems to have gotten better as the night goes on. I started out as a scout which and then eventually I will try every class there is. I don’t want to get too attached to my characters since we won’t be able to keep them in the official release. Sad, I know. 
In any event, I highly recommend the game to any WoW lover. Definitely worth it!
Jenn the Recruit has 87 comments 
Christina the Novice has 28 comments 
