If you head over to Direct2Drive, you will find a number of MMOs on sale for the time being. As there hasn’t been much in terms of information from Direct2Drive, I have no indication as to whether or not these are permanent price slashes, or temporary publisher price cuts. Either way, check out some great deals.
I’ll be checking Direct2Drive over the course of this week and next week until the sales end.
You would think that, given NCsoft’s history with MMOs, that they would offer their wisdom to the Aion Development Team in regards to the upcoming server mergers. On that thought, Aion could go to virtually any MMO that has run a server merger in the past and see how they accomplished what must feel like an amazing, never-before-performed feat to the Aion team. As much as I hate to say it, the old method works fine, as follows:
Character creation for existing accounts is shut off temporarily until the server merge.
Characters without conflicting names are transferred as-is.
Characters with conflicting names are given based on seniority (age of the character), presuming the senior character is active.
Characters forced to change their name are offered free name change tokens.
Instead, Aion is opting to require everyone to change their names, with the inevitable result being that the more famous players will lose their names, players who preordered the higher priced editions just for the early name reservation will be out of luck, and the ensuing clusterload to the servers will end up with thousands of people all trying to get their names back at the same time.
The story gets better. Aion wants you to know that they recognize what a name means to a person. It is not just an identifying set of symbols for you meat sacks, but it gives personality and depth to your toon. So instead of making the process more efficient, Aion is adding another layer of bureaucracy to the mix:
“If you’re unable to regain your name after the server merges, and feel that another player took it to consciously harm you or your reputation, we’ll have a way for you to submit an appeal for manual review (‘manual’ equating to ‘live human being’).”
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to waste hours trying to access the name change service after the server mergers, only to lose my name and then spend a month or two on the line with customer service trying to negotiate and explain exactly why I think I deserve the name more than the other guy. This is of course before NCsoft tells me that the other person did not constitute name theft.
NCsoft should be paying special attention to players who paid for the ability to reserver their names, and those who paid for the ability to change their names. Those players should either be given priority access (characters who reserved their names should be entered into the new database a day or two early), or at the very least compensated for the money they spent specifically for their names.
According to Community Manager Ayase on the AionSource forums, consideration is being given to name change ticket buyers and preorders (collector’s edition), but nothing is set in stone as of yet.
I can only imagine that NCsoft might have something to do with NCWest’s inadequate tools. More on Aion’s Server merger as it appears.
But wouldn’t it be ironic if enough people left over this that another server merger was needed?
Good news everyone! The Aion server mergers have been delayed from the 7th until the 14th. More importantly, NCsoft has come forward with some information regarding how the new servers will handle the duplicate names. The system is pretty simple:
Upon server merger, all characters will have a one or two character abbreviation added to the end of their name, based off of the server they originated from. In the case of two players with the same name, with sixteen characters in their name, transferring to the same server, one will find their name changed completely.
All characters are being provided with free name change tickets, and getting your old name back will be a matter of first come first served.
Somehow I don’t think that this will tide over well with the Collector’s Edition customers, who will find their perk of early-naming-access is now essentially nullified not even a year after release, not to mention the other players who will log in to find themselves out of a name to someone who joined after they did. It does beg the question: Is having a policy of naming based on seniority (the older character gets the name), as most other MMOs do, such a bad thing that this is the better alternative? I personally don’t see too much evidence to support it.
This will break down into players bum rushing the servers minutes after the maintenance ends, likely bringing the server to a crawl, in hopes of getting their names back. Players will need patience on the day of the mergers, and the days following, as customer service will be oversaturated with new requests on top of their regular duties.
I have decided to retire the Month In Review sessions in replacement for what I call “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” essentially a recap of the month and a look forward into the coming month.
June, like any decent bridging sequel, brought more questions to the table than it did answers…
My favorite picture of the month.
I have decided to retire the Month In Review sessions in replacement for what I call “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” essentially a recap of the month’s highlights.
June, like any decent bridging sequel, brought more questions to the table than it did answers. There was plenty of recaps to be had, such as this one! All in all, June was an excellent month for information regarding previously low-key MMOs. We received a lot of information on Warhammer 40k, the new Star Wars MMO, an upcoming Mummy MMO, Jumpgate, Lego Universe, Project V13, among others.
Foremost, happy birthday to some of our old geezers who are still running around.
WWII Online: Battleground Europe (2001-Present)
Anarchy Online (2001-Present)
Star Wars Galaxies (2003-Present)
Sony kicked off the month with the “official” announcement of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures. Intending to offer players an experience more akin to Free Realms (and built on the same engine), Clone Wars will follow a similar pricing format, with a multitude of mini-games, activities, pets, and houses for players to engage in. Aimed at a slightly lower age group than your Star Wars Galaxies or The Old Republic, Clone Wars is aiming to hit the net sometime later this year.
Lord of the Rings Online and Global Agenda are getting a lot more accessible, with the announcement of both games changing subscription models. Lord of the Rings Online will be taking on a freemium model, with the original game offered for free with bonuses, expansions, and more content available in one time purchases, or for a subscription fee. Global Agenda, on the other hand, is going the Guild Wars route, offering the entire game after purchase for no subscription fee.
June 9th saw the launch of Mortal Online, after a number of delays on the part of Star Vault, with issues of desynchronization, among others, plaguing the servers. Server stability is still an issue with Mortal Online, with a form of compensation on its way from Star Vault.
All Points Bulletin launched this month, with lead designer EJ Moreland taking a shot at the MMOs opening cash shops, by claiming that APB would not feature a cash shop, ever, before quickly retracting on his statement and saying that Realtime Worlds would only consider cashing in if the community asked for it. Given the response to other cash shop inclusions, expect a cash shop coming to a police department near you.
Darkfall still loves you, and here at MMO Fallout we love us some Darkfall. Since the title launched last year, Aventurine has been working around the clock trying to bring in new players, and keep them. Those changes have removed the $50 paywall and introduced initially a paid, now free limited time trial. New players will find themselves offered extra protection during their first days of game time, as well as the game constantly being balanced to lower the time it takes for players to become competent in PvP combat.
And while we’re on the subject of tweaking content to balance gameplay, how about removing a chunk of content for the sake of balance? Such is the case when Flying Lab Software announced that the higher end ships will be removed from Pirates of the Burning Sea for the sake of balancing the lower tiers of ships.
Not all was great on the western front, however, as this month marked the grand server merger in Everquest, leaving just fourteen of the original servers remaining. With what may just turn 2010 into a year for mergers, Sony later announced mergers for Vanguard, with NCsoft announcing Aion server mergers, both game’s mergers to occur in July.
There is plenty more that occurred in June, and you can read all about it in the MMO Fallout archives. Until next time, this is Looking Back, Moving Forward.
↓ – “Activation and download may take up to 48 hours after purchase.”
♣ – Paypal is not accepted if paid in pounds or Euros.
♥ – 30 days only applies to new Station accounts.
When Aion launched last year, a last minute decision was made post-launch to add a few servers to alleviate load. Of course, as is the usual case with MMOs, the population has gone down since release and the extra servers are no longer necessary, as the queues and server load of old are just that, a thing of the past. As pointed out in the NCsoft financial report, although Aion numbers have gone down since last September’s launch, NC believes that the numbers will maintain their current position, especially with the 1.9 and 2.0 patches.
When Aion’s servers merge, they want to give players free reign to move from server to server to find themselves a suitable new home. As a result, players will be given free, unlimited transfers between July 8th and August 18th.
Server mergers will begin July 7th (The same day as the Vanguard server merges.) and the following servers will be merged:
North America New Siel (West Coast) Siel & Ariel New Vaizel Server (West Coast) Vaizel, Kaisinel, Yustiel & Fregion New Israphel Server (East Coast) Israphel, Lumiel & Marchutan New Zikel Server (East Coast) Zikel, Triniel, Azphel & Meslamtada New Nezekan Server (Oceanic) No Change
Europe New Spatalos Server (ENG) Spatalos & Gorgos New Telemachus Server (ENG) Telemachus & Castor New Perento Server (ENG) Perento, Kahrun & Kalil New Kromede Server (GER) Kromede & Votan New Thor Server (GER) Thor & Nerthus New Balder Server (GER) Balder& Lephar New Urtem Server (FRA) Urtem & Vidar New Suthran Server (FRA) Suthran, Arbolu & Deltras
Your items, equipment, kinah, legions, warehouse items, broker items, and AP. Name change coupons will be provided if you were not able to keep your name through the merger. Fortress ownership will be reset.
NCsoft has big goals behind the 1.9 update to Aion. In fact, as this video shows, they are willing to bet that leveling has become so much faster, that players won’t have any reason to buy powerleveling services, leaving Louie from Louie’s Power Leveling For Losers…oddly out of business. But hey, even Louie is finding Aion so much fun, he’s going legit! So go help Louie with his raiding, and if you don’t, he’ll break your legs.
Once again Rooster Teeth has teamed up with NCsoft to inform those of you who may be considering buying accounts/powerleveling, and entertain those of us smart enough not to. Today’s lesson? Don’t buy your characters, otherwise you’ll end up as dumb as Caboose. Oh and you’ll be naked and alone.
Aion launched in late September 2009, and by November I had reported that NCSoft’s report that the game had sold nearly one million copies in North America and Europe. Not only that, but very shortly after release NCsoft released a couple more servers to alleviate load. They did this, of course, with very public opposition to the idea. With any MMO, adding servers within the first month is generally a poor decision, as the iconic mass exodus that follows any MMO’s launch in the first few months is bound to alleviate those overpopulation woes.
So it is not too surprising when Aion announces that they are merging servers:
“I don’t relish the idea of mergers, however, once it is complete you should notice improvements in each of the new server economies, an abundance of players to group and run instances with, a number of great Legions to join or people to form new ones with, and a more tightly knit community.When all is said and done, Aion will be a better game because of the server merge. We’re in the planning stages, and will have more information on the timing and execution in the coming weeks.”
Chris Hager is right! Seriously, he is. Server mergers are not always a bad thing, and can do a world of good to the game’s economies and servers, and often even incite people into resubscribing who may have left due to low population on their server, but an unwillingness to transfer and create a new character.
In the recent NCsoft Q1 report, Aion is down in the West, with the conference call noting:
“As for the Aion performance in the Western market, I should have mentioned that the number of active users has declined since the launch of the retail package in September and October last year. But I’m also very confident that at this point EU/US is able to maintain the current level of active users and since we’re expecting the 1.9 update soon, and also 2.0 in the third quarter.”
More on Aion and the server mergers as it appears.
I love earnings reports, more so because I am a huge number crunching nerd, but because it gives us an occasional glimpse into how MMO developers are doing. NCsoft finally got around to filing their Q1 reports, and there is plenty of information to be found, namely in what game is doing better than others.
I often hear complaints about NCsoft pushing North American and European players to the side, and quite frankly they might have good reason. The breakdown of NCsoft’s income paints a picture as to why NA and EU may take a back seat to other regions.
Korea: 65%
Japan: 11%
N. America: 8%
Europe: 7%
Taiwan: 4%
Korea is still NCsoft’s biggest market by far, with NCsoft making almost as much from royalties (the remaining 6%) as they do from N. America or Europe.
As far as game sales themselves go, NCsoft pointed out at the top of the page that Lineage is continuing its growth momentum, which is quite impressive for a game hitting its twelfth birthday this September.
Aion: 71,235
Lineage: 47,507
Lineage 2: 29,662
City of Heroes: 3,348
Others: 3,255
Guild Wars: 2,382
Sales are down 5% from the last quarter, however the trend is continuing upward on a year over year scale. Profits have also increased due to what NCsoft referred to as cost cutting programs to improve efficiency. Arenanet looks like they are in some hot water, as their quarterly sales are down 33% from last quarter, and are plummeting on a year-by-year basis of 47%, making it the lowest operating NCsoft at this point. NCEurope did the worst this quarter with a 50% drop a sales, but is still riding a 180% year on year growth.
A few of the titles are disappointing, yet not all that unsurprising. Guild Wars, considering its age, is getting to the point where most of the people who will purchase it have already purchased it. Not to mention Guild Wars doesn’t exactly have a subscription to ride on for cash. City of Heroes is getting on in its age, although the game and its community are still going very strong. Lineage and Lineage 2 are still big sellers in Korea, no surprises there.
NCsoft is looking at a lot of potential in the next few years, what with their upcoming titles. Aion still appears to be selling strong, although the recent announcement of server mergers…well that’s for another story.
New Siel (West Coast)
Siel & Ariel
MMO Fallout 