Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[amiable]

I think that having few technical issues will give Aion a terrific start, and that they will actually have good 1 month retention.

After that I forsee losing a lot of subs once folks hit the cockstab grind and other associated mechanics that kick in around level 40.

[Tale]

I think I just realized what Aion is. It's a MMOG from 2002 released with a current, mostly bug free and polished client.

In 2004, WoW was a MMOG from 1999 released with a current, mostly bug free and polished client.

I continually wonder why people say this, considering that it took a couple months after release to get the horrible gamebreaking problems out of WoW - in particular, the looting issues, disconnects, and login queues come to mind, along with things like boats breaking down (hi Captain Placeholder) and a number of skills and abilities - particularly movement related ones like Charge and Blink - having some serious issues.  EQ2 released a much more bug-free game at about the same time.

As for my opinion, considering that the forward and backward steps taken in the last ten years by MMOG's have been nearly equal, just in different areas of the games, an "MMOG from 2002 with a current, mostly bug free and polished client" looks damn good to someone who liked the MMOG's of the EQ era.

Gamebreaking? Bullshit. I was in WoW beta for six months and the game was NEVER broken. It launched in an incredibly good state. The bugs and missing features you just mentioned were very minor, as was the inconvenience of the queue system (and I played on Blackrock, one of the worst affected).

Also, learn the difference between server and client. Everything you mentioned is server-side, and you're trying to argue with a post about a client. WoW went into beta with a current, mostly bug free and polished client. It released with one too. What you're saying is absolute crap.

By the way, I hate playing WoW and I don't think I like Aion, so don't classify me. And I played EQ 1999-2002 and I agree with you on that, it was one of the best times I've had in gaming.

[Trippy]

Some server clusters were a lot better than others (multiple servers shared the same database infrastructure -- i.e. they were in the same "cluster"). And the clusters got hardware upgrades to reduce the database issues at different times. So depending on your starting server (and cluster) your experience at launch ranged from mildly annoying (my server whose cluster got an early upgrade) to seriously painful.

[tmp]

Gamebreaking? Bullshit. I was in WoW beta for six months and the game was NEVER broken. It launched in an incredibly good state. The bugs and missing features you just mentioned were very minor, as was the inconvenience of the queue system (and I played on Blackrock, one of the worst affected).

Any other game that'd launch with issues like character getting locked for minutes when trying to loot anything that wouldn't stack with something already in their inventory, or simply requiring the player to wait for hour+ before they were actually able to play... no, these issues wouldn't be called "very minor". People would say "fuck it i'm going back to WoW" very very quick.

WoW was in fortunate position -- there was no 'WoW to go back to', and for bulk of their player it was the "first MMO evar".

[Hoax]

So true, shit my server was offline for the entire Thanksgiving weekend due to over population on the cluster.  I remember the lines and the loot lag and how hunters were a broken class etc.  Really WoW didn't have a launch that was any better then DAOC beyond the game wasn't assy like DAOC and the class balance was so much better then anything else I'd ever played.

[Threash]

Gamebreaking? Bullshit. I was in WoW beta for six months and the game was NEVER broken. It launched in an incredibly good state. The bugs and missing features you just mentioned were very minor, as was the inconvenience of the queue system (and I played on Blackrock, one of the worst affected).

Any other game that'd launch with issues like character getting locked for minutes when trying to loot anything that wouldn't stack with something already in their inventory, or simply requiring the player to wait for hour+ before they were actually able to play... no, these issues wouldn't be called "very minor". People would say "fuck it i'm going back to WoW" very very quick.

WoW was in fortunate position -- there was no 'WoW to go back to', and for bulk of their player it was the "first MMO evar".

I had neither of those issues nor do i know anyone who did.

[Lightstalker]

Clearly, pics or it didn't happen.

.

[Ard]

I had neither of those issues nor do i know anyone who did.

Again, as has already been said, it really depended on which servers you were playing on at launch.  I know from firsthand experience that Lightbringer was a catastrophic mess, and had a relapse of these issues the following Christmas.  It was nearly unplayable.

[tmp]

Clearly, pics or it didn't happen.

.

Gods i had no idea this stuff was still up.

[fuser]

I had neither of those issues nor do i know anyone who did.

Wow, how did you avoid that?! Because for a good ~2months it seem liked every server was effected to varying extents. Watching people move around the server in loot position was common place for a long while.

Heck who could forget this

[Rasix]

I had neither of those issues nor do i know anyone who did.

Wow, how did you avoid that?! Because for a good ~2months it seem liked every server was effected to varying extents. Watching people move around the server in loot position was common place for a long while.

Heck who could forget this

I had some of the loot lock stuff, but it was extremely intermittent and usually restricted to mining certain nodes. It'd go away fairly quickly, however.  My server had very few population issues, if any at all.

Luckily, when I saw that my first server choice was going to house several EQ uber guilds, I decided to switch immediately. I think I was lucky enough to grab a new server they opened on launch day due to load issues.

[Draegan]

All that stuff happened to me.  I think I started on the Warsong server.

[amiable]

All that stuff happened to me.  I think I started on the Warsong server.

Funnily enough I started on Warsong too (opening day).  All the problems were managable except for the queues (I ended up switching to a lower pop server relatively quickly).

[Simond]

Hardly any of that stuff happened to me. I started with the rest of Europe after the US has spent ~three months sorting out the launch issues. 

[Ceryse]

I remember a lot of that; I was on Doomhammer at launch, which was part of the dreaded 12. However, a lot of WoW's issues at the time, in terms of being fucked, came from an odd source: its success. I know regardless of how atrocious my loot lag was I was willing to cut Blizzard some slack just because I could understand them being caught flat-footed by how successful it was. WoW hit numbers in weeks that they had thought it would take a year or more to hit. Between that, several statements on the forums from Blizzard reps admitting the situation and having been caught with their pants down and the community itself (most people I knew took the entire situation well in that instead of screaming and venting, would crack jokes). The servers worked almost the entire time; when they didn't you easily got credit (I recall getting just shy of 2 months free time, added up) and the biggest issue was that while playing you had to becareful about looting or their database software would shit the bed with the load it was getting hit with.

So if you got caught in loot lag you'd start cracking jokes or such in general and it'd cascade. Loot lag duels (dueling while in loot lag) was popular. So was loot lag suicide (as it would cancel the inquiries to the database). Between releasing at a sweet spot, admitting it was fucked up, actually working on fixing it to the best they could (you know, ordering massive numbers of servers, starting the ball on better hardware, etc) and generally decent customer service at the time.. and a general hatred of EQ2 it was largely forgiven and actually led to a tighter-knit community on Doomhammer.

It wouldn't fly today, I agree, largely because for a company to have a similar situation they'd have to get a relatively massive amount of NA subs to be comparable and I don't see a MMO in development that will cause that kind of success.

[Koyasha]

Lag-related weren't the only problems with WoW's launch, there were plenty of actual bugs such as pathing issues and a myriad of other "minor" problems, but overall my point wasn't about specifics, and solely that WoW's launch was not sunshine and rainbows, especially in contrast to the other game that released about the same time, and people seem to forget that for some reason and say that it launched well.

[Modern Angel]

None of this is addressing the larger point that is a game working at all is still a selling point and really it shouldn't be. In general here, not specifically Aion before we go all "everyone unimpressed by Aion is being a horrible troll". I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

[Kageru]

WoW launched very well with some minor bugs considering the scale of the game. The beta client had been very reliable and issues like loot lag just weren't mentioned. Post launch Blizzard suffered because their estimate of demand was out by a huge margin. It was pretty clear they'd got it wrong when they had a pre-launch event and brought several thousand copies for about 4-5 times that number of people eager to buy.

That said to an extent they could afford to screw up because the competition was the aging EQ and the "fun is forbidden" EQ2. It doesn't have much bearing on Aion which is facing a bit more competition. Although in the world PvP domain they seem to have a fairly clear run.

[Trippy]

Loot lag and all the other database issues were patently obvious in Open Beta. It was one of the first bugs I discovered when I made my first Dwarf.

Edit Open Beta that is

[tmp]

I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

Thing is, the more complicated games of other genres are hardly something to put above MMOs as far as lack of bugs and stuff actually working is concerned and it gets worse rather than better there. Empire: Total War and ArmA 2 being notable fresh examples.

[DLRiley]

None of this is addressing the larger point that is a game working at all is still a selling point and really it shouldn't be. In general here, not specifically Aion before we go all "everyone unimpressed by Aion is being a horrible troll". I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

No mmo would score above a 5 in any honest game review.

[01101010]

None of this is addressing the larger point that is a game working at all is still a selling point and really it shouldn't be. In general here, not specifically Aion before we go all "everyone unimpressed by Aion is being a horrible troll". I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

While I agree with this point, Aion is just benefiting from the burning wrecks around it that everyone seems to be pointing out as what not to do. Its not that far fetched with the recent history of horrible launches to have that as your current template. Doesn't make it right, but still, that is what we have - just like comparing every god damn MMO with WoW.

[DLRiley]

Well if your going to convince me to spend $15 a month on your mmo, it better be comparable to WoW.

[Threash]

None of this is addressing the larger point that is a game working at all is still a selling point and really it shouldn't be. In general here, not specifically Aion before we go all "everyone unimpressed by Aion is being a horrible troll". I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

While I agree with this point, Aion is just benefiting from the burning wrecks around it that everyone seems to be pointing out as what not to do. Its not that far fetched with the recent history of horrible launches to have that as your current template. Doesn't make it right, but still, that is what we have - just like comparing every god damn MMO with WoW.

I don't think the problem has been horrible launches.  Both AoC and WAR had great launches, hell AoC actually had a freaking miracle patch and both games were highly praised for their low level content.   A great launch followed by crashing and burning when people figure out your game is broken after a few weeks is what they should be trying to avoid.

[DLRiley]

What I thought crashing and burning on boring content is half the fun 

[UnSub]

Gamebreaking? Bullshit. I was in WoW beta for six months and the game was NEVER broken. It launched in an incredibly good state. The bugs and missing features you just mentioned were very minor, as was the inconvenience of the queue system (and I played on Blackrock, one of the worst affected).

One man's very minor bug is another man's AHHHHHRAGEQUITTT!!!!!!.

[Ceryse]

I don't think the problem has been horrible launches.  Both AoC and WAR had great launches, hell AoC actually had a freaking miracle patch and both games were highly praised for their low level content.   A great launch followed by crashing and burning when people figure out your game is broken after a few weeks is what they should be trying to avoid.

AoC had a great launch? News to me; at launch the game was a steaming pile of buggy shit. Granted, I was one of those who suffered from a game breaking bug, amidst many others; the performance option bug, which meant my computer (which exceed minimum requirements in all areas, albeit barely) got absolute shit for performance from the game on any setting, but did better with higher settings because the lower options were absolutely fucked. Meant trying to play the game with 5-10 fps almost all of the time.

AoC's launch compared to WoW's launch, for me, it was no question WoW's was better. In part because Blizzard at least seemed to give a shit; with Funcom things were a joke. I never made it past the first three weeks and went back to non-MMOs for gaming.

[Modern Angel]

While I agree with this point, Aion is just benefiting from the burning wrecks around it that everyone seems to be pointing out as what not to do. Its not that far fetched with the recent history of horrible launches to have that as your current template. Doesn't make it right, but still, that is what we have - just like comparing every god damn MMO with WoW.

Which is fine. But I'm offering a little insight into why people may not be impressed with a feature list whose top slot is occupied by "doesn't crash constantly."

[Draegan]

I don't think the problem has been horrible launches.  Both AoC and WAR had great launches, hell AoC actually had a freaking miracle patch and both games were highly praised for their low level content.   A great launch followed by crashing and burning when people figure out your game is broken after a few weeks is what they should be trying to avoid.

AoC had a great launch? News to me; at launch the game was a steaming pile of buggy shit. Granted, I was one of those who suffered from a game breaking bug, amidst many others; the performance option bug, which meant my computer (which exceed minimum requirements in all areas, albeit barely) got absolute shit for performance from the game on any setting, but did better with higher settings because the lower options were absolutely fucked. Meant trying to play the game with 5-10 fps almost all of the time.

AoC's launch compared to WoW's launch, for me, it was no question WoW's was better. In part because Blizzard at least seemed to give a shit; with Funcom things were a joke. I never made it past the first three weeks and went back to non-MMOs for gaming.

If you think AOC's launch as a steamy pile of shit you should of seen in a week or so before.

[Brogarn]

If you think AOC's launch as a steamy pile of shit you should of seen in a week or so before.

Or lived through Anarchy Online's launch. It still gets my eye twitching when I think about that one. That launch was a steaming pile of shit. AoC's was not.

[Ratadm]

Taxi to victory.

[waffel]

nm

[Shatter]

None of this is addressing the larger point that is a game working at all is still a selling point and really it shouldn't be. In general here, not specifically Aion before we go all "everyone unimpressed by Aion is being a horrible troll". I get why that might be a selling point but I also think it's high time we started judging MMOs like we would other games and I've never said something like, "Yeah, the new Unreal Tournament is totally worth buying because WASD works!"

While I agree with this point, Aion is just benefiting from the burning wrecks around it that everyone seems to be pointing out as what not to do. Its not that far fetched with the recent history of horrible launches to have that as your current template. Doesn't make it right, but still, that is what we have - just like comparing every god damn MMO with WoW.

Pretty much sums it up.  Most of us know MMO's dont get a second life, F it up from the start and you pretty much put the nail in your own coffin.  Exception being Eve but I think to a large degree its picked up over the years because its a different style MMO, space, ships, not orcs and elves for a change.  I dont think anyone here thinks Aion is the holy grail of MMO's, its new, it works and its new.  If SWTOR was coming out the same day as Aion I wouldnt be looking twice at Aion.  TBH its timing for launch couldnt be better, the only game coming out soon is Champions whch isnt going to be a MMO giant and there really isnt anything past September people can to jump to.  The timing is good because people are tired of WOTLK, WHO, etc and Aion brings at least a solid game to the table...did I mention the new?

[Nebu]

Or lived through Anarchy Online's launch. It still gets my eye twitching when I think about that one. That launch was a steaming pile of shit. AoC's was not.

I suffered through both the launch of AO and WWIIOL.  I'm amazed I still play MMO's after those experiences. 

[EmraldArcher]

If battleground/scenario PvP kills world PvP then the developers did a shitty job of designing/balancing world PvP.

Don't blame the players for doing what they find most entertaining/rewarding.

In general, my biggest complaint about Aion is that it doesn't feel like an actual world. You can't walk to the main city and you can't get to enemy territory without rifts.