Calindor

As long as NCSoft Seoul and NCSoft Austin/EU are seperate entities, it will be an equation for fail.

Fleiva

So much pessimism in here.

Did anyone truly believe we would be getting aion @ 2006 after seeing what they had for E3? Im not going to be jumping all over the place until I see collector editions getting ready and shipping manuvers going on, that's when games go gold, and that's when you can expect a real ETA.

Anyone who has slightly followed any progress of a game's development should know that 2/3 years after the first concepts are released is actually a quite fast proccess. What they showed in E3 2006 was nothing but a modified engine with textures and a bit of AI, nothing to say "wow, the game is ready!!!".

I'll be the first to go nuts if, after these years, they come with an unfinished game or if they drop important features, but with the progressive testing they are having, endgame should be 90% complete by the time they release, which will make me happy.

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kieron

Pancak3s, there are a lot of fine people over at CCP who would be thrilled to see such high marks awarded. Personally, I would like to think my four years as the company's Community Manager/Director did contribute in some small way and I can only hope to have a positive impact on Aion's community.

I can't promise developmental news, blogs or updates every week. The dev team is working hard to complete Aion and informational flow may be slow. What I can promise is the EU and US staff will do our best to keep the community informed and updated.

LethalGT

Hounestly, it's better for the game to be delayed over and over again and have it get better and better and less and less problems than getting a crappy buggy game.

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Pancak3s

Hey Kieron,

I hope you do stick with the community for as long as possible and end up becomming one of the main CM's for the North American Aion.

I do understand you can't promise new news, but i was talking more on the lines of retail support / communication. When i first started reading EvE forums and playing the game I was like "wow, a gaming company that has not only 'cool' admins but awsome support? unreal!" Keep in mind this was coming from Lineage2.

I understand everyone has different experiences, but the 'mood' i caught in the lineage2 community towards admins/GM's were not good. I just hope you can keep the fun factor going when the time comes and prove me wrong in the end. =)

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pan1ck

So it's better AION never to goes live Every one will stay with the Dream of the Best Game that it could be....

Dye

How can you expect them to give a release date for US/EU if they aren't even done making the game in Korea? Maybe after CBT3 when they implement the abyss and the majority of the rest of the content they will have some kind of idea on a release date. Once CBT3 is done and a open beta announcement for Korea has been announced we will probably be closer to hearing a release date for US/EU.

Shmak

Beta testing is all about the gameplay. I don't care if they release this game and the graphics are equivalent to super mario brothers. It doesn't have to be realistic. It doesn't have to be "next gen." It doesn't have to have a virtual environment the size of the Jupiter.

It has to be fun, thats it.

Honestly I don't see how people are getting worked up about the release date. Sure we all want this great game to come out, but hell if I'm gonna berate the company thats producing something awesome because they said it will come out late. Its not half as bad as the retarded console situation where not only do the consumers have to wait for numerous delays, they also are forced to pay ridiculous prices on release.

The very same thing happened with WoW. It was announced in 2001, and everyone *****ed and moaned every second of the 3~ years of development it took.

Denmaru

Yes, Updates and News might be coming in at a slow pace, but I want to say that I don't think this is as bad as some might think it is.

As a costumer in spe, I feel really good because of the job our CMs are doing. Want to see good CMs reduced to mindless translators? Head over to the german WoW Board. The CMs might be nice personally, but it seems that they are reduced to translate the english announcements with a few days of wait, banning people and trying to be nice. Are they officially active in any fan-run forum? No. The CMs here even reply to PMs.

This helps a lot in the wait. And I bet Amboss is doing a good job on the german-speaking boards as well, so I guess I'm not alone with this opinion. I say we can wait, as long as the CMs do everything to accommodate us during the wait.

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Shadowlightz

Hmm, well... it has been ages since I have posted. So, I will post my thoughts... just remember, they are MY thoughts... right, wrong or indifferent. Don't hurt me.

Yep, I am tired of waiting too... my wife pre-ordered the collector’s edition from Amazon back in January for my birthday... since then; the date has been changed at least 3 times. Who knows, maybe I will get this years birthday present next year for my birthday? But, it doesn’t bother me too much.

Am I worried that by the time Aion comes out it may be outdated? Sure I am... a lot can change in 3 years. Already, in the 3 years we have been waiting we now have Vista, DirectX 10 and better graphics cards. Now, are they heavily utilized? No, not at this time... but they will be.

But... What if we didn't even know about Aion? They could have kept it all a secret... any screenshots and movies we have seen floating around the web from beta testing, NCSoft could have very easily said "No comment". They could have agreed to take the "Out of sight out of mind" approach.... But they didn't. They told us there was a game in development... and they never gave us a confirmed date to play it safe. Do I want them to give me a date, and then have it riddled with glitches? Nope. I just beta tested another game for months... and yes, they listened to me and everyone else on the forums as far as adding new features to the game, but they never fixed the glitches (and there were LOTS)... and they are releasing it to the public anyway. I’m not going to buy it and pay a monthly fee, that’s for sure.

Look at Guild Wars 2... talk about keeping a game hush, hush... from what I gather from studying all I have about ArenaNet through the years, they do most of their beta testing in-house (I said MOST, not ALL) so that people cant start criticizing it before the game is half ready to be released.

Patience is the key... and I am not a patient man. Yes... a few things trouble me as time progresses even longer. But I am thankful that I have a game I can look forward to in the future. Would I have been better off not knowing about Aion? Nope, because the more I see and hear about it, the more excited I get. Would it have been better for NCSoft to not tell us about Aion? Yes, probably for them... so they wouldn’t have to hear the general public gets angry, constantly asking why, how and when.

We could wipe the slate clean from this day forward....

Hey all, guess what I heard today? I hear there is a really cool game coming out called AION! No release date yet... but it looks to be awesome!

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pan1ck

heheeheh really nice post Shadowlightz. Very wise thoughts and really thank you for sharing them with us. But at the section about keeping the AION secret i dissagree cause it is tha biggest commercial for them. Through these 2 years so many ppl saw the AION in previews. But now some ppl like me, like you and many others start to get tired and start to think about it. Cause as you said in 2 years so much changed...better Graphic gards, better CPUs and AION is the best MMO in grafic parts for sure but it wont be for long cause the time pass through and someone else soon even before it comes live will make something better and NC will come again 2nd like with Lineage after WOW's release. They allready lost so many ppl from AOC and they gonna lose more from Warhammer where the ppl gave a Release Date in Dreamhack. But i will stand from now on on your words cause for a 1st time via a forum i like a man so much and from now on i wont speak again about Release dates and other ****s..let them do what they want to do cause if we talk or not they don't hear us as they do in Lineage, 2 years now they write us to their Ballz as we say in Greece i don't beleave that they will Change now. So let the time to show us the way ^^ and if it ever comes alive i will try it.

platino

as i read they going cb3 soon in korea(next month i think) should be last test of that type i hope but is better to wait longer to have good game instead of rush release and have crap game like AOC where ppl exploid bugs and game mechanism and got cap lvl in 1 week and no content for that lvls.

about suport.as i read somewhere game will be release worldwide so will not be like L2 when each chronicle is 6 months after korea.

never ask for unpolish game.we have perfect exemple of game where dumped alot of cash,not properly tested and was release on crappy state that is aoc.

next 3 big games was aion/AOC/warhammer.
AOC was a total failure and majority of people playing r just waiting for next game.
doubt that players that like aion will switch to warhammer just because come out sooner(if is true)

Fleiva

About the graphics comment:

Upcoming games with better graphics? Probably.

Will those games be heavily instanced and channeled? For sure.

Aion is doing an excelent texturing work, without relying so much in polygons, that's the only way we have now, and we will keep having, if we want to enjoy seamless worlds and massive pvps. Do you guys think that 8xxxx series from Nvidia will run this game flawlesly on ultra high settings during sieges where hundreds of people meet?

They could go the AoC way and make 48vs48s, but then I wouldn't be interested in this game anymore.

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Zalunaya

Hmmm...

I think it is good for NCSoft to have the game closed for a while, until a lot of the bugs are fixed and development is finished, though it would be helpful if the sites they set up were updated a bit more. The employees over at NCSoft are doing a lot of work, so I don't expect a ton of updates, but some screenshots or just some small thing would be nice, just to keep people looking and interested in the game. If development is /too/ closed, people may start to lose some interest.
So in short, people are attracted by shiny or pretty things, and information of the game is very attractive, it keeps the community interested, so they do not just 'move on'.

Pancak3s

I have no pity or excuses for companies who miss there estimated target date by 3 years.

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