NCSoft beta history?

[Swan]

This has probably been asked before in the past, but I am using the fact that I am new as an excuse for ignorance I'm curious about a North American closed beta, has NCSoft done this in the past with it's other games or do they only have CBs for Korea and then release a open beta for NA?

I imagine they stick to the same model for their releases. I think it would give us a better idea of when we can get a taste of the game if we look and see how they did their previous releases. Just curious, thanks.

[Zanion]

have you used the search function for this ? if not than i would recommend you do so !

[Swan]

Originally Posted by Zanion

have you used the search function for this ? if not than i would recommend you do so !

I did do a search, but I couldn't find anything that answered my question. Mostly a bunch of guesses at the Aion NA beta, nothing talking about say L2's beta model.

[Gravity]

I'm like, 90% sure L2 didn't have a CB for NA/EU. But that's only based on the fact that I can't remember it, if it did occur.
And even if they did have one, I don't think Aion is going to have a NA/EU CB, mainly because they're already going on their 3rd Korean CB. UNLESS, they release NA/EU CB when they release Korean OB.

[Ayase]

I have stated before that there will most certainly be an EU/NA beta, unless anything drastically would change our situation (meteors from space, fibre-eating termites, dinosaur invasion from the planet's core). I would also, most humbly, advice against assuming we take the same approach as any of our earlier games, since we're structuring this from the ground and up.

Stay tuned and we'll announce more details once we're confident with their accuracy.

[omokiron]

Originally Posted by Ayase

I have stated before that there will most certainly be an EU/NA beta, unless anything drastically would change our situation (meteors from space, fibre-eating termites, dinosaur invasion from the planet's core). I would also, most humbly, advice against assuming we take the same approach as any of our earlier games, since we're structuring this from the ground and up.

Stay tuned and we'll announce more details once we're confident with their accuracy.

Wasn't Aion originally marketed or told to be an international/worldwide release? From what articles I have read more recently about it Aion is listed as coming out in Korea before any where else. Maybe I missed something and I apologize if I did but I clearly recall one of the alluring factors of Aion is that it would be an international/worldwide release and the servers wouldn't be region specific so that everybody would get a fair start. Now what I'm seeing is Korea gets the game first which sounds *a lot* like FFXI where the JP got the game first several months (even several weeks would be devastating to balance) and NA joined the same servers a bit later, not only did the JP not want to party with them or associate, but they would commonly exploit their lack of knowledge of the game for personal gain. There would be a lot of "JP only" in search comments because they knew JP players would be better, it wasn't much about the language barrier it was simply that they had more knowledge of the game and partying with each other insured a greater chance of success than having to teach NA newbies about the game.

Maybe I missed the announcement if AionSource ran it or maybe the information I have is false(man I hope so), but I figured this would be a very big issue for the Aion community and have yet to see it posted so far. If all people are on the same server and one country gets it even days before the other, it not only shows favoritism, but it unbalances the entire game as a group of people have more time to play and get better (most koreans already do with CB but that's an acceptable difference due to the game being korean and easier to program for korean first then convert after bugs are found) than the other groups who have to wait longer and get singled out. FFXI was very JP centric for a long time and is still considered such as being racist against anybody who isn't JP, GMs would take JP calls over NA and would 8/10 side with the JP, even if the NA called on the JP. I just really, really pray this game does not turn out like that, it was one of the reasons I quit FFXI and to see a game with such promise as Aion go down the same path would be heartbreaking.

[Ayase]

Originally Posted by omokiron

Wasn't Aion originally marketed or told to be an international/worldwide release? From what articles I have read more recently about it Aion is listed as coming out in Korea before any where else. Maybe I missed something and I apologize if I did but I clearly recall one of the alluring factors of Aion is that it would be an international/worldwide release and the servers wouldn't be region specific so that everybody would get a fair start. Now what I'm seeing is Korea gets the game first which sounds *a lot* like FFXI where the JP got the game first several months (even several weeks would be devastating to balance) and NA joined the same servers a bit later, not only did the JP not want to party with them or associate, but they would commonly exploit their lack of knowledge of the game for personal gain. There would be a lot of "JP only" in search comments because they knew JP players would be better, it wasn't much about the language barrier it was simply that they had more knowledge of the game and partying with each other insured a greater chance of success than having to teach NA newbies about the game.

Maybe I missed the announcement if AionSource ran it or maybe the information I have is false(man I hope so), but I figured this would be a very big issue for the Aion community and have yet to see it posted so far. If all people are on the same server and one country gets it even days before the other, it not only shows favoritism, but it unbalances the entire game as a group of people have more time to play and get better (most koreans already do with CB but that's an acceptable difference due to the game being korean and easier to program for korean first then convert after bugs are found) than the other groups who have to wait longer and get singled out. FFXI was very JP centric for a long time and is still considered such as being racist against anybody who isn't JP, GMs would take JP calls over NA and would 8/10 side with the JP, even if the NA called on the JP. I just really, really pray this game does not turn out like that, it was one of the reasons I quit FFXI and to see a game with such promise as Aion go down the same path would be heartbreaking.

An entirely simultaneous world-wide launch was aimed for in the very beginning, but is unfortunately a concept we have been forced to more or less abandon. In the meanwhile, we're trying to reduce the gap as much as we can.

What I can tell you, however, is that everyone who gains access to a particular game server will of course do so at the same time. There will be both European and NA servers at launch.

[Terpsichore]

Originally Posted by Ayase

dinosaur invasion from the planet's core

Oh ****, Balaur invasion will ruin Aion launch.

[Tareith]

FFXI was a different case. SE's aim was to retain the JP playerbase, not the Western one. Mind you, after 4 years FFXI did retain over 50% of the JP playerbase...which is amazing. Sadly, it came at the cost of the rest of the markets (something NC isn't silly enough to do in this post-WoW world). While I loved FFXI, I hated SE and the lack of attention they gave the non-jp markets (until it was way, way too late).

Thankfully, NC Soft is leaps and bounds ahead of SquareEnix in terms of quality and customer service in the MMO market. They actually care about all of the communites, not just the Korean one (case and point, the Austin NC Soft location). While I'm far from a fanboi of any MMO company, NC Soft has been keeping their promises on Aion thusfar (from what we've gathered from beta testers).

[BahamutKaiser]

Originally Posted by Tareith

FFXI was a different case. SE's aim was to retain the JP playerbase, not the Western one. Mind you, after 4 years FFXI did retain over 50% of the JP playerbase...which is amazing. Sadly, it came at the cost of the rest of the markets (something NC isn't silly enough to do in this post-WoW world). While I loved FFXI, I hated SE and the lack of attention they gave the non-jp markets (until it was way, way too late).

Thankfully, NC Soft is leaps and bounds ahead of SquareEnix in terms of quality and customer service in the MMO market. They actually care about all of the communites, not just the Korean one (case and point, the Austin NC Soft location). While I'm far from a fanboi of any MMO company, NC Soft has been keeping their promises on Aion thusfar (from what we've gathered from beta testers).

Amen to that.

[Azza]

Originally Posted by Ayase

An entirely simultaneous world-wide launch was aimed for in the very beginning, but is unfortunately a concept we have been forced to more or less abandon. In the meanwhile, we're trying to reduce the gap as much as we can.

What I can tell you, however, is that everyone who gains access to a particular game server will of course do so at the same time. There will be both European and NA servers at launch.

Just a couple of questions ayase.

You said there will be a EU/NA beta but can you confirm if we will skip the closed beta and only get an open beta?

Also in the above quote, There will be both European and NA servers at launch. I may have missed any recent announcement, but have the servers been determined? Will Europeans be able to play on NA servers with a european copy of the game?

[Blazze889]

I am kind of wondering the same thing, like will there be servers where maybe people from all over the world can all play on?

[Fleiva]

Im almost sure Ayase can't reply to those questions yet :<

[Swan]

Originally Posted by Ayase

I have stated before that there will most certainly be an EU/NA beta, unless anything drastically would change our situation (meteors from space, fibre-eating termites, dinosaur invasion from the planet's core). I would also, most humbly, advice against assuming we take the same approach as any of our earlier games, since we're structuring this from the ground and up.

Stay tuned and we'll announce more details once we're confident with their accuracy.

Sounds good. However, to me, it seems like it would make more sense to have a NA/EU closed beta to resolve any regional hardware issues, translation problems etc., before an open beta (also give us on the other side of the world a chance to play the game sooner ). But if you guys are confident in your structure then I will be to

[Tareith]

While I'd love to get into beta; as long as I can get a week or so in before launch to get my wings wet, I'm happy.