Semi Retirement & the AION assessment so far..

Well my blog has been pretty stagnant for the last month, the reason being I have gone into semi retirement in warcraft.
RL is pretty busy outside of the game with our new baby Charlotte, so at best, I’m able to get online somewhere after 8:45pm UK. This reason, along with my need to unwind from a day, including work has left me wound-up more than anything else. However, taking a complete break from wow has made a huge difference these last few weeks to my personal life and frame of mind.
That’s not to say im ready to come back, I’m far from that. The first thing I know when I log in will be “right, what needs to be done” and that’s what’s got me into this situation in the first place. I also have the issue in my head which is..Warcraft itself. Blizzard’s got lazy, for me..It feels for me anyway..The common saying, “same **** just different smell”
It was perhaps the 4 years of constantly playing warcraft that’s made it turn a shade of magnolia for me, a game shouldn’t be a heavy sigh before you double click the wow shortcut. And the announcement of the re-facing of Azeroth and the re-introduction of Onyxia. Heroic version of Deadmines…..tell me there’s going to be a heroic Molten Core too?......please no. I have spent 4 years playing this game seeing and hearing about the same things..Repeating them in an expansion or patch would be like listening to George Michael on CD rather than a cassette tape.. Interesting & quirky, but quickly worn off. Some have said, that Blizzard made the game too easy, in some cases they have, but as the post before…what do we do now? I’m at a complete loss with no direction.
I was asked if I would roll an alt and level that up, but the thought of that almost made me sick. Another questing alt, in the same content, that’s looked the same for the last 3-4 years? I wouldn’t even be reading the quest txt, but marching through them as quick as I could to ding as much as I can to get any kind of fulfilment out of the game, which wouldn’t be much.
I had to think back to what I originally loved about the game, in my original guild I loved the PVP aspect of the game, and the world raiding,..back at level 34+ and there’s basically next to no hope of getting anywhere in that side of the game with those that are. Dedicated players geared and pre-focused on PVP of me standing any chance of competing. I guess along with the break from warcraft I needed something to bounce my *in the habit* brain out of wow and try something new.
Now, you’ll notice, way back I posted a link and some you tube links to a developing game called AION. And since im not committed to anything online, and apart from designing a depron foam F14 tomcat (RC) and my online time is about 9pm onwards, I decided to give it a shot while it was still in its infancy stages of launch.
Ok, let’s get this out of the way first, this is not a Warcraft Vs Aion blog, first and foremost. I have a solid understanding of WoW, and something that’s just launched will NEVER compete with warcraft which has developed itself over 5 years..Seriously. AION, while it was in open beta in Korea is nothing compared to the North American and European markets.
There are two areas’ I will discuss separately, the game, and the service.
The Game.
Its solid, no bugs (as yet) and the game play is alike wow in its player movement controls. Spells and abilities have a UI much like WOW’s standard, and abilities like fireball, with progression in levels links to activate a chain spell with half the casting time of the main spell. The Auction house doesn’t have you running back and forth to the post-box either, but its still needing refinement. All gear has sockets, which you can insert manastones into, which have HP, MP, and Accuracy etc into, your class determines what you put into them, and you can also ask a vendor to extract them so they are not destroyed. The game IS pvp based, with some PVE content, the main endgame content is the Abyss, where both factions, call it horde and alliance converge in a big landscape along with a AI 3rd faction which charges in on the faction loosing (some kind of trigger goes off, I don’t know what though as im not level 25+ yet)
I could go on, and on, and as I said the game is still in its first month of launch, and there are loose ends which they need to tie up, which im sure will come in time…much like Blizzard.
Service.
Ok, this is where the horse has had the proverbial bullet shot up its ass. Since going live there have been 2 hour ques to get into the game, and some technical issues along with it. Getting into the game at present, is the issue. However NCSoft stand by their comments that each server needs a balance of both factions to work for each server so that the game works for both sides. Which in the long run is perfect (think Alliance vs. Horde ratio per server) however in the short term, it’s killing the game softly and flamed the players wanting to get in and play it. “You are 2348/2350 in the Queue, approximate time 2 hours 30 mins”, they have recently launched some servers to ease the problem, however they do not have a character transfer in place, which is also aggravating the situation, there quote “will take a few months to put this in place” …cough..you need it NOW people! And make it free while you populate your servers as required. At the moment they seem to be depending on the players shuffling over to newer servers, however guilded players and those as groups of friends playing on the server of choice…aint moving.
This week will show the worst of AION…what they decide to do this week, will determine its long term future success. However, do not under-estimate, HOW popular this game is..

Conclusion.
It’s not a warcraft killer, nor is it competing with Blizzard at any level. However in time, development and some steep learning curves, it will be a great alternative to warcraft, but let’s say..for this week…NCSoft need to pull it out of the bag to save themselves.
Great game, bad..terrible preparation for the mass player base that expected to play the game in its first launch week. I will write more, and further posts this month while I trial this game for 4 weeks free subscription.

Oh, and dont come anywhere near this game unless you have 2 GB RAM, and a half decent midrange graphics card, and a processor over 2.2 Ghz, if you can converge Stormwind, Ironforge and Dalaran into one city, its called Pandaemonium for a reason the Captial of the Asmo's