Aion launches in four days, and the title, much like Champions Online did earlier this month and in August, is stealing much of the spotlight here at MMO Fallout. So much so that I’m putting together a new section for MMO Fallout: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Not that that particular mechanic has ever been done before). Since preselection began today, it’s one of the better times as any to get a good preview in.
The Good: NCSoft has proven that they will listen to the community when they announced that the controversial GameGuard would not be shipping with Aion, and would instead be tweaked and reshaped for a future release. Up to the announcement, GameGuard had been the biggest issue brought up during the beta. Aion appears to be shaping up for a massive launch, with 400,000 preorders, most of those who will be trying to log in when the game goes live, and during the two day head start. With only four days to go until live, it seems Aion is more like a speeding Boeing 747 that can not, and will not, be stopped as it almost flies down the runway.
The Servers: In life, only death and taxes are a certainty. In the world of MMOs, the only certainties are a rocky launch, and a subscriber number that plummets after the first free month. Unfortunately the preselection isn’t a day old, and is already drawing fire. Aion is launching with 24 servers, 12 for North America and 12 for Europe. In order to maintain balance, NC is placing restrictions on servers as they become more populated and unbalanced. A server populated towards one side will only allow players to roll for the other. The most populated servers are locked completely.
North America
1. [West] Siel – Temporarily Locked
2. [East] Israphel – Elyos Only
3. [Oceanic] Nezekan – Elyos Only
4. [East] Zikel – Temporarily Locked
5. [West] Vaizel
6. [East] Triniel – Temporarily Locked
7. [West] Kaisinel
8. [East] Lumiel – Temporarily Locked
9. [West] Yustiel – Recommended!
10. [East] Marchutan – Elyos Only
11. [West] Ariel
12. [East] Azphel – Temporarily Locked
While I can understand the desire to keep the servers balanced, and NCsoft may be completely in the right in this situation, but limitations such as these are the easiest methods to alienate guilds or smaller groups of people joining up for fear of having half of their group cut off. As I’ve already said; NCsoft is in the right. That won’t, however, stop players from hitting that “cancel subscription” button when they see they can’t play with their friends who rolled on a server when it was open/balanced.
The Ugly: The goldfarmers are here. Yes, reports from the Aion open beta show that goldfarmers, those barely legible bots that hoard spots, spam region chat, and harass you to buy their services have not even bothered to wait until the beta is over before advertising their services. According to players in the open beta, advertisements for powerleveling services are already being spammed throughout the region chats.
NCsoft’s biggest rival at launch will be the gold farmers, who have already had plenty of time with the Asian version of the game to know the best ways to powerlevel, get fast currency, and level to sell accounts. Every game has seen unique ways of fighting gold farmers, be it no trial and forced full purchase (Darkfall), making currency and gear easy to obtain and thus worthless (Tabula Rasa), roving squads of bot-killers (Eve Online), restrictions on trade (Runescape), nothing at all (KNIGHT Online), Creating your own alternative (Everquest/Everquest 2/Eve Online), Lawsuits (World of Warcraft), coupled with massive bans (All of them).
Aion looks to be making its way down the runway, albeit a few kinks in the system to work out. Then again, I’d be more worried if Aion didn’t have kinks to work out. You’ll all remember an MMO that launched last year that had a comparatively smooth launch, and it ran out of fuel and crashed less than a year later.
I’m done with the plane puns.
MMO Fallout 