Aion 1.5.1 Patch Notes and Comments

The 1.5.1 patch for Aion is now live and you'll find the complete patch notes here.

NPC Behavior -  Assassins, murderers, and other unsavory types (yes, you) will have greater difficulties sneaking into certain villages in Heiron and Belusian. New guards have been given better glasses and can see stealthed characters more reliably than the other guards.

A common glitch in many MMOs (and other games) is the ability to attack a mob from a point that it can't reach, so you get to attack for free. Certain instanced dungeons in Aion have the same quirk, but now the mobs will be able to attack. 

Loot - Drop rate for a variety of loots have been tweaked (generally for better drop rates) and many of the bosses have been made somewhat easier to take out.

Gathering - A couple of interesting changes have been made here.

• More XP will be given from gathering and crafting. It's a slight amount so don't expect to see much here. There's no change in how quickly one gains skill though.
• From the Wiki: "When you extract Aether, there’s a chance that Aether Poison Gas will infiltrate your body. The poison blocks gathering for a certain period of time unless you detoxify the poison.... Once you are poisoned the only way to detoxify yourself is to utter the "Cleansing Word.” (This is a captcha field. A code is displayed and you type it in.)
  

The latter item probably extends to gatherables in general and, of course, is intended to stop bots from gathering. The idea being that a bot won't be able to read the displayed code and enter it. Some people seem to think that it's a fairly trivial task to code a bot to read captcha fields, but we'll see.

One poster in the forums suggested that the flight time could be reset to 100% is the correct code is entered. This sounds like a good idea to me.

I think that stopping the gathering bots from gathering will have the consequence of raising prices on a lot of gatherables. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on whether you're buying or selling.

Abyss - there are now awards for defending a fortress (hooray,) but they only go to the legion owning the fortress (boo!) "You now receive contribution decorations as reward for successfully defending a fortress under the control of your Legion."

So this gives the controlling legion incentive to defend the fortress, but nothing is offered for those who might otherwise want to assist.

Of course, having access to the fortress grants access to any special vendors (eg: for morphing designs) and the fortress instance. Defending it is still a tougher job than attacking it though, much of which is due to player's real schedules, so perhaps there should be greater incentives.

Skills- Various skills have been tweaked. Assassins and Clerics get a bit more damage, Templars get a bit more aggro, and so on.

Other - there are a number of small tweaks and fixes. One interesting change is to the broker. You can now search by keywords (see the trade broker post) and you can now post items to the Broker with a right click. There's a calculator pop-up (when you post items) which looks kinda cool, too.

6 Tips for Using the Aion Broker

People call Aion's Trade Broker an Auction House, but it itsn't really. There are no bids, therefore there are no auctions. It's more like a consignment house, where goods are sold and the broker gets a (small) cut. (A real world consignment shop might take 50-70%.)

Now that that's out of the way...  How do you find things? People complain that the search is broken. Actually it's quite good, you just have to do a couple of things differently.

1) Use initial caps when you search. Like This. If you want to search for a dagger, then worthy dagger will return nothing, while Worthy Dagger will return all the Worthy Titanium, Adamantine, etc. Daggers.

2) Use abbreviations: Wor Ti D will return all Worthy Titanium Daggers and Worthy Noble Titanium Daggers. It will also return the designs for those, as will #1.

3) Use the categories: Click the Weapons category and then search for Wor Ti Da and you will just see any available daggers, not designs. Click weapons, and then daggers and you only need to enter Wor Ti. Note that in this search I entered Wor Ti, selected the dagger category, and see all the Worthy Titanium Daggers available.

By the way, the blue dagger starts at 700,000 Kinah. It's probably cheaper to buy it rather than to buy the materials and try to make it. See the "Why Does It Cost So Much" post for details.

4) You don't need the first letters. Instead of searching for Worthy Titanium Dagger you can search for thy aniu gg and get the same result. Here's the pic:

Note the keyword (thy aniu gg,) the category (all,) and the results.

Want a Mana serum? Search for Gr S R M (Greater Secret Remedy of Mana) and get...

Note the keyword and category used. 

5) Use the check boxes - At the top you have that series of check boxes.

• Common = white titled items
• Superior = green titled
• Heroic = blue titled, and so on.

If the item you're searching for is a green titled item, then you can uncheck all the other boxes and only green items will show in the search. If you've earned (or bought) a ton of Kinah and want to buy the gold gear, then make sure only Fabled and better items are checked.

6) Restrict the search by level. Say you're level 30 and only want level 30 gold (or better) armor. You enter 30 into both level boxes, click the armor category, and you might get...

So there you go. With the above tips you should be able to find just about anything you want to find on the Broker. Invest some time and you'll probably learn to spot the hot deals, which will either save you a bunch of Kinah or earn you a bunch, but that's another post. Speaking of Kinah (and everything else Aion) you might take a look at the Kozen Guide.

Aion Easter Eggs

Yeah, I know, it isn't Easter.

But this kind of Easter Egg is an in-game goodie, surprise, hidden bit, etc. Generally Easter Eggs refer to something outside of the game, such as a developer's name on a wall or a tombstone. Maybe a code unlocks a video or an image of something not in the game. Or it might be something interesting that is in a very hard to find location that's not in the quest chains or a hunting location. Just something cool for the heck of it. Another  example is the Shugo broker in Eltnen, Gygaxinerk. Gary Gygax was one of the original creators of the tabletop Dungeons and Dragons game.

So let's look around the web and see what else can be found...

• Legolas in Morheim near the obelisk around the Spriggs, but his name was changed to Lorando, in the 1.5 patch, in a reference to the actor's name: Orlando Bloom

New Kids on the Block

• The Daru's by the witch in Ishalgen, (Asmodae) drop a quest that is a reference to the .hack// series. In .hack you throw a weapon in a pond, and something pops out asking "Did you drop the sillver axe, or did you drop the goolden axe?"
  

Here's a video with some of the interesting weapons that can be found in the game, the Korean version anyway. They aren't easter eggs, but they're interesting.

• Here's the city under Sanctum, no he doesn't tell you how to get there, but I understand that others have done it.
• Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, the three pigs in Eltnen, are the names of the The Three Musketeers
  
• (Elyos) The Dye Merchant in Sanctum gives a quest called Dy’er Ma’ker (Led Zeppelin song.) 
• (Elyos) A quest in Theobomos requires you to fetch some spices, and is called, appropriately, The Spice Must Flow (Dune reference)
• Eltnen is supposed to have a number of Dune references
  .
  

References:

• AionSource forums

Care to add any that you've found?

Rift Locations for Elyos and Asmodean

Rifts are tears in the fabric of netherspace which connect the lands of the Elyos with those of the Asmodeans. When rifts appear they are one way only and have limits on how many and what level characters can leap through them.

The rifts TO the other side have stable positions, that is they will always appear in the same place, though when they appear is random. The rifts from the other side are not fixed in location, though they generally appear close to a particular area.

Naturally, rifts from the other side will be quickly camped if they're in a convenient location to do so. This insures a quick ganking when you pass through that rift.

For detailed maps of the rift locations and limitations, plus some code you can add to your in-game memo pad (menu > community > memo pad,) check out Aionology's post: Aion Rift Locations!

The Fire Sword Quest and Inferno!

I have Inferno. Very nice. Let the hacking and chopping begin! By the way, the blade pop-up says "available for 37..., but I'm 32 and can use it.

It's a very nice sword for Assassins and maybe dual-wielding Gladiators? Ok, so here's how YOU go about getting your very own Inferno sword. Aionology covers the first part of the quest quite nicely: Aion Quest Help – Fire Sword (Elyos Only)

I'll recap here, but go there to get the pics. First off, there are three swords. First you find the white titled fire sword, then upgrade to the green, then (at 32) upgrade to the blue Inferno.

Step 1: Head to North Eiron Desert and kill Dried Gnarls and Mottled Basilisks until it drops. This might take awhile. A loooong while. It's not exactly a common drop. If you have a bit of cash, and hate looking at the idea of potentially grinding for hours, you might consider just buying the thing. It runs from 50,0000 on up.

Step 2: Take your shiney new fire sword and run up to Stataloca's Grave and find Garparos. He's on a little hill to the south-west of the priests. My assassin is looking SW in this pic, you'll see G on the far hill.

Step 3: Get the quest to collect the bits from the nearby fire spirits, do that. and bring the bits back to Garparos.

Step 4: He presents you with the shiney green fire sword.

Now you have to level to 32, if you're not already there.

 

 

You're Level 32, Off to Sanctum

Go to Sanctum and speak to Regmos. He's on the platform to the right of the Airship dock. He'll give you the quest and send you on your way. The quest has you collect some bits from flaming Barghests and Magma Spirits, as well as a feather from Griffonix.

Note: unequip your fire sword before you get, or hand in, the quest.

Note: You can solo the entire quest, I did, but it isn't easy and you should carry some nice life serums or potions. Or... you can take a friend or two.

Now you're back to Eltnen and you'll fly off to Agairon village and then run to Geroch Crater. You'll go deep inside to find Magma Spirits and Burning Barghests. Both are level 37.

Kill them until you have all the parts. They're pretty easy (for something that's +5 levels) and seem to have a 100% drop rate for those parts. The crater is located in southern Eltnen, southwest of the Agairon village (and not in the image, below.) By the way, this might be a killer grinding spot in a few levels.

Head north of the village to the Drake Habitat and pick up the two "Kill Vigaro" quests. I don't know if you need to have done the previous quests there to get those. You'll be killing them anyway, so it's more almost free XP

Head to the east side of Kuriullu mountain and look for Griffonix. If you do it in the daytime he's friendly and you can talk to him and get the feather quest. You can also grab a second quest (which is an escort for his baby) so get that one, too. It's almost free XP.

If you see him at night he'll be hostile. Wait for daylight or grab a couple of friends and kill him. (There's more XP if you chat with him, but what the heck.) I assume that if you kill him you'll get the feather, I waited until morning and talked to him.

He'll have you gather fur from Pretor looters,  Vigaro hearts, and "Spirit of Wind."  The looters come out at night, but there's a pod of four that spawn at the top of a massive rock stair that leads down into the chasm, marked with the red X.

Head down the main road, south, for Vigaros and spirits (my marker is at the top of the road. ) Kill any of the spirits in the area for the "spirit of wind," the Vigaros are a bit south of the spirits.

The looters, spirits, and Vigaro are all about 32-34.

The baby bird (you did get the escort quest, right?) is off to the left, as run down the road, at the northern end of the Vigaro area, inside one of the Vigaro TeePee things. You don't have to excort him all the way back, just to the bridge at the north end of the area.

Once you have all your bits go back to Griffonix and hand them in, along with the escort. Run back to the Drake habitat and hand those in.

Go back to Sanctum, find Regmos, and hand it in. Make sure the sword is not equipped when you hand it in. You'll get your shiney new sword just waiting for you to slot in three shiney new crit stones.

Inferno
Character sheet
Grab A Killer Assassin Guide 

Aion's Silver Coin Quests

Well, it's actually about all the coin quests, but the silvers are what I'm poking around with at the moment.

All of the coin quests work like this:

• Get the quest to kill X of this, Y of that, and maybe some other things. 
• Kill it all and hand it in
• Get a bit of XP, some Kinah, and a coin
• Collect enough coins and hand them in on a random piece of gear.

So I figure that if I'm going to be running back and forth through an area that has mobs to fill the coin quest, then what the heck. Do it along with the other quests that you're doing and hand it in when you're back by the quest giver.

The XP award isn't worth it if you're not going to be mashing those mobs anyway.  Neither is the Kinah award, if there even is one for that quest. But is the gear worth anything?

I handed in 6 bronze coins in Eltnen and got a nice dagger, but the one I was using was nicer. I expect that will be the case with all the bronze coin awards. If you're keeping your gear up to date (green or better) then the award is better off sold or disenchanted.

I've heard that the higher level coin quests actually give you decent gear, so how about the silver coins?
AionForums has a post that basically says that you'll get a Rank X Soldier Weapon, which is Ok, but isn't as good as crafted or decent dropped items.

Care to add a comment if you've handed in coins or silver or better? What did you get as an award?

update: handed in 16 coins, got a blue Shield of Rank 6 Elysean Soldier. Nice. Can't use it, but still a nice reward. Guess I'll keep doing coin quests.

update 2: Sold that shield for 600,000 Kinah. I've turned in two more 32 coin sets and got two greens, neither of which was interesting or worth much. You can actually buy coins on the broker, I've seen silver coins for as low as 5k, each, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Legion Hopping in Aion

Dominate Your Server is a cool WoW blog with some pretty solid tips for that game. Their latest post happens to also be 100% appropriate to Aion - Guild (Legion) Hoping.

We all know someone or we are someone that looks for that perfect guild to fit our personal definition of the perfect guild. For me, it has been a long road to where I am now in DYS. This is a sore topic for some and a joke to others, but, finding where you want to be is very important to your gaming fun.

This is a topic that I just had to write about. It is one that many players either struggle with at some emotional level or take far too casually.  While not getting teary over the changing of guilds, it is something that I take very seriously and do not enter into lightly.

Your guild is your in game family and deserves some respect because of it. In general guilds help each other and jointly progress through the game.  If you’re like me, you want to spend more time questing, adventuring and gearing up with these players than anyone else. If they are so important, why would you want to change?

Here's the rest: Time to switch guilds: Guild Hopping