As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve chosen Assassin to play as my main character in Aion. I haven’t decided which server and faction to roll.
Here’s why this decision matters to me:
- I don’t have the time or desire to level multiple characters on multiple servers. The switching cost is too high
- I want to play on a server with a strong, mature community. For the last 2 MMOs I played, LOTRO and WAR, I played on RP servers, Landroval and Phoenix Throne (PT) respectively, and the experience on those servers was much better compared to non-RP servers
Here are the options I am looking at:
- roll Asmodian (Asmo) on Lumiel
- roll Elyos on Zikel
- roll Asmo on Zikel with the guild A New Level (my original plan)
Let me give some more context.
I’ve been unguilded since I de-subbed from WAR the first time back in April. When I came back to WAR in July, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be around, so I avoided joining a guild. I didn’t want to join a guild and then leave shortly after; that’s not healthy for the guild. It turns out I played WAR for the past 2.5 months. Had I known I was going to be around that long, I would have applied to an excellent guild, Irony, that I grouped with frequently. Irony has the trifecta I look for in players of a guild: skilled and friendly but not elitist.
I enjoyed the tight community on PT and wanted to guild with other PT players migrating to Aion, so a few weeks ago, I applied to a guild called A New Level (ANL), started by some of my former opponents. I never grouped with them in WAR, but they were cool on the forums and we had a lot of fun fights and duels.
There was a huge Vent meeting over the weekend between guilds from both factions of PT, and they decided to roll on the Aion server Zikel. This caused some friction between some PT players and ARP (Aion Role Playing), as both groups wanted their server (Zikel and Lumiel, respectively) to be designated as the Aion official RP server.
The upshot of all this:
- Zikel looks way imbalanced in favor of Asmo, as counted from the Zikel forum on AionSource (Numbers for the Legions Elyos/Asmo). A lot of people have said it won’t matter, but in the past 2 games I’ve played, I’ve seen the effect that even a hundred competent players switching factions on a server can have, even if the server has a population of thousands of players
- there has been a lot of flaming on the AionSource Zikel forums between PT / ARP and between PT / TheMercs. All this forum drama seems to have attracted a lot of elitist guilds to Zikel. I’m not intimidated by elitist guilds from a skill perspective, but they tend to be pricks in-game and on the forums, and this creates a environment I don’t want to be a part of
Both of those points have made Zikel look less attractive as a server.
I have til tomorrow to decide.
UPDATE (2009/09/18): I’ve rolled Elyos on Triniel.
UPDATE (2009/09/24): Yesterday, I re-rolled Asmodian on Lumiel for my main character. I checked out the server out of curiosity, and the player base is very friendly.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
[…] considering rolling here now. I hate choosing a server, always the risk I rolled on the wrong one. Server Choice For Aion is Up in the Air Taugrim's MMORPG Blog I've looked at some of the polls, it seems that the population balance will be even, or slightly […]
Taugrim…….heres a huge tip: roll with your friends. No matter the server :D
The issue for me is I’ve been unguilded for a while, and I know people from random guilds and such who are going different places in Aion.
I’m going to be playing Asmo so that leaves me in a tough spot. I don’t really want to add to the huge Asmo community on Zikel, but I don’t really want to play on Lumiel either since I have this fear that it won’t have as much PvP action as Zikel.
So what I think will end up happening is I’ll roll Asmo on Zikel and hope that either people re-roll Elyos or that other guilds flood in. I’m banking on a population shift basically.
The Guinevere alliance is moving from Zikel Asmo to Lumiel Asmo:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312295
From what I understand, that’s a few hundred players, so that should ease some of the imbalance on Zikel.
There have been some threads (possibly by trolls), claiming that Goons or Ruin are rolling on Zikel, which has turned some folks off. People who’ve played on servers with those mega-zerg guilds said they are bad not for the opposition, but for players from the same side. LOL.
About an hour ago, I listened in a 30-minute Tempest Wolves / A New Level Vent meeting. They’re staying on Zikel. They’re not concerned about the mass zerg jackass guilds. They feel like Zikel will be the most active PVP server.
So you, Nam, and Jostle know: I’m rolling on Triniel as Elyos, because I’m applying to Irony.
They’re the guild I’ve grouped with the most over the past couple months, and their preferred style of play suits mine (and yours actually) like a glove. A few groups skirmishing and facing superior numbers. Good players, tight guild.
Let me know where you end up.
Yeah the posts on the Aion source forums for Zikel have literally doubled in just one day! I’ve also been looking for a server to call home and was thinking Zikel as it was the random server I chose to play in the one beta I did play. However I am quite unsure now.
I just don’t want to get on a server that ends up having a low pop, which would ruin many aspects of the game.
A lot of people have been turned off by the threads on Zikel. Some folks say it won’t matter, but I have seen a correlation in previous games between forum community and in-game community.
There are ~400k preorders and 12 servers, so that’s tens of thousands of players per server. And I’ve heard there are queues or some other population control mechanisms. So my gut is every server should have pretty good activity. NCSoft doesn’t seem to be going down Mythic’s path with WAR of launching with too many servers.
I’m torn on what I should do still. In the end it probably won’t matter as in my experience there are good and bad people on any server. You’re rolling on Triniel? Hopefully things work out there for you and Irony.
If the Zikel community turns out to be a joke I’ll re-roll on a server with a better community. Probably Lumiel unless things change post release.
Agree there are good and bad on any server. My impression (and other people too) is that Zikel has attracted more than its fair share of the latter.
I think Lumiel is a solid choice. I’d have gone there if it weren’t for Irony. I hadn’t even considered Triniel, until the Vent meeting for Irony.
Check out the server forum for Triniel:
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/triniel-east/
Such a different feel from some of the other servers. Not a single e-peen thread on the 1st page. No drama. Just people wanting to bash each other’s skulls in.
Triniel looks like it will be a reasonable server. Hopefully you guys have some decent competition there. Maybe I’ll roll an Asmo Assassin on Triniel to hunt you when I’m bored. We could have some epic dagger duels for your videos.
Is all of Irony coming to Aion or just some? I had heard Dissb and Reock weren’t, but I haven’t been keeping track really.
AFAIK, those 2 are going to play Aion. From what I understand, Irony wasn’t originally planning on trying Aion as a guild, but there was sufficient interest so they’re moving over as a guild.
Also, I’m going dagger main hand and sword off hand. All the cool kids are doing that.
So I just decided 2 things for sure. I’m going to roll Asmo on Lumiel for my main SM and I’m going to make an Assassin on Triniel for a side project. Which side of Triniel I’m not sure about just yet.