Archive for September, 2009

EP 10: Heels and Dolls

Tony September 24th, 2009

Interview with Hosts of Aion’s World

INTRO

Abysspodcast@gmail.com
www.abysspodcast.com
1-206-350-2402

Sponsors: UGT-Servers (promo code “abyss09″ – save 10%) for all the best prices and service in Vent servers and Site5 (promo code ABYSSPODCAST – save 15%) for ALL of your web hosting needs.

SITE CONSTRUCTION

Thanks again to Craig OC for the audio files

Stay tuned for community segments after the show

Catalyst Legion is up and running, level 2, Ranked 18th on server

Abyss Radio: DJ Ovid & DJ Oxy lay the funk down. Click on the Abyss Radio tab on the main page to tune in, turn on, and drop out!

NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

iTunes Reviews: Azier the Pioneer, Andrew Robertson, ElyosCleric, Ubiquitousthey

New Official Aion website:
Forums – class , sever, PvP, and PvE
Server stats: Faction balancing is working well(+/- 5%)

CLEAN-UP

Konni: There is a hat for showing aether gatherables from another vendor in the same hall as the ground gatherables hat vendor.

MAIL CALL

Islandi: Duel early and often to improve your PvP skills!

Matt D.: We have all heard that people will be able to get different wings. But is this going to end up like WoW a little in the way the end game gear did? All the uber leet guys/girls will have the same sets of wings and everyone else will have a couple different types? – You can get Collector set wings as well as wings from quests and vendors. Check them all out here.

Eric T.: He’s loving the “auto-arrange” and “sell all miscellaneous” buttons to keep his inventory straight. Here’s a key bind tip from him: So I noticed in the keybind section that the brands can be hotkeyed onto your keyboard. So what I did was linked a brand to each number on my number line but NOT the num pad. Then what I noticed in the keybind options was a “select” brand section.  Lets say I have brands 1,2,3,and 4 on my number line, then in the “select brand” keybind area bound Shift+1,2,3,and 4 on the number PAD.

Bulzibob: Put your fly/land on shift + space to gather your flying and gliding in one place. Feels very natural, for me anyway. He also asks: What are your opinion on the characters from outer space? SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK!

BASIC TRAINING

James P.: I was wondering if you could explain all the status changes, like sleep and silence because I was looking at my stigma stones and for a ranger a lot of the skills sleep the opponents or silence him. – Crowd control is a beautiful thing!

Strafing movement: Move to Left – Q; Move to Right E; practice before you need it!

MUSIC BREAK

“Turning Caffeine Into Code” by Beatnik Turtle. Check out there HUNDREDS of great songs here.

MAIN TOPIC

Our interview with Ari and Desi (we’ll get you next time, Melrose) the hosts of Aion’s World.

ZEPHYR DELIVERY

President Bush vs the Zombies

Japanese Kids vs the Zombie

COMMUNITY CUBE

OBD’s tip: Once you open up the “Registry-editor”. You will have to find your way to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CURRENTCONTROLSET -> SERVICES -> TCPIP -> PARAMETERS -> INTERFACES

Then there will be some large hex keys for your actual network adapters. You will need to click on the one that matches your internet adapter [it will show a ton of information containing all your network details, such as your assign DHCP Address and server info].

Once you have identified the correct adapter, you add a new DWORD 32bit named “TcpAckFrequency”, and then update its value to 1 by right clicking it.

After this, reboot your PC and log on Aion to find out your new and reduced ping!

 

EP 9.5: Going Down Tonight

Tony September 19th, 2009

Pre-Launch Special

General Info

Head Start  12:00PM PDT September 20th

“After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch.”

Collector Edition items will NOT be available for Headstart: “We deeply apologize, but we will not be able to distribute the digital in-game items during the Head Start Program as we had promised. The in-game digital items will be available at the Aion™ retail launch date for your region.”

Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.

Nezekan is the official Oceanic Realm server

According to Aionroleplayers.com, the roleplayer servers are as follows:

NA – Lumiel
EU – Gorgos (English)
EU – Balder (German)

Legion Recruitment

xJahnX – Phoenix Throne Community from WAR is going to Zikel as our home.

Aussie Andy: Surreal, Elyos, AUS Nezekan, mature & active

Yiron: Worst Case Scenario. Asmo, EU Telemachus, laid-back end-game

Emelda: Horizon, Asmo, EU Perento, hardcore raiding / pvp

Shane: Catalyst, Asmo, NA Marchutan

Changes Coming

Craig O.C. – sent me some sound files, thanks! I’ll have to re-engineer the entire show.

We’ll be having reduced show notes

We’ll be trying to get new software / hardware

Tony’s Tip

Kill stealing – Be kind, be cool, we’re all excited. If someone is whacking a mob, leave it be. Be nice to the Templars, you may need a tank one day and they have long memories.

Thanks

OBD – Tech support / info / sounding board

Zach – Improved web site / forums

Zach and Oxy – Abyss Radio

Forum Moderators: Shane, Daemion, and Tiny

Shane as LM

Konni for Catalyst Legion website

Listeners – Forums / Contributions / Featured on iTunes

Song (thanks Tom the MMO Trucker)

“Going Down Tonight” by Krysta Youngs. Check her out here before she becomes too famous for us!

 

EP 9: Out-Sorcer Me

Tony September 17th, 2009

Open beta – lessons learned

INTRO

Abysspodcast@gmail.com
www.abysspodcast.com
1-206-350-2402

Sponsors: UGT-Servers (promo code “abyss09″ – save 10%) for all the best prices and service in Vent servers and Site5 (promo code ABYSSPODCAST – save 15%) for ALL of your web hosting needs.

SITE CONSTRUCTION

Abyss Radio: DJ Ovid & DJ Oxy lay the funk down. Click on the Abyss Radio tab on the main page to tune in, turn on, and drop out!

NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

iTunes Reviews: LoreWriter.com, Mrshmoove, Soona, VPghost, Pinstar

Updated list of servers at launch is available here.

Do NOT believe the rumors / faked photo about Game Guard being removed. See whay Ayase says here.

CLEAN-UP

We’ll be featuring Kezz’s Wekly Cleric Tip…and some others as well.

Class channel is similar to Region or Trade channel

MAIL CALL

Garthagg: What manastones should a Gladiator use? – I recommend Accuracy and Physical Crit but invite other Gladiators to write in.

Graham D: So just wondering if you or anyone else knows which server/s have been picked. – Oceanic Realm is Nezekan.

Steven R: the Australian Forum Aionaustralia was closed down and replaced with www.aionaus.com.

BASIC TRAINING

MMORPG: A Quick Guide to Starter Weapons, by Robert Duckworth

MUSIC BREAK

“Grant Wants to Be a Pirate” by The Clintons, who can be found here. The song is 3:45 long and was found at http://www.musicalley.com/

MAIN TOPIC

New, neat, and fun stuff that folks brought to our attention as a result of playing in the open beta.

ZEPHYR DELIVERY

Daniel With A Why – He answers all your Aion-related question…with a twist. Check him out here.

Aria: Hitting (Shift?) F12 in the main cities causes player toons to disappear

Here are my favorite non-Aion podcasts…audio fiction for the win! http://escapepod.org/; http://pseudopod.org/; http://podcastle.org/

 

EP 8: Banish Podfade

Tony September 10th, 2009

INTRO

Abysspodcast@gmail.com
www.abysspodcast.com
1-206-350-2402

Sponsors: UGT-Servers (promo code “abyss09″ – save 10%) for all the best prices and service in Vent servers and Site5 (promo code ABYSSPODCAST – save 15%) for ALL of your web hosting needs.

SITE CONSTRUCTION

The forums have been re-skinned and they look great! Also, Zach has added a Shout box which everyone seems to be enjoying.

Forum “beta” users will be members of the Pioneers group. This group will be unavailable after the game launches.

The Catalyst web site continues to improve, thanks Shane and Konni! Join up and you too can play with the Four Brazilian Horseman of the Apocalypse.

NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

iTunes Reviews: Cameron, JohnRAndrew, Zuljitak, Geldin, Computerking, Bigg Z, and Illnia

Anyone hear about the open beta going on?

Aion’s World and Abyss Podcast cross-podcast event is coming.

CLEAN-UP

Lori will be playing a Sorcerer, not a Spiritmaster

Enchantment – We are missing something about item levels, but not sure what it is.

Meringul from Belgium: You said you don’t know where to put them but it’s quite easy. If you’re on your character tab there is a tab that says Stigma or something. So they will appear there. – There is a Stigma tab under profile you can see here, but where on your person are the stones?

Spiderz: An improved Stigma Stone calculator is here at Aion Armory. This one does take pre-reqs into account.

MAIL CALL

Kezz on the Floahoa line: Thanking OBD for his ergonomics tip because he doesn’t plan on getting up much after Aion launches.

Jason Rubero: Replied to thank us for using his sing Radio Girl. Check out his other music here.

Justan / Fergmon: What would be a good class to play for a more casual gamer like me ( I work nights 6 days a week) that is good at solo but still easily able to get into a group on the weekend for instances? – The Oceanic realm may work well for you considering your schedule, but I’ll throw this question out to the community. Check the forums here for feedback.

Thomas / Phyllo: He heard about the PvP radar from Aion’s World, and I went and found a great tutorial for how to set it up here. A must-have for travel in the Abyss.

Glynn / Spiderz: It appears that farming mats far below your level will no longer be an option. This makes leveling crafting for some professions even morecritical. – Here is a forum discussion on the level cap for getting drops off of mobs.

Luke / Solares: One thing that I am sure many others would find very useful would be class specific guides. I play as a sorcerer and have already learned plenty of things about my class but considering such a huge amount of the game revolves around PvP, I thought that guides for all the classes would be very useful. – /agree, so here is a link to some class-specific PvP guides over at Aion Source. Also, here is a good general overview of PvP from Aion producer Brian Knox.

Luke / Solares: Another thing I’ve been doing a fair amount of research on recently was the sort of Abyss Point armor you can get. I’m sure you guys have seen all the class specific level 50 PvP armor you can get as well but i would love to know your opinions on what look you think is the best. – I want to make sure folks know they can see all the “sets” here at Aion Armory. Also, “set” may mean matching jewelry, matching weapons, or matching weapon and shield, in addition to the matching armor sets. As for best looking…well, I’m glad they have dyes and the skinning mechanic in the game

BASIC TRAINING

Robert R: When you pull a mob and others of the same mob are close to it, they will also get aggro. So while you may only want to pull one mob you could find yourself fighting 2 or 3 or more . – Great tip, make sure you plan ahead. Dying while running around in a circle is not a plan.

Luke / Solares: What about explaining what all the acronyms mean? I know that CC’ing an enemy is immobilizing them, but what does the CC actually stand for? – Crowd Control, but here is pretty good listing of gamer slang over at Lagkills.com. I chose this list specifically because of their definition of a PUG.

MUSIC BREAK

“Hard to be Human” by Chiba-Ken a band out of NY / LA @ http://www.myspace.com/chibaken. We are still in “heavy rock” mode, but this song has a male vocalist. The song is 3:50 long and was found at http://www.musicalley.com/

MAIN TOPIC

Patch notes for open beta / 1.5

http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Open+Beta+Patch+Notes

ZEPHYR DELIVERY

Rift Primer at Aionic Thoughts

Daemion, a very active friend of the show, has posted a bit of “fan-fiction” here on the forums that is actually quite good. I’m sharing this because all of you would-be-authors may want to begin sharpening your pencils for a future event…

This is the best video site I’ve ever been to: Wimp.com. There is a great video of the jdome that essentially provides a 180 degree hemisphere that you can use for your game monitor.

 

Ventrilo

Zach September 6th, 2009

Just a reminder to those that don’t know, we have a Ventrilo server available to us courtesy of UGT-Servers.

Hostname or IP: chi3.ugt-servers.com
Port number: 26562
Password: Lori

Official Open Beta Start Time

Tony September 5th, 2009

There still seems to be some confusion as to when the open beta actually starts. Here is the official answer: Open Beta starts 9 a.m. PDT (5 p.m. BST, 6 p.m. CEST) on Sunday, September 6th.

Hope that helps!

Open Beta Patch Notes

Tony September 4th, 2009

Official patch notes have been released at the Aion site for changes that will be effective for the open beta. Follow this link to learn about the changes taking place. Go, go now, for it is far more – and much cooler – than we thought!

EP 7: Heaping Helping of GhostBoy

Tony September 3rd, 2009

INTRO

Abysspodcast@gmail.com
www.abysspodcast.com
1-206-350-2402

Jakob from Denmark / GhostBoy: Also, thanks for the tip on UGT servers. Our WoW guild was facing a re-subscription of our current vent server, and UGT has allowed us to cut that bill in more than half. The quality and uptime so far has been superb, even under the pressure of raids.

SITE CONSTRUCTION

We have started the process to become a registered official Aion fansite, hopefully will be done by the time this episode is released.

The forums are amazing! Select the tab above and see them for yourself.

Catalyst Legion is now forming. Check out the website here.

NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

iTunes Review: M Dawg, Evertorn, T Crab, Neale Johnson, Trimmy56, and Snizzle.

Closed to open beta update available. Read this for more info.

Schedule: open beta, 6-13th September, will be 1.5 and have a level cap of 30. Pre-select character and server on 18 Sep. Headstart begins on 20th Sep

CLEAN-UP

Brian S from Holland: Yes, I used an example of a placeholder mob with names that didn’t work. Many apologies for the confusion.

Brian S also asked about our view of players that speak English as a second language. The short answer – nothing but love and respect!

MAIL CALL

Todd G / Kuay (Floahoaline): Restricting alts from legions so that Abyss points can be accumulated – that’s the first idea we’ve heard that makes sense. He askes will we keep doing podcast after game launches – Only if you keep listening!

GhostBoy: Glad to see the show is back on track. It was a boring day at work last friday without a podcast fix to tide me over during that long dark teatime of the soul that is just before the end-of-work beer hits the table – Wow, I didn’t even have to buy a ticket for that guilt trip!

GhostBoy: For the higher level crafted gear there are what could be considered crafting chains. For example, you can start out making a white sword at low levels. As you may know, crafts have a chance to crit, giving you a chance to make a superior quality item. A white becomes a green and is given the “Shining” prefix. Later, you can find a new recipe to craft an even better sword at higher skill levels. This blue sword requires that Shining green sword as a material. So you need a critical crafted item to make the next “level” of sword. The thing to realize is that you can use soulbound items in this craft, so that Shining sword you’ve had for a while that may start to need replacing, can be used as a material to the next upgrade. So don’t sell it or use extraction tools on it. – Check out the items that interest you here.

Chris T. / Snizzle: As for a purpose for the mount one just came to mind for me, I thought about mounted combat – Great idea, let’s see if they go that way.

Bulzibob: As a ranger i am most of the time strafing or moving backwards. Does the -70% physical damage reduction apply to ranged damage or is it just melee damage that is affected? – Couldn’t find an exact answer, but read here and here for more info on mechanics.

BASIC TRAINING

GhostBoy: In the starter zones, as soon as you get to level 9, you get the ascension quest. Do that at once! Forget all other quests. The thing is, that quest will put you at level 10 regardless of how much XP you have. If you do it immediately, and the teleport back to the starter zone, the remaining quests you still have in that area can give you a leg up towards level 11. -  Check out Genzette source for more info.

User Interface: Invest the time to set-up your user interface so that it feel right for you. Check out a line by line explanation of the game options here.

Keitarokun has made a number of great tutorials over at Aion Source about many of the basic interfaces. Check them out here.

MUSIC BREAK

We get back to a little hard rock with Gatja’s  “Resilient Butterfly.” Want to hear more, then just check them out here.

MAIN TOPIC

Stigma Stones

Stones you can equip to your “person”, not in gear. They can provide both passive and active abilities and can give you access to skills outside of what is normally part of your class. You can equip up to 5 basic stones and 3 advanced stones.

At level 20, you get a quest. You can equip 2 stones and you get a class-specific one from the quest giver. Additional slots open up at levels 30, 40, and 50.

You must go to the Stigma Master in your main city to equip the stone. It costs Stigma Shards to equip Stigma stones. Generally, Stigma Shard cost is four times the level of the stone. You receive 300 shards from doing the initial quest but more can be farmed from creatures in the Abyss. Stigma Masters can remove socketed stones at no cost.

For more basic info, go here.

With patch 1.5, 93 types of “Basic Stigma Stones” and “Advanced Stigma Stones” have been added. 6 new Advanced Stigmas have been added for each class, and they can be purchased with Abyss Points.

Either basic or advanced Stigma stones can be equipped in the Advanced Stigma slots, but Advanced Stigma Stones cannot be equipped in regular Stigma slots. Advanced Stigma Stones can only be equipped when prerequisite Stigmas are equipped.

For more 1.5 patch info, go here.

Terhix has made a Stigma calculator, shows total shard cost, but you have to know the prerequisites stones for the advanced stones, but URL linking is ueful. Check it out here.

ZEPHYR DELIVERY

Ghostboy: In your main city inn there is a vendor which will sell you new emotes, for a very reasonable price. I think it somewhere around 11,000 kinah.  A good little tool for roleplayers, or people who like me just like to collect fun and unusual things.

Another thing you can find in the main cities is books. Many rooms around the city have a book lying around somewhere that you can read.  Interestingly, most seem to be written from the perspective of your faction, similar to the backstory that is posted on the official site, which enhances the idea that nobody knows who is right or wrong in the conflict. Lore buffs may have missed that little source of entertainment.

21 cool and unusual USB devices: air conditioned shirt, aquarium, drum kit, microscope, foot-warming slippers, and a mini-fridge. Check them all out here.

 

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Zach September 1st, 2009

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