Aion Launch Day: Awesome!

So its about 3 1/2 hours to launch now and finally the game I have been waiting for all my 3 weeks since I stopped playing WoW is finally here. Seriously though, it seems a lot more enjoyable and time went a lot faster due to the fact I wasn’t religiously following the game and playing nothing else in that time.

Aion’s launch is probably going to be the highest profile MMO launch this year, because that other game that came out erm, Moneymaking superheroes online. Sometimes refered to as Champions online, is just a shop with a game attached, and also, its shit.

Aion is a game I whave been waiting for a long time in principle a game thats challenging with a bit if grinding and am lot of questing. The problem for games like WoW is then when you DO have to grind it is a massive chore, and just does not feel right in the game at all, especially if you were grinding for experience, because it just felt wrong. As much as some people dislike hearing this, NCsoft are a company that was built up with the grind, with games like Lineage and Lineage2 but WoW has shifted the focus and instead of being like the usual clone patrols, they have shifted the focus comfortably, the game reminds me enough of lineage to feel nostalgic, but has moved enough towards WoW and western gaming to make me feel comfortable with the way it plays.

Moving forward, at (apparently) 8pm tonight UK time the game servers open, and people like me will promptly flood in, and crash the servers. We can then follow the trail of LOL on twitter as developers explain whats going on, while people get more and more impatient and wait for the first person to declare “I quit cuz AIon are making me wait too long and is lame fucking dev dickS” so that we can berate and make them the “Axis of Evil ™” In reality the servers are likely to have some issues, beta went quite well for the parts I played but im not naive enough to think that it means the launch will go well. Beta was staggered and people got into the game in stages which limited the rush into the game, tonight thousands are going to assault the servers relentlessly, the assault will begin probably before the servers even go live because some people are fucking insane.

Anyway, time to pull this one to a close. Anyone wishing to roll with us can hop onto ENG Spatalos and post that your are playing there on the forums and we can add you to the guild, friendslists or whatever you want. One thing is for certain this, this game really is a very high profile launch, and depending on how it goes, it could impact the industry in a bigger way then most expect, so make sure you follow the game!