It has been a long week since the retail launch of Aion and I wanted to chronicle the events as I saw them.I was lucky enough to be part of the Head Start program. I didn't get this privilege because I preordered. I was able to get in because I attended the launch party in Seattle. One of the items in the swag bag was a pre-order case with a beta card inside. By the time I received the card all the beta weekends had passed but it still let me into the Head Start program. This was fine with me as I didn't want to participate in the Aion beta. Too many games have been ruined for me by playing in the beta.
Even before the Head Start began there was a rush to install the client. Unlike other MMO NCSoft was allowing players to reserve their names two days in advance. I installed the client and updated to the latest update. I was able to log in and reserve both of my normal MMO names. I wasn't too worried as both names are fairly unique. The one thing I was worried about was getting on the same server as my friends. We had decided Asmodian on Lumiel was going to to be our race/server of choice. I was able to create both my characters on the right server with the right race.
Noon (PDT) on Saturday rolled around and I was able to login with out incident. I play for many hours. This was my first exposure to Aion. I had to learn the nuances of the Aion game play. Even though the server started off fairly empty and I was able to quest with little trouble it quickly filled up. Dozen of players were all trying to kill the same newb mobs to complete the same newb quests. Many mobs and quests spawns were ninja'ed from other players. At first I tried to remain chivalrous and not steal spawns. It was quickly becoming apparent that I would never finish any quest if I did not steal spawns. I completed a few quests but it was sapping all the fun having to usurp others to achieve my quests. Eventually I gave up on questing altogether and started grinding on mobs the other players didn't need for their quests.
After many, many hours of game play my body started to feel weak. It was almost as if I did not have the fuel needed to sustain motion. I had forgotten to eat the whole day and the sun was rising. I logged off, had a bite to eat, and took a quick nap. Upon returning to the game I was greeted with a message about a queue. What is this? I am 1436 out of 1436 players and I have to wait two hours before I can play? I was baffled by the message. Understanding that one of the reasons the game play was so smooth was due to NCSoft limiting the number of players any server could be log in at any one time I went into the other room for another nap.
Upon returning I entered a world in which all the players seem to be in the same area as I was. This was frustrating because I was even able to grind on the mobs. I decided to skip to the next area and take my chances. Luckily I was in the right level range to grind in the new area. Forgoing the quest I ground away and quickly leveled. Time passed by and I eventually I had to log out for the night. Afraid it would make me wait in the queue when I logged back in I setup a private store and left my character AFK. This later on would be considered a bad practice.
To be continued.
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