The game mechanics in itself are like a combination of World of Warcraft meets Soul Calibur. I say that because while in melee, your “position” actually effects how much damage you do, and how much damage is done to you depending on your current motion. So keep moving, it is to your benefit. Also it is important to note that in a single swing of the sword/mace/claw/staff, you can inflict several rounds of damage on a creature. So when I booted up the old Cleric, he was dishing 2 hits in a swing. Making to feel a lot like a fighting game in that respect.

The mana stones are something that I feel actually made a difference in my performance when I was grinding. Think of mana stones like socketable gems in Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft. Each item you get usually has an open socket, and depending what you find and trade for in the world, you can drop in stat enhancing stones to help you along. In the beginning of my Cleric’s career, I went ahead and put nothing but Mana Pool stones into my gear, giving me a nice supply of mana which I felt like it was never going to run out. Then once I got up into the teens, I switched to physical crit stones. The moment I did that, I started to feel the pinch from the lack of mana, but yet, my melee dps was taking more significant chunks off of the mob’s life. So a word to the wise, do your research on mana stones and really think about what it is you want from your character. Hybrid characters like Gladiators, Chanters will find this to be a difficult decision.

And speaking of grinding, one thing that I felt was a welcome addition was that the grinding really didn’t feel like grinding at all. This was something I just decided to roll through for about 2 hours, and really enjoyed. The key to this is the complete lack of downtime. Saying that, if you do encounter downtime in AION something is being done incorrectly. Once I started moving away from the “honeymoon” levels, I started seeing a lack in either HP or MP which caused me to stop. Saying that, sitting in this game is a bit irritating because the regeneration rate is awkward at best. A solution to this is to stock up your favorite HP or MP potions and chug one to increase regen rate while hunting. I found that keeping a steady pace of this was most effective for minimal amount of cash. The cash comes bountiful in this game, so when you start up your character, treat yourself to increase your kill speed and minimize downtime. Once you find your “grove” like I did, you will have zero down time. AION has put so much in your path to eliminate this that it would be advised to catch on to all the tools you can use as quickly as possible.

I could of course, go on at great lengths about the good. But alas my fingers can’t take that kind of abuse. Consider these my selected points of interest, and we can move on to the bad.

The Bad
There is so much going on in MMO’s that its not that hard to get everything right. And the first thing I saw was from levels 1-10. I found the whole “ascension” aspect of the game rather irritating. Not because it wasn’t fun, but just because… well… lets break it down into two parts.

1.So much god damn running. I mean you run everywhere. The time to level 10 really took a good chunk of time. And they have you running from one town to another with very limited travel options. And since you don’t have your wings, expect that set yourself on auto run and get a snack, because this just takes a whole lot of time.
2.Don’t start getting smart thinking that this is the time to grind to level 10 before you can ascend. Why is that? Because all of your EXP caps off at 99% of level 9…. you can’t get past that level until you ascend. So a person like myself, found himself in a “oh shit” position. Because I capped out, and then realized I had to finish all of the quests. This hour initiative I took to get a jump on the game, cost me another hour in finishing quests just to get to to the actual act of ascension. This really, really, irritated me. Definitely a mistake I didn’t make again when I started another character.

The second irritating part of this game, was well… the people. AION does have a feature limiting your use of regional chat until level 5, preventing any and all gold farmers from clogging the chat rooms. But complete and uttered shit talking that was going down in the regional chat was enough to just turn it off. Racial slurs, pwn talking, trash talking, you name it. It really didn’t take long for these kids to come out of the wood work. And it totally reminded me of World of Warcraft with the recent WoW-crowd looking to AION for “something else to do,” it’s apparent these guys are coming over to trash talk in AION. If you are a fan of this kind of thing. Then enjoy the first couple of months are going to be filled with this kind of mindless banter. Otherwise, do what I and many others did, and turn the regional chat off. It’s not even to say that this is AION’s fault. I think it’s just the timing of things that is going to allow this to happen.

The Lag
Holy God. Holy mother of God all mighty. What is worse than being stuck at home all Labor Day weekend with nothing else to do but play a super laggy game? Nothing. Nothing is worse than that. Everything started off fine, but about 5 hours into the beta, I started to “rubber band” all over the place. Couldn’t chat, couldn’t kill… for about a day this game was un-playable. And while NCSoft found ways to correct this problem, I fear that the worst I yet to come. Given, this was the point of having an open beta. And it’s probably unfair of me to judge the game so harshly, but I have never seen lag that bad, for that long, on such a large scale. Now that I am writing this a week later, the lag has all but mostly cleared up. But it makes me wonder if whatever corrections NCSoft applied to the servers is enough for the onslaught of people who plan on playing this game hardcore, come the official release game. NCSoft, be flattered, but be warned, 10 servers might just not be enough to handle the 300,000 + players that are going to hit this game. After all a laggy start could spell death in an industry filled with jaded gamers who are looking for their next big fix.

More on AION later guys. The beta is still going strong so I am going to go and get a little bit more of my fix before I start to write some more.

Guitar Hero 5 has added to its all star cast of musicians with Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Guitar Hero 5 will feature the lead singer as a playable character. Guitar Hero 5 will also offer two songs from the multi-platnium album Nevermind. You get ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, which has been called the song which defined the 90’s. They are also giving you a previously unreleased live version of ‘Lithium’ to hear and play. Activision is the first group to have officially licensing the tracks for use in games.

If Nirvana doesnt do it for you Guitar Hero 5 still boasts a heafty list of musicians; including Kings of Leon, The Rolling Stones, The White Stripes, Santana, Vampire Weekend, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, plus more than 25 artists from a variety of music genres that will be making their music video game debut. I’m personally looking forward to playing some Johnny Cash tunes.

Pretty sure Cataclysm is going to be announced for WoW as well. Blizzard just can’t keep things tight-lipped these days. =D

More on all of this later. Follow me on our Blizzcon09 Coverage Page or my twitter feed as I tweet as this all happens today. Time for some breakfast.

Edit by Ryan:

Just got word from Tim, Cataclysm has been announced as the new WoW Expansion. Two new races are now confirmed, Goblins and Worgen(warewolves). The Goblin race will have racecars for mounts, sounds awesome. The entire world of Azeroth is going to be changed to look like a huge cataclysm has taken place. Almost like the entire world has been flipped upside down. Places once serine are now filled with fire and flames and places desolate and filled with nothing are now going to be forests. Underwater mounts will now be available in Cataclysm.

Watch the Trailer: World of Warcraft: Cataclysym Trailer

In D3 they have announced a Monk as the next new character class.. guess Tim owes us a Coke.

So what is in store? Well for starters let me introduce myself. Hi, my name is Tim O’Connell. Long time friend of Ryan Yockey, and I was brought on to continue with him on the weekly podcasts that can be found here over at Blogtalk Radio. The service has been fine for now, but we are definitely looking into something a little bit more consistent and puts the control back in our hands and not into someone elses. We had been doing this for a few months now, but I felt the need to officially introduce myself.

I specialize in Graphic Design so I plan on bringing more of that element to the team and go a bit more into trends as well as pulling up a site review every now and then. Also I made this site that you are looking at right now as a testiment to my Net Raider’ing! And of course, I love gaming with a violent passion. I plan on bringing all of my findings to the site. I will be heading over the BlizzCon 2009 this year down in Aneheim. So expect full coverage of that as I delve into the 2-day nerdfest. Until then, expect a post or two from me in the near future. I am going to work with Ryan to remove most of the bugs on this page, and eventually get people posting comments again (linked through facebook, full interactivitiy etc). And make sure to tune into our podcast at 9pm PST.

This new media player couldn’t come out without Adobe creating their own TV network, apply dubbed Adobe TV. The Adobe Media Player gives access to tons of TV shows from MTV, CBS, and other various small networks. All of the shows of course come equipped with commercial breaks, but they aren’t overly long. I believe on average I’ve encountered quick one minute commercials. The interface is fairly easy to navigate and everything flows very well when moving around between different areas of the Adobe TV network.

Overall i’m impressed with this setup. Its nice to finally see every TV network embrace the internet. I can’t think of many more that are left who haven’t taken to the internet.

If you’ve just answered yes to the above questions then you are primed and ready to get laid. Tania is famous in Belgium for having offered to give blowjobs for the Belgium government to prove they had made 400,000 jobs availible. Well now shes at it again, this time giving out sex itself just for you to show your support for Net Neutrality.

Heres what Tania has to say on the subject:

“I’m using sex in a positive way to spread awareness. The reason why only virgins can apply is because I don’t want to make this promise to such a large amount of people that I’ll have to turn some down.

Net neutrality is paramount to safeguard free speech and innovation on the Internet. With only one arguably negative side-effect: an unusual amount of today’s Internet users are virgin. That’s a problem I intend to solve. In history, man has always waged war for freedom. Now it’s time to obtain our freedom with love.

Sex is all over the net and yet it’s still a big taboo for many. Using sex to spread awareness will be yet another big step to sexual freedom. This is just another great example of what’s possible thanks to net neutrality.”

WHOA Champ, don’t be so hasty! Tania does have some requirements:

• Applicants must be 18yrs old or above
• Condom must be used, except if the applicant prefers to release his semen upon Tania’s body without any oral or vaginal contact
• Anal sex is negotiable, although Tania will cease the performance immediately if any form of ’surprise buttsex’ occurs
• Multiple participants are not allowed, but applicants are entitled to have an audience observe the performance
• If anywhere along the process, it becomes clear that the applicant is not a virgin, Tania reserves the right to terminate all activity
• Applicant must be able to provide sufficient evidence that clearly shows he has been defending net neutrality (eg. a print-out of a forum post, a link to a vlog)
• Applicant agrees that in the event of the applicant infringing upon Terms of Service during the process of the act, Tania is not responsible for any genital injury that the applicant may suffer
• Tania may deny service for hygiene reasons
• Tania states that each performance can last no longer than 30 minutes

I’m a huge supporter of Net Neutrality. I have been following the US efforts for a while now. I like this girls motivation, should be interesting to hear if she actually puts out for it. So now that you’ve read the rules, if you’re a virgin and are ready to make the ultimate sacrifice and support Net Neutrality! Go to Tania’s site and click ‘Get Laid’.

The kid had this to say:

“The ability to communicate with the world via text messages helped assuage fears he would “fall into a black hole,” he said. “Whether it saved my life, or whether it just kept me sane, I don’t know”.”

Check out the full article

So lets fast forward to today. Not too long ago Gizmodo reported that a guy in Bend, Oregon was sent a bill by his new broadband company. Well it wasn’t a good thing. It seems this new broadband company in Oregon wants to charge for bandwidth instead of the flat rate we’re all used to. This is something big companies in the US are starting to play around with. Companies like Time Warner and Comcast want to impose these new rates and control how much we’re using the internet. All we can do for now is wait and hope that this doesn’t happen. How would you react to the new rates?