This is the first time ever for me that I've seen this happen. An open beta that is not open. I've played tons of mmo's before, from lineage, swg, WoW, EQ2, Daoc, to CoH/CoV, to the recent Fallen Earth and Champions Online Beta.

Either way I'm - like many others - very very curious about Aion. Given that I had no chance to ever try and grab a closed beta key in the past due to me having been on a long travel, my only hope of seeing if this game is worth my money and time is if I can get a view for myself in the open beta. But with what I'm reading so far, it doesn't look too good. Fileplanet is giving out keys for subscribers only.

Doesn't NCSoft realize that most mmo players want to see if the game is to their liking before they buy it? Not just that, I also want to see if my PC can run it well at med settings. I'm at a loss as to what to do.

they did that for CO too, don't worry, fileplanet only gives the keys to subscribers first, then they open it to everyone. it kind of sucks, and i was choked when they did it for CO, as i only got a few days in the open beta for that

It's unfortunate that Aion and NCSoft have allied with Fileplanet.  Fileplanet always pulls this BS: if we host it, only our subscribers will be allowed to download it.  I don't know why companies agree with that.. has been going on on and off since I played the closed and open beta for Saga of Ryzom, and that was long ago.

I had hoped that it would be an open open beta for the game's sake.  I hope that there ends up being another way to get into the open beta, you shouldn't need to be invited to something that's open.

If you want a free ride just wait for the trail. I know $5 is alot for people these days especially with the current economy.

Originally posted by Perfection66

If you want a free ride just wait for the trail. I know $5 is alot for people these days especially with the current economy.

 

The trial will be over a year away! No one is going to wait that long if they just want to know if their pc can run it/ if they like the game. And from NCsoft's point of view, that's very bad business because they've just lost a potential customer for a year! Thats like £120 they're losing (for every player who waits).<-- IMO they are actually losing money by not making it an OPEN beta.

My guess is now that it will start out being an 'open' beta to test patch 1.5 IE Gold Master Release Version and make sure that it is stable, then once it is it will be a full open beta.

I think they want to make sure it runs with lots of people before it takes -everyone-.  From what the guy who spoke about CO said, Fileplanet will make it open open near the end of the open beta.

Originally posted by dubledub

Originally posted by Perfection66

If you want a free ride just wait for the trail. I know $5 is alot for people these days especially with the current economy.

 

 

The trial will be over a year away! No one is going to wait that long if they just want to know if their pc can run it/ if they like the game. And from NCsoft's point of view, that's very bad business because they've just lost a potential customer for a year! Thats like £120 they're losing (for every player who waits).<-- IMO they are actually losing money by not making it an OPEN beta.

 

There's not enough servers to support a full OPEN beta, please be realistic. If they let everyone in there it will lag players due to over population.

Hey dunno if this helps out or not but the aion website has it's torrent up. 

http://na.aiononline.com/en/news/open-beta-client-now-available-for-download.html

just click on full open beta client and you can grab it right from them.

Originally posted by XxSyCxX

Hey dunno if this helps out or not but the aion website has it's torrent up. 

 

http://na.aiononline.com/en/news/open-beta-client-now-available-for-download.html

 

 

just click on full open beta client and you can grab it right from them.

I know you had a good intent, but please read the post. My problem is surely not getting the client. In fact, I just installed Aion and had no problems so far. It's about the beta key.

Well if you're sure that beta keys will be given out to non-subscribers as well, that'd be great. I don't think I need more than 1 or 2 days to decide if I want to play Aion. I just HATE buying mmo's that I never had the chance to even test for a mere day.

Pre order it on play.com (This site doesn't take money from you when you pre order) then when you get the key cancel it if you can't afford it or don't want to play it.

Originally posted by Perfection66

Originally posted by dubledub

Originally posted by Perfection66

If you want a free ride just wait for the trail. I know $5 is alot for people these days especially with the current economy.

 

 

The trial will be over a year away! No one is going to wait that long if they just want to know if their pc can run it/ if they like the game. And from NCsoft's point of view, that's very bad business because they've just lost a potential customer for a year! Thats like £120 they're losing (for every player who waits).<-- IMO they are actually losing money by not making it an OPEN beta.

 

 

There's not enough servers to support a full OPEN beta, please be realistic. If they let everyone in there it will lag players due to over population.

That is the most pathetic reason i have ever heard of. You know what an open beta is good for? a STRESS test.. How do they do this? but letting people in the game!

I dont know of any mmos, where the beta has been larger(read: more people) than the release. If the servers cant handle an open beta, then how do you expect them to be able to handle the full release? they wont be able too.

FYI, fileplanet are out of keys.

Originally posted by Rylon

Doesn't NCSoft realize that most mmo players want to see if the game is to their liking before they buy it? Not just that, I also want to see if my PC can run it well at med settings. I'm at a loss as to what to do.

 There has been a ton of information released about the game over just the past six or so months - previews, reviews, videos, articles, walkthroughs, multiple beta entries (I know you said you were traveling), preorder entry, and now this FilePlanet thing. Unless your real issue is that you feel you will be at some disadvantage if you aren't in at release, then the solution is to just wait for a trial.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Rylon

Doesn't NCSoft realize that most mmo players want to see if the game is to their liking before they buy it? Not just that, I also want to see if my PC can run it well at med settings. I'm at a loss as to what to do.

 There has been a ton of information released about the game over just the past six or so months - previews, reviews, videos, articles, walkthroughs, multiple beta entries (I know you said you were traveling), preorder entry, and now this FilePlanet thing. Unless your real issue is that you feel you will be at some disadvantage if you aren't in at release, then the solution is to just wait for a trial.

 

Why would I wait half a year or more for a trial?

By then most people will be playing other games. Honestly, it's just bad from a marketing point of view. Don't call it open if it's not, simple as that.

Edit: If you're an avid gamer like many others, you'd know that reviews,articles,etc. are all nothing compared to hand-on experience.  Reading articles, watching videos and all I had the feeling that Champions Online is good as well. Turns out I didn't enjoy it as much.

To the guy 2 posts above: Out of keys for subscribers? Did you try to get one just now?

I find it interesting that people actually whine about these thing's.

When all they want to do is get a free trial of the game and not contribute anything towards the word "BETA"

Yes its rubbish that since AOC companies have in essence been charging for open beta but TBH before that open beta had become nothing more than a free preview for people rather than as they used to be a couple of day test of login and server tech.

Why shouldnt companies make a little bit of cash from a pre release product.

Ask yourself this do you want to pay a few dollars for a fileplanet sub or 60 dollars for a game you may not like.

Other users have mentioned fileplanet do open the keys up to non sub's which is correct and I guess that the majority who have held a genuine interest in Aion have already had a key from a promo or pre-order so you will most likely manage to get one but is it worth that risk over forking out a few dollars for a guaranteed one.

Originally posted by Rylon

This is the first time ever for me that I've seen this happen. An open beta that is not open. I've played tons of mmo's before, from lineage, swg, WoW, EQ2, Daoc, to CoH/CoV, to the recent Fallen Earth and Champions Online Beta.

Actually quite a few games do their Open Beta this way.  SWG, WoW, EQ2, WAR, Fallen Earth, and Champions Online all required a key to participate in their open beta period.  Obviously NCSoft went through Fileplanet because they thought it was a good distribution platform for them.  No game is ever truly 100% open.  Just some games are more popular then others and need to limit their keys to avoid the same thing that happened to WAR in their OB.

Either way I'm - like many others - very very curious about Aion. Given that I had no chance to ever try and grab a closed beta key in the past due to me having been on a long travel, my only hope of seeing if this game is worth my money and time is if I can get a view for myself in the open beta. But with what I'm reading so far, it doesn't look too good. Fileplanet is giving out keys for subscribers only.

Doesn't NCSoft realize that most mmo players want to see if the game is to their liking before they buy it? Not just that, I also want to see if my PC can run it well at med settings. I'm at a loss as to what to do.

I believe NCSoft fully realizes this and is doing their open beta period the way they think will benefit the game the most.

Try to think of it from NCSoft's perspective for a minute.

They know approximately how many pre-orders have been sold and how  many open beta keys have been handed out.  So they have a rough estimation of how many players could be logging in during the open beta phase.  It's obviously enough for them to do any last minute testing that they think they need to do before the game's released or they would release more keys.

I also think they know that gamers are fickle and if they held a truly open beta then they would have no control over how many people were logging in.  The servers could be overwhelmed and then for every 1 person that decides to buy Aion, 20 more will decide they don't want to because of "all the lag".

Bottom line is there have been plenty of opportunities to get a beta key over the last several months.  I know you said you were traveling and didn't have a chance to get a key.  But is that really something to complain about?  There was opportunity, you just weren't around.

Anyway.  If you REALLY want to play in the open beta just go pre-order the game if you can find it.  You can always get the money back for the pre-order if you decide you don't want it.  It costs you nothing but your time.

Other than that, you'll just have to wait for a trial.  Sorry.

Originally posted by thamighty213
...

Why shouldnt companies make a little bit of cash from a pre release product.

 ...

I doubt this is the case. It's more likely a cost control over the amount servers needed for:

• open beta
• launch period
• normalised subscription period

The true subscriptions come out of the normal subscription periods, when the honeymoon period is over and those that like the game decided to stick with it.

During launch period the company needs the extra servers to house everybody. They know they won't be able to retain all the people that participate in the launch, but they are paying customers at that point in time, so server access is mandatory.

Open beta is just a promo tool nowadays. There are even more people interested in checking the game than the people who decided to pay the boxed version and participate in the launch. How many more servers though is a company willing to pay, above what's needed for launch, when they know that the servers used at launch are too many already?

Originally posted by thamighty213

I find it interesting that people actually whine about these thing's.

 

When all they want to do is get a free trial of the game and not contribute anything towards the word "BETA"

 

Yes its rubbish that since AOC companies have in essence been charging for open beta but TBH before that open beta had become nothing more than a free preview for people rather than as they used to be a couple of day test of login and server tech.

 

Why shouldnt companies make a little bit of cash from a pre release product.

 

Ask yourself this do you want to pay a few dollars for a fileplanet sub or 60 dollars for a game you may not like.

 

Other users have mentioned fileplanet do open the keys up to non sub's which is correct and I guess that the majority who have held a genuine interest in Aion have already had a key from a promo or pre-order so you will most likely manage to get one but is it worth that risk over forking out a few dollars for a guaranteed one.

I'm sorry, but your post is terrible.

OBVIOUSLY we want a free trial, we want at least a chance to see if this game is worth our time. This is how it's always been with mmorpgs. Reviews and articles often don't do them justice, and there could still be loads of things that you don't like about it. In the end, if the company is proud of their product, they'd increase sales by quite a lot if they had given everyone a chance to take a peak.

And you obviously don't know what open betas are for. Very rarely are they used to fix many bugs, in an open beta it's mainly about stress testing... for which (check it out, here it comes) you need MANY players. You want to have as many as you can to see what you can handle, so that in the break between the end of the open beta and the launch, you may adjust server hardware if needed.

You can always go get the Chinese client, and play there, there's some lag of course, but it's still the same game, and released there already.

Originally posted by Rylon

Why would I wait half a year or more for a trial?

By then most people will be playing other games.

If you feel that the game will be dead in six months, then I don't get why it bothers you so much that you can't play it unless your issue is that you want to play it NOW because you feel everyone else except you has.

Gamers are much smarter than the days when nothing existed.

We have had every Dev Trick  in the book thrown at us. If a company is dumb enough to charge for a Beta-Beta than they deserve the customer-base they get.

I can pay $50.00 a month for a sub, so don't go there... No game is worth that kind of pressure.

It's just another blanket of wool that only depicts that the company doesn't have enough faith in their own product. There are too many other ways to make a dollar before release. Perhaps they will lift this sad attempt to build revenue... maybe they will read enough gamer concerns and re-think thier strategy for income. Afterall, who knows what the next ten year MMO will be?!? Why ruin your chance before you even launch...

If nothing else, just launch a Beta like the past 25 MMOs have done. *Ka-ching*