by Jeff Woleslagle on Sep 21, 2009
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
The stage is set for a good week in entertainment, whether
you're preferences run to newly minted MMOs or quality season
premieres. Yet this weekend's early access period for Aion and Fallen
Earth ended more often in frustration than in gaming bliss. Check out
my comments in Loading... Access Denied and see if you can relate, plus
we have a whole new slate of features and guides to get you through
launch week in today's newsletter!
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"Biggest movers this past week:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/39">Dark AgeImportant
Dates
I'm realizing that this might have been the perfect week for a
staycation. Champions Online still certainly has plenty of folks
milling around the
Millenium City tutorial area and the two 11-20 destinations, and not
only is Aion primed to launch on the 22nd, but so is Fallen Earth. I
have to admit I'm drawn to Fallen Earth because I love games with a
post-apocalyptic feel (the more realistic the better), and this game
lacks the 1950s gone horribly wrong pastiche of Fallout 3, the matchbox
cars racetrack feel of Auto Assault, and the alien influences of Tabula
Rasa. The faction wheel alone- that your actions don't just increase
your reputation with faction x and decease it with faction y, but
impact your standing with four other factions at the same time - should
lead to some refreshingly complex MMO decision-making.
And if you're the sort of gamer that enjoys a fine bit of television
watching with your MMO gaming, this is the best week yet
for season premiers are airing in the US market, including
Castle (with Firefly's Nathan Fillion continuing his flawless
transition from sci-fi to prime-time), NCIS and its new
spinoff, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, all the CSIs, The
Mentalist, the still-dubious (to me) yet Joss Whedon-fueled Dollhouse,
and old standbys like House, Heroes, Law & Order. If
I'm missing your favorite, it's probably because my Tivo can only do so
much.
That's what's in store for this week, but if you were one of the folks
lucky (or unlucky) enough to get preorder access to Aion and Fallen
Earth, you might have been as disappointed as I was. While I'm told
that Fallen Earth early-access folks have been playing since the 9th,
my purchase through Steam ("play right away," according to the
href="http://store.steampowered.com/news/2844/">Steam news
blurb), downloading the game and attempting to launch only
resulted in a "This game is currently unavailable" message.
Zero for 1, so I tried to log into Aion when early access
began at noon pacific yesterday. Some of my coworkers and friends had
selected a server and faction in advance, and trying to log into said
server put me in a two hour long queue. I figured I'd come back later,
and after watching my Steelers lose pitifully, I tried again after
dinner and email. The queue was 2.5 hours long at 8:30pm Eastern, so it
was time for some doppelgaming with Champions Online.
To NCsoft's credit, the timer was spot on. At 11pm I finally got in and
played for a bit before bed, and was pleased to see that the starting
area chat was as full of pointless nerdfights and retarded sexuality as
I'd hoped. If old-time WoW Barrens chat was any indication, this game
has a bright future full of zillions of subscribers. With just about
all my friends queue-quitting, I kept to myself, not wanting any real
association until the game branched out a bit. This will be my third
trip to 20ish so it won't be long.
Someone commented that queues would be the downfall of this game, and I
couldn't agree less. Queues show how popular a game is, and everyone
wants to play the game that's popular. Look at Tickle Me Elmo or the
Wii. Once a product has gained a certain level of popularity, everyone
wants it, and the fact that they can't have it makes them want it more,
not less, because that you have that coveted product or once you're in
the inaccessible game, you have something lots of other people want but
can't have. Gamers are already all about extraordinary levels of
dedication and patience to win that hard-to-get thing or achievement,
so this is just icing on the cake. Be thankful that I'm not a suit at
one of these companies, I'd think very seriously about trying to
engineer mild shortages just to trigger the kind of feeding frenzy
we're seeing.
What were your early access experiences with Aion and Fallen Earth?
Finally knit that sweater or paint that room that you'd been meaning
to? Your thoughts welcome in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46463">Loading...
forum.
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=589">Aion
General Discussion forum
Same
server but can't meet friends
If
you're playing Aion as part of the pre-order headstart, you're not
alone. And yet you might find yourself alone when you're looking for
your friends on the same server. Imagine the frustration of the new
Aion player who has confirmed that both he and his buddy are
standing smack dab in front of the Akarios Village food
vendor,
and yet neither one can see the other.
If you're having this
common problem, welcome to the world of instanced worlds. Savanja
provides a simple solution to getting everyone on the same channel in
today's not-quite-epic but truly
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46441">useful
thread.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"Bless you Savanja!! I
was pretty sure we could all actually read and did get on the same
server.
I owe ya another beer!
Thanks!"
- Setter
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
Today's New MMO Coverage and Features
ForeverGuides
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/general/stigmabasics">Aion:Hottest Content:
Forever- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team