As the second of my three news items relating to MMOGs (look away now if you’re no fan!) and one which will see Blizzard grinning ear to ear, Chris Hager the producer of Aion: The Tower of Eternity, has announced that server merges are planned for North America and Europe over the coming weeks. As the biggest MMOG to launch in recent years, and what was hotly tipped to ‘de-throne World of Warcraft’ (aren’t they all?) fans will be pleased and dismayed in equal measure to hear the news.
Having played Aion during its closed BETA stages in China (not the easiest of tasks!), it was relatively evident then that despite a glorious game engine and snazzy class design, the game offered little in the way of innovation; being yet another eastern grind. Those unfortunate enough to believe NCSoft’s claims that the game would be ‘westernized’ when reaching our shores, with the implementation of more quests to reduce the ‘I’m-trapped-in-purgatory-please-rescue-me’ grind feeling, were quickly disappointed when reality finally set in. £40 lighter, they eventually left in their thousands.
Chris Hager in his statement, in an attempt to reduce the fall-out from the dreaded term ‘server mergers’, has gone on to state that “most of our servers didn’t have ideal populations.” and that he “didn’t relish the idea of mergers, but Aion will be a better game because of the server merge.”
I’m not sure NCSoft’s bank manager will see it that way.
You can read the full statement here.
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