NCsoft not worried about Aion crowds

By Robert Purchese Published 23 September, 2009

Doesn't want "low-pop servers".

NCsoft has told Eurogamer that little can be done to stop Aion overcrowding as new customers flood the live servers, causing lengthy queues that last hours at a time.

"This isn't a scenario that's likely to be repeated regularly since it's really just about that initial rush of players trying to gain access to the game," a spokesperson for the publisher told us.

"These next few days we will be calculating data and weighing the ideal time to open more servers. I think that the community will understand how important a healthily populated server in a game with PvPvE is, and that we do not want to go down the low-pop server path."

Aion headstart access began on Sunday, and sagged under the immense wait of 400,000 pre-order customers piling in through the door. The MMO launched proper in the US yesterday, and full European access starts on Friday.

Worryingly, NCsoft makes it sound as if playing this weekend may be a frustrating and off-putting experience.

"We have preparations in place but there is some weathering of the storm that needs to happen," the spokesperson added.

"As players start to purchase the product and the initial first-day excitement calms down, I think you will see better queue times and a better play experience."

NCsoft has thrown everything behind the Western launch of Aion, hoping to emulate Eastern success by painstakingly localising and enhancing the MMO.

Head over to Eurogamer's Aion review for the verdict.

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About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Danoxth #1 2 years ago

    I understand what they are saying about not wanting low population servers, but there simply isn't enough to go around. I really can't see how 2-3 extra now wouldn't help.

    It's like doing so much to get the game to appeal to the west, then cockblocking it right at the last hurdle.

  • Crea #2 2 years ago

    Can't say I blame them. So many MMO companies get burned by the initial outlay on hardware to support numbers that only ever persist around launch (unless you're WoW).

    It's pick your poison - annoy the player base with launch queues, poor server performance, or annoy your shareholders/bosses with expensive wasted hardware that very noticeably impacts your bottom line.

  • Eraysor #3 2 years ago

    If they open a bunch more servers, they'll do a WAR and have to remerge them all after a few months once they realise nobody is coming back. Unless of course, the game does well.

  • MasterNameless #4 2 years ago

    It isn't as bad as everyone on the Aion forums are whinging on about. I'm on the most popular server atm unfortunately, when I logged in yesterday at 1930, there was a queue of '6 hours'. It only took 1hr 45 mins though, which is still quite a wait, but nowhere near as bad as everyone is saying. They just see the estimated wait time and then nerd rage on the forums.

    The queues aren't going to be around for very long, and I'd definitely prefer a busy server. :)

  • Hypercube #5 2 years ago

    It is as bad as the forums make out - I wouldn't call a 3 hour wait to play acceptable.

    They knew how many pre-orders they had, and they still fucked it up royally. It's those fuckers with afk stores who are the real assholes. If NCSoft had any balls they'd kick them and ban them for a day or two.

    And I wouldn't call sitting in front of a PC for 3 hours and getting a little ticked off 'nerd rage'. Please condescend somewhere else.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 12:05

  • ChaK #6 2 years ago

    It only took 1hr 45 mins though

    LOL

    seriously, it's nowhere near acceptable

  • Mellissa #7 2 years ago

    3hours? Lucky you.
    I logged in at 3:30pm BST for a 4hr 50min wait... and finally got to play at 8:45pm.
    I was up early today so hit my bed at midnight. That's 5 hours wait time for 3 hours play time.
    Worse thing is I don't want to play other games or use the net much in case I drop our connection and have to restart the queue.

    Today I've been a shop since 6am!! (if you can't beat 'em...)

    .
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 12:15

  • Hypercube #8 2 years ago

    I'm not going to make a shop, because I'm not prepared to stop other people from playing the game.

    I understand that it's frustrating, but you're making it worse for other people.

    NCSoft should kick all afk stores, and (hopefully) ban them for a day or so. See how they like being unable to play. That would assume that NCSoft have any balls at all.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 12:18

  • anomagnus #9 2 years ago

    i'm not criticizing the game with my nest statement, so be calm.

    They know they're going to lose customers after the first month, that's a fact of life, no MMO, even WoW, ever had 100% take up from the word go. Its over crowded now, but it will calm down, as people drift off, and hopefully it will insure they still have decent pops on each server

  • skullstorm #10 2 years ago

    At least one or two more servers can't hurt. They knew what numbers they were looking at, it's not fair to leave it to a first come first serve system just to maintain high population servers. Alot of players wont be able to queue for 1hr45 let alone more and this is gonna leave a bad taste in their mouth. It's not just an initial rush either (lol), these are all subscribers wanting to play a game they are paying for and are still gonna be here in a few weeks time. That is unless this puts them off completely, they stop trying and then the servers finally let up. Not good imo.

    Dunno why I'm complaining though, I haven't had to queue. Thats because the game didn't install properly and I have to redownload and patch up for the umpteenth time whilst their customer support don't get back to me after days, missing out on both preselection and head start..
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 12:27

  • Rubarack #11 2 years ago

    I think they've just realised that in a month there'll only be 50,000 people still playing and it isn't worth investing in extra servers to deal with this initial rush. They've learned from the mistakes made with WaR and AoC and realised that initial curiosity about a new MMO doesn't convert into anything like a similar player base a month or two down the line.

  • Hypercube #12 2 years ago

    i'm not criticizing the game with my nest statement, so be calm.

    They know they're going to lose customers after the first month, that's a fact of life, no MMO, even WoW, ever had 100% take up from the word go. Its over crowded now, but it will calm down, as people drift off, and hopefully it will insure they still have decent pops on each server

    The sad thing is, the game is still very enjoyable. It's their response to this queue chaos that's giving a really bad first impression.

    They knew how many pre-orders they had, and the pre-order people are usually the enthusiasts. To not have enough launch space even for pre-orders really makes me wonder about the on-going maintenance of this game.

    With WAR, the population dwindled on some servers, so they offered free character transfers and then removed the empty servers and put the hardware into the busy servers. Why can't they do that? Stick in a load of servers, and then offer transfers at regular intervals. Keep the hardware and use it to boost the capacity of the servers that remain busy.

    As first impressions go, NCSoft aren't impressing me. I was so looking forward to this.

    Hey ho.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 14:15

  • Celdrahil #13 2 years ago

    Remember this one?

    [link url=http://www.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/queuedance.html
    ]    http://ww w.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/...[/link]

    Lots of people tend to forget the WoW start...

  • sneetch #14 2 years ago

    @anomagnus
    They know they're going to lose customers after the first month, that's a fact of life, no MMO, even WoW, ever had 100% take up from the word go. Its over crowded now, but it will calm down, as people drift off, and hopefully it will insure they still have decent pops on each server

    Yep, for a while my friends and I bought MMOs more or less to play that first "free" month, while everything is fresh. After the month we nearly always unsubbed and went to some other game or back to WoW.

    In a week or two things will calm down and these queues will fade. It's a serious (and I do mean serious, a 3+ hour queue is ridiculous) pain in the ass for now but it beats the hell out of having twice as many servers that will be empty in a month or two.

    I reckon I'll wait a month or so then pick up a copy to try it out.

  • kestral #15 2 years ago

    there is quite a difference between servers in queue times.

  • Hypercube #16 2 years ago

    Remember this one?

    [link url=http://ww w.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/...
    ]http://ww w.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/...[/link]

    Lots of people tend to forget the WoW start...

    That made me laugh!

  • Bennicus #17 2 years ago

    "immense wait of 400,000 pre-order customers piling in through the door" I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not :-P

  • MasterNameless #18 2 years ago

    I never said it was acceptable, I was just saying that a two hour wait is nowhere near as bad as a 6 hour wait. The people on the forum are nerd raging, by pretending that it really did take them 6 hours to get in, to make it sound worse than it is. That's all. :)

    A two hour wait still sucks balls, but if it really was 6 hours I wouldn't have played all week, but have played a good 4 hours a night. So, not as bad as people are making out.

    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 13:11

  • Hypercube #19 2 years ago

    So far, I've had a 3 and a half hour wait, and a 3 hour wait. The only reason it wasn't a 7 hour wait last night is because NCSoft directly intervened on Spatalos and upped the population cap. If they hadn't done that, it would have been a 7 hour wait.

    And some people are experiencing waits of more than 5 hours. You're lucky if you haven't, but you're not representative of the worst cases.

  • MasterNameless #20 2 years ago

    Fair enough, I've been getting home at 1930 every night so I only know how inaccurate the timer is at that time of day, yeah, yesterday it did go down a lot faster than normal. The other two nights it was pretty much exactly twice as fast as the estimated wait time - which is what is giving me the impression that people are taking that estimate as gospel, then screaming about it on the forum, posting screengrabs to prove their point.

    Regardless, this can't really last for too much longer can it? Fingers crossed the wait time is down to an hour tonight - I can handle that, I usually potter about the house for an hour after I get home from work anyway. :)

    edit: typos, plus...

    I certainly didn't mean to sound condescending, so apologies if it came across that way. I just find it hard to believe that both myself and my friend are jumping ahead of people in equal measure whilst in the queue, those estimates are not accurate. I'm on Spatalos too btw :)
    Edited by 4 at 23/09/09 @ 13:27

  • Gaol #21 2 years ago

    Well I cancelled my preorder, I might buy the game later when it's cheaper.

    I need to be able to play when I get the time, not hours after turning the PC on. I might only get the odd hour here and there so even a 30min wait is unacceptable.

  • Lady_Macbeth #22 2 years ago

    @anomagnus
    "They know they're going to lose customers after the first month, that's a fact of life, no MMO, even WoW, ever had 100% take up from the word go. Its over crowded now, but it will calm down, as people drift off, and hopefully it will insure they still have decent pops on each server"

    If they know they're going to lose customers after the first month, surely they should be doing everything possible to ensure they lose as few customers as possible? With WoW being such a dominating force, I can't believe any new MMO could feel so arrogantly calm in giving people such poor first impressions. Their attitude seems as though they have money (and consumers) to burn - which I'm sure they don't.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 13:24

  • Azzuri #23 2 years ago

    They are opening 2 new servers, 1 in the US and one in Europe

    http://na .aiononline.com/board/notices/v...

  • Mellissa #24 2 years ago

    @MasterNameless
    You're right, the queue times aren't accurate.
    Mine said 4hrs 50mins at 3pm yesterday and it took 5hrs 15mins to get in... and it was ruberband city on arrival.
    So far since Sunday 8:01pm I've played for a total of 6 hours and I've queued for 13.25 hours... not the service I expected.
    And as if adding insult... muggings here paid for the CE !!!
    .

  • Hypercube #25 2 years ago

    Looks like they're doing shutdowns to kick AFK private stores.

    It's a bit drastic, but it just might work.

  • MasterNameless #26 2 years ago

    @Mellissa

    Argh. Sounds like you're joining the queue when the wait is still rising, and I'm joining it when the wait time is dropping... I'll just shut up then. I shouldn't form an opinion from only logging on at one specific time every day! :)

    Got the day off on Friday, so I'll make sure I log in bloody early. :/

  • Hypercube #27 2 years ago

    @MasterNameless - I withdraw the accusation of condescension! I just hate it when someone labels a justified frustration with a commercial product as 'nerd rage'. Pre-ordering a CE and then getting stuff by twunts who set up AFK stores is, in my personal (and subjective!) opinion, frustrating.

    I regard these private stores as an exploit of an in-game mechanic to prevent me from playing the game. It's up to NCSoft to deal with it. Their plan to wait for the population to drop seems idiotic - you sell 400K pre-orders and decide to go with the smallest possible player predictions.

    I'd still love to see every AFK private store owner banned for at least a day. And their character appears in-game wearing a sign saying "I am one of the twunts who stopped you from playing. Please kick me."

  • MasterNameless #28 2 years ago

    @Hypercube

    Yeah, in hindsight maybe I shouldn't have used the term 'nerd rage'. It's actually a fairly new term for me, and the thought of it amuses me! :) I just had this vision of people looking at that wait time, knowing full well it will probably go down quicker but still rushing to the forum claiming that they actually waited that long - or so I thought before Mellissa specifically stated her wait time is longer, which confuses me, so the point is pretty moot now. :/

    Here's a great tip to get your agression out on the afk sellers - if you're not already aware of it;

    Kite the huge crab into Veteron, let the guards deal with it, but it's massive AOE attacks lay waste to all the afk sellers! It's pretty funny to watch! XD

    Saw an afk seller sitting on the beach the other day, right in the path of the giant crab, was also pretty funny watching it destroying him within a few seconds.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 14:49

  • Azzuri #29 2 years ago

    @MasterNameless - I really don't get why people go into vendor mode in places like that lol. On the aionsource forums there was a picture from one of the Asmo players of him killing AFK vendors in the abyss (at least I think its the abyss, I've not leveled that far yet). Do these people have no common sense lol?

  • TruSmiles #30 2 years ago

    The queues obviously spike when people come home from work or school. I'm on the busiest server and there are certain times of the day where I haven't hit a queue at all.

    But, I did get stuck in a five hour queue the other day, and yeah, that was a killer. But I just left it queuing and did something else with my time. Doesn't really work when you come in late from work and don't get to play because you need to be up early, but for everyone else, waiting isn't that big of a deal if you have other things you can do in the meantime.

    Agreed that the AFK shop people are spoiling it for everyone else though. If you're not going to play for several hours, then let someone else on!

  • Hypercube #31 2 years ago

    Giant crabs??!? AAAW :( Now I really want to play! I never got to do more than just wander around Verteron (or whatever it's called) in the betas, so I really want to see it properly on a permanent char.

  • MasterNameless #32 2 years ago

    Haha, I wouldn't try giving it a cuddle or anything... You might find yourself in a bit of a pinch! (Sorry... :/) A good few times, I have been minding my own business, well, not really, killing the innocent wildlife, and the bloody thing just wanders up to me and kills me in two hits.

    He's not a very nice crab. :( But very handy for destroying afk sellers! \o/
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 15:38

  • YenRug #33 2 years ago

    It seems I've been pretty lucky, so far. No queueing on Sunday night, nor Monday after getting home from work, and only a 15 minute wait last night. Haven't checked the numbers for Castor, but I would presume that they're not that unbalanced across the full set of servers, unless the vast majority of Legions all chose to camp out on the one server...

  • Silvervein #34 2 years ago

    @Lady_Macbeth

    You forget about one thing when it comes to aion. This is korean game, and what you see here is just western localization. While they certainly wouldn't mind getting custom here, my impression is that their main interest is their korean version, with western aion being only a sideshow. So I guess they are not too concerned about what's going on here.

    Truth to tell I can see where they are coming from with their weathering the storm statement. What's going on now is just hype fallout. It will die down very soon. Korean games are all the same, and all western grinders sit in wow anyway.
    Especially that there is no need at all to be paying for korean grinder games. Want aion experience? Play perfect world. Offers all that aion does, and it's free.

  • kestral #35 2 years ago

    As there are no official figures I think the best estimate of how busy it is currently is how many legionns are created in total on each server. See the list at [link url=http://uk .aiononline.com/livestatus/server/
    ]http://uk .aiononline.com/livestatus/serv...[/link]

    So atm it seems like Castor and Vidarhave the lowest total amount of legions and thus should have the shortest queues.

  • Bravestinsane #36 2 years ago

    Took me about 1 hour first time i logged in
    second day 3 .4 hours
    thrid day just over 9 hours (NINE) a whole day waiting to get in the game, i actually done an all nighter just so i could play it. Hopefully ill get up early so i can get in the que tomorrow morning and be playing by tomorrow afternoon.

  • krisskross #37 2 years ago

    Of corse they are not worried they TOOK our money for the QUEUE screen!
    AION = Silkroad.
    For sure they will not steal any more money from me...
    AION is DEAD in the QUEUE!
    Edited by 1 at 25/09/09 @ 18:40