GotMMOG?

Looks like NCSoft decided to get some fixes in place during the beta rather than wait until after. They also decided to extend the beta period to midnight Pacific Time. At least that means I might get to play a little more, work withstanding.

Patch details are here.

What’s still unclear is if there’s going to be a way to deal with the high influx (okay, high equals more than one) of griefers in the game. It’s weird. With the Closed Beta, things were actually pretty calm and serene. I can’t say I saw a lot of flaming, griefing, trolling, whatever.

With Open Beta, it seems like the floodgates opened and all sorts of assholes showed up. To be expected, I guess, when they throw beta keys out there for people who aren’t pre-ordering the game. After all, they’re just trying to test the servers and the like. It just ruins the experience especially when one or two guys manage to rile up 20. Next thing you know region chat is filled with hate.

You can ignore the one guy that likes to Jew-bash or argue just how much of a troll he is (where do these guys come from?)…but then you’ve got the idiots that are just keeping these jokers going. Meanwhile, Aion’s got no method of quelling this in any way. Sure I can go through the Ignore feature and make that work (note the bug report below, by the way) but then we’ve got to ignore a ton of people.

Seems like Aion really needs some GMs to keep the peace, if at least to keep racists and trolls at bay. I deal with these sorts of jokers in COD all the time, so it’s not like I can’t. The thing is…I just want to enjoy the fucking game (Aion) and these fuckwads just sit there freely spewing shit from their cheeto powdered pieholes with the safety of anonymity to keep their mouths going.

By the way, Aion devs…you’ve got a bug:

If you ignore someone, for example “SomeTroll” but you type it all lower case (“sometroll”), the ignore filter doesn’t work. Better yet, if you try to ignore it again, case-sensitive (“SomeTroll”), the system tells you you’re already ignoring them. Seems your input (/ignore) is case-insensitive but the ignore system itself is case-sensitive. Oops.

The workaround is to remove the original ignore and add the new one case-sensitive and it’ll work.

g afk

So, PAX killed our first day or two of Aion but we managed to dig into it finally for the Open Beta. Brian Knox, producer on Aion, sent a note summarizing some of the changes.

It involved a few hurdles like changing your pass (weird) and NCSoft had some fun trying to deal with lag and the basic flood of more people than closed beta. The team posted a note about the current Open Beta issues.

Something tells me someone at NCSoft is underestimating the turn out for their game. I can understand the need to keep costs down by not investing in enough servers/tech for 3 million when you might only get 1 million or less but c’mon.

It seems like this might be the best time to consider a cloud solution. Better than throwing down some serious capex to get enough servers to handle the load only to see 60% of them leave after 3-6 months. Plus, you know that you’ll lose a bunch of people when WoW’s Cataclysm comes out, whenever that is, even if they eventually come back.

Running MMOs these days is tough. While there is still a lot of room for growth, the MMOs out there today are fighting for the same pie while hoping the pie will grow as well to give them more and more subs. And, no, free to play does not guarantee success. Plus, people are getting used to certain expected UI/interface functionality (as evidenced by some of the complaining in Open Beta about movement and things like auto-loot) as a result of WoW and its various add-ons. NCSoft will really have to look at whether or not an extensible UI is going to be a requirement for them.

In the end, compelling game play, easy to use UI, and regular updates to content to mature the game as the community matures with it are the key factors for a successful game. Time will tell if Aion pulls this sort of thing off but I have a feeling they’ll manage to keep things together and maintain a solid slice of the market. Unless someone screws it up, it’s hard to take a game that’s enhanced what’s already out there and really screw it up (unless you’re SOE…or Funcom).

Not much more time for the Open Beta…gotta get my Warrior’s wings!

g afk

Looks like the team’s back from Comic-Con and ready to open up the gates for another closed beta round. This time, they give us the intriguing “no later than Friday at noon PDT”. I can tell you I’m downloading a 438MB update right now from NCSoft so it might be possible to connect before Friday…we’ll see.

Meanwhile, you can check out yet another class preview at Ten Ton Hammer talking about the Sorcerer, an advanced Mage class that looks to be all about dps. The real question is how one will play out in PvP. You’re not able to fire off spells when moving when you’re playing the PvE game but PvP is a different story with flight. While it sounds like you’ll be kiting a lot when running around solo, grouping and PvP will be all about bringing the rain on your opponents from a distance. Cue the glut of Sorcerer’s this weekend.

I didn’t get a chance to swing by Comic-Con but I heard about this nuttiness. A lesson in how to not get the PR buzz you were hoping for…great job EA. Someone’s getting fired.

By the way, the collector’s edition pre-orders are sold out on Amazon. Makes me think I should’ve gotten two! Link below is for the regular edition.

g afk