Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Numtini]

Given the "channel" infrastructure, I'm not sure why they don't unless they don't have capacity.

[BitWarrior]

3 hours queue for me in Gorgos EU. If there's a dealbreaker this is it. I don't know how could you guys tolerate the mess that was WoW back in the days.

I give them 5 days to fix this shit. 10 minutes queue after the first week and I am so out.

And to think that I was going to come to these forums as a reprieve from the overall lack of server infrastructure knowledge that plague other Aion forums.

Oh well

[Falconeer]

What?

I hope I read your post wrong BitWarrior. Why should I know about server infrastructure? I am a gamer, not a whateverelseyouprobablyare. And why should I care? Do you mean to imply that having to wait two hours, or even more than 10 minutes, to access this particular paid service is acceptable? Yeah, put that on the box then. Since it's a deal breaker (mostly because sometimes 2 hours is all I have to play) I would have purchased Aion at a later time.

And finally, I never had to wait ANY queue in ANY other MMORPG which is not WoW. Some of them were very succesful at launch too, so I know nothing about server infrastructure but I'd say that some companies are better at it than some others.

[lac]

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before but there is some ruckus about insta-bans if you dare to mention gold selling in any capacity in a public channel.
I also don't know if it's true or not but people are reportedly being banned for offensive phrases as 'has anybody seen any gold spam' or such.

Somebody test it out 

[Numtini]

*lolz* got through after three or so hours and was disconnected for being afk.

But if I logged in and started a personal store, i would be able to stay for months....

[tmp]

Server Stats: http://na.aiononline.com/livestatus/server/

So it looks there's preference for the emo evil side across the board, as much as server caps would allow anyway.

But then seeing how these stats also claim things like Ariel server population being 100% assasins in 46-50 level range, not entirely sure if they can be fully trusted

edit: their armoury thing is pretty nifty though, even shows 3d model of viewed character in their current gear

[Ixxit]

What?

I hope I read your post wrong BitWarrior. Why should I know about server infrastructure? I am a gamer, not a whateverelseyouprobablyare. And why should I care? Do you mean to imply that having to wait two hours, or even more than 10 minutes, to access this particular paid service is acceptable? Yeah, put that on the box then. Since it's a deal breaker (mostly because sometimes 2 hours is all I have to play) I would have purchased Aion at a later time.

And finally, I never had to wait ANY queue in ANY other MMORPG which is not WoW. Some of them were very succesful at launch too, so I know nothing about server infrastructure but I'd say that some companies are better at it than some others.

Highly anticipated MMORPG  with very positive word of mouth with 400 000 + pre orders has queues the  first day of pre launch. What's the suprise?

From my experience the closed beta weekends and sometimes in the open beta, there were times where you could not log on at all  or the log in screen would hang from what one can only assume was people hammering the log in server.   So I am sure that NCSoft implemented a queuing system to deal with it.   So if it were not for this system I sure you would be shouting at a frozen log in screen instead.  

No disrespect Falconeer, but for someone eagerly discussing this game for months, it's a little suprising to see you ready to jump of the  Aion bandwagon so soon.  And what may be only 10 minutes in a few days?  I think Bitwarrior was just a little supriseed at the intensity of your nerdrage over something like this, especially at F-13.

[Kail]

No disrespect Falconeer, but for someone eagerly discussing this game for months, it's a little suprising to see you ready to jump of the  Aion bandwagon so soon.  And what may be only 10 minutes in a few days?  I think Bitwarrior was just a little supriseed at the intensity of your nerdrage over something like this, especially at F-13.

I think it was more the "I can't believe how ignorant you are of server infrastructure" thing, considering he never mentioned server infrastructure or anything.  I don't know that Falc's been relentlessly cheerleading Aion; I don't think anyone has.  But since nobody's jumping up shouting "THIS WILL BE THE ONE GAME TO RULE THEM ALL YOU ALL MUST SUB NOWWWWWW" all the people who are saying "it's not that bad" look like the hardcore fans.

Server queues are bad.  You can know they're coming, but they're still bad.  And this is just the pre-launch; I fully expect things to get worse when the game launches "for real" on the 22^nd or whatever.  And then it'll calm down.  The only game I've played where there wasn't a queue on launch day was Warhammer, and that was because the devs were convinced that they were going to bring down WoW and bought eight trillion servers, all of which were empty in two months.  So I'm not prophecying doom or anything yet.  But it's still bloody annoying right now.

[Falconeer]

Just to clarify.

I understand problems on launch day. I hated the queue tonight but it could have been server crashes and I would have swallowed it as I did with any other game. The queue scared for the future. I have no problem with queues in the first days but, as I said, I will quit if the thing reaches WoW 2005 level of queueing. People I know kept playing for WEEKS on servers with one to three hours queue EVERY DAY. I can't do it. If goes like this in Aion for more than a week then it means their "infrastructure" can't handle success NOR my gaming habits. That's it. I completely understand problems on the first days.

[Ixxit]

I think it was more the "I can't believe how ignorant you are of server infrastructure" thing, considering he never mentioned server infrastructure or anything.  I don't know that Falc's been relentlessly cheerleading Aion; I don't think anyone has.  But since nobody's jumping up shouting "THIS WILL BE THE ONE GAME TO RULE THEM ALL YOU ALL MUST SUB NOWWWWWW" all the people who are saying "it's not that bad" look like the hardcore fans.

Server queues are bad.  You can know they're coming, but they're still bad.  And this is just the pre-launch; I fully expect things to get worse when the game launches "for real" on the 22^nd or whatever.  And then it'll calm down.  The only game I've played where there wasn't a queue on launch day was Warhammer, and that was because the devs were convinced that they were going to bring down WoW and bought eight trillion servers, all of which were empty in two months.  So I'm not prophecying doom or anything yet.  But it's still bloody annoying right now.

Couldn't agree with you more in every respect.  It's just strange that we, including myself,  still rage about stuff like this from time to time.

[Numtini]

For shits and giggles, I stayed in. I'm still in the same queue I mentioned several posts back. I've cooked dinner--braised pork no less with beans from dry beans. Watched The Lion in Winter, not a short subject. Had a wonderful bottle of Portuguese wine. Still I'm 191 away from being able to get in.

I'm forgiving and I know they have to plan around people not sticking around. Yet, somehow, I feel this is a bit excessive.

[Venkman]

Couldn't agree with you more in every respect.  It's just strange that we, including myself,  still rage about stuff like this from time to time.

It's ok to still get excited about an MMO now and again.

[amiable]

Heh, I'm pretty happy i decided to break with tradition and not roll a healer this go around.  The tanks healers are flipping out in general because all the DPS classes are stealing their kills...

[Draegan]

Azphel took a big shit.  It's ok, forced break for me.

[Tale]

Had a wonderful bottle of Portuguese wine.

Portugese wine is awesome. I spent four weeks in Portugal once, and got hooked on the stuff. You're lucky to have a bottle - they usually don't export it because they drink it all!

Oh, Aion. I'm going to be playing it in two hours when I get home.

[Ashamanchill]

Couldn't agree with you more in every respect.  It's just strange that we, including myself,  still rage about stuff like this from time to time.

It's ok to still get excited about an MMO now and again.

Curse you all and your game keys to play early!!! My preorder did not include a game key, so I have to wait until I physically lay hands on a copy on Tuesday. Ah well.

[Numtini]

Portugese wine is awesome. I spent four weeks in Portugal once, and got hooked on the stuff. You're lucky to have a bottle - they usually don't export it because they drink it all!

It really is good and massively undervalued. My partner's family is from Fall River, MA and we have Ptown here on Cape Cod and New Bedford all of which were heavily settled by Azorians. We can get a couple of dozen different Portuguese wines just at the local packy. (Package Store Mass for liquor store.) And that's not even including the rather good 5l jugs for $15 from the import food markets in Fall River that we've gotten for parties. We can also get several types of linguica and chourico and all of that at pretty much every super market. I make Kale Soup which around here is just called "The Portuguese Soup" about once a month. Amazing stuff. And there are still little markets that make their own chourico in Fall River.

Anyway on the actual game subject. I did finally get in and the game was running smooth as silk for me, though some of the quest items, the wine jugs and bags of grain, were kind of hard to come across. Plenty of spawns to fight though. Looks like the higher end people are getting to the mid-20s, which is kind of scary really.

[Venkman]

I have no idea how long it takes to get to 20, but I think you can do 10 in about 3 hours. Maybe less if you optimize the running. I sorta blew through the content in beta just to play with abilities, but am actually reading everything now that I'm paying for it There's some interesting stories actually, something I didn't expect.

But that aside, people gunning for the endgame in this case will probably have a satisfactory time when they get there, since this is only a "new" MMO for this market.

[tmp]

I have no idea how long it takes to get to 20, but I think you can do 10 in about 3 hours.

Well, for what's worth according to the server stats/search page there's already a handful of l.20 characters.

[Venkman]

Right. But that doesn't get down to the /played level. Not a big deal, I'm just curious really. Though, speaking of that, the new MyAion page will actually show what level you ended your daily/weekly/monthly play sessions at. Pretty interesting type of information to tracy in addition to the usual WoWArmory stuff.

[tmp]

Have briefly considered playing this one, actually. But then a quick visit to NCsoft store and seeing this...

"Preorder Aion now: $49.99"
"Aion™ (Europe) Prepurchase EUR 49,99*"

(euro / u.s. dollar being 1.46 ratio atm)

... sobered me up pretty quick. gg, NCsoft. Maybe have a look at Blizzard, they seem to handle currency conversions pretty well.

[Falconeer]

At least, compared to other MMORPGs, feels like getting to the level cap quickly is not a terrible idea. It opens up the real game. As in DAoC, if I remember correctly.

[Venkman]

Well, yes, except the endgame has already been patched in at "launch" 

Have briefly considered playing this one, actually. But then a quick visit to NCsoft store and seeing this...

"Preorder Aion now: $49.99"
"Aion™ (Europe) Prepurchase EUR 49,99*"

(euro / u.s. dollar being 1.46 ratio atm)

... sobered me up pretty quick. gg, NCsoft. Maybe have a look at Blizzard, they seem to handle currency conversions pretty well.

You won't buy a game because of a misprint on the storefront (assuming it's a misprint)?

[IainC]

It's not a misprint. I got mine from DLGamer at 49.99€ too. Welcome to living in Europe where US companies keep the same prices and just switch the currency symbols.

Edit to add, yes I know NCSoft is a Korean company, the point stands though.

[Feverdream]

I've joined a group of folks from my old DAOC guild and alliance on Vaizel, playing Elyos faction.  I'm starting with a Cleric since I am looking toward endgame and love PvP healing.  PvE healing freaking puts me to sleep, though, so we'll see how this works out while leveling =P.

Another big group of DAOC friends is on Lumiel playing Emodian....er, Asmodians.  I usually end up with an alt or two, so will join them over there at least periodically once the early game insanity settles out.  Lumiel appeals to me, as all of the big RvR guilds from DAOC's roleplaying servers are there -- they tended to be a more mature and focused group of players who really valued community.  Many have stayed in touch for years, and there are some really outstanding PvP leaders amongst them.

For a big MMO release that includes significant pre-orders and a lot of pre-release interest, I have quite a bit of patience regarding queues.  I don't like them, but the queues aren't really bothering me.  In a week or so I would have considerably less patience about it, but I'm not going to have a hissy in the meantime.

The game seems very professionally-executed and polished, but I'm in 'wait and see' mode about what leveling will be like once I am past the early levels and experience gain slows down, and definitely in 'wait and see' mode about the PvP.   Still, there's something about the game that hits me the way DAOC did, and no other game has done that before.  While it's mixed with a big dose of cynicism, I have at least some hope.

Lantyssa - I still haven't actually gotten the game box; it should be here today or tomorrow.  I haven't forgotten that you (and others) have asked for the GW wings code.

[tmp]

You won't buy a game because of a misprint on the storefront (assuming it's a misprint)?

It doesn't seem to be a misprint considering the US version is priced at $49.99 like they state. The company simply charges their EU would-be customers ~40% more for the same product. To boot for the EU version at least it is a direct download with no physical box being shipped.

For comparison, the very same EU edition of Aion costs £29.95 (which is ~47 USD) at direct2drive store (also a direct download) But i didn't find out about this one initially because "Click here for retailers" link on NCsoft store page gives me a 404 error. An actual, working page with links to retailers only showed temporarily when the NCsoft store page went down for a while

[Lantyssa]

Lantyssa - I still haven't actually gotten the game box; it should be here today or tomorrow.  I haven't forgotten that you (and others) have asked for the GW wings code.

Thanks!

The roommie and I did manage to make our characters on Lumiel.  Vu has ties to some of the DAoC RP groups, so we'll hopefully end up with a guild on that server.  If you pass a Kalindriel or Jaelleah on your Asmodian alt, wave 'hi'.

[Threash]

You can get your pre order items now if you can get through their website.

[Venkman]

Yea, seems like it's getting hammered. Was in the game until about a 1/2 hour ago, and that ran smooth and had queue. So that makes me think most people are at work, not on lunch break, but are banging on the account server to add the freebies during work hours  

Edit: Just got through. Wasn't this pre-order "gift" originally once per account? Thought I read that here. Because it's letting me apply it to each character.

[DLRiley]

At least, compared to other MMORPGs, feels like getting to the level cap quickly is not a terrible idea. It opens up the real game. As in DAoC, if I remember correctly.

 

[Threash]

Personal shops blow.

[LK]

Always have, always will.

Nothing like asking your population to clutter your common areas with useless UI shit.

[Falconeer]

It's ridiculous. Every idiot and his brother goes AFK setting up a personal shop saying: "Not selling, just AFK." 

[Threash]

The worst part is they can't just remove a "feature" like that or there will be tons of whining.

[Zane0]

Ye gods,



Spawn lines are back. ARE BACK.

Love 'em or hate 'em--this is a good sign for community