Originally posted by Zeppelin4

The last couple of days I have logged out in prime time for the east coast and still find them all on full except one. When I checked the West coast at 7:00 pm pst there was 4 full with the rest at recommend. IMHO this is not a sign of a lot of people leaving after the free 30 days. Will have to see how it goes after the next thirty days. To all those that wish Aion to fail you will have to wait a bit longer. 

You need to factor in the length of the queues, when they do exist.   I can't vouch for the US, but In the EU they used to be serveral hours long, across all servers.  Recently its not been that much of a problem to get in (if at all) and not seeing them marked as "full" is common.

I very much doubt Aion will fail, but I just can't see it remaining mainstream within the West.

Dah, NCsoft worked out the problem...

Yes the servers have lost people and? The abyss is still full and where ever I go there's people. I have no problems finding a party. In fact, I am happy that some people are gone... Way easier to gather aether and to have fun!

Originally posted by grapevine

Originally posted by Zeppelin4

The last couple of days I have logged out in prime time for the east coast and still find them all on full except one. When I checked the West coast at 7:00 pm pst there was 4 full with the rest at recommend. IMHO this is not a sign of a lot of people leaving after the free 30 days. Will have to see how it goes after the next thirty days. To all those that wish Aion to fail you will have to wait a bit longer. 

 

You need to factor in the length of the queues, when they do exist.   I can't vouch for the US, but In the EU they used to be serveral hours long.  Recently its not been that much of a problem to get in (if at all) and not seeing them marked as "full" is common.

Not every game is for everyone and I think people found out with Aion it wasnt the clone they were hoping for. This is good for the game though as now it can find its own audience and settle in nicely.

Yeah, I agree.  It is a shame though, as if they had kept the content levels up and removed the ganking mechanics it would actaully be a good mainstream game.

Originally posted by AlexTheTall

Dah, NCsoft worked out the problem...

 

Yes the servers have lost people and? The abyss is still full and where ever I go there's people. I have no problems finding a party. In fact, I am happy that some people are gone... Way easier to gather aether and to have fun!

And nothing. :) What you state is really all that matters to those still playing.  If there's enough people playing to keep it both fun for the playerbase and financially viable for the company, its not a failure.  Threads like these are often founded around "mines bigger than yours" scenarios (i.e. a total ego trip, which doesn't really mean much).

Originally posted by Dilir79

We all saw this coming, but never thought this soon .

Even if a game can only hold 100k subs or so in the west it doesn't mean it's not a success. Just look at AoC/WAR still getting updates etc and both are stable on xfire. If it's not closing down it means it's making money. A game doesn't have to beat WoW to be succesful.

Originally posted by Hellbilly13

Aion is not a bad game.. granted it was released for the western customers a bit pre-maturely. Alot of issues had not been fixed like they should have, and gameguard was not in place to kill the dirty botters. And yes, its rather fucking annoying to have to clear your block list every other day because of all the gold spammers..

 

But if you stop and think back to alot of other MMO releases, those games all had the same problems, or similar problems.

So to play the game for the first few weeks of release, then quit because of these problems is just ignorant imo.. you must give the devs a chance to sort the problems.

There are some actual gameplay issues that annoy the shit out of me.. so much that i actually had to stop grinding my templar and make a ranger due to threat and agro management issues.

 

But the one thing i can say about Aion is this.. in 6+ months, once we have alot of legions fighting for their spot inside the abyss, this game is going to be epic. My legion on Azphel currently has daily pvp groups roaming around looking for elyos, and its pretty fun when you run into a full group of enemies. the classes play really well against eachother, and you can tell the devs really put some thought into pvp encounters.

 

As a westerner, i hate grinding.. but when i see whats in store for me once i hit level cap, its worth it.

Don't lie Hellbilly, Zalea and a few people soloing  in Abyss is not a group, and IMO, someone paying to play a broken game is more ignorant than quitting due to failure to deliver a properly functioning product.

Originally posted by mdamaged

Originally posted by Hellbilly13

Aion is not a bad game.. granted it was released for the western customers a bit pre-maturely. Alot of issues had not been fixed like they should have, and gameguard was not in place to kill the dirty botters. And yes, its rather fucking annoying to have to clear your block list every other day because of all the gold spammers..

 

But if you stop and think back to alot of other MMO releases, those games all had the same problems, or similar problems.

So to play the game for the first few weeks of release, then quit because of these problems is just ignorant imo.. you must give the devs a chance to sort the problems.

There are some actual gameplay issues that annoy the shit out of me.. so much that i actually had to stop grinding my templar and make a ranger due to threat and agro management issues.

 

But the one thing i can say about Aion is this.. in 6+ months, once we have alot of legions fighting for their spot inside the abyss, this game is going to be epic. My legion on Azphel currently has daily pvp groups roaming around looking for elyos, and its pretty fun when you run into a full group of enemies. the classes play really well against eachother, and you can tell the devs really put some thought into pvp encounters.

 

As a westerner, i hate grinding.. but when i see whats in store for me once i hit level cap, its worth it.

Don't lie Hellbilly, Zalea and a few people soloing  in Abyss is not a group, and IMO, someone paying to play a broken game is more ignorant than quitting due to failure to deliver a properly functioning product.

lol, where is he lying? Abyss is full of people and btw you can't really solo there anymore because it's full of pigeon waiting to poo all over my poor asmo gladiator.

Originally posted by Ashreal

If people are leaving in droves, good on them.  That makes it much better for those that want to stay and play. 

(snip)

Sweet! Have fun with your bot-plagued game. :)

Originally posted by Wizardry

Originally posted by Zeblade

Yeah.. its a fun game but lol not really much to keep some playing. Good pvp but for ME WAY to much like FREE2PLAY. After one year they have not done much to change that.

 

Exactly ! one year and they have added nothing,you know why?They have adopted a real scam of only giving you part of the game to start,then bank on selling you xpacs.They already admitted this very thing by saying they were already working on the next two expansions,this was before Aion was even released.This is the same formula they are using with Guild Wars,it may seem free but after you buy 3 xpacs  to get the rest of the game,it's so not free anymore.It is not the same as adding xpacs at a later date,when you already have more content and are holding it back from the player base.

To anyone that pays attention at all,you may have also noticed Lineage..castle seige....Aion abyss..Fortress seige,so you can see they lack the creativity to expand beyond what is basically the exact same PVP idea,only they added flying.

Aion is not alone,i am noticing a real trend in all games being released,they are giving us the bare bones for content.It is so bad,that if these games remove one more piece of content,there is literally no game left,that is how weak the content is in most games released over the last 5 years.It is like the developer comes up with one idea and goes with it.Imagine if Aion removed one race?lmao,there is no game anymore,maybe a single player game.

In case of Aion i also believe NCSOFT was terrified of Aion not being a success  and losing their shirt like they did with TR,so they chose to wait and see what the public would accept for the bare bones game.I believe they could easily pan off those xpacs as a new game,after all it would just be new maps,maybe a new race to up the total to an amazing 3 lol.You have to also notice they released it in Asia first,witch again confirms they were afraid of this market,and wanted to make sure the game was being released acceptable,also confirmed by their 1.05 update.

So IMO NC basically has little confidence in their own product.Also you can take this to the bank,i will NEVER play a game ,because someone tells me the customization is great ,i want a "GAME" not a makeover kit.I will also NEVER play a game with 2 races,i mean there is a post right now in the forums complaining about Alganon i think it was.They complained it only had 4 races,well that is double what Aion has lol.I played FFXI and it had 6 race,and that i considered to be the minimum i would accept.

Me and you may not see eye to eye on things here or there, but i fully agree with the "bare bone" syndrome coming from developers lately....

Its all nice looking paint over a hollow shell.... you see something that "looks" awesome but when you finally dig in, pay money, and do the same quest type over and over you see how empty it really is.

And dont get me started on the limited flying vs whats touted on the box.

Originally posted by FreddyDingo 

It's my personal belief that NC Soft could quite possibly be secretly be funding these gold farmers, but thats just my crazy consperiecy (i cant spell, no need to remind me) side.

That's ok. Your not the only one thinking they are profiting off the gold farmers. Mostly due to the fact that i have had farmers on my ignore list for 2 weeks, took them off, just to have them spamming to me again.

But whats more interesting is the fact that some people used the remainder of their 30 day freebie (aka they canceled) just to bot and see if they got banned even after asking people to report them while using it. Can you guess the outcome of that? Yeah.. not banned.

Let me see if i can find that link again...

Originally posted by ArcheusCross

Originally posted by FreddyDingo 

It's my personal belief that NC Soft could quite possibly be secretly be funding these gold farmers, but thats just my crazy consperiecy (i cant spell, no need to remind me) side.

 

That's ok. Your not the only one thinking they are profiting off the gold farmers. Mostly due to the fact that i have had farmers on my ignore list for 2 weeks, took them off, just to have them spamming to me again.

But whats more interesting is the fact that some people used the remainder of their 30 day freebie (aka they canceled) just to bot and see if they got banned even after asking people to report them while using it. Can you guess the outcome of that? Yeah.. not banned.

Let me see if i can find that link again...

 It DOES sound crazy, but in this economy, would you be surprised? Ever watch "The Shield"? Instead of trying to get rid off all th drug dealers, Vic made deals (and money from) a few who would play by his rules. Made the streets safer (in this case fewer account hacks) and got him some extra dough.

WoW....32 pages of BS LOL

Not sure what you all are talkin about but I'm lovin Aion!! A shame others gave up because its the best pvp I've experienced since DAoC. :-)

Originally posted by AlexTheTall

Dah, NCsoft worked out the problem...

 

Yes the servers have lost people and? The abyss is still full and where ever I go there's people. I have no problems finding a party. In fact, I am happy that some people are gone... Way easier to gather aether and to have fun!

Yup! Most the folks leaving are the ones that play way to much anyway...Aions better off without em :-)

Server Population - Recommended? Lol hiding your low population much.

 This is how all big budget new MMOs are. I think the only MMO to GAIN subs after launch recently has been Darkfall and Eve. Maybe LotRO.

Originally posted by teco221

I am not surprised to see most of people leave the game.  Because it's way too hard for average players i.e. from WoW or Warhammer.   Those players pretty much can't stand any form of grinding either questing or grinding on the same mobs.  Most of them can't find quests (too many of them in the guild and they are from WOW...just keep whining "Where can i find quests?"  After I explain to them, they relized that  they didn't even bother to just walk down the path just a little bit further or just follow the main quest line to next town.

 

And some from Warhammer players left very soon, because they couldn't PvP to level up and they couldn't take the death penalty.  They feel that they die too fast and they can't be lvl 50 in 3 days.

 

So, yeah this is going to happen sooner or later.

 

 

Spot on...

You'll find any manner of lame and nonsensical excuses/reasons why these sorts of players quit.  Ultimately it comes down to the fact that they have no ability or interest in the massively of mmorpg, few social skills and no interest in devloping their character and a community.  They want the easy life and everything now centered around them.

2 gamesat least now in mmogs for me ...the level up and the end game. Most players want end game (or accept that is how it is) and get their heads down to level up fairly quickly.  Then they look around to see whos left becasue sure as hell a large % of blabbermouths wont be there with them,becasue  they gave up and we ofc just all talk.

With the volume of quitters in any mmorpg thesedays, players just dont invest in relationships with players that will probably be gone ina few days or weeks,and who can blame them.

Ill take someone quitting a mmog at endgame or if the game is genuinely broken before hand (AOC) but thats not Aion and it wasnt Warhammer either.

The mmorpg genre isnt for everyone and increasingly youll find those people here on mmorpg.com whining when really they just shouldnt bother with mmos and should find themselves another type of game to play.    You ofc get the distinct feeling a lot are kids with no $$$ to pay subs/box price for more than one game.

You cant help feeling they just jumped into mmorpgs becasue so many other people did and they felt left out,  becasue quite frankly they talk so much rubbish it belies any in depth knowledge of the genre or appreciation of their own psychology.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by tryklon

 What I find curious is that some ppl actually believe what the OP said is true, lol

 

He exagerated in the 50% part. But the situation of the servers never lie.

As 60% of the people were logging on concurrenly in the first week (NCsoft source) you had queus with a server based capacity of around 180K players (12/12 * 7 K players).

The present day capacity is 14/18 * 7K players, so that means they can handle around 250K players concurrently at max load...

The sad problem is the oversampled rate of Aion Xfire players (300K sub based EVE is played 4 times less than Aion), so there is an oversampling of around 5K Aion FXire players out of the 11K present.

The game came now under 10K coming from 12K at the first full weekend ... (substracting the 5K fixed oversampling) that would mean a loss of 2 K Xfire players on 7 K real samples.

That would mean the usual 30% drop off just before the end of the free period.

30% is the usual drop in the first free month. So nothing unusual either.

The next big drop will come around the 3/4 months mark, usual ending at around 30% retention rate.

If the game has serious problems around that point it falls to War/Aoc pops (meaning around 10% of the initial burst).

It's all math really.

 

Still trolling AION eh Zorndorf . He very quick to accuse somene of being a troll if they say anything negative about his beloved Warcraft . I would nt believe his statistics because this is a guy that argued that the average age of a wow player is 30 .

XFire figures are well known not to be accurate . Its mostly younger players that use it so games that have a younger population tend to seam more successful . I played WoW for nearly 4 years on and off and i never knew of one person that used Xfire .maybe thats because i sticked to 18+ guilds or maybe because i played in europe and its something thats more popular in North America .

I dont know how may people play AION untill Ncsoft publish figures like he does nt know how many people play Warcraft still because Blizzard havnt published subscription numbers in over a year .

I would nt be supprised if AION has lost quite a few subs after the initial month  because in Europe at least the ques were prohibative to people playing it and i know a lot of people that gave up because of them .

I dont think NCSOFT handled the release very well and they were certainly not quick enough to act . Blizzard did do the right thing on the release of WoW by players in offering them extra free time and ended up with a lot of goodwill because of it .

The issues of botting etc can be resolved but 18 hour ques in the first month of release is unacceptable when people have invested money in buying the game . People end up feeling ripped off .

Personally i think Aion has a lot of potential and i dont expect any mmo to have a smooth release .Its not worth my while subscribing to it again untill after christmas because i m away from home a lot between now and then . I will return early in the new year though and hopefully some of the issues dogging it at present will be sorted out .

Friends of mine that are still playing are having a lot of fun and say the servers are all still full . but again thats in Europe and maybe we prefer a different type of game to the North American crowd .

If we dont hear anything from Ncsoft i ll assume the numbers are bad though just as i assume WoW subs have gone down this year because Blizzard have remained silent about them .

I  find it funny that people in gamer forums spout 'facts' about the success or failure of any MMO's, considering they're not privy to the actual numbers (i.e. active subs, total number of boxes sold, total number of players that have quit the games, etc.). If you think game publishers are going to fully disclose all data concerning money flow you're sadly delusional.

Oh, and guys: MMO's succeed or fail not because people with opinions spout them, but because people either play them or they don't. The money's there or it's not. They ARE running businesses, you know.

So putting the 'This game is going down because blah blah blah...mark my words' means squat. You're so good at predicting things, go buy a lottery ticket and tell me how that turns out, mkay?

Meanwhile, Aion's still out there and people are still playing the game - some even enjoying it, regardless of the forum spam. And for those morons that have never played the game but still get off on claiming it's demise at this juncture, nice try. Fail, but nice try. For those of you who HAVE  tried it and can't stand it or it's simply not your game, fair enough.

Originally posted by SignusM

 This is how all big budget new MMOs are. I think the only MMO to GAIN subs after launch recently has been Darkfall and Eve. Maybe LotRO.

LOL even if that was true Signus an increase on DFO population means Nothing in the grand scheme of the MMOs, putting it on the same sentence as EVE and LoTRO is just taking the piss, you go from a game that has less than 10k active subs to games that have 200k+, its not even in the same league.

christ would someone please make a game with more than just 2 sides? DAoC had it right, it wasnt about us vs. them it was 3vs3. if 1 side is overpopulated then the other 2 can gang up on them. and even if u were on the underpopulated side u could watch from the side and clear up the few survivors after a big fight. a 2 side goodvsevil system just leaves it open for people to cry foul cause theres more of them than us.

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by Darkholme

I almost wish I hadn't uninstalled the game just so I could check in and see what the server list looks like at prime time. Which IMO prime time for NA servers in general is between 7:00pm EST and 3:00am EST. Probably splitting the difference would be a good measure of the games health, so around 11:00pm EST.

Yeah I am sure that there are a ton of people who will still play Aion. However the vast majority of MMOG players are getting the feelings of dejavu by now with Aion because it really is just the same old shtick with a slightly different skin. Just like every other game, the honeymoon period is coming to a close and the hype and newness is wearing off and people are looking forward to the next big thing...

 

You know what is more sad and very Ironic?

That Tabula Rasa was actually a much better game. If NCSoft just had given it a chance and actually tried to fix it.

The whole combat system of Tabula Rasa was 100 times more fluid and smooth as hell. And TAB targeting actually worked.

The mob AI in Tabula Rasa was also 100 times better. The Alien drop ships dropping off patrols and such. Best thing I've ever seen in an MMO to date.

They just had to fix the skill trees and add more content. That's all.

I think they missed an opportunity when they closed it down instead of doing f2p w m/t.  DDO is opening up a new server in a couple days and seems to be going strong.

Originally posted by Thunderballs

Originally posted by teco221

I am not surprised to see most of people leave the game.  Because it's way too hard for average players i.e. from WoW or Warhammer.   Those players pretty much can't stand any form of grinding either questing or grinding on the same mobs.  Most of them can't find quests (too many of them in the guild and they are from WOW...just keep whining "Where can i find quests?"  After I explain to them, they relized that  they didn't even bother to just walk down the path just a little bit further or just follow the main quest line to next town.

 

And some from Warhammer players left very soon, because they couldn't PvP to level up and they couldn't take the death penalty.  They feel that they die too fast and they can't be lvl 50 in 3 days.

 

So, yeah this is going to happen sooner or later.

 

 

Spot on...

You'll find any manner of lame and nonsensical excuses/reasons why these sorts of players quit.  Ultimately it comes down to the fact that they have no ability or interest in the massively of mmorpg, few social skills and no interest in devloping their character and a community.  They want the easy life and everything now centered around them.

2 gamesat least now in mmogs for me ...the level up and the end game. Most players want end game (or accept that is how it is) and get their heads down to level up fairly quickly.  Then they look around to see whos left becasue sure as hell a large % of blabbermouths wont be there with them,becasue  they gave up and we ofc just all talk.

With the volume of quitters in any mmorpg thesedays, players just dont invest in relationships with players that will probably be gone ina few days or weeks,and who can blame them.

 

Ill take someone quitting a mmog at endgame or if the game is genuinely broken before hand (AOC) but thats not Aion and it wasnt Warhammer either.

The mmorpg genre isnt for everyone and increasingly youll find those people here on mmorpg.com whining when really they just shouldnt bother with mmos and should find themselves another type of game to play.    You ofc get the distinct feeling a lot are kids with no $$$ to pay subs/box price for more than one game.

You cant help feeling they just jumped into mmorpgs becasue so many other people did and they felt left out,  becasue quite frankly they talk so much rubbish it belies any in depth knowledge of the genre or appreciation of their own psychology.

 

 

 

 

Oh please.  To suggest that the only people that dont like Aion are those that want everything handed to them is idiotic.  And its sad that you think Aion is massive or even a true mmorpg for that matter.  I get all the WoW hate and what not, but this has nothing to do with WoW persay, its the latest generation of mmorpg players.  Sure, WoW kind of fostered the antisocial kiddies, but the kiddies exist with or without WoW.  And really, WAR players couldnt handle the dealth loss and not reaching max level in a few days?  I would be interested in seeing how the top poster here came up with this informed information.  People are entitled to defend the game they love, but making things up to show that you and your game are superior is laughable.  If you love Aion, play the game and be happy.  If it is so good it surely doesnt need anyone on a message board to defend it.