AION – The Tower of Eternity

So, last Sunday at 9:00pm EST AIONs European head start was on and i was right in with the bunch of freaks who basicaly sniped the servers.
For some people it was great fun, for some it was not. Why? Simply because AION had more then 400.000 pre orders who flooded the Servers which of course couldn’t hold the load.
This ended up in waiting queues that would skyrocket up to 8 _HOURS_!
Yes right… you sit there and wait 8 hours to get in the game, quite ridiclous if you ask me.
The situation has become a bit better, but only because NC Soft decided to cap the queues at 2000 people now. If you disconnect or the client crashes while you are in, you can skip that queue if you manage to get back online within 3 minutes, if not… please get to the end of the queue, thanks.

Usualy around 9-11pm we expierience heavy lag spikes which make your characters rubberbanding across the map, no fun… even death can end up in a loop if you are very unlucky.

And why is it like this? Obviously because NC Soft hasen’t setup the proper amount of performance to take the load of people and this was just the head start of pre orders, the game actually launches today and even more will come and hammer the servers.
So far news go, NC Soft will add 2 more servers – one for EU (Europe) and one for NA (North America).

So, the question “WHY?” is still on, someone would think that after seeing the numbers of pre orders they know what they would have to expect, yes they did.
However, NC Soft is a bit of a gambler, they calculated that a few people might not like the game or whatever (after playing beta due pre order?!) and won’t play long.
It is true that many MMOs who release with a lot of servers at the start end up considolating them after a few months or at least a year. Also AION needs a proper populated Server to work, since one of the focuses is PvP. So an unbalanced or underpopulated server might gets old quick and dies on it’s own sooner or later.

I can clearly see why NC Soft did this. First, server considolation looks always bad for an MMO, it’s the beginning of the end in many cases. Secondly, to keep the cost / usage optimized to pull the most profit out of it. Having a server populated till it’s bursting is a lot better then having two half populated ones.
Yes yes, of course a good population is in our players interest as well, yet… when we have to wait hours to get online? When we can’t play because of rubberbanding lag? It gets frusterating quick. The messages of people wanting to quit, a refund and the feelings of being muged are around a lot.

Yet the leading people decide to kep their course of action and take measures against these problems only with a lot of caution. The two new servers are a drop of water in the desert, considering lots more people will come now with the official launch.

My guild and i am are afraid of what will happen in 15 minutes from now, when the servers come back to be online.

Okay, after all that ranting a little bit about the game.
So far i reached level 31 and it wasn’t very hard as a Spiritmaster. I will spare you with details about the class, since unless you play the game, the mechanics are rather breath taking to explain. However, people who play AION and might want a few tips of information exchange about Spiritmasters can feel free to comment or write me an eMail.

The adventuring part mostly consists of questing and grinding, just like in World of Warcraft.
Though, the grinding part is a lot easiert and in my opinion as a Spiritmaster a lot more fun, i am permanently fighting and have no downtimes! This however requires a good management of time, abilities and ressources.

The crafting part of the game is rather bland, you stand there and just grab some materials, reagents and give it a go and hope it turns out in a success, you cant influence the outcome like in EverQuest 2 or Vanguard.
On the other hand, it still takes time to get the skill points up, so this is optimal while you have lunch or watch anime.
Basicaly you can learn all the professions out there, but you can only Master two of them completly to make the best items of those professions.
I picked cooking and alchemy for my main character, since it is easier to supply myself with stats increasing food and potions then, which is a must for the high end game.

Lastly, the game has a feature where you can change the appearance of your armor, as long as it is cloth for cloth. For example, you can’t change the appearance of a cloth item to a chain item or vice versa.
Basicaly the stats of your armor are combines with the visuals of the appearance item you choose.

I for one bought a kimono and applied it to my tunic, i quiet like the outcome.
Before i just took armor dyes i got due a quest and coloured all the mixed pieces i had blue.

A link to the character profile at aiononline.com, it’s a pretty nifty thing just like the World of Warcraft Armory. Milkdrop’s Profile

A final note before the servers come back on and i have to cross my fingers to get online and not into the queues…
The game itself is really a lot of fun, it’s nice and easy going, it can be for hardcore people as well as for casuals, it’s your choise how you take the game.
While the permanent option of PvP is a bit annoying on times, when you are around in groups it can be a lot of fun too!

So much for now… back to camp the servers!