[Calindor]

Will there be one? I dont want to see a repeat of L2, thats where the game first went wrong.

[Haubix]

There will be a wipe for sure. Open beta is also some sort of testing to the developers. Stress tests, connectivity testing, etc etc. Therefore Characters created on open beta servers (=test servers) are test characters. Why do they want to keep test characters?

[Calindor]

Ask NCSoft why they kept "test" characters on L2

[Fayeth]

I think they will learn from their mistakes ^_^

They definitly SHOULD be a wipe after open Beta

[hirantha]

in Guild Wars Nightfall beta testing didn't delete the test char, i don't think Aion will either.

[Aggelos]

what happened in l2? D: I started playin it on c3 so I dont know

[Laughing Warrior]

I've heard plenty of stories where an MMO development team was at least talking of leaving beta characters in the actual game on release to make people want to test the game, but I don't like the idea at all.

If anything set up a specific time (about a week or two before the game comes out) so players can work on getting their toons out of the beginning areas to help with the congestion when the game does come out...

[Calindor]

I started playing L2 about a week after it was released when I saw the box in a store. When I started playing there were already lvl 50 chars, and lvl 40 PKers on Talking Island (I really enjoyed that part lol).

After Open Beta was done, everyone who participated got to keep their characters for the live game.

I will be pre-ordering Aion and pre-ordering....but I still hope they will not give beta testers/people whopre-order any advantages.

[Ipmia]

Calindor said:

I started playing L2 about a week after it was released when I saw the box in a store. When I started playing there were already lvl 50 chars, and lvl 40 PKers on Talking Island (I really enjoyed that part lol).

After Open Beta was done, everyone who participated got to keep their characters for the live game.

I will be pre-ordering Aion and pre-ordering....but I still hope they will not give beta testers/people whopre-order any advantages.

Open beta is like it s called... OPEN everyone can get there. to keep the character or not is not gona change anything as long as the game isnt buged enough to be exploitable. i see it more like a stress test and also a free trial ( just look at most of companys offereing trial access if you preorder nowdays... jsut show how it is considered now.. a trial while they finish polishing it)

Lineage2 corea kept the beta charcheters ( Open beta) but i dont remmeber the US one keeping them :p actually i remmeber people whinning because they felt shatered when they new coreans got to kepp they ob toons.

anyways this wont change anything as long as there isnt any major bug that gives a beta testeur a hedge. becasue they already have a large avantage over you since they know excatly wher they are going to do while you still have to "learn".

I m fine with both.

I might have missunderstood you but what did you exepct when buying a game 1 week after realse ? that everyone where at same lvl range still ? those hardcore gamers that played the beta and already knew the cp spots, the quest ot do and the ones you could skip would have take a hege no matter what period.

regarding L2 i highly doubt you knew already wher to go, where to xp, what quest where buged ( and exploitable mouahahaha).... all those things where new from testers and back then that was a HUGE avantage already by itself.

[N0rdic Ninja]

I think the character should be wiped leading into release, but I like what GW did when Prophecies was being released, your character got deleted but any character names you had were reserved for you. So it guarantees you get a name you want.

[Calindor]

You try hitting lvl 50 on Lineage 2 without having a boxed buffer and tons of gear/adena :)

Especially when the game was still new...If L2 wiped after beta, after 7 days there might have been a handful of lvl 30's at best, instead there were tons of people lvl 40+ with a huge head start.

And when you start on L2 it will pretty much take you a week to hit lvl 20, and there is nowhere to go but around the town you start in, and there are no real quests to do in L2...you basically smack mobs until you are lvl 80.



Edit: and there no reason you cant still have free trials after the game is live...Open Beta is supposed to be a testing experience to help fix the game, IMO you shouldnt keep your items/level when the game is launched, but keeping the name is a good idea, and maybe get a bonus item that makes music :) like those chrono's in L2

[N0rdic Ninja]

Aaaah yes, the solo-grind that is L2... so mind numbing. >.>; But as long as everyone is told about the wipe and it's not some big surprise, I think it should happen. If you hit max level in open Beta knowing full well that your work is going to soon be mute, that's your own fault. But then again if you really enjoyed the experience you wont mind having to do it again, I could see why people wouldn't want to try and regain all those levels in L2 though... *bashes head into keyboard*

[Calindor]

Yeah I suppose if they announced that you were going to keep your chars it wouldnt be so bad...and hopefully if that was the case we would be given a decent advance on the beta release date.

[Ipmia]

dont know what you are talking about.. i was 40 less than 2 weeks after relase and 55 when prelude came..

also i did that mostly solo (was hard to group untill 40 and my second class trf BD).. and i was FAAAARRR from being ahead... some people like necrosis were far ahead simply because they had a core of players playing together.. jsut like some core player playing together.

the obvious of buffers/healers came way after.. because when the game started 95% of the players didnt even know what prophets buff meant :p

The hedge came from the gameknowledge ( being able to get to the hunting spot before the rush of players , and a few quest that were bugged and allowed to make a lot of money fast) but there was no way you could new about that unless you played beta or new somone that did far enough :p


anyways i ll stop here the L2 discussion since its not end in anything constructive regarding Aion.

[Gravity]

I don't care if they wipe or not, I just need Aion. >.>

[Calindor]

Thats cool, but on the contrary I think everything NCSoft did with Lineage 2 is important to Aion.

L2 was NCSofts last biggest mmo, and it is very simliar in fantasy style to L2. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes and take constructive criticism...L2 had bots, 2boxing/multiaccounting, ebaying and many other problems (it was still a great game).

NCSoft made a bad judgment call on the western MMO market. They allowed botting, ebaying simply to make money, they didnt see any big business in the NA market...they were very greedy and perhaps got what they deserved when WoW came out.

Now that MMO's are more popular in the western world and people have been playing them for a while its important that they learned from their mistakes and correct them this time. It looks like they already have for the most part...PVE will take some effort rather than some mindless grind you can do at 5am trying to keep your eyes open in a half-conscious state mashing F1 and clicking targets while you try keep your eyes open (or just watch l2walker).

Even though this isnt really that important of a topic, I still think Lineage 2 couldnt be more important to the making of Aion.

[daedalus66]

Perhaps they'll do what they did with gw nightfall which is keep the character, but anything you completed with that character was deleted so all you had was the name and looks.

[Gravity]

daedalus66 said:

Perhaps they'll do what they did with gw nightfall which is keep the character, but anything you completed with that character was deleted so all you had was the name and looks.

But they can just mail all their stuff to other accounts after they get it, then when they're wiped clean it don't matter.

Ban hammer all the way. <3

[Calindor]

Gravity said:

But they can just mail all their stuff to other accounts after they get it, then when they're wiped clean it don't matter.

Ban hammer all the way. <3

I think what he means is all characters get rolled back to lvl 1 with no gear/items/money, but they still had the same name and looked the same way...which is a great idea.

[Unforsaken87]

Calindor said:

I think what he means is all characters get rolled back to lvl 1 with no gear/items/money, but they still had the same name and looked the same way...which is a great idea.

Ya that is a good idea.
I could careless what they do in the sense of a wipe or not. I just want to play Aion. I plan on playing OB, and wishing for closed beta.
If you do happen to get really far in OB and there is a wipe, and you bich about having to do it all over again..thats your fault. OB is just to stress test, make sure things transfered over correctly and to let people see the game before release. Though I think they should inform us whats going to happen. Not fun being blind sided.
Knowledge is power. The more you learn from beta testing, reading forums or site the better off your going to be in game. Your going to know what to do, how to do it, etc.