Amarinth

Aww Ama *hugs* sorry to loose you from the player base. I do agree with what you are saying I have found post beta to be less enjoyable too - ESPECIALLY on the asmodian side. For some reason I seem to always have enough quests on the elyos side (maybe its cuz i love the elyos side enough to grind a bit here and there for armor or something?) ...

I am still playing, mostly because I don't have anything else to do, and mostly because I really *want* Aion to get better!

Hope you will keep in touch hon, as I loved betaing with you (perhaps we can swap xfire / msn addresses and then I can stalk you and squee at you some more?)

Ku xxx

==== It seems my message is too big, so I've posted it in 3 pieces ====

Well, it looks like the chapter that is Aion in the book of my MMO gaming history is about to come to an end. I've decided not to invest any more of my time and money into this game, because no matter how much certain parts of this game appeal to me, I've found the overall post-launch experience to be rather disappointing.

First of all I'm deeply disappointed by NCsoft's total lack of service to the EU playerbase - if you can't provide localized service, then DONT launch your game with an EU tag, plain and simple. It seems like they haven't learned a single thing from their previous games and are just intent on making the same mistakes over and over again. If there was such a thing as a Razzie award for MMO companies then NCsoft would have to be the leading winner for several years now.

Second of all I'm deeply disappointed with the game itself. While the leveling curve only climbes steeply upward, the amount of content seems to go steeply downward. I've spent the last week trying to analyze why I have not felt an urge to log in and play, and I've come to the conclusion it's the lack of content and the resulting lack of a sense of progression. I've tried to rationalize and talk myself into believing it will get better, but unfortunately everything I've read so far seems to point in the other direction - and this is something that's confirmed by both pro- and anti-grinders.

Last of all, the so-to-speak 'final nail in the coffin' for me was the ongoing slew of problems and NCsoft's incompetence to respond to them in a timely fashion. From queues to spam to botting to lag*, everything helped push my enjoyment of the game down a notch to the point where I am actually getting more enjoyment from a game that I've already squeezed the life out of for 2 years straight (no, I'm not talking about WoW). Since I've got a lifetime subscription on this other game, it wasn't a hard choice to give up on Aion as a monthly expense (yay more money for going to the movies!).

*I've always been experiencing lag with NCsoft's game servers, even if they were located practically in my backyard as far as internet distance is concerned. I live in the Netherlands, we have pretty good connections. Most MMO's I play (or have played) have their servers either in Germany or the UK. To both places I can connect with usually no more than 20-70ms lag, which is as good as none. Yet in Aion I've regularly gotten between 300-700ms in the evenings, even though traceroutes were showing no major latency increase between me and the servers.

I wouldn't be surprised if NCsoft are one of those companies that never update their server hardware, or run their servers on the barest minimum hardware they can get away with. The only time I can expect no lag is when the server population is low. I noticed the exact same thing two years ago in Tabula Rasa, as soon as the server population there changed to medium it was 'bye bye smooth play' and 'hello lag'. And guess which game they shut down exactly 4 months before they started Aion closed beta? Wanna bet where that old server hardware went? Hint: it wasn't donated to the salvation army.

I so wish more companies would take note of that small Icelandic company that could...CCP, the creators of EVE Online, who actually make an effort to fight lag, constantly improving their hardware and software and also *gasp* actually make an effort to keep the playerbase informed about it.

Hey Amarinth you helped a guy with his startup Aion problem a while ago.
Followed your Guide but it didnt work for me
Any other ideas?

"Ah ok, I didn't get that part. In that case, here's my suggestion. Go to your Control Panel -> Add/Remove programs and uninstall the NCsoft launcher, but ONLY the NCsoft launcher - so when it asks if you want to uninstall the games themselves just choose no.

Once the NCsoft launcher is fully uninstalled, go to the Program File/NCsoft/Launcher folder and make sure that it is empty, as we want the launcher to completely reinstall with no lingering files from before. Once you've checked that use the same file as before (Aion.exe) to install the NCsoft launcher - once finished it should launch automatically and detect that you've already got Aion installed.

Let me know if it launches. If it does but doesn't show Aion installed, don't worry - there's a simple way to point it to your - still installed - Aion client. "

Ahhhh, server queues, how we all love to hate them...

A friend of mine asked me today how Aion was doing now that it's officially launched. I told him that the current situation could pretty much be summed up by the following:

"Welcome to Aion: The Queue of Eternity - the current server queue is 2 hours and 10 minutes, the current queue to complain about the server queue is 3 hours and 45 minutes, the queue to cancel your subscription is 3 months and 7 days.
Thank you for your patience!"

Just my way of saying, if you want to try the game, have a little patience. Now is not a good time for a good first impression.

Ok, so a few days after the game has really begun I've decided to stick entirely with Asmodeans for now. I have 4 Asmo on Perento, only 2 of which I am actively playing:

Lyca - lvl 20 Ranger
Nyka - lvl 15 Cleric

Some screenies of my first week:

Nyka:


Nyka and Ajune:


Dusk over Altgard:

Just to update you my guildmates and I decided to leave Gorgeous and Spatula because the 9 hour queues weren't worth it :P

Telemachus - Elyos
Castor - Asmodian

(no names as of yet)

I heard Perento is suffering the same long queues bleh :P

Made it through the pre-select jungle and reserved 2 totally random names:

Perento - Asmodean -> Lyca
Telemachus - Elyos -> Caela

Wave to me if you see me ingame.

Hmm maybe because it's got something in it that looks red and squishy and I don't know what it's supposed to represent.