I’ve been wanting to do another Aion post but I keep putting it off, thinking I’ll actually cobble together some screenshots or something to make it pretty.

I should know better by now. I don’t know how some of you warcraft bloggers do it, but if I have to add images to my posts, they never happen.

I suppose if this post were to be assigned a theme, we’d just call it “Stuff I’ve Found Interesting” and leave it at that.

Bestiary

I am amassing a very impressive screenshot bestiary that I’d like to promise I’ll be sharing. (Word choice is key!)

Each new zone I’ve entered, I’ve encountered a different “small rodent”, which I have immediately fallen in love with. These are traditional critters, rather than mobs. Very low level, all over the place, no loot table, don’t fight back, etc. I’ve seen a chipmunkish critter with long ears in cappuchino colors, a gray armored squirrel thing, and a green kangaroo-like rabbit, for example.

And yes, attempting to get screenshots of these has found me chasing after them like a madwoman, muttering to myself and scowling at them for turning and hopping away before I can get a clean shot.

A lot of the actual mobs also visually stunning, too. There’s a recurring bird mob called a pluma, for example, which moves so quickly that you almost have to screenshot it in order to get a good look at it, but it’s well worth the effort.

I’ve seen water buffalo-esque braxes, long-limbed water birds, round clickerty-clackerty crabs, frillnecked dinosaurs, loose-jowled bulldog togs and extravagantly-furred wolves.

Even the BUGS are fun to look at. There are a series of firefly and dragonfly -based mobs which grow more and more complex as I level through the zones. I’m in the level 20 area now, and they’re really starting to look daunting. The fireflies now have a curled stinger hidden under their wings, and the dragonflies have massive scorpion pincers!

As if that weren’t enough, I can see incredibly massive whale-like creatures swimming through the air in the distance. I don’t know what they are, where they come from, or if I’ll ever get to encounter them, but I have a ton of awed screenshots of them. Very Sin-like, for the Final Fantasy lovers in the audience.

Idle Animations

Every class has its own idle stance. My cleric and spiritmasters both look incredibly similar (yes, yes, a game with a million different character creation sliders, and I deliberately make similar characters – I know!) but they STAND so differently that there’s no question they aren’t the same character. My spiritmaster stands with her hands folded behind her hips (holding her spellbook, naturally) with her head to the side and a sweet look on her face.

My cleric, on the other hand, stands much more aggressively, with her hands crossed and her weight on one foot, ready to leap into action.

I’ve been told the male clerics in this stance look more like someone desperately trying to look cool, but I haven’t experienced that, myself.

Also, characters will have a different idle animation depending on where they’re standing and what the weather is like.

Raining? My character lifts a hand to touch her brow, then glances at her wet fingertips with surprise. She then waves her hands over her head, as though trying to brush away the raindrops, before finally conjuring a large leaf to use as an umbrella.

Standing in water? My character reaches down and slaps at the water’s surface playfully, swirling her hands around. She then lifts her hands out of the water in one swift movement, sending a spray of droplets all around.

The male Elyos have a different water animation – they crouch down, peering intently into the water. With a sharp motion, they reach into the water and pull a fish as large as their forearm out. The fish thrashes in their hands and they lose their grip on it. The fish slips away, leaving them to curse and scowl at the water.

In a hot area? She fans her face with her hands, then conjures up a small hand fan to cool her face. (She also fans at her armpits, but we’ll overlook that less-than-ladylike admission of perspiration, shall we?)

Standing on sand? Well…this one is supposed to look like my character is brushing the sand off of her armor and gear, but it looks more like she might be shouting “SPIDERS! ACK! GETTEM OFF, GETTEM OFF!”

Such small things to spend so much time and detail on, but every time I dart into the kitchen to get a snack and return to find my character holding her little leaf umbrella, I smile.

Avoiding Other People

This one’s pretty neat.

If you type SHIFT + F12, your screen will no longer display PC character models unless they are in your group, in your legion (guild), or of a different faction (and thus a pvp target).

Unfortunately, it would seem the game still loads them (the major cities are still very laggy), but at least you can walk around and see npcs without a wall of other characters standing in your way (most with the /wings emote on, which while it looks beautiful, really pisses me off when you’re standing on my quest giver).

There are downfalls to this – if you’re looking for a group fighting nearby, it helps if you can SEE them. You can’t tell if someone else is about to pull a mob or if they’re collecting from a resource node.

Still, HUGE improvement in the major cities. Especially with the ability to create a corner shop from your inventory anywhere you stand. There are a few busy thoroughfares where a daeva just wanting to get from point A to point B doesn’t need to have to bob and weave through a jungle of salesmen to deliver a package or check their bank.

Channels

Sadly, channels are not available in major cities (I can’t imagine why not, as it would cut down on the lag considerably!) but they ARE available most other places.

What is a channel, you say?

Call it an “alternate dimension”. There are typically five to seven available channels on our server, depending on what zone you’re in. Each of those “channels” is the entire world. You get all of the quests, npcs, mobs, and only those player characters also in that channel. There is a three minute re-use timer on the portal.

Is someone griefing you? Change channels. Someone just kill a rare spawn mob that you need/want? Change channels – maybe the mob is alive in another one. Want to avoid the noisy crush of people? Change channels. Someone gathering all of the nearby Aether nodes? Change channels.

It’s a balm to my soul. I love it. It may not completely alleviate the Bad Things Other Players Can Do To You, but it surely does severely curtail them.

Protip : Gliding

Most zones do not allow flight. This seems a bit backward to me, as we have WINGS and all that, but from a gaming standpoint it makes sense. If you could fly everywhere, you’d zip through quests with incredible ease, bypassing a lot of content (*cough*LichKing*cough*).

However, even when flight is not allowed, you can still GLIDE.

The one rule of gliding is that you cannot glide UP.

Any time you find yourself at the top of a slowly downward sloping stretch of road, or on the edge of a cliff (etc, etc) you can shorten your travel time by gliding.

Jump three times quickly while facing the direction you want to go, and you will activate your glide. DO NOT PRESS FORWARD. You can move left/right to control your direction, but don’t press forward or down, or you might end up crumbled in a dirty, feathery mess in the middle of the road with a skinned knee. And all the other daevas will laugh at you.

I prefer to put my character on autorun before starting the jumping to activate the glide. It’s not necessary, but it means that when my glide ends (whether intentionally or accidentally), my character continues to run in the direction she’s facing. Otherwise she glides into an abrupt stop.

You can deactivate your glide by jumping once (so be careful!)

Remember, gliding is subject to the same reuse timer that flight is (you can’t glide twice in quick succession, so make your first try count!) and it also uses up your wingsauce*, so don’t glide into an area and then expect to pop a brand new flight timer.

* Wingsauce. -noun The green flight timer bar. Useage : Aw, man, I ran out of wingsauce while I was trying to collect aether!