Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Shatter]

I haven't noticed any massive bail outs from this game as there was in AoC and Warhammer though, with those two by this time you could already see a severe lack of players.  Aion seems to be doing fine population wise.

You are such a fucking pathetic fanboi.

The cock sucking you've done in this thread alone is goddamn astounding.

Like Threash Im also not seeing mass bailings like I did in AOC and WAR.  My guild is maintaining the same number of people per night as we did 1 month ago(25-30 people per night).  My friends list has the same players it did over a month ago and they all still play.  Yeah I know people quit the game but its not as bad as some here wish it was and its not as bad as I saw in AOC or WAR.  Aion isnt a flaming building wth people runnign for the exits

[DLRiley]

Well with WAR there was the initially "this sucks ballz, I grinded all the way to tier 3-4 and the end game is worth ballz I'm leaving" and the initial reaction to that was "hahah suckz for you go back to WoWz popsucker". It wasn't until January of 2009 after a nice long Christmas break that the majority of the playerbase who was playing casually and dicking around in tier 1 and 2 had to level up and the shit hit the fan. AoC was similar in respect that despite the bugs and the initially "this is ballz" because of the bugs when the summer hit there was a huge "why is there nothing to do!?!?" reaction that prompted an exodus. So we will see how popular Aion is after the next holiday break. I think 1/3 fall off should be a good number for Aion.

[Draegan]

I don't see why everyone has to go full asshole on Threash.  It's his observation.  Relax retards.  Aion's numbers have dropped, sure, but not catastrophically.

[DLRiley]

I bet Threash is missing the days when I would say "Isn't this lineage 2 cloned?" and everyone would go "Shut the fuck up DL!". Its kinda funny that after 90% of f13 rage exits the game being an asshole is perfectly acceptable. Besides Aion is just vomiting up the people who should know better by now, save your pitch forks for when the  train really leaves the station.

[Shatter]

Well with WAR there was the initially "this sucks ballz, I grinded all the way to tier 3-4 and the end game is worth ballz I'm leaving" and the initial reaction to that was "hahah suckz for you go back to WoWz popsucker". It wasn't until January of 2009 after a nice long Christmas break that the majority of the playerbase who was playing casually and dicking around in tier 1 and 2 had to level up and the shit hit the fan. AoC was similar in respect that despite the bugs and the initially "this is ballz" because of the bugs when the summer hit there was a huge "why is there nothing to do!?!?" reaction that prompted an exodus. So we will see how popular Aion is after the next holiday break. I think 1/3 fall off should be a good number for Aion.

My personal story with AOC was ALL my friends were gone and guild disbanded by the time I hit level 70 which was < 2 months in. I proceeded to level 80 alone then quit.  Aion is over 2 months old and I have not experienced this same occurence, everyone I left WAR to go to Aion with still plays.  WAR, I was in my second guild by this time cause the first imploded due to inactivity...again something I havent seen in Aion as of yet.  All the high profile guilds on my server still exist and havent bailed on Aion, in fact the top 10 guilds (mine is 6th) havent changed in over a month so guilds arent mass leaving either.  I know some threatened to leave if the crash bug wasnt fixed but it has been

[DLRiley]

Well with WAR there was the initially "this sucks ballz, I grinded all the way to tier 3-4 and the end game is worth ballz I'm leaving" and the initial reaction to that was "hahah suckz for you go back to WoWz popsucker". It wasn't until January of 2009 after a nice long Christmas break that the majority of the playerbase who was playing casually and dicking around in tier 1 and 2 had to level up and the shit hit the fan. AoC was similar in respect that despite the bugs and the initially "this is ballz" because of the bugs when the summer hit there was a huge "why is there nothing to do!?!?" reaction that prompted an exodus. So we will see how popular Aion is after the next holiday break. I think 1/3 fall off should be a good number for Aion.

My personal story with AOC was ALL my friends were gone and guild disbanded by the time I hit level 70 which was < 2 months in. I proceeded to level 80 alone then quit.  Aion is over 2 months old and I have not experienced this same occurence, everyone I left WAR to go to Aion with still plays.  WAR, I was in my second guild by this time cause the first imploded due to inactivity...again something I havent seen in Aion as of yet.  All the high profile guilds on my server still exist and havent bailed on Aion, in fact the top 10 guilds (mine is 6th) havent changed in over a month so guilds arent mass leaving either.  I know some threatened to leave if the crash bug wasnt fixed but it has been

I take your word for that. Aion has 2 things going for it. One it launched away from a big long holiday and with no relevant competition, which would have exposed most its problems very quickly or at the very least gave players enough time to get bored. Two not using the ban stick. Despite the e-rage over botters, by not being quick to ban them it keeps your larger guilds, who mostly use botters, from not quitting due to again problems in your game. Let the uber guilds get their advantage and the rest of the game can be a steaming pile and they won't care. Besides that the real test is seeing if the game makes it past Christmas.

[gryeyes]

I don't see why everyone has to go full asshole on Threash.  It's his observation.  Relax retards.  Aion's numbers have dropped, sure, but not catastrophically.

Because the mother fucker keeps repeating the same bullshit that was smacked down dozens of times over dozens of pages? I mean at least you stopped doing that after SSs were posted of the spam on your server and the leveling rate was broken down with hard numbers. If it was just the single issue I doubt he would be receiving the response that he has fully earned.

[Threash]

I don't see how anything i've said has been "smacked down".  I never said spam was non existent, i said it was easily avoidable by going anon and staying out of public channels, two things most people who value their sanity do even if theres no spam.

[Ashamanchill]

I'm sorry dude but you have come across as a bit of a fan boi. First with the 'grind? what grind?' defence, when it is pretty much the concensus of every poster in this thread who has played the game that it is a beast of grind, and second with the 'just put your fingers in your ears, tune out, and tada! no gold!' defence. It's their game, the onus is on them to get rid of that shit, not us having to play a fucking mini game of block the gold spammer every time we log in.

But you know what chief, I'll concede you this. You're probably right. Aion is not going through a catastrophic drop off in subs right now, or maybe even in the near future. Hell there was a thread in this MMO section a while back titled NCSoft releases quarterly figures, Aion looks to do well, or somesuch.

[DLRiley]

Those figures are based solely on box sales btw.

[Venkman]

I believe they are just U.S box sales too, in which they hit 500k in the first week, not 1mil (another 400k was in EU).

As to the gold spam, I never felt it was as bad as everyone said either. I must have blocked about 55 people. That's no less than I had to in the worst days of WoW when we were bitching about it then to (I posted links earlier in this thread). As with WoW, it was never 100 people spamming all at once. It was usually 3-5 people repeatedly doing it, Coronet Starport style. Right-click/block was never the arduous two hour task some people here implied it to be.

However, the grind, yea, ultimately that's why I left. As soon as I'm looking at camping spots and timing mobs, I'm out. Nothing is worth that.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I suspect things like the highlighted portion of the quote below probably explains some of the venom in the responses:

I'm sure you'd love for the game to be failing like you predicted but its simply not no matter how much you nerd rage about the awful grind.

When you poke a hornet's nest with a stick, you should expect some irritated hornets to come back at you.

Just sayin'

[ajax34i]

I think NCSoft West will rely on the expansion, which they've announced, to bring back cancelled subs.  And until that expansion hits, what they have to do is fix the game, which it looks like they're taking some steps to do.  It seems like a decent strategy to me - not reaching for the sky, not panicking.

Regarding the grind, I think they've significantly increased the levelling pace at level 35+ which is where I am now.  Maybe not enough to satisfy westerners, but the quest rewards are now such that it doesn't make sense to gind mobs anymore; it makes more sense to just kill what's needed for your quests, and hand them in.  I've gotten anywhere from half a bubble to a full bubble of xp from single quest turn-ins; I'd estimate that 60% of my level 36 xp was from quests.

It's an anti-bot strategy, too - they're making sitting in one place killing things not worth it.  Of course, some bots don't grind to level, they grind to get drops.  I bet you they'll switch loot drops from random to inside instances to combat that.

[Chimpy]

They may have upped the quest XP on a number of quests, but there are a bunch of big holes where unless you are off doing whatever "kill 150 of this type of elite" group mob grinds, you are stuck with your thumb up your ass around 40-45. XP per mob does not scale compared to how it did in early levels, which is a big thing.

I have actually seen GMs walking around Sanctum blasting RMT ad private stores, and the bot problem has been addressed pretty well at this point with their mass banning. I have not seen bots in Heiron at all in the last few days where I used to have to fight bots for every quest mob.

If they want that expansion to bring back subs, they need to do a WoW refer a friend style of levelling adjustment. If I had cancelled at level 25, I am not sure any expansion without that would get me back.

It is actually a shame that the grind between 30-40 is so brutal as it keeps people from seeing some of the really cool stuff. I have been watching a livestream occasionally of this guy and his group of friends doing Dark Poeta (the final PVE instance) and the design of the instance with it's variable final bosses/loot depending on how many "points" you get (from killing various things in the zone) and how much time you have left on the 4 hour timer is really interesting. And Steel Rake (the level 40-50) instance, is the coolest instance I have ever seen. Plus it had one of the best and most fun small group fights I have ever done.

[Threash]

Regarding the grind, I think they've significantly increased the levelling pace at level 35+ which is where I am now.  Maybe not enough to satisfy westerners, but the quest rewards are now such that it doesn't make sense to gind mobs anymore; it makes more sense to just kill what's needed for your quests, and hand them in.  I've gotten anywhere from half a bubble to a full bubble of xp from single quest turn-ins; I'd estimate that 60% of my level 36 xp was from quests.

Did that happen already? i read it on some patch notes a few weeks ago but i didn't realize there had been a patch.  Guess i should go back to questing if its a done deal, i was saving my quests for after the patch.

[01101010]

It's an anti-bot strategy, too - they're making sitting in one place killing things not worth it.  Of course, some bots don't grind to level, they grind to get drops.  I bet you they'll switch loot drops from random to inside instances to combat that.

And somewhere an angel is getting his wings. But one has to ask, why the fuck was this not looked at on release considering past history in these types of games? Just mind numbing...

[Nebu]

But one has to ask, why the fuck was this not looked at on release considering past history in these types of games? Just mind numbing...

It probably was.  Like most mmos, this one was rushed to release with many features added during the "paid beta".  I'm more surprised that it wasn't available at release in this title, as they had it live over seas for a year prior to the western release. 

[DLRiley]

Banning bots is not high priority because doing so draws attention to how grindy as fuck your game is.

[Venkman]

But one has to ask, why the fuck was this not looked at on release considering past history in these types of games? Just mind numbing...

It probably was.  Like most mmos, this one was rushed to release with many features added during the "paid beta".  I'm more surprised that it wasn't available at release in this title, as they had it live over seas for a year prior to the western release. 

Exactly. They had 10 months to figure this out. However, I'm sure they were biased by their first market not being so whiny trained by WoW for XP from quests first. If they launched in, say, England 10 months before the U.S., I imagine this would have been patched in already. Instead, the first players probably ran through the grind as efficiently as they could with no complaints so they could get to the core premise of Abyss PvP.

[KallDrexx]

God what the hell is the point of wings when you can't use them for anything but gliding.  I missed the platform in the sanctum (I didn't realize it moved) and fell, glided towards a cliff.  Stood on the cliff and just kinda went "well fuck" since you can't fly up in the sanctum.  I then lost 3 levels of DP (my return spell was on cooldown). 

Then in Vereton (or whatever), I fell off a cliff.  Hey guess what, I can't fly the fuck up because the game designers are uncreative fucks who couldn't come up with a decent way to prevent exploiting PvE w/ flying so they just banned it.  It was some valley with no way out, so I had to use my return spell, fly then run a ton.

[Venkman]

I hear ya, but that's what City-portal scrolls are for. I think they were only 1,800kinah when I played to. I never went anywhere unless I had five for Pandaemonium and then five for whatever tier city I was in (Morgheim, for example). Iirc these are on separate cooldown from your port-to-bind spell.

[Chimpy]

I hear ya, but that's what City-portal scrolls are for. I think they were only 1,800kinah when I played to. I never went anywhere unless I had five for Pandaemonium and then five for whatever tier city I was in (Morgheim, for example). Iirc these are on separate cooldown from your port-to-bind spell.

Scrolls effectively have no cooldown, Capital city scrolls (Sanctum, Pandaemonium) are actually cheaper than teleporting there once you get to the level 20+ zones. And your return spell is not linked to those.

[KallDrexx]

What vendor sells those scrolls?

I also got burned by teleportation costs.  I had less than I thought and was left with 100 gold total.  I had to log off and wait until my stuff on the broker sold before I could get out of the sanctum.  GG.

[Venkman]

In Pandaemonium, as you come off the teleport, head up the bridge and down the row of vendors on both sides. It's the second vendor on the left. I think the title of the vendor is "General Goods". Whatever it is, it's the same title in any city or town (e.g. it'd be "General Goods" anywhere).

[Chimpy]

What vendor sells those scrolls?

I also got burned by teleportation costs.  I had less than I thought and was left with 100 gold total.  I had to log off and wait until my stuff on the broker sold before I could get out of the sanctum.  GG.

General goods vendor in Sanctum sells scrolls to all of the places with an abyss entrance portal. General goods vendors in those main cities will have scrolls for that specific city.

[Soukyan]

Is there any sort of trial for Aion, perchance? In English? I'm guessing not, but I'm the "try before you buy" sort and wanted to give it a go. I played it for about 15 minutes during some beta event. I don't know if it was for stress-testing or open beta, but nevertheless, I would have liked to spend a bit more time with it before making a decision. Any information is most appreciated.

[Chimpy]

NCSoft only has CoH and GW listed as having free trials on their website. I have not seen anything come across about free trials elsewhere.

[Lum]

Too new for a free trial. It's only been out a couple of months.

[LK]

So if I get this straight, you're worried people will see and play your game before putting money down, and will thus decide "Hey, this isn't worth my time / money."

I'm sure there are other reasons like:
- Resources towards trial best moved towards smooth launch day
- Don't need THAT many customers on launch; want to get an initial seed of paying, guaranteed customers before looking at people on the fence.
- Too many customers early on can lead to extra expenditures on servers we may not need later (because we know our game population won't grow, but instead stabilize or slowly shrink).
- We're an MMORPGs, we don't need no stinkin' demos!
- We only have enough content that a free trial would allow a user to experience it all in its entirety.
- Bots! BOTS. MY FUCKING GOD, THE BOTS.

Actually I'm betting it's that last one and probably why you have a job, Lum. :)

[Draegan]

I don't think you'll see any bots if you limit the game through the first 9 levels or so.

[LK]

You'll still get market spammers and the such, unless appropriate countermeasures are placed in. Countermeasures that tend to get put into place after a product launches.

[Threash]

Free trial = free publicity after launch.  Unless the game is doing so horribly that they must have the new subs ASAP getting back on the front page several months later is probably a better return for their time.

[sam, an eggplant]

The suits probably want subscriptions to grow organically in the launch window, which certainly extends past christmas. After that, they can look into trying out various and sundry retention and recruitment mechanisms. They see these things as a sign of weakness, and want to appear thriving to sell boxes for holiday gifts.

They're totally wrong, though. There's no downside to offering trials, assuming that your backend isn't already over capacity. Other industries offer trials, and they aren't seen as the last grasp of a dying business. Netflix offered trials for a decade, and they're doing just fine. They also explored alternate promotion avenues by subsidizing accounts in various innovative ways, like ads on facebook saying "sign up for a netflix trial and get 100 free mafia wars points" and such, which is something I think we'll see MMOs get into more in the coming years as marketing grows in sophistication.

[raydeen]

If they offered a free trial, would I have the chance to see anything different than any other MMO out there right now? Not being snarky, but would I have enough time to see any PvP or other unique mechanics that would grab me before I had to pony up the moolah to play further?

My guess is no.

[Nebu]

My guess is no.

You are correct.  There is nothing new in Aion.  It's just a new place to enjoy the same old MMO faire.