Ayase's Realm: When Spirits Clash

Originally Posted by Ayase

Football is something that perhaps appeals more commonly to the general public in Europe than North America, but I would hope that in Aion; Spirit Soccer may get universal.

For those of you who are completely confounded by my previous words, let me introduce an in my opinion very innovative activity that recently popped up among Korean players of Aion. To give you the best idea possible of what we're dealing with here I had a little talk with Cori, quite possibly the first one who brought information of Spirit Soccer to us here in the west. Read on.


Ayase: Cori, how did you stumble across this mini-game?

Cori: As an administrator of AionHun the fansite and the YouTube account; it is my daily routine to look for new media related posts on the Korean/Chinese/Japanese - basically all Aion related - sites and fansites to gather and repost them so the community get its daily dose of Aion media. I found the video on a Korean site; it was posted by the legion who "invented" this ingenious game.

Ayase: Could you quickly explain to our readers how it works?

Cori: Simple rules as in soccer, you have two teams and a player acting as the ball. The teams should consist mainly of Spiritmasters so that they can use the 'Fear' skills [Ayase: they have multiple skills with this effect). The teams will then basically try to "fear" the ball to the wall behind the keeper that acts as the goal. Only the team captains can use their AoE Fear skill* as a countermeasure. That's basically it.

[*Ayase: The AoE skill translates from Korean to English roughly as 'Spirit/Scream of Terror', although this is not a finalized English term. I will use this term hereon forth in the blog post.]

Ayase: I know that you decided to call it 'Spirit Soccer', and that some German fansites have gone for ?Fearball?. Was there any specific reasoning behind the name? Which one do you prefer?


Cori: The name Spirit Soccer is basically just a translation from Korean for the news post. As our "audience" is really international I decided to use soccer and not football as in some countries it is linked to a different sport. I saw on a German fansite the name "Fearball" and I must say I like the sound of it although I can't really say I prefer the one or the other. The western gamers might come up with a few other names once they get a hold of the "ball" anyway.

Ayase: Do you think that you will stick to 'Spirit Soccer' for now?

Cori: Most probably as the word soccer is more widely known. Everyone can relate to it, I think.

Ayase: You say that there should mostly be Spiritmasters in there due to their 'Fear' skills; what would you imagine other player classes could contribute with?

Cori: knite on Aionsource had a good idea for Templars. You could make them goalkeepers as they can use their pulling skills to get the ball. As the Korean legion who invented it consists mostly of Spiritmasters the roles of the players were pretty much set, I guess.

Ayase: The general rule appears to be that the skills used, by any class, cannot inflict damage - as that would 'destroy the ball'.

Cori: Most probably, Fear deals no damage nor does the "Scream of Terror"*. Rangers could perhaps use traps to stop the ball.

Let's have a closer look at this game, shall we?

Spirit Soccer - How it Works:

• Two teams with an equal number of players (pref. 4+1) of comparable levels compete in a rectangular arena.
• One neutral player of a lower level acts as a neutral 'ball' that may not move or use skills.
• Each team has a Team Captain; the only player that may use the skill 'Scream of Terror'*, an area-wide 'Fear' skill that can be obtained through Stigma stones. Ordinary players, even if they are Spiritmasters, may not use this skill.
• The teams score points by getting the ?ball' to the opposite end of the arena where a 'goal' is measured out, without inflicting damage to the 'ball' or the opposing team.
• The Team Captain will in many cases be a goalkeeper and remain positioned in front of his own goal.
• The team with the most points at the end of an agreed timespan wins.

See the following image for an idea of what the playfield may look like under organised circumstances:


Aion Hungary are in fact hosting a video on YouTube where you can see this all in action: YouTube - Aion KOR - Spirit Soccer

I am sure that playing around with different set-ups, formations and rules could make this little mini-game go a long way. Are Spiritmasters the optimal class to use with their 'Fear' skills? Is the best formation 'no formation'? But the question that I ultimately bet is on each one of your lips - will we see a Super Spirit Soccer Clash Tournament in Aion post launch here in the west? I don't know, but in my world community initiatives constitute a grand wave of brilliance and I'm not the one to rule anything out.

That is all for now. Discuss!