Complaints

The biggest complaint I’ve seen is queues. Yes, queues can be frustrating when you only have a limited amount of time to play, but they are better now than they were in Head Start. In fact, they had to increase server capacity during the first night of Head Start to accommodate all of the people trying to get into all of the servers. I’ve also seen people reporting queues as long as 3 hours, but I’ve personally never experienced one longer than 30 minutes. It really isn’t too bad because it reduces lag and hell, you can find something to keep you busy while you wait to get into the server. I have a feeling the queues won’t be around much longer though. I keep seeing reports of queues being removed entirely or server capacities being increased, and the NCSoft Aion team even mentioned adding a new server for both NA and EU players this weekend.

If you are currently dealing with queues, just realize that the game is brand new and tons of people are trying to get their fill before fully judging the game and determining if they will keep playing. They will slowly die down as people get into more regular schedules and as the NCSoft Aion team starts adding more servers to accommodate the large player base.

GamePlay

Gameplay has been quite fun for me the last few days. While I leveled an Elyos character in Closed Beta and an Asmodian in Open Beta, I haven’t quite found the leveling to be monotonous just yet. I enjoy playing, even if it is just in short bursts. I’m also a completionist and I spend a lot of time in the same zone/area until every quest has been completed, so when I finally get to move on, the change in scenery makes everything much better because it is like a breath of fresh air. At the same time, I find that some quests are more challenging than they were when I leveled during the betas. I don’t know if NCSoft did some extra balancing or if there was balancing in one of the patches they ported over from the Korean version of the game, but the extra challenge is really nice. I honestly felt like my Asmodian Templar was way too easy to play and now I can actually have a challenge at times if I’m caught off-guard.

One thing about this time around in the game is that I’ve only died once and that was entirely my fault. Not dying makes the game so much simpler. There is less money being spent on Spirit Healing and then I get to spend more time out in the field for lack of better terminology. All of the bugfixes are also nice. Quests that didn’t work or even missing quests are now available and it adds a little extra content to your game.

I’ve found that I’ve been leveling slower now, but I’m enjoying the game more. I play just to play, not to be the best or the first at anything. Hell, I’m even going to give the PvP a try despite my intense hatred for PvP in any game. I figure that it’s a new game and I should give it a shot in its entirety.

Impressions

I’ve been quite impressed with the smooth transition from Open Beta to Preselection and Head Start. Even the transition from Head Start into going live for the first time wasn’t terrible in any way. NCSoft planned ahead despite what many people seem the believe and it really shows. While the first day of Head Start had lengthy queues, now they aren’t nearly as bad. Even lag hasn’t been an issue since Open Beta. The first day of Head Start had no lag for me and the only thing that slows down my gameplay is the laptop I use while I at school. Compare that to WoW where my graphics card, which is a Radeon HD 4870 with 2gb GDDR5 memory, struggles to keep up with Dalaran and some of the zones nearby. In Aion, I can run around some of the most populated areas in the game without a drop in framerate or a lag spike. The smooth gameplay is definitely something that will keep many players happy for a while.

Another thing that has impressed me about Aion is the character profile associated with your account on the website. You can show off your character (in 3D) and gear with just a link. You can even check your broker stats and your mail from the website. It’s an intricate system that makes checking up on legion-mates and your own character a snap even when you can’t play.

I really hope NCSoft is able to keep everything running smoothly for as long as the game lasts. If they can, there is no doubt in my mind that they will be able to hold their own in the competitive MMO market.

Minor Notes

Some points of interest have been covered by the NCSoft team, such as the release of instances. Since the level cap will now be 50, we will finally be able to experience some true PvE content. Some skills have been changed and some items have been removed or renamed as well. Overall, the game has been balanced based on information from both Closed and Open betas.

Instances

Instances can be seen here and I have to say that I can’t wait to try them. While they are all for higher level players, everyone will get there eventually and I have a feeling that the instances wont be so incredibly easy that you will burn through them in just 10 or 15 minutes. I’ve also noticed that all of the instances revolve around the Balaur which is a minor disappointment, but it is fitting for the story behind Aion.

Another interesting feature in Aion’s instances is that some, like The Dredgion, will feature both factions. If you’ve ever played WoW the mechanics behind this system will seem familiar to you. From what I understand, the system will work like WoW’s battlegrounds and will require a player/group to queue up for entry. Once enough players from both factions have queued up, they all gain access to the area and can then fight each other while also working their way through some NPCs.  It’s a unique concept that may make players want to quit or not ever partake in a run of that particular instance/area, but it is definitely something to check out at least once.

GameGuard

GameGuard is probably the most hated part of Aion. It caused nothing but problems in Closed Beta and in Open Beta it somehow managed to get worse. To top it all off, Open Beta involved more gamers and therefore created so many errors amongst so many people that NCSoft had to realize it was flawed. While many felt that NCSoft was ignoring their cries for help and the removal of GameGuard, the team was, in fact, paying quite a bit of attention. In one of the recent news posts, the NCSoft team said this:

After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we’re focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.

I can’t express how happy I am. I was hoping that they would either fix it or remove it, and they decided to remove it. I honestly have nothing against an idea like GameGuard, but it was poorly executed and caused me nothing but problems during Open Beta. If NCSoft ever finds a replacement, I will accept that, but I just hope that it works better than GameGuard ever did. The good news is that Launch won’t have it, so all of the new players wont have to deal with the issues that most of the beta testers experienced.

What To Expect

I don’t have truly high hopes for the Aion launch because of the flood of new people during the initial week. I expect servers to go down, lag to be extreme, and hot-fixes galore. While this may deter many new players and cause many old testers to complain about how the game “sucks” and “isn’t playable at all,” it will also weed out those who really don’t care about the game. It will reduce the number of people who are just stupid about everything. You know the kind of person I’m talking about. The kind of person who starts the “anal game” in General chat because he’s bored.

After the launch, I do expect the game to be quite fun. While leveling is rather slow and some areas require groups, that’s what makes the game fun. MMOs are always about social interactions and group dynamics. I’ve never played an MMO where playing it solo is more fun than being able to screw around in guild chat while leveling. The way the game is designed, you quickly get involved with other players and some of those players may even become some of your “friends” and legion-mates. Essentially, you should be able to have at least one other person to talk to by the time you hit level 20, and if you already have friends coming to play with you, then you are already one step closer to having a blast.

Startup

One of the first thing I noticed today was that there were already a few improvements with Aion and the NCSoft launcher as well. The Authentication servers are responding faster than ever, even on my laptop which typically takes longer to connect to anything. While this is good news, it also isn’t a guarantee that the servers will remain stable during opening week. For one thing, the population that has actually pre-ordered Aion is relatively small compared to the population of gamers who will be trying the game on Tuesday, so who knows what will happen. I’ve also noticed that my game starts up faster. This is also good because I used to get stuck at the NCSoft screen and then just sit around waiting for a while, but it isn’t nearly as bad now.

Characters

Now, on to the important information. I’ve created my first Elyos and Asmodian characters that I will be playing during the Head Start that comes with my pre-order. Just in case you are interested, my characters are as follows.

Name: Serneum

Race: Asmodian

Class: Ranger (Assassin)

Server: Nezekan (West)

Name: Serneum

Race: Elyos

Class: Warrior (Templar)

Server: Israphel (East)

Since PvP doesn’t really matter to me at all, I decided that server choices also would not have much of an impact on me. Any of the server’s PvP events can just be planned around or played through, but the time won’t matter to me unless I’m actively playing and PvPing. My main character will probably be my Templar on Israphel, but my goal is to have both characters at level 10 with the ownership of the <Absolute> legion on both servers by the end of Head Start on Monday. I will also update the Characters page at some point to reflect the new characters, at which point I will change the current page to a Beta Characters page.

Entering either Pandaemonium or Sanctum for the first time can be quite daunting. Both cities are quite large and it’s quite easy to get lost. In Sanctum, it’s also quite easy to fall off the edge somewhere and die. Thankfully the game provides the player with some maps that are somewhat useful although not the best if you are looking for a specific shop. For example, I was looking for the Legion Registration Office on my Asmodian Templar the other day and the phrase was so large that I couldn’t tell which of the two buildings it touched was actually the Legion Reg. Office. Thankfully, Thulf had a map of Pandaemonium to help me.  However, the map won’t help you too much if you play at full screen and need info on the fly.

A New Discovery

I could be completely blind, but I never saw this nifty little feature in the Closed Beta of Aion. When in Pandaemonium or Sanctum, if you use the locate feature of your quest texts, a little fairy/sprite will appear a short distance in front of you. As you run, it moves forward as well, guiding you in the correct direction. While I haven’t fully tested it, I would also assume you can make a custom mark on the map and have it guide you there as well. This feature is extremely useful for newer players or even people like me who are new to the second faction.

Needless to say, the sprite is a brilliant idea. It will help people navigate the city with fewer problems of getting lost, and in Sanctum it will probably save a life or two. Since I’m learning a whole new city and the game maps don’t provide me with enough pertinent information, I can guarantee you that I will be making use of this new feature in the game.

Closed Beta and GameGuard

I never had any issues with GameGuard in the Closed Beta phase of Aion aside from CB3-5 where I just had to turn off my Avast! Antivirus. I didn’t really consider it a huge issue at the time because while playing Aion I wouldn’t expect my system to get infected seeing as I’m not downloading anything while playing. If I forgot to turn off Avast!, the computer would essentially lock up without actually doing so. My browser wouldn’t navigate to any pages though, so it was somewhat pointless to keep using the computer without restarting. After a reboot I would be able to shut off my Avast! and continue playing Aion which was a great game, so it was usually worth it if I forgot to turn off my Avast! the first time.

Open Beta Experience

Now we’re in Open Beta. I can run Avast! and GameGuard at the same time, but I typically coose not to out of habit. Since my Avast! is disabled, I figure that it isn’t the problem any more. What happens is the game will run all fine and dandy until I get a popup saying “GameGuard will now close” without any reason as to why. Great error message right? If I click “OK” on the error message, Aion dies, but if I leave it open the client tends to lock up and close itself anyway. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, the client won’t error out but then I get a message in-game saying that an illegal program has been detected and then it tries to kick me out of the game. Fun.

Dealing with GameGuard

If you get the “Illegal Program” message, you can hit ok, but the game will try again shortly after. If you get the error, there are some ways to avoid being kicked out of the game.

1. When the “Illegal Program” message appears, click “OK.” When it tries to kick you out of the game in 10 seconds, click cancel and go fight a mob. It will pop up the warning one or two times until you get into combat, and then after that the error tends to stop appearing and you can play until the client crashes.

2. Bypass GameGuard

3. Make Aion not rely on GameGuard

Options 2 and 3 are honestly the best, but also not truly acceptable by NCSoft. From my understanding, if you are caught doing either option 2 or 3, they can ban you. Whether or not they can ban you now and have it persist through the launch of Aion isn’t really known. To be honest, I work with option 3, but it took a few tries to get it to work. I originally tried the bypass, but eventually GameGuard started running despite being bypassed…crazy.

How To:

If you really want to either bypass or “remove” GameGuard, there is one person who seems to have all of the knowledge behind how to do so. Their name is Fyrre, and their Aion “fixes” can be found here. There is both a set of files with an executable you can use and a readme file. In the readme file, Fyrre goes over how to do a bypass as well. If you follow the directions, GameGuard should essentially stop being associated with Aion. When you run the NCSoft Launcher, GameGuard will no longer initialize and all of your problems should go away.

Disclaimer

I’m not necessarily endorsing the program, nor am I responsible for what happens to your account if you do choose to use it. I personally will avoid a bypass/removal once the game launches 9/29/09, but for now it’s the only way for me to play for more than 5-10 minutes until they get a fix going.

My Thoughts

I believe that GameGuard truly is the issue, though I’ve heard that users running on 64-bit Windows 7 have no issues at all with it. I really wish that NCSoft would just get rid of GameGuard altogether seeing as WoW functions fine without anything similar to GameGuard, but I doubt that it will ever truly be removed. It just sucks that the game is being destroyed by a piece of software. A lot of potential players are being turned off of Aion because of the crashing, but hopefully it wont affect the player base too much.