Aion - Game news

[WhiteHorse]

Press Releases — September 17, 2009
With Record-Breaking Preorder Sales, Aion Takes its Place as the Biggest MMO Release of the Year

Momentum building for game's launch next week as preorders near 400,000, making Aion one of the must-have games of 2009
 
It's official - Aion is the biggest MMO launch of the year and is one of the must-have games this holiday season. NCsoft today revealed the latest preorder figures for its newest massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Aion, which is nearing 400,000 preorders and outpacing other major MMO launches this year.
 
Already topping preorder sales charts, securing accolades from major media outlets, garnering event awards, including gamescom 2009's "Best Online Game" and PAX's "Best MMO" by Inside Gaming, and receiving rave reviews from players in the game's beta testing, Aion has steadily built its reputation as the biggest MMO release in recent years. And unlike many Eastern MMO imports, Aion has been uniquely designed to appeal to Western audiences. Along with a completely rewritten storyline spanning more than two-million words, players will experience enhanced character customization with a host of Western styles, new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing.

As a bonus to the nearly 400,000 players who have preordered their copy of Aion, they will be treated to server Pre-Selection (beginning tomorrow September 18) and a two-day Headstart period (beginning September 20) allowing them to get a jump start on their exploration and progression prior to the official launch on September 22. Players can still participate in Aion's Pre-Selection and Headstart programs by preordering the game through several participating online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including the NCsoft Store, Amazon, Best Buy, EB Games Canada, Fry's Electronics, GameStop, Steam and Target.

Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online experience where flight offers much more than just a way to explore the landscape - it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. Using one of the most flexible and in-depth character customization systems ever featured in an MMO, players will be able to create genuinely distinct characters and explore a visually stunning world of ethereal beauty brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies, and ancient secrets.

For more information about Aion go to http://www.aiononline.com. 


About NCsoft
NCsoft, headquartered in Seoul, Korea, is the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Lineage®, Guild Wars®, and City of Heroes® franchises. NCsoft West is a division of NCsoft that holds operating responsibilities for North America, Europe, South America, and Australia/New Zealand. More information can be found at http://us.ncsoft.com.

[WhiteHorse]

Announced today.

Server Queues and Course of Action

At NCsoft our commitment is to making the MMO player experience the best it can be. And while Aion has seen a very successful launch that has exceeded our expectations in many ways, we are aware of the longer than usual queue times that players have experienced on some of the servers. This is due to the initial rush of players that we’ve seen in the early days of the game’s launch in Europe and North America.

Since the opening of Head Start this past weekend, we’ve have been heavily focused on striking the delicate balance between managing busy servers with queue times versus overcompensating by adding new servers too quickly that are then underpopulated and don’t deliver a fun experience for players. We did indeed see an initial rush on the first days of Head Start which resulted in longer than desired queue times for some of our servers, and we are working around the clock to alleviate this. In fact, we are happy to confirm we have increased our server caps and are adding an additional server in both North America and Europe by this weekend, and we will continue to evaluate adding additional servers.

That said, we do have alternate servers where players are experiencing lower queue times. People can get a real-time update and select that choice on our website at: http://uk.aiononline.com/livestatus/server/

We continue to monitor issues closely and strive to address player feedback quickly to ensure the best possible experience.

[WhiteHorse]

We are bringing the servers down at 14:00 BST (more), September 25th,  for maintenance. The purpose of this downtime is to tweak the way Private Stores work. A timer of 30 minutes will be implemented to prevent these shops from being abused as a means to prevent disconnection and alleviate queues.

The maintenance is expected to run no longer than 1 hour.

Thank you for your patience!

Queue Times and Waiting to Play
The popularity of specific servers has caused queues to be necessary. These queues are based on the given server load. The wait times for our more populated servers will be longer than the wait time for less populated servers. You can use the tracking tools on the Aion website to determine which servers are most populated and which ones will have the longest or shortest wait times in the login queue. Login queues will shorten (and disappear) over the next several days as players spread out across our currently available servers. We are also working on several ways to alleviate the wait time in the queues.


Faction Balance
We will only be allowing players to create characters of one faction on each server. For example, if you create an Elyos character on Siel,you will only be able to create Elyos characters on that server. Because of this, we will be closely monitoring the faction balance on each server during launch and after. If we see a particular server is starting to become unbalanced in favor of one faction, we will temporarily disable character creation of that particular faction on the server. Please be aware this temporary character creation block could change every few hours. If you find you are unable to create a character of your preferred faction choice, please wait a while and try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience this maycause, but we feel this is a necessary step to maintain a well balanced server.


Special Items (Preorder/collectors)
In order to claim either or both the Preorder and Collector’s Edition in-game items, you will need to first make sure the appropriate codes have been applied to your Aion game account, and then claim the items for your character(s) through our website. After you have claimed the item packs for your character(s) on our website, you may need to wait a while (possibly up to 12hours) before the items become available in-game. Your item packs will be available when you see a small box icon appear in the bottom-right corner of your screen next to your compass. You can click the box and a Black Cloud Trader will appear to deliver your items. You can click on this NPC to retrieve your items. If you don’t retrieve all of the items before dismissing the Black Cloud Trader, the items will remain in your normal mailbox.

 

Cosmetic Surgery NPCs
The Gender Switch and Appearance NPCs are available in game,however, the ability to purchase the tickets used at these vendors is not yetavailable.  Please keep an eye on the Aion home page for any information regarding the furtherimplementation of these NPCs.


I am trying to enter my Aion Serial Code from my Aion game box, and it asks me to upgrade a Guild Wars account? WHY?
You are using the wrong code. There are two codes in yourAion game box:

There is a 25-digit Aion Wings Guild Wars promo code, whichis for a Guild Wars account. That code gives you an "Aion Wings"emote for your Guild Wars characters. That's the one you are currently tryingto use, and it is not for your Aion account.

Your Aion retail serial code is a 20-digit serial code,which is also in your game box. It is on the third page of your "QuickReference Card" at the bottom. It is titled "Activation Code".That is the code you need to use to activate/create your Aion game account.

Related Article: Aion Standard and Collector's Edition Game Box Serial Code Locations.


I pre-ordered Aion and played in Head Start, but I can nolonger play. Why not?
Aion has now officially lanched in North America. In order to continue playing Aion after the pre-order Head Start Event, the retail version of Aion will need to be registered to your existing account.

 If you prepurchased Aion from the NCsoft Store or one of our other digital online retailers (Steam®, Direct2Drive®, etc...), your account is all set! You should be able to log into Aion after the game officially launches with no issues.

 If you have pre-ordered the actual game box from a local or online retailer you will need to pick up your retail copy from them, or if the retailer is shipping it to you in the mail, you'll need to wait until the game box is shipped to you. Please contact them regarding your full retail box if you have not received it yet.

Once you get your game box, you will use the following instructions to activate your pre-order account: How do I activate my beta or pre-order game account? Once you activate your account with your retail code/billing information, you can continue playing after launch.


The game box says, "First month of game playincluded," so why am I being asked for billing information?
All game accounts must be activated using a valid credit card, PayPal, or prepaid game time card in order to gain access to the game. For more informaion, please see: Will I be be billed the first time I activate my game account?


Where is the serial code located in my North American AionStandard or Collector's Edition game box?
In the North American Aion Starndard (SteelBook) Edition or Collector's Edition game boxes is a folded paper booklet titled "Quick Reference Card". Your 20-digit Aion Serial Code is on the third page of that Quick Reference Card fold-out, at the bottom. It is titled "Activation Code".

[WhiteHorse]

Addressing Gold Spam

While Executive Producer Lance Stites took time to address some of the most prominent issues raised in the Aion community last week, we want to specifically address another issue that is a top priority for the team here at NCsoft: in-game real money trading (RMT) advertisement, sometimes referred to as “gold spamming.” These activities are something we’re actively combating right now. They are also something you can help us with, and something that we are committed to addressing continually in the future.

We currently have Game Masters monitoring all our servers. They track chat channels closely and have been banning thousands of spammers every day. This form of active monitoring is a part of a much larger network of tools and sensors that we’re currently utilizing to help create a better game experience for the Aion community across the board.

If you’re experiencing chat spam, there is a way for you to address this immediately on your own and help us create a better gameplay experience for everyone. You can use the Block User feature. All you need to do is to right-click on a user’s name and choose to block that user. While this doesn’t eliminate the problem, it is one small step you can actively make to improve your game experience. Using Block User also helps us identify spammers much more quickly.

We are considering a number of methods to address this chat spam that have been implemented in previous games, as well exploring new technologies and what they may have to offer to improve your game experience. One upcoming feature for Aion will be an improved chat filter to help reduce the overall chat spam. This filter, along with new tracking and monitoring methods, is the first of many steps that we’ll be taking to help resolve the issue of gold spamming.

We appreciate all the feedback and ideas you have been giving us so far. We will continue to scour the communities out there for other ideas as we go. We absolutely recognize how important this is to you and a good game experience in Aion, and we reiterate that we are currently addressing it. Thank you for your patience and for all of your input.

http://uk.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=169&page=

[WhiteHorse]

Letter from NCSoft to their players about queues and servers.

Greetings,

A lot has happened since I last addressed our community. We’ve launched our long awaited product Aion and have been pleased and challenged with keeping up with the massive player demand.

There’s no doubt that we’ve done some things very well with Aion: the product is polished and incredibly fun. We managed to deploy to North America and Europe within the same week and have experienced strong demand. As most of you are aware, this has come at a cost in the form of queue times. This is by far our biggest challenge and has led to some frustration as players wait to enter their server of choice.

In preparation for Aion’s launch, we ran calculations of our presale numbers with historical conversion ratios and expected concurrency numbers, which led to our determination of launch day server needs. In addition, we had a 25 percent additional capacity in hardware reserve and the ability to increase server population. We’ve further responded to the overwhelming demand by adding additional server worlds in all languages, and still we are working around the clock to address the incredible demand. For example, we’re seeing timeframes where 60 percent or more of our players are playing at any given time. This is a significant event by any MMO standard. Another surprising development is how long players are staying in game—I think that’s a testament to the enjoyable nature of the product.

I’m sure many of you are thinking, “That’s all fine-but how does that help me get in and play the game? What is NCsoft doing for me?” Fair question. First, we have already and will continue to increase server capacity to ensure that we have server space for every user. The reality of the situation is that some servers quickly become very popular servers, with lines queued up to enter, but other servers have plenty of space to accommodate players. Obviously, adding servers won’t help in this case. If you’re waiting to enter a full server, 100 extra servers won’t help.

So the next question may be “What about my character I’ve already spent time on?” Another good question.  I’m excited to confirm that we are currently working on implementing a server transfer service beginning next month. Specifically, we will offer every player a free one-time server transfer for a limited time to select servers. You can rest assured that addressing the demand for Aion is our biggest priority. And I know a big question is “Why did you not deploy more servers?” Most of you are savvy enough to realize that a healthy MMO server needs a robust population. We have to calculate our reasonable concurrency numbers in a week and in a month and beyond. The last thing we want to do to our players is spread them out so that the “massively” in “massively multiplayer” gets lost..

I read an interesting conversation about a safari hunter, and the question was posed to him: “Why don’t you take an Olympic sharpshooter that could hit a bulls-eye at 300 meters?” His response was: “I don’t care what he can do at 300 meters, what can he do at two meters?” And that’s definitely where we are now: the rhino is upon us. We’ve spent months planning and have researched multiple MMO launches, hoping to learn from previous success and failures. It is imperative to your long term enjoyment of Aion that we carefully manage the health of the servers. We’re looking at making sure the Abyss is alive with conflict and legions fighting for control in an EPIC war.

At this point,I would like to stress that you, our players, are our number one priority and that we are doing everything we can to ensure that Aion exceeds your expectations.

The community team and I will continue to provide you with progress updates as we receive them, and you can always continue to monitor issues, check on server status, etc. at http://www.aiononline.com.

In closing I’d like to say thank you to the worldwide Aion community. I am really excited about the response to Aion and I look forward to providing you with the best possible play experience for years to come.

Best regards,

Lance Stites

Executive Producer, Game Production Studio
NCsoft West