Massive Nerd

This part of the preview will take a look at all the nifty items and goodies that make Aion unique.


Power Shards are random drops off just about any mob in the game. They can also be bought from certain vendors.


You equip Power Shards in the small slot just above your weapon. At any time, you can press the 'B' key (default) to activate them, and increase your melee or ranged damage. This only affects autoattacks, and will consume one shard with each one. This is by no means a method for steadily increasing your DPS, due to the cost factor. Rather, it provides a nice boost when you need it. More powerful shards will drop at higher levels.


The two greatest buttons ever. First there's the "Sell all misc" button you see in shops windows. This will automatically add any gray, useless items in your inventory into the Sell window. Second is the one I've circled in the image. That is an "Automatically organize inventory" button. For people plagued with cluttered inventories, this button is a savior.


What about that inventory? You only have one "bag," a Horadric Cube that is able to defy the laws of physics through magic, of course. The default cube only has 27 slots, but can be expanded up to 54 by speaking to NPCs like this guy. This costs an ever-increasing amount of Kinah with each expansion.

Have I mentioned Shugos yet? Shugos are the most awesome race in any game I've ever played. Nyerk!


Manastones are a great mechanic that allows you to further customize the stats on your gear, much like the Gems in WoW. EVERY weapon or piece of armor in the game has sockets in it. 1 Socket for a basic piece of gear, and more as quality increases. There's a catch, though! Manastone socketing can FAIL. If it does fail, ALL Manastones in that piece of gear will be lost. This mechanic really bothers me. It seems to have no purpose other than to drive the cost of the more popular stones up. Nothing sucks more than dropping a bunch of Kinah on Crit Stones, socketing 3, then having the 4th fail and losing them all. Just like Power Shards, Manastones are random drops.


What's this?


It's a Private Store.


While us Western gamers love our Auction House, Eastern gamers prefer Private Shops. Aion, like some games before it, offers both options. Now, for many instances, the Auction House will be the better place for selling goods. All those Private Shops crowding the entrance to Pandaemonium? Once their owners realize nobody is going to stand around and look at random junk in 50 different shops, they'll dwindle out. However, they can be useful. Have a bunch of herbs you want to unload fast? Set up shop in the Alchemy Lab!


Another interesting innovation is Extraction. Buying a set of Extraction tools allows you to basically "Disenchant" one of your items.


This will create an Enchantment Stone. The level of the stone depends on the level of the item. Then, you can apply these stones to your current equipment to make it more powerful.


As you can see here, my Spear of Karma is now a +1 Spear of Karma, with +4 additional damage. Again, beware! Just like Manastones, Enchanting can fail. Unlike Manastones, a failed Enchant will not drop you back down to nothing. Instead, it will drop your level by 1. If I failed to Enchant the spear a second time, it would drop back to its basic state. A failure at +9 will drop it to +8. The failure rate is affected by the level discrepancy between the stone and the item. This is to prevent someone from Extracting a bunch of cheap, low-level items to max out a high-level one.