Patience my…

Patience my…

Some people are wont to believe nuns have the patience of a saint (except perhaps those individuals who attended a parochial school).  The truth, however, (at least in my case) is perhaps more closely exemplified by our two winged friends above.

Some mmo releases are smoother than a puppies butt,  and some are rockier than a Hollywood marriage. One thing is for sure, however, and that is no road to release is without its share of potholes.

Granddad may have not been patient enough to wait in line to spend his money, but I dare say he probably wouldn’t have played Aion Online last night either. There have been long waits for some servers, it is quite true.  Some players, when confronted with an hour and a half wait time will simply say “Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead” and wait it out.  Others, who do not enjoy having something to bitch about the next day, will simply select an alternate server: Ariel server? No wait. Fortunately, for me at least, some guild masters have the foresight not to select the server with the absolute highest population.  One other aspect of Aion does make a wait worthwhile…

Balance

You may not be able to select the faction you want at first (I had to wait a short while) but in the end I am happy to see that NCSoft has learned from other game releases (here’s looking at you  Warhammer Online devs) and not waited until after the fact to try and concern themselves about population balance. Still, as my old NCO used to say, if a soldier couldn’t complain she wouldn’t be happy. As a result, I have found some rather unique conversations across the blogosphere about the game that has already been out for a year in South Korea:

Gamer X: “I had to wait for an hour and a half to log on last night!”

Julie: “No one made you select the highest population server.”

Gamer X: “I don’t care.”

Julie: “But once you got on didn’t it run smoother than puppies behind? Heck I don’t even have a top end machine and there wasn’t so much as a hitch.”

Gamer X: “I don’t care – the game is too much like WoW”

Julie: “Too much like World of Warcraft? Are you psychotic? It’ doesn’t look anything like World of Warcraft!”

Gamer X: “I didn’t say looks I meant plays.  It plays too much like WoW. I’m back to killing 10 rats again.”

Julie: What the hell do you want? How many different ways can you kill ten rats or deliver a federal express package? I have the perfect solution for you though.”

Gamer X: “What’s that?”

Julie: “Log off. Cancel your subscription, and wait for Hello Kitty Online to come out – maybe that’s more your speed.”

“Gamer X”, of course, is an amalgamation of many of the blogs I have read out there since the opening day of Aion Online.

Yes, I will be the first to admit that some of the glitches were a bit aggravating.  When I first logged on it didn’t want my money.  I said to myself “don’t they want my credit card?” It appeared not, so I just logged on and played. Later that day I logged on again, only to be greeted by a message telling me my account had been temporarily suspended for not paying the subscription. Ok, I thought, it seems they want a credit card after all. I went out to the account management site and gave them my credit card. I went back and logged on again only to be greeted by the same message:

NCSoft: “Your account has been temporarily suspended…”

Julie: “Yes, I know. We went through this already. I paid the subscription.”

NCSoft: “Go back and verify it.”

Julie: “I did. Why can’t I play?”

NCSoft: “You didn’t verify the payment.”

Julie: “Yes I did.”

NCSoft: “No you didn’t there must be a button there somewhere – look for it.”

Julie: “There isn’t”

NCSoft: “Maybe you just missed it. Look again.”

So I looked again. No “Customer Service” button. No way to verify anything. Maybe I should just give it some time.

I did.

I waited.

I went back and tried to log on again.

NCSoft: “Oh it’s you again is it?”

Julie: “Yes it’s me. I paid the bill – let me play.”

NCSoft: “No.”

Julie: “What?”

NCSoft: “We said no. Call the telephone number on the screen first.”

Julie: “I did.”

NCSoft: “And?”

Julie: “I dialed the number and redialed it until my fingers fell off – it was always busy.”

NCSoft: “Good. It’s working as intended then.”

Julie: “What? I paid my money. You have to let me play the game.”

NCSoft: “No we don’t, blow it out the other end. Have a nice day.”

Julie: “WHAT! You can’t do that.”

NCSoft: “We just did. But there is one thing though…”

Julie: “What?”

NCSoft: “Didn’t you forget a small step between load the game on the computer and wonder why we didn’t ask you for a credit card?”

Julie: “Um…”

NCSoft: “WELL…WE’RE WAITING FOR AN ANSWER.”

Julie: “I forgot to enter the activation code for the permanent account.”

NCSoft: “Very good. Now go away and come back in a half an hour with the broom of the wicked witch of the west and we will let you play.”

Julie: “Do I really have to bring you the broom of the wicked witch of the west?”

NCSoft: “Yes. Just make sure you aren’t enough of a fool to insist on playing on the highest population server. Log on to a different server. Have fun. You’re old guild is already on that one anyway.”

Julie: “Okay…see you in a half an hour.”

NCSoft: “Good…just one more thing.”

Julie: “What?”

NCSoft: “We were only kidding about the broom.”

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather