I haven't hid the fact that the game hit a pretty solid wall around level 20 and my enjoyment of the game had started descending in a downward spiral. Sadly, that feeling never changed as I approached 25, and when I did hit the magical two five I was ready to call it quits. I didn't even care to check the abyss out, but I finally manged to do a little bit of exploring there.
 
  
There's certainly a lot of quests there, having you run around talking to different NPCs who then send you out to kill the opposing faction, find things within the Training Grounds or even kill monsters scattered across the various floating islands.
 
  
The first thing the NPCs had me do was go talk to a circle of sages that reminded me of the sages in Final Fantasy 1 that each impart a small bit of wisdom. Each NPc had a different cutscene that explained different aspects of the Abyss.
 
 
From there it was more errand running, talking to different NPCs who sent me to other NPCs. I also took the time to check out some of the vendors. Items are purchased there through Abyss Points which you're awarded when you kill people of the opposing faction or even from killing mobs in the Abyss. Was a nice touch to have the monsters give points so you could start accumulating points while grinding or questing.
 
 
Since I was never a part of a large guild and didn't care to PUG anything, I didn't see much of the Training Grounds aside from the entrance. It's an instance you enter via an odd looking statue. The mobs are elite, of course, and they don't take kindly to visitors. 
 
 
Sorry if you were hoping for screenies of the bosses and such, I didn't get that far in. ;P I just took a look around then clicked on a big glowing portal to leave!
 
 
There are also fortresses which larger groups can lay siege to and control. Naturally, the Asmodeans had the majority of them controlled. Much like the Horde in WoW were the more PvP-focused players in Classic, it seems the same can be said about the Asmodeans.
 
 
When a faction controls a fortress, level 40 guards spawn and protect it so the opposing faction has to fight their way through in order to claim it as their own. The outside guards weren't elite, but I'd assume mobs inside would be tougher... Don't quote me on that though.
 
   
We explored a few different islands populated with lots of ghosts and elementals. Some of them looked pretty cool and the mobs were easy to kill. I could see myself grinding the mobs to level and get Abyss Points if I didn't have other games like Borderlands or Tekken 6 that were coming out soon and begging to be played.
 
  
As I mentioned in a previous ramble, you can't see your enemy's level which really killed my desire to go and try to pick a fight. Considering most players who have stuck with it are well on their way to 30 or beyond, the chance of me coming across another level 25 was pretty slim. Heck, I managed to get ganked while exploring by a few ??'s that I'm guessing were in their 30s. Oh well. Alas no screenshot of my demise, so here's a picture of Red and I meeting up afterwards, instead.
 
 
And with that I was sent back to Sanctum, where I managed to float up to a place I wasn't supposed to be, hehe.
 
 
Red wanted to get some screenshots for posterity's sake, so we hung out in front of the airship port for a bit, emoting random people and taking screenshots. 
 
 
After that, we said goodbye by -- how else? -- committing suicide.
 
 
So brings the adventures in Aion to a close. A $60 demo that certainly had many enjoyable parts and the graphics are gorgeous, but the game unfortunately hit the repetitive grind too early for my tastes. There's a lot there for players who enjoy the grind, but in all honesty, WoW offers so much more, but it happens to look very, very ugly by today's standards. If WoW had the character customization Aion offers and a newer graphics engine, I'd probably be back there in a heartbeat.
 
  
I might go back and take a look at it once again a few months down the road to see if anything has changed. As I said earlier, I could see myself killing mobs and slowly leveling if I didn't have other games vying for my attention, so perhaps I'll go back and find enjoyment in Aion when I'm done with those other games. That said, the video game market is seeing some exciting releases almost every month for the next 8 months or more. On top of that, when Super Street Fighter IV, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV, and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm come out, Aion will more than likely become just a distant memory for me. Juri ftw!
 
  
Thank you to everyone who took the time to follow my Aion ramblings and if you happen to be playing Aion, I really hope you are enjoying it and wish you the best in your own adventures! I'll need to think of another game to ramble about next... 
 
I would definitely write about Borderlands but the people I plan on playing with and I are all planning to get it for the 360 (siiiiigh) so I can't just hit "print screen" whenever I want to take a quick screenshot =/ Maybe I can get some sort of video capture device or something to capture screenshots or videos of it... I'll figure something out. If not Borderlands, then it may just have to wait till Final Fantasy XIV! Though League of Legends is looking kind of interesting, too....
 
  
Alright! Nothing left to see here, thanks for coming, see ya!
 
   
Edit: Marcus from Gametrailers describes going through pretty much the same thing I did at around level 20 on the newest edition of Invisible Walls and makes some excellent points around the 22 minute mark.

Chapter Index

Part 1: The Prequel
Part 2: Character Creation
Part 3: The Early Levels 
Part 4: Ascension!
Part 5: Learning to Fly
Part 6: Let the Grind Begin 
Part 7a: Drawing Water from a Dry Well
Part 7b: Staring into the Abyss
Part 8: It's over!
Appendix 1: Emotes
Appendix 2: Bugs and Issues