So I stepped out of the spawn point and looked around a bit. Everything looked very solid. No lag at all! I think that is quite impressive. It also means big RvR fights will be doable. And as I take my first steps and kill the first 10 rats lovely help icons pop up. Everything seems to be perfect.
They have a nifty feature that blocks people from talking in general chat till they are level 5. The first hour or so was so nice and quiet. By the time I logged out way too many idiots had made it to level 5 already and chat was a disaster. I made it only till level 4 so far. But it looks all pretty good. We'll see what the future holds. But first vacation.
Have a good trip Phè.
ReplyDeleteBy the time you're back I'm sure I'll have completed downloading the client (it was at 37% when I went to work but it needs manual intervention to continue if it breaks off.... Yay! for 20th century download systems using HTTP and dumb clients) and will do my best got get a toon in your level range :-)
Have an awesome vacation Phe!
ReplyDeleteI too was impressed by how little lag there was considering the amount of people online, luckily though most seem to be rushing forward so the spawn camping didn't last too long.
As for general chat, it is absolutely awful, which I am not surprised about, give it a couple of weeks and it will quieten down.
Hats off to NCSoft for this launch, beyond some server queues it is a very, very smooth launch.
If you have the time go check out the official site it has a 3d character viewer and the ability to check your ingame mail and trader house.
Glad you're both enjoying it, and didn't need to access unnessecary things like Account Pages or client download servers during the last 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteIn-game server stability has been achieved at the cost of PlayNC site not being reachable and the http server for the client being down for most of Sunday.
Downloads kept getting corrupted because the DL server would stop sending bits altogether and never acknowledge the DL client's request for those packets. I finally got a running US client, but it wasn't really the US version but rather the Korean one instead...
EU pre-launch went well, thanks to people paying extra for the honour of doing a head start which sole purpose is to reduced the launch issues. It's not the smoothest launch ever though. :-)
Doing one more attempt at the EU cleint and if that doesn't work I'll wait until the discs arrive and decide whether to bother with them when that happens.
5 minutes to go before I have to leave for work and I finally got as far as the login screen.
ReplyDeleteLet's see if I can select the correct server before leaving for work.
Well I have to say there are some things about this launch and the way NCsoft are handling it that are really beginning to get annoying, the server queues at peak time can last around an hour or two, the response is that they may add servers but not offer transfers, which isn't going to fix much except provide a home for those joining at retail launch, without free transfers the rest will have to suffer where they are or loose all progress and reroll, can't see that being an option for whole guilds who have already reached T3, let alone all that grind gone into gathering and crafting.
ReplyDeleteServer downtime with no warning nor explanation until well after the event, official forums that don't work, community staff who claim to be unable to post on the official forums while they happily twitter away much to the annoyance of those who want info where it should be...
Increasing populations on the servers only increased lag when previously there was none, I'm sure they had better options but somehow I think it all comes down to them not wanting to spend money on infrastructure and being too fearful about bad press should server merges happen down the line, the bad press is happening now though, I'm dreading the chaos retail will likely cause.
Yeah, it looks like NCsoft is following Funcom's concept of how to do a launch rather than ArenaNet's template. Kinda odd since NCSoft West is currently run by the ArenaNet crowd after they ousted the Garriots.
ReplyDeleteLaunches are difficult though. You need between 3 and 10 times more hardware and server capacity then you'll need two months in. That's a problem no-one's really found a solution for. Production team's usually on its last legs, finally taking vacations or doing the launch party circuit and the entire PR team's definately on the circuit. Community and Customer Support ought to be geared up and ready to go, but since their departments are always the ones that get cut in first, it's never as good as it ought to be.
I finally forced myself to log in and make characters last Thursday afternoon. I made Shelaugh, a Rogue on Gorgos. Lani was already taken so my Priest's called Suhaya. For now that's just name reservation. I entered the world with Shelaugh, walked up to the first quest giver. Something about killing 4 Somethings. Hmm, okay. I go kill 4 somethings and return to him, only to discover I should have clicked one more button for accepting than I'd figured. So i take the quest to kill 4 Somethings and turn around to where the Somethings are "hiding" 5 steps away and think "Why am I doing this?". I didn't know the names of the somethings. I hadn't bothered to read the text closely enough, so generic did it all feel. It wasn't so much that I'd done this already in the Chinese Beta where I'd tried Asmodean before. It was just that I realized this was the game. Take Quest, read or read not a bit of platitudinal quest dialogue and go kill things. I know there's a smattering of slightly more advanced quest concepts out there to relieve the tedium, but it's not so much the thought of the grind that made me depressed. It was the sheer pointlesness of going through it all, the endless killing of easy to find critters carefully balanced to give you the illusion of challenge. I just didn't feel like killing the somethings. I'd much rather get to know them, learn their name and their culture. I know I can, through the series of quests abnout exterminating them.
I logged out in stead.
Not sure what to do with this new found pacifism. I've not been getting the vibe for Aion I was hoping for, but this is something more. Maybe I should check the other side a bit, see if they are as goody two-shoes as I think and that will get me in a mood more suited to Asmodeans again. I dunno. If not I'll wait for Phè's return and give it another go then.
Tonight I will definitely be playing. Last night I had to catch up on my surfing. I hate standing in queues, so if there is any queue for the MuTants server I will be creating a Elyos on a different server. Ping me on steam if you are up for some cooperative killing of 10 rats.
ReplyDeleteShame that the queues will mean you won't be joining us, as far as I'm aware the only server without a 2hr queue between 5 and 10pm is the new server Kahrun.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you play? You start it up, and go do something else for two hours away from the computer? I guess I could do that. I get home by half past six, start up Aion, and wait till almost 9 o'clock to play. I would really like to play where you are. Being part of the MuTants is the main reason I am excited about Aion. Can I play something else while in the queue, or is my PC basically locked up?
ReplyDeleteI can still use my PC so I usually catch up with other stuff while I wait, use your audio mixer to mute the Aion soundtrack otherwise it will drive you mad! I've been off work for a week so I've been playing alot during the day when there are no queues.
ReplyDeleteIf you get on to Gorgos send me a whisper and I'll invite you to the guild, IGN: Msanthropy
I recall from the Chinese Beta that Aion allows a Windowed Full Screen mode, which means it's a full screen borderless window, which means alt-tabbing doesn't take so much time. The downside is an overall 5% performance hit on a reasonable system (which mine at 12 GB memory isn't).
ReplyDeleteI think any old Gameamper used to alt-tabbing to the site every 5 minutes, this is a good tradeoff :-)