I played in a few rounds of the North America Closed Betas (CBs) and had the same impression as many other players: Aion is very polished.
Unfortunately, Open Beta (OB) has been changed that perception for me. Granted, Betas for most games tends to be up-and-down in terms of stability. But I expected, after having such a stable game experience with Aion’s CB, that OB would be more of the same. After all, we’re getting closer to the launch of the game later this month.
This has been my OB experience so far…
Sunday (OB Day #1)
I was able to login but couldn’t connect to any of the listed servers for most of the 1st date of Open Beta. This affected everyone, as the servers were down for maintenance.
Late Sunday night I was able to connect to a server, but the lag was really bad (10+ seconds from pressing an ability before it fired), and I couldn’t stay logged in for more than 5 minutes, because I kept seeing this Game Guard (GG) issue:
Please note that:
- I am definitely not a game hacker
- GG gave me no problems during any of the rounds of CB
GG is a program designed to prevent hacking of the game. Anti-hack measures should be invisible to a legit player such as myself.
I thought maybe my client installation was messed up. I had used the CB-to-OB patcher instead of downloading the full client install via BitTorrent. So Sunday evening I started downloading the full BitTorrent installation.
Monday (OB Day #2)
The server lag was fixed, which would have been great, except that I kept experiencing the same GG issue noted above. I think the longest I was able to play before getting kicked out by GG was 10 minutes.
Late Monday, after 30 hours, the BitTorrent download was completed. So I uninstalled Aion then installed from the BitTorrent file. Even with a clean install, after logging in I ran into the GG issue again. I went to bed and decided to do read up on the Beta forums on Tuesday.
Tuesday (OB Day #3)
It turns out a lot of players were running into the same issue with GG (links to threads: 1 2), regardless of their operating system (Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7). There were some suggestions on the forums for things to try, such as deleting the bin32 directory that contains GG, disabling the firewall, turning off anti-virus software, etc. I tried those things, but they didn’t help. And anyway, it’s ridiculous to have to manually disable any PC security software due to a bug with a game.
Yes, this is a bug. It’s not possible to classify it as anything else, although I have seen some ridiculous posts by Aion fanboys that it’s not NCSoft’s fault. NCSoft chose GG for Aion. Therefore, it is NCSoft’s issue to resolve.
Keep in mind I had no GG issues in CB.
Wednesday (OB Day #4)
GG is still kicking me out of the game.
I’m following a few of the Aion Community Managers on Twitter, and the annoying thing is they are announcing things like free OB keys and such, without providing more visibility into the GG issue. The only thing I’ve seen posted on Twitter regarding GG was this link to a page that provides manual workarounds, that in my case and many other people’s did not help.
http://na.aiononline.com/en/gameguard/
I was looking forward to playing Aion when it launched. GG is a showstopper though. I’m not going to play in 5-min spurts before getting kicked out of the game.
The Aion developers need to fix this.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Looks like NCSoft has fixed the Game Guard issue I was experiencing (“The game or Game Guard was modified”) in the latest patch version of the game, which is 1.5.0.4.
I was able to play for over 2 hours with no GG issues :)
Good to hear that the issue has been fixed. Have you decided on your class yet?
Probably Gladiator.
Have you decided on a server? I’m planning on playing on the Nezekan server since many PT guilds seem to be going there (including TW, who I guilded with for beta).
Haven’t picked a server yet. Have you talked to the other folks we know? E.g. Namaste, Jostle?
Btw, I may play Assasin instead of Gladiator. I rolled one yesterday for the heck of it, it’s definitely fun to play.
Yeah Nam, Crocop and Jostle are all on board for whatever. If you’re still interested in getting something small going I’m down, but I think TW would take all of us (if you decide to play on the same server).
Sin could be fun. The only stealth class I played was a Warg in Lotro lol, so my experience is limited.
I’ve been playing SM and it’s definitely an awesome class. The pets handle very well compared to say a WL pet (no comparison really). If you want to try my 17 SM I can shoot you the account info. Very fun class.
It would be fun to play with you folks again. I’d be fine being in a smaller guild, with the simplified guild structure you’ve mentioned before, or joining a larger guild.
I don’t know anyone in TW directly, although I recognized a lot of the names of the players in that guild when I looked them up.
A while back, I applied to a guild of PT players called A New Level:
http://anewlevel.guildlaunch.com
A lot of PT players from both sides, esp Destro, are going to be in that guild. I don’t think ANL has selected a server to play on yet.
While my main class on WoW (Feral Druid) did have stealth capability, for the most part, I haven’t played stealth classes. In Aion, I liked the single-target burst damage of Sin.
Thanks for the offer re: trying your Spiritmaster, but it’s a class I’m not interested in.
Good News. NCsoft is dropping GameGuard!
Sin? really? I’ve looked at them and although in wow and war-hammer I played rogue/druid and wh, I’m not at all impressed with sin action I’ve seen. I’m still open to SM,Glad, and Temp. Be it I have had no exp. in any of the ob or cb. I probably will be waiting a few months to hear what the reviews and what not are before I pick up the game. all in all keep up the good posting!!
Here are the reasons I like Sin:
1. high burst and sustained DPS
2. as a melee class, has a lot of CC (stuns) to counter kiters and healers
3. ability to solo
4. from what I’ve read, highly desired for PVE groups, because they have burst and sustained DPS
Gladiator still appeals to me, but I’m not a big fan of leveling characters, so I’m going to have to pick between Sin and Glad. Right now, still leaning towards Sin.
Proof of this, they have said in several posts that they would not drop gameguard so plz link some evidence or no one will believe it.
I couldn’t find any links this morning to verify what Megata said.
I would be surprised if NCSoft were dropping Game Guard this close to Aion’s launch, it’s too much of a risk and the switching cost would be significant.
I found what he was refering too and it is purely speculation, and like I said before and can re-enforce now after talking to the producers directly via twitter (through which I have been very involved with them since closed beta) that they have absolutely no plans for removign gameguard at this time and as Aion_Ayase states and I quote “I wouldn’t believe all the internet rumors you see that is afterall, how WW1 got started, lol.” the info can be found here: http://twitter.com/esux/status/3921962363
and here: http://twitter.com/aion_ayase/status/3922137510