Tag: NCSoft

Aion: Pick A Less Popular Server


aionqueue

If you rushed to create a character in the head start for Aion, on the more populated server before it closed down, you are most likely seeing something like this. Reports from the battlefield indicate that the server queue’s are reaching six, seven, and climbing over eight hours in some instances during higher traffic hours. The question that remains on many minds is: When NCsoft was gloating over their four hundred thousand preorders, how did they expect to cram everyone into little over twenty servers (12 for NA, 12 for EU)?

The question is whether NCsoft will take an “ends justify the means” approach, and stay committed to keeping the servers balanced. An easy way to accomplish this would be to open more servers, and allow transfers from the more populated to the less. If current player nature is any indicator, it is likely that the Asmodian side will forever overpopulate the Elyos, to the fullest extent NCsoft will allow.

The issue appears to be stemming from players who are joining the overpopulated faction, overwhelmingly in fact. Further reports from the battlefield make claim that the Elyos side of these multi-hour servers, are giving little to no waiting time. If you don’t have any obligations to join friends or a clan on a selected server, I suggest you join the Elyos faction. Judging by trends on the server status, the Asmodians are always going to be facing queues until the community starts balancing itself out.

By the time you read this, Aion will have gone live (alongside Fallen Earth). Here’s hoping NCsoft finds a way to quell the rage.

Aion: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly


screenshot01

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.

Continue reading “Aion: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

Aion: Still Gaining Momentum


screenshot01

A couple days ago I talked about retention rate being more important than simply the number of people who preorder an MMO. The fact that Aion has brought over three hundred thousand preorders means nothing if you can’t keep those people playing after their initial month of free game time is up. Aion’s success will not be decided by the number of people who buy the boxed copies, but in the long run, where subscriber numbers mean everything.

I will admit I’ve taken a look at Aion with a little more skepticism than the title deserves, even though everything I have said is true. Success in the Eastern market means nothing when referring to how the West will respond to the game, and attempting to gauge the success of the game based off of forum hype will produce equally inaccurate results.

So here I notice that, in the past few days since Aion announced that three hundred thousand copies were preordered, today comes another announcement: The number has hit four hundred thousand, bringing the title to be the most preordered MMO of 2009. This news comes in conjunction with news that will directly please the company: Aion will not ship with Game Guard, the controversial anti-cheat software. While Game Guard may be used in the future, NCsoft has promised that should the software return, it will be tweaked in response to criticism.

In finding discussion-worthy topics for MMO Fallout, I do a lot of traversing over various forums, and I can say without a doubt that the lack of Game Guard will be well received within the community. If NCSoft can prove, using methods such as this, that they are indeed listening to the community, they will have a major edge over critics in the long run. For those who are unfamiliar, Game Guard is widely panned for inefficiency, and false positives.

Nothing but good news for Aion this week. Aion goes live on September 22nd, with preorders gaining early access.

Dungeon Runners to Shut Down


Dungeonrunner

If Dungeon Runners could be compared to any game on the market, you could probably stick it as World of Warcraft with a mix of Diablo, where players actively click to make their characters attack. Players do their trading and grouping in public hubs, and then go off to raid various dungeons of varying level, with varying groups of varying mobs. Where Dungeon Runners truly shined was in the slapstick humor and parody nature of the title. New characters are greeted by the Noobosaur, PvP is done in a town called Pwnston, and weapons and armor have exaggerated and outlandish titles (If I remember, there are mentions of seal clubbing in several weapons). The game runs on a freemium model, where players can pay a membership for benefits such as better drops.

So in a move that surprises no one, the announcement came yesterday that the title will be shutting down on New Years Eve this year, at midnight. Dungeon Runners fell to the same hurdle that brought down The Matrix Online, Tabula Rasa, and more; The game was simply not profitable anymore. The team that currently runs Dungeon Runners numbers at three, and isn’t up to the task of taking on the ridiculously expensive and risky steps that may, or may not, have saved the title.

But, those of you who are familiar with NCsoft’s method of shutting down titles will know that subscribers will not be going away without some compensation packages. Current subscribers will receive free copies of City of Heroes and Guild Wars Prophecies, as well as 30 day time cards for each. It isn’t Dungeon Runners, but in the words of Producer Steve Nichols; “it’s still frigging nice!”

Dungeon Runners marks the second title NCsoft will be closing down as 2009 progresses. If you’d like to enjoy Dungeon Runners while it lasts, you have about three months, during which the exp has been raised, drops are heightened, and there will undoubtedly be players giving their last goodbyes.

It's All About Retention Rate


ncsoftAion launches alongside the delayed Fallen Earth come September 22nd, and those of you who have watched sales figures over the past few months will have seen Aion topping the charts for the PC market, both retail and digital through Steam and Direct 2 Drive. Aion preorders have gone so well, that NCSoft has proudly boasted the latest mark of over 300,000 preorders for the upcoming MMORPG. NCsoft is looking to make Aion not just localized, but going forward and culturalising the title for Western markets, changing various mechanics in the game to suit a different play style and expectation.

Continue reading “It's All About Retention Rate”

It’s All About Retention Rate


ncsoftAion launches alongside the delayed Fallen Earth come September 22nd, and those of you who have watched sales figures over the past few months will have seen Aion topping the charts for the PC market, both retail and digital through Steam and Direct 2 Drive. Aion preorders have gone so well, that NCSoft has proudly boasted the latest mark of over 300,000 preorders for the upcoming MMORPG. NCsoft is looking to make Aion not just localized, but going forward and culturalising the title for Western markets, changing various mechanics in the game to suit a different play style and expectation.

Continue reading “It’s All About Retention Rate”

Aion: Open Beta, Head Start Announced


Aion releases September 22nd, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until the end of September to try out this bad boy, nor do you have to import the Asian version to get on distant servers. After many rumors of the sort, the announcement has come that Aion will be holding a week long open beta, starting September 6th, giving access to 30 levels and the full environment to fly around in.

Those who preorder the game will be able to access the head start, and get right into the action on September 20th, a full two days before the full game launches. Players who preorder will also be able to set up their names and servers on the 18th, two days before the early start.

To those of you teetering on the edge: Don’t forget that this is an open beta, the key word being BETA. Although Aion has launched in other parts of the world, that does not mean that there will not be starting glitches in the open beta. That is what the beta is for, to hammer out the final bugs. Also remember: Aion has quite a pull from the community. Expect the patch and client servers to be down for some time, assuming it isn’t hosted on Fileplanet. Champions Online, that recently went into Open Beta, had a good 24 hours of difficulty with servers and clients.

Update: Good news! The Aion client is now available for download!

Get it from

Champions Online Vs City of Heroes


When Champions Online launches this September, it will be the first in a line of superhero MMO’s looking to dethrone the current, and only, contender for the genre; City of Heroes/City of Villains. As there is no timeline for the Marvel MMO, and DC Universe Online isn’t giving us anything more specific than late 2009, early 2010, Champions Online will no doubt enjoy the leg up on the competition…As it tries to get a leg up on the current competition.

Continue reading “Champions Online Vs City of Heroes”

Tabula Rasa: What Happened


Tabula Rasa was an MMORPG that blended role playing with 3rd person shooter tactics, in an open ended and dynamic war waged between the human and bane forces. The game focused on Logos, artifacts that players collect to enable certain powers. While the game focused on PvE play, the introduction of PvP content introduced war games, allowing various game modes to be played between warring clans.

Unlike most other MMO’s that feature a targeting system and auto-attacks with the addition of hotbar attacks, Tabula Rasa features a targeting system for only some weapons, combined with a third person shooter system, and rpg hit/miss and damage calculations. Tabula Rasa focused on the war aspect of the game, and both sides of the war would launch attacks on each other’s bases. It was completely possible to lose a base to the Bane forces, meaning that access to the NPC’s, vendors, spawn points, teleport locations, and anything else located in the base would become inaccessible until the area was retaken.

So where did Tabula Rasa fail? The easiest way to answer that is unfulfilled promises. The game launched with very little, if any, end-game content, and the developers took so long to introduce any inkling of end-game content that many of the players who had reached the level cap had quit long beforehand. Certain promises of player-driven mechs, pvp wargames, and more, weren’t fulfilled until literally a month before the game shut down. Richard Garriot also left the company a few weeks before the announcement of shutdown.

Inevitably, player count went down sharply, resulting in the game getting the axe for subpar subscriber numbers.

OR WAS IT?

Continue reading “Tabula Rasa: What Happened”

Auto Assault: What Happened


On August 31, 2007, Auto Assault was given the final shutdown, after a failed attempt to sell the IP to NCSoft, despite various offers from 3rd parties to buy the rights to the IP and continue running servers based around the game.

Auto Assault is one of the shorter running MMO’s, from April 2006 to August 2007. The title suffered from, as many starter MMO’s do, the lack of subscribers that eventually pulled the project into the ground.

Auto Assault takes place in the distant future, and is a post-apocalyptic MMO. The player takes control of a vehicle that is equipped with weapons, and all of the action is real time, 3rd person perspective. It is only during short intervals in safe cities that the player is able to leave their vehicle and actually walk around. Despite the game’s shortcomings, the concept was very creative, and offered a nice alternative to the usual walking around and bashing stuff with a sword, to driving around and shooting stuff.

The question that is inevitably asked is; “Was Auto Assault doomed from the start?”, and the answer to that question is a defiant “probably.” Auto Assault had the unfortunate timing of being the “Starter MMO” released by Net Devil, who reportedly has a staff of a whopping fourteen people. Without a doubt, Auto Assault is a niche title that didn’t appeal to the massive audience, but even then it didn’t appeal to enough of an audience required to keep an MMO floating on the water. The project was ambitious for such a small development team, and as many risky titles go, this one fizzled out. Wrong time, wrong company.

Net Devil does not currently have any other MMO’s on the market, although the developer is currently working on two titles for release in the 2009-2010 time frame.