Aion (Open Beta, Launch Day Info too!)

[Falconeer]

the pre-paid card has the chick from Tabula Rasa on it... 

I miss the chick from Auto Assault.

[Shatter]

Initial 2.0 Patch Notes.  2.0 is later this year and 1.9 will be on test next couple weeks

http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Korean+PTS:+Initial+2.0+Patch+Notes

[Hawkbit]

This game bucks all trends by not going on sale.  After nearly a year of release it's still $50 almost everywhere.  You'd think by now that they would sell keys for DD for $20 to get people into the game. 

[UnSub]

NCsoft's financials for Q1 2010 should be out shortly so we'll be able to see how well Aion has been doing.

[Chimpy]

NCsoft's financials for Q1 2010 should be out shortly so we'll be able to see how well Aion has been doing.

Seeing how much the server I played on was turning into a ghost town when I quit 2 weeks ago, I can imagine their numbers will not be great.

[UnSub]

And what do you know? The NCsoft financials for Q1 2010 are out.

Aion earned about US$62.5m in Q1 2010, down from about US$78.8m in Q4 2009. That covers both Aion in South Korea and Aion in the Western markets.

[Threash]

Does q4 of 09 include box sales?

[UnSub]

It's all revenue generated by that title from pretty much all sources afaik.

[Falconeer]

140 million dollars in 6 months, seriously?

[UnSub]

There is some issue with conversion error - the Korean money is always in Won while the Western market has to convert it from whatever currently to Won. And then I converted it to US$ to make it more meaningful to this audience.

But if that's what it is, that's what it is.

[Chimpy]

Did they separate the NA/EU Aion numbers out from the Korean?

And is there any notice of what percentage of that was in subscription fees?

If they are doing better than I expected am happy for the people I know still playing.

[Shatter]

Thats not bad IMO.  Considering Aion launched in NA in September the 78.8mil is obviously higher revenue because of the launch timing being in that quarter.  Between quarters they had a revenue loss of about 20 mil but Im willing to bet that the 62.5mil they did make is close to target or ahead of it for them.  Im more interested to see their 2nd quarter earnings to compare to 1st when the time comes since the game launch wont contaminate those numbers

[UnSub]

Aion patch 1.9... plus server merges for NA and EU.

Although all up I think Aion has well over 1m players, I don't think they ever cracked 1m in the NCWest regions.

[Shatter]

Aion patch 1.9... plus server merges for NA and EU.

Although all up I think Aion has well over 1m players, I don't think they ever cracked 1m in the NCWest regions.

Im interested in seeing what they plan for the mergers because most servers are Elyos dominated so how do you let people transfer where in some cases you dont make that imbalance even worse?  What they should do is let people do some faction crossing at the same time or something. 

[Tearofsoul]

Wait, ppl still playing this game? 

[Shatter]

Wait, ppl still playing this game? 

I still play sort of, made 5 level 30 alts and got the daevonian set for strictly low level rifting since the "end game" is utter shit.  Its more fun to pvp /rift at level 30 before people start stacking high magic resist and other BS.  But even then I dont play daily anymore, just fits of boredom.  Believe it or not Im actually having more fun back in WHO now that scenarios actually pop frequently

[Falconeer]

Yeah, the game is not bad so people are still playing. It suffered from a certain lack of content, but it was not bad at all (for the genre, as in auto-attack based MMORPGs) and it is, as usual for this kind of games, getting better with each patch. And the PvP kept many hooked no matter what, given the lack of games with such a conquest oriented feature.

[amiable]

Wait, ppl still playing this game? 

I still play sort of, made 5 level 30 alts and got the daevonian set for strictly low level rifting since the "end game" is utter shit.  Its more fun to pvp /rift at level 30 before people start stacking high magic resist and other BS.  But even then I dont play daily anymore, just fits of boredom.  Believe it or not Im actually having more fun back in WHO now that scenarios actually pop frequently

Funnily enough WAR is actually a pretty fun game now if you enjoy RvR and don't want to do a lot of PvE.  The PvE grind in Aion was soulcrushing.

[Falconeer]

Personally I hated Warhammer combat feedback. Makes me cringe everytime I think back to it. Such wasted potential!
But I understand it's a personal, intangible pet peeve.

[Shatter]

WAR is ok if you just want to login for an hour and get some pvp right away whereas you couldnt do that in the past since scenarios were always sporadic at best. 

[Threash]

A lot of people are playing, but everyone i talk to is ready to jump ship the moment a suitable replacement comes out.  The game is not bad enough to make you quit in disgust like WHO or AOC but it isn't good enough to keep you interested for years like WoW did.

[waffel]

but it isn't good enough to keep you interested for years like WoW did.

Heh. You don't say?

[Shatter]

A lot of people are playing, but everyone i talk to is ready to jump ship the moment a suitable replacement comes out.  The game is not bad enough to make you quit in disgust like WHO or AOC but it isn't good enough to keep you interested for years like WoW did.

Yeah most people I know(myself included) are waiting to go to something new.  Unfortunately there isnt anything new I want o play until either late 2010 or 2011 :P

[Shatter]

http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/1.9+Feature+Guide

1.9 came out yesterday and have to say that some of these features are pure shit.  Examples are the new costume designs cost around 12 million Kinah.  Also I tried these new "supplements" that are supposed to increase your chance to succeed in socketing equipment which cost a lot and you need a bunch of them.  I basically spent over 1 million on these to increase my chance to slot my new combined weapon and failed 3 times still even using the supplements and on enchantments.  It would of been cheaper to just bought more manastones and took my chances.  The new weapon combine system is pretty wicked and players are making nasty weapons now to the point that healing cant keep people up anymore...GG NCSOFT.  Oh but wait they put gear in with the +healing stats...the catch is NONE of the old gear gets the stat so if you ran DP 100 times and got good 50 gear and you want the +healing stat.. now you get to do it all over again!  But wait they improved drop rates but after reports last night I saw....not much

So the good?  Yeah the weapon comining is great if you are one of those classes that benefits from it, everyone else just gets face raped more by the overpowered glads, etc.  All stigmas can now be purchased for actually reasonable prices so trying to get that rare focused shots wont cost you 11 million kinah anymore.  New stun resist skills are ok but I could of lived without them, still need more time to really evaluate these.  New dregion is now PvE instead of PvP with a door that takes about 5 minutes to bust through to get to the enemy.  On the brighter side this new dred gives both sides a better chance to get AP instead of 1 side completely rolling the other while they sit afk at the entrance for an hour, its also shorter as well.  They added a couple new quickbars that are adjustable which are helpful and a new LFG tool which getting people to actually use is like pulling teeth. 

Overall, a few things added were nice like the stigmas but the majority of it was essentially garbage.  Pretty much blows my mind(I guess it shouldnt) that they didnt allow any existing equipment to get the +healing stat basically forcing healers only to go have to run instances all over to get it if you want it while at the same time they instantly gave some DPS classes the new weapons through the new combine system.  Hey, the game already lacks healers but lets give it to them in the butt anyways...gg

[Draegan]

So no full time triple experience?

[Morfiend]

So no full time triple experience?

Thats what I want too.

[Shatter]

No, they have a new "buff" that increases xp gain from kills but its nowhere close to triple the current rate lol

[Threash]

I thought the new stats were going to show up in manastones also.

[Shatter]

I thought the new stats were going to show up in manastones also.

Not + healing

[Shatter]

http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=309&page=

http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Server+Merge+FAQ

Aion server merges finally

[Outlawedprod]

New Zikel LOL.  4 elyos dominated servers.  Free transfers are open.

I predict Zikel is Elyos haven thanks to the top legions there and folks transfer for easymode.
Israphel becomes new Asmo haven as all decent legions abandon Zikel so they don't get steam rolled.

Lot of people going to be saving AP for transforms since all the forts reset.

[Pax]

Server merges delayed by another week.

Who would have thought a server merge would result in duplicate names and who would have thought the community wouldn't be pleased with the offered resolution being "rename everyone, all names are now ffa".
This might actually be the first instance I noticed where a company, in an attempt to increase population and fun by merging servers, managed to actually alienate their remaining player base.

[Shatter]

Server merges went in last night and its nothing short of a huge mess.  Problem was going into the merge Elyos dominated on most servers.  Imagine what happens when you take 4 elyos dominated servers and merge them together?  Yeah basically Elyos crushed Asmos on all the servers now in a huge way and the lag is horrible.  Needless to say the qqing is pretty bad and I dont see them fixing this without opening up faction transfers(elyos to asmo only). 

[Kageru]

Wasn't the plan that the NPC faction "balanced" out population imbalance? I take it that didn't work in practice (cue massive surprise).

[ghost]

Server merges seem to almost always be a nightmare.  I understand business optimism, but you think some of these companies would learn from their collective mistakes.