Since I’m sitting here, sending out CVs and idly surfing while my near three-hour queue in Aion slowly ticks down, this post by Tobold struck quite a chord: Aion and the death of the traditional server model. This quote really made me laugh:
And to all those who have said that this is the smoothest launch theyve ever seen, of course it bloody well is, nobody can get onto the servers to stress them. I could solve all of the public transport problems in England if I only let ten people on to each bus and then thanked everyone else for their patience while they stand around for two hours to get on to the next one.
Fucking fantastic quote. :D
But seriously, I’ve fallen so far behind my friends that I worry we won’t be able to play together, due to my current horrible job and the hour and a half commute home. By the time I get home, the queues are impossible. Aion fail, to the nth power. And yet…when I can get on, I totally love the game.
And so…why ARE we still locked to a single server in MMOs? (EVE aside, obviously.) I don’t know anything about game server architecture, but obviously some games aren’t so restrictive – why should we be locked into this model?
As a comment pointed out: “My strong hunch is that NCSoft are not going to lose many potential long-term players due to this. The players that were always likely to commit will endure the queueing. The players that were never likely to commit, well, NCSoft already has their money.” This is true, unfortunately. I will continue to play, even though I feel as though I am giving money to a company which doesn’t deserve it.
I don’t deserve your money either. Send me some.
Only if you promise to treat me like crap first and take all my toys away. Then, based upon past experience, I’ll probably send you £8.99 a month. :D