Oh yeah this game has lots of potential.

I will be, I will probably buy a 3-6 month bundle as well.

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

Yup, I have no plans on leaving.

This has "SPIN" all over it.

Lets see if they do this poll 6 to 9 months from now.

There is no mention of the thousands that don't care enough to fill out the poll.

The big thing to me isn't really the queue times (I usually play during morning and early afternoon, so thats not much of a problem for me). The big deal to me is all of the gold spammers. I don't hate the gold selling industry immensely or anything, but I literally cant talk in general chat or the find group chat because of how many gold spammers there are! They are litterally flicking by so fast I can't even read them unless I scroll up! It's crazy. It seems with things that blatant, a GM could just sit on a server and start banning all the accounts that are OBVIOUSLY infringing the EULA. Maybe its just me, I dont know. I'm having a great time and loving the game, but I can't communicate with the community on my server (Lumiel).

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

^ also a very good point!

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

 

^ also a very good point!

Actually it depends on their sampling methods. Often political polls that only sample a few thousands can be accurate (up to a few percentage points) in predicting election results where millions (or more) vote are cast.

Statistics is a wonderful thing if you know how to do it correctly.

Originally posted by vladakov

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

This right here.
 

Everyone is on the "honeymoon" phase at the moment. I would like to see how this poll sums up in three months.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

 

^ also a very good point!

 

Actually it depends on their sampling methods. Often political polls that only sample a few thousands can be accurate (up to a few percentage points) in predicting election results where millions (or more) vote are cast.

Statistics is a wonderful thing if you know how to do it correctly.

The problem with this particular research is the way it was conducted. It would be like asking from people who have just bought a candy bar A, out of all of the candy bars, which candy bar they do prefer the most. If someone logs in to aionsource.com she is likely interested from the game the site is devoted, which, in all likelihood, gives a bit different result than you would get from choosing a random sample of thousand players. This is what a statistically well made poll would require and it is the way in which they do perform those political polls. As it stands now, it says that people who are interested enough from the game to log into an out-of-game information and discussion site are happy with the game. I do think that mmorpg.com would do itself a favour to use some thought as of what it does publish. Or, at the very least they should bother to properly analyse what the result actually does mean.

Addendum: This is in no fashion ment to say that the game would per se be a bad one or that it wouldn't be entitled to have a high retention rate, just that this study does not show that albeit it tries to imply that.

Compelling findings, but Aionsource is not a representative sample.  Clearly the people who read aionsource and take the time to answer the poll are more interested in the game than the average player.  

I voted 'no,' the game stopped being fun at level 15...and didn't look like it was going to change

Such polls arent very accurate as simple players just play games without logging to forums, so do only fans and addicted, satisfied players who like to talk about game ( at least I see it this way).

Poll I would trust would be made ingame. Still numbers would be terrible for company so we wont see such things.

This is way too early to scream Victory or Fail for this game, especially from a forum poll

Originally posted by vladakov

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

I stopped going to AionSouce a while ago, right around the time I canceled my account. How right you are.

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

 

^ also a very good point!

It is a much larger percentage of the population than is polled for most other purposes.

Say, TV ratings or political climate.

Originally posted by ElendilasX

Such polls arent very accurate as simple players just play games without logging to forums, so do only fans and addicted, satisfied players who like to talk about game ( at least I see it this way).

Poll I would trust would be made ingame. Still numbers would be terrible for company so we wont see such things.

Odd

Most of the people I see on any given forum (especially this one) are people with axes to grind.

People don't usually go to the forums because they are happy, they go to the forums to complain.

Originally posted by Nightbringe1

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

 

^ also a very good point!

 

It is a much larger percentage of the population than is polled for most other purposes.

Say, TV ratings or political climate.

Tv ratings and political statistics are always, i can ensure you, always with more then 1000 votes, its an MMO, massively multiplayer, 1000 people are not realistic. if there are political/tv statistics with with only 1000 opinions, then its a bad rating in my opinion. but its also the folks who check out aionsource, why would people who disliked the game go to aionsource site?

The wife and I are both very pleasantly surprised by how good this game is, and will be hanging around past month 1.

"A poll conducted at AionSource...."

LMAO.

Yeah, that's valid and objective.  *sigh*  Where did the integrity in journalism go?

Nothing against the site, but people who sit on forums like us, tend to play MMOs and not just bail so quick.

A 1000 person poll on a site FOR Aion doesn't really do much.

Originally posted by MikeB

A poll conducted at AionSource has received over 1,000 votes and reveals some pretty telling statistics about how the population is feeling about Aion as the game nears its third week mark. The poll asks players if they will be renewing their subscriptions after the first free month, and as of this writing roughly 59% of North American players who answered the poll said yes, while only 9% say they will cancel.

The poll results can be viewed here.

So, how are you feeling about Aion at this point? Have you decided whether or not you will be renewing your subscription after your free month is up?  I'm also trying something new, and have added our own poll to the comments section of this story. So vote and let us know your thoughts!

Instead of a stupid poll maybe you should ask for sub #s at the end of month for the first 6 months.  

Maybe a new title would be better " propaganda manager ".

Originally posted by remyburke

The wife and I are both very pleasantly surprised by how good this game is, and will be hanging around past month 1.

REMY!!!

You got married!?!?

Originally posted by vladakov

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

   Exactly I never went to that site to begin with and alot of ppl will be same way I cancelled mine other day after I found out that the cash grabbin chimps at ncsoft didnt feel the need to comp ppl any time for the queue/gold spam mess.

The mmo genre is desperate for some good news right now. People will do and say anything to make people think things are just great when they really aren't. Not so long ago we had a post from the WoW forums stating that Blizzard recovered  all of the active Chinese accounts when they reopened in China after the server shutdown. The fact of the matter is that Blizzard has yet to release any statements whatsoever on that matter. Its desperations time, so be prepared for the hype that really doesn't exist.

 What a stupid topic and poll!

You are taking a poll from what is basically a biased forum and putting a good spin on it,

Aion source is a good forum but it is a forum that has supported Aion for years,now you may say a good percentage are staying with the game but I would be more alarmed at the amount that are quitting or giving it to the end of the month,I for 1 have been a member there for a long time and will not be subscribing to the game,maybe if you looked at the site and the mood of people that have followed the game there for quite sometime and not just some random poll that most member's will just over look as there seem's to be a poll on that site every 20 mins I could give you some credit,though you seem to have have just grabbed this poll and made a topic on this site through it...don't go over working yourself.

This poll is a non starter..and I have no idea why it has been carried over to this forum.

Even if you had concrete usage data from the servers themselves it's way too early to be talking about significant retention. Hell, I'd guess that around 80% of MMO gamers I know would stick around for the initial free month so they didn't feel like they wasted their cash buying the thing.

The option I need is...

"I won't know for sure until the time comes".

I'm just kinda bored with the same gameplay over and over.  Its not that Aion is bad (its good in many ways).  I just want a game that isn't the same exact core mechanic (aka skill progression.. like a new version of UO).

So I"m leaning towards not staying.. but there isn't much else to do atm either.

Ofc the polls results are skewed and dont reflect the real situation. Still, the poll is useful, at the very least it reveals the mood amongst Aionsource users... This is a poll about retention after all, not intent to purchase. And very few people amongst forum users will leave a game without trying to make their opinions known, weve all seen players ragequit to later spend a couple of weeks trolling a games forums. There are people that will even "quit" multiple times through alts.

I congratulate the Aion comunity, hope to join you soon guys.

 I plan on staying until they make drastic changes like nerfing my class lol -.-

So let me get this straight.

A website devoted to a game, where people who like the game so much that the read the website while at work answer a poll and 60% retention is considered useful information?

Try doing this poll: Ask 200 african american teenaged girls  if they're going to buy the next Kanye West album.  You'l probably get a 95% "Yes".  Therefore the album will sell 4 billion copies.

Classic case of sampling error here.  The number is actually quite low.  Go over to a WoW fansite and see how many people who post there intend to keep their accounts next month.

Originally posted by Antarious

The option I need is...

 

"I won't know for sure until the time comes".

 

I'm just kinda bored with the same gameplay over and over.  Its not that Aion is bad (its good in many ways).  I just want a game that isn't the same exact core mechanic (aka skill progression.. like a new version of UO).

 

So I"m leaning towards not staying.. but there isn't much else to do atm either.

I was in the same boat,although since I could not login to Aion or maybe at time's and no will to try,I started to play Fallen Earth,I must it admit this game is not for everyone(you really need to like this sort of game)*note I did not say sandbox but it is damn near it*

I am now having a great time,so I guess every cloud "COULD" have a silver lining.

 Bullshit piece of news to be honest. 

How does a poll on a fan site get on the front page, When in the EU we still have 3 hour + queue time's no customer support, No ingame gm's , No forum gm's, No responce from anyone since launch about the queue's on the eu forums. Nothing And people being billed on there free day's. No word of compensation for this crappy server management .

And mmorpg.com put's a poll of a fan site on the front page GG. 

Probably not the best place to post an Aion poll, consider 3/4 or even more people on this forum hate any MMORPG that has released recently.

 I have a better question for the OP,

Where was the type of post for Warhammer,AoC,Vanguard...etc etc?

All these game's had polls running on there forum's and for the most part they were no different from this,they had there player's that wanted to stick by there game.

So I ask,why Aion? 

I have been a member of a lot of mmo forums and Aion has to be 1 of the worst for poll's and like I said I would not be surprised if most member's seen the "poll" part and just moved on.

Too much bandwidth I guess.

Really? MMORPG.com is officially posting a poll from a biased fansite with a disproportionately small response compared to the number of players and touting it as evidence for a high retention rate?

Now I've seen everything. What's next xfire stat posts from Jon as proof and evidence of a games success or failure?

I have seen threads recently on whether mmorpg.com has ruined mmos.....I felt the site was fine, but the amateur and immature forums is what's bad. For some reason, they've decided to start supporting the immature amateurs at the expense of what I used to believe was quality and in-depth articles and information.

This post is evidence for mmorpg shilling for companies rather than frankly discussing their games.

I hope this is an anomoly.

 I wouldn't be considering these statistics...

Only hardcore fans are actually going to an unofficial site to chat about the game, of course they aren't cancelling.

Also, why would a person that has cancelled or plans on cancelling be on an Aion fansite... 

Statistics = not even close.

Originally posted by Zorgo

Really? MMORPG.com is officially posting a poll from a biased fansite with a disproportionately small response compared to the number of players and touting it as evidence for a high retention rate?

Now I've seen everything. What's next xfire stat posts from Jon as proof and evidence of a games success or failure?

I have seen threads recently on whether mmorpg.com has ruined mmos.....I felt the site was fine, but the amateur and immature forums is what's bad. For some reason, they've decided to start supporting the immature amateurs at the expense of what I used to believe was quality and in-depth articles and information.

This post is evidence for mmorpg shilling for companies rather than frankly discussing their games.

I hope this is an anomoly.

Seems to me they were posting on something they said  "hmmm..." to and wondered what we all thought. Not that they were saying the poll was factual or definitive.

It goes beyond the 60 percent we see here .  A lot of people i know are waiting for the new servers to come online before they return ( due the ques ) . I think it ll be january before we know the true state of the game . Gut instinct tells me it ll be pretty good and may even rival Warcraft in its opening months (in terms of subs in the west) .

Originally posted by googajoob7

It goes beyond the 60 percent we see here .  A lot of people i know are waiting for the new servers to come online before they return ( due the ques ) . I think it ll be january before we know the true state of the game . Gut instinct tells me it ll be pretty good and may even rival Warcraft in its opening months (in terms of subs in the west) .

Sorry I think different,they had a chance here but as they always stated they never cared about the northern.

There cash tell was always in the East,I loved the idea of this game and all the beta's and release,though with a few other problem's and then NCsoft's"we wont do anything about the queue's as people will leave" was enough for me.

Not really unexpected that this game could easily compete with the likes of World of Warcraft.  I mean honestly, great graphics, a great story line, intuitive game play(for the most part), and best of all, leveling doesn't get boring.  Also, there is the fact that you can customize your character to an extreme level, which is just icing on the cake.  If I did have a copy of the game(financial reasons prevented me from picking up my pre-order), I would certainly renew it month in and month out.  World of Warcraft is showing some potential, finally, with the new expansion coming out next year, assuming they don't screw things up again, but Aion is far superior from what I could tell in the beta testing.

Those who say Aion cannot compete with World of Warcraft should just check themselves into a psychiatric hospital.  They are just delusional WoW addicts who cannot read the numbers and understand that WoW opened up with similar numbers years ago.  Aion is here to stay folks.  NCSoft, I usually like, but on some games they get a bit restrictive when they create patches.  That happened some on City of Heroes, but the game itself remained overall a great game.

no i would'nt subscribe

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

Originally posted by gtwhalley

Originally posted by vladakov

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

 

I stopped going to AionSouce a while ago, right around the time I canceled my account. How right you are.

What I find funny is that I played and never even went to that site lol...and yes I canceled too...

 derailling gees ,he speak about retention rate 

RETENTION rate

Originally posted by Mannish

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

And from the rampant gold spamming that aint gonna happen... No MMO is willingly solve that problem. Cost them way too much in subs...

My 60 day game card will go into effect after the first free month. But I would continue subscription after the the first month so I voted yes.

Like a lot of people have said, the kind of people that respond to a poll like this are not a good sample of the overall community. So I'm a little bit skeptical. I think we just have to wait and see what they do about the Q's, Gold farmer spamming, Q's...and ...well the Q's, then in a couple of months we can really see how Aion has done. Hopefully not too many people abandon ship like it's the titanic.

the grind is x2 as bad if you group with someone, i HAVE to group with my wife...  2 level 22's killing level 28s w/ 20% rested xp bonus = 6.2k xp .... LOL sad when its 1.6 mil to get to next level

thats roughly like what 1k mobs w/ 20% rested (obviously doesn't last that long)

quests are lackign because we've done them at previous levels to not have to grind that much since quests open up before the actual quest level, so overall... close to canceling

ugghh I expected more from an MMO mod.

How about we wait a little bit before we start talking about retention rate? By little bit i mean atleast 2 months.

Since Launch NA to now queue times the NA queue times have dropped significantly.  They have addressed the Spammer issue and attacked it head on.  I am able to quest just about anywhere without having to camp a mob for very long, and if a crowd appears I just change channels and usually the crowd is gone.  I have found no broken quests, no broken skills, and I have lots of content ahead of me.  Aion had a lot of hype here4 on MMORPG.com and I think after these few weeks they are living up to it.  By Christmas most of us that started at launch will be in the 40s and in the Abyss.  We will be able to help the newbies that will arrive, and server queues will be a faint memory we joke about.

Originally posted by vladakov

 And also, people who already cancelled their account, why would they bother to be on the the aionsource site, they probably disliked the game, so why go to an aion website if you disliked the game anyway? i find this poll NON USEABLE

The poll was not about those who already cancelled, it was about current players in the game and what they are going to do.

Those who already dislike the game have indeed left, that's the way gamers go when they dislike a game, no use for a poll for that. Not sure what your point is?

Wait.

Just wait.

So a fan site ran this poll and showed a significant amount of people said they would keep subscribing and this is reported as a news item on mmorpg.com?

LAWL!  Seriously.  LAWL!

You want a valid poll? Do it on a neutral website. I stopped going to Aionsource when I cancelled my account (temporarily until they fix the 2h 1/2 queue every evening and in-game spamming from gold sellers).

Also, it's a bit too early to ask people if they are going to resub or not, knowing that every MMO has it's flaws upon release and needs some fine tuning. I'd say do a poll in 3 months time and on a neutral gaming website.

I am sure most of the votes about not renewing your subscription are from people that Are WoW members that are not even playing Aion. Really unfair poll considering being a member on this site you can vote without ever playing Aion.

People are still experiencing Queue times?  I haven't had a queue time for the past week...

Besides, it will be sorted out if people think intelligently.  Aren't they giving that free server switch?  If people are smart, and dislike queues, they could shift entire legions to a less populated server and solve the queues once and for all.

LOL 1000 peopel voted out of  a supposedly 500k+???? lol  and from this figure they got a high retention rate????

Hell warhammer used to have these types of pools all the time, and we all know how that turned out.   The most usless poll ever, its like the usless polls on this site.

 Yes, I will definitely continue to play =)

Real hit commes at end of second month. Let see them make the poll than

p.s - You need to wait 2 hours in queue to vote ;)

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Real hit commes at end of second month. Let see them make the poll than

WQho cares?  The firts pool was only 1000 peopel out of a supposedly 500K plus, so even if the 2nd poll showed less votes or more, is it of any significance when so low amout of peopel are voting?.  The pool is one of the most uleless polls ever devised.

I'm in wait-and-see mode at the moment.  I will likely renew for at least another month.  I have really enjoyed the game, even in beta, but there are several things that they will have to address if I'm to remain.  The queue is the least of them.  The primary issues I see are:

1. The capital cities have only one channel.  You are forced to go to the capitals to buy training materials and to craft, as there are no crafting tables outside of them.  They created channels elsewhere to help with performance, but with only one channel in the capitals, the result is that, at any given time, the capitals are so choked with players and player-stores that moving becomes a slideshow.  The game actually crashes to desktop every time I set foot in the crafting areas of either city.

2. The gold spammers are so prevalent that chat is unusable.  Every channel of chat is choked with them.  There is no in-game facility to report them, and appears to be no concern on the part of NCSoft that they be dealt with.

If NCSoft fails to address these issues, especially the first, I will cancel the subscription despite enjoying the game. 

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

The big thing to me isn't really the queue times (I usually play during morning and early afternoon, so thats not much of a problem for me). The big deal to me is all of the gold spammers. I don't hate the gold selling industry immensely or anything, but I literally cant talk in general chat or the find group chat because of how many gold spammers there are! They are litterally flicking by so fast I can't even read them unless I scroll up! It's crazy. It seems with things that blatant, a GM could just sit on a server and start banning all the accounts that are OBVIOUSLY infringing the EULA. Maybe its just me, I dont know. I'm having a great time and loving the game, but I can't communicate with the community on my server (Lumiel).

Right click their name - > block.

Let me get this straight...

A fan webiste of Aion holds out a poll in the first 10/15 days after launch ...

and they have ... 59% of the registred users to say "yes!".

Ok, I can understand that. 6 out of 10 wants more of the game after 10 days play on the fan website.

What I don't understand is ...what the title on mmorpg.com has to do with it "... significant retention rate...".

I am pretty sure Age of Conan and Warhammer fan sites had at least 6/10 registred users that were willing to play their game after 10 days too.

Is mmorpg.com that desperate of having - for once - a new mmorpg with a 60% retention rate?

I wouldn't bet on it guys. Wrong horse. The horse is crippled. More crippled when players will reach level cap even.

Hit level 30 and don't have strength to log on anymore, I'll head back to WAR and have fun.

I believe the difference is in the context of the people asked. The people asked are not the people who have quited the game, these are gone already and I doubt they would visit an Aion specific forum again. The poll is addressed towards those who still play the game and their intentions to whether keep on playing or not by the end of the box month.

In the above context, the sampling is not wrongly chosen, quite the contrary. The question revolved about retention rate of the players that were currently playing the game. It obviously did not include those who already left. Basically they asked the people who kept on playing the game and were reasonably interested enough to keep on visiting an Aion forum, whether they saw themselves still playing beyond the box month.

I will resub for a few more months for sure.

It is a nice fun game to play.

If only 60% of the raging fanboys are saying they're going to stay...that's not so great really. That means after month 1 there's going to be under 200k western subs. Guess we'll see.

Originally posted by Zarynterk

Originally posted by Mannish

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

 

And from the rampant gold spamming that aint gonna happen... No MMO is willingly solve that problem. Cost them way too much in subs...

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.

Originally posted by Xasapis

In the above context, the sampling is not wrongly chosen, quite the contrary. The question revolved about retention rate of the players that were currently playing the game. It obviously did not include those who already left. Basically they asked the people who kept on playing the game and were reasonably interested enough to keep on visiting an Aion forum, whether they saw themselves still playing beyond the box month.

I dare to disagree. The sample is corrupted because the poll is not done from a random sample of all those playing the game as this is the group on which the retention rate is calculated at. First, even on Aionsource forums there are people who haven't been subscribers of the game in the first place. Second, anyone who cares enough from a game to head to an unofficial gaming site is likely not your avarage gamer.

It is much like all those "sexiest woman in da wuurld" polls that to quite some surprise always find a Hollywood celeb as a winner. Did anyone bother to ask from 2.5 billion people living in India and China whom they considered to be the sexiest? Nope. And the reason is simple, the purpose of the poll was not actually to get quantitive data as of who might be the sexiest woman alive but moreso what the reader-base of said publication consider sexy. Analogically here, the purpose of the poll was not to monitor the overall retention rate of the entirity of the playerbase but to see what the people frequenting at Aionsource are about to do. For Aionsource's purpose the poll is representive, for Aion as a game in Occident, not so much.

I am pretty sure you can't place any valid claims on retention rates before the free 30 days is up. Seems kind of ridiculous to me.

3-4 months after release would be a good time to view retention.

Yea, like others have said I don't know how much validity you can put on a poll that's one a fansite specifically for that game.  Put a poll on WoW.com and ask how many are going to renew next month and i'm sure the numbers are going to go through the roof.  Doesn't mean WoW is not losing customers though.  Same thing here.  I have no doubt that a majority of those currently playing Aion enjoy it, but lets see what the numbers are 3 months from now.

The only ones that are going to play this game long term are those that want PvP all the time and don't get tired of fortress sieges.  This is one of those games where you play it for 2-3 months and have a great time but then burn out at the end. 

I agree to what you said. If somebody posted a poll here and an adequate amount of people voted on it, then the poll would be representative of the people who frequent this site. It would not be representative of the whole population, although it might indicate a trend.

Of course, as another poster mentioned, all these are speculation until the passing of time and the true retention is measured.

Of course I'll believe a poll by AionSource. It's like saying I'd believe a poll conducted by Fox News.

LOL the game just opened for heaven's sakes! 

No one has had the time to get into the meat of the game.  Give it time.  Once they find out it is another Wow in sheep's clothing with even less to do at endgame, the honeymoon will be over.

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

Why not? That's pretty much Darkfalls player base *grins*.

On a more serious note, I for one love the game. Played every closed beta even, a bit of the open beta, and since headstart.. but I can't help but ask.. is something missing from this game?

Either wya, theres nothing on the immediate horizon for me.. I guess i'll find out.

While the statistics behind such a poll might be suspect and it is more accurate to say that XX% of people that visit that website and saw the topic and bothered to respond to plan on renewing their subscription there is some slight clue in where the overall rentention rates might be going.

Considering that the people that visit these MMO sites have above average interest in these games if they were responding with a high negative rate this would be a serious concern for the game. If you can't retain the most interested you may also be struggling with the more casual player though you can't assume that with a lot of certainty.

If after 6 months Aion adds some more servers then that would be a good indication of a high retention rate and growth. I wouldn't execpt to see any sort of server consolidation for a much longer period of time and you would start to see posts regarding servers being empty a long time before that was to happen.

Based on the people that I play with and my Legion has almost 90 people in it the majority of them will be renewing.

Originally posted by xanphia

Of course I'll believe a poll by AionSource. It's like saying I'd believe a poll conducted by Fox News.

amazingly still better than any poll from the "official sites", spot any kind of dev/producer/etc in the European ones... and you know pigs will not only fly but shit doughnuts and cookies too

When polling the us presidential race, little over 500 people are required in order to accurately predict a winner.

That's not to say that this poll is statistically accurate, but dismissing it simply because there were "only" 1000 votes is a flawed conclusion.

This is a poll of fans, of people who are playing the game and interested enough to visit the site.

Why not just let them enjoy their game?  Just because you don't like it, why do you have to fight so hard to try and 'prove' that the game is a failure.

If this game is so bad, and you have a much better game to play, why aren't you playing it, instead of wasting your time whining and crying and trying to bring others down?

Add me to the list of not resubing cancled reason, not gonna pay to get ganked, can't get a group because of all the gold spaming, when seiging a fortress you get disconnected and ported into enemy camp. This was enough i voted with my wallet.

Jihad works both ways

I already bought a year. I sign on Siel around 7PM EST everyday and I have no queue.

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Zarynterk

Originally posted by Mannish

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

 

And from the rampant gold spamming that aint gonna happen... No MMO is willingly solve that problem. Cost them way too much in subs...

 

 

 

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.

 

Yeah believe that crap if you want to, Ill see ya in a years time when there are 100's of sites like there are now selling kinah lol...

Originally posted by Zarynterk

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Zarynterk

Originally posted by Mannish

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

 

And from the rampant gold spamming that aint gonna happen... No MMO is willingly solve that problem. Cost them way too much in subs...

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Yeah believe that crap if you want to, Ill see ya in a years time when there are 100's of sites like there are now selling kinah lol...

IGE is one of the big guns in that market ,zam.com send you to most of  ige linked site 

when i try to avoid ige basicly there are no gamer site left or very few 

this one is a neutral one i believe ,g4tv,mmosite  but theregetting rare ,since ige buy a lot of them for goldselling purpose

or ebay item sale 

the game has potential but i'll only be renewing if they fix the horrible spam issues, botting, etc. seems like they are working on it.

Originally posted by MNZeba

I already bought a year. I sign on Siel around 7PM EST everyday and I have no queue.

So once you get a character to max level what are you going to do?  They never bothered to put much of an end game into it?

Hope you like making multiple characters because that is about all you will be doing.

Originally posted by MikeB

A poll conducted at AionSource has received over 1,000 votes and reveals some pretty telling statistics about how the population is feeling about Aion as the game nears its third week mark. The poll asks players if they will be renewing their subscriptions after the first free month, and as of this writing roughly 59% of North American players who answered the poll said yes, while only 9% say they will cancel.

The poll results can be viewed here.

So, how are you feeling about Aion at this point? Have you decided whether or not you will be renewing your subscription after your free month is up?  I'm also trying something new, and have added our own poll to the comments section of this story. So vote and let us know your thoughts!

ok here are my 5 cents:

the poll on aionsource is close to meaningless because it is an aion related fansite. the participants in the poll have not been selected randomly amongst all aion players.

I won't be resubbing :)

Getting tired of the same competitive race towards the end-game that seems to have taken over every single platform these days... I play to relax, not to have a job in my spare time, another 'must-do' thing, and so far, none of the new games are capable of delivering... Aion being the latest of many :)

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by FuRyluzt

Originally posted by vladakov

 In my opinion 1000 votes aren't realistic for an MMORPG statistic.

 

^ also a very good point!

 

Actually it depends on their sampling methods. Often political polls that only sample a few thousands can be accurate (up to a few percentage points) in predicting election results where millions (or more) vote are cast.

Statistics is a wonderful thing if you know how to do it correctly.

I understand that concept, I've taken statistics before. The only sampling method in this poll was on  a website dedicated to the game however. Most people who don't like the game won't be hanging around on the website.

Wait I have my own:

NEWSFLASH: Poll conducted at moveon.org reveals significant number of militant liberals / astonishingly few members of the NRA!

--

Well, duh.  I can't believe this was posted by a staffer.  Wait, yes I can.

Well... all other things aside, the poll in the OP shows similar numbers.

If they mail their subscribers to tell them the poll is up, you may rest assured the unsatisfied customers will be sure to vote. If there's one thing gamers are good at, it's to air their dis-satisfaction.

Originally posted by MikeB

We did by the way, conduct our own poll here in this thread, and so far with over 280 votes we're at 57% yes 37% no. I think that is definitely worth noting.

How is your own usless poll worth noting like aionsources wothless poll, when less than 1000 people vote out of a supposedly 500k+?   lol  people on the internet can just be retards and just keep voting with multiple accounts etc.  The pools on that site and this are toally usless when seeing any corelation to any games popularity or retention rate.  Infact i may go onto their site right now just to even more screw up their poll.

Considering the amount of negative threads on these forums, the retention rate of almost 60% is astonishingly large.

Also, as far as statistics goes, you don't need to sample half the population to get some meaningful results. Besides, this particular sample draws from mmorpg.com forum goes alone, that are interested in staying, played the game and didn't like it and never played the game but casted a negative vote regardless. If anything, it is probably skewed towards the negative side.

It s too easy to mes with the poll. I m willing to bet many said yes to re subbing more then 2-3 times. I can say I never answered it as a no because I cancelled before I even saw this poll. I could create many accounts on here and do so but I won t. Polls like this are meaningless. I ll go by the people I know and some stores in town here, who are all saying a big decline in sales, literally next to nothing, and most I know will not resub.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Considering the amount of negative threads on these forums...

DO NOT use these forums as any example of the average customer's view. :) 

Your town stores are as indicative as this poll.

Aion drop from the first place to 8th on steam is another story entirely.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Considering the amount of negative threads on these forums, the retention rate of almost 60% is astonishingly large.

Also, as far as statistics goes, you don't need to sample half the population to get some meaningful results. Besides, this particular sample draws from mmorpg.com forum goes alone, that are interested in staying, played the game and didn't like it and never played the game but casted a negative vote regardless. If anything, it is probably skewed towards the negative side.

As has been mentioned previously biasing a poll is easy enough to do by restricting your sample pool. But this also why threads in these forums tend to be so extremely positive or negative. The people that come here and read and more importantly post tend to be the ones with extreme points of views and in most cases people with negative views are much more likely to post than people that are indifferent or positive about a subject. So the high rate of negative threads on a multi-game site is in effect highly skewed by people with strong opinons wanting to post them. It doesn't mean they are wrong but it is not necessarily representative of the majority view.

The only thing that this thread and the poll show is that a lot of people don't know how to do/interpret statistics, including the OP - starting with the usage of the term "significant".

Originally posted by Zarynterk

Originally posted by Mannish

As long as they restrict the Bots & Gold Sellers I will be staying. Those are the only issues that matter to me.

 

And from the rampant gold spamming that aint gonna happen... No MMO is willingly solve that problem. Cost them way too much in subs...

You're under the false assumption that those accounts are bought legally. Many of them are purchased with credit cards numbers they so graciously received from the guy that just bought game currency from them. Gold sellers are a major source of customer support problems for all MMO devs.

When the best expected retention rate is roughly 30%, you wouldn't describe double that amount as significant?

Originally posted by Xasapis

When the best expected retention rate is roughly 30%, you wouldn't describe double that amount as significant?

When you say statistics and significant in the same sentence you are talking about statistical significance. Pretty sure this "statistic" has a pretty bad type I error.

If people dont like Aion why would they be cruising the Aionsource website to begin with-- this poll doesnt hold a lot of merit to me-- its like someone starting a poll on this site as to whether or not people like mmos