When the servers finally came up for preselect today and the flood of players arrived, one thing became clear pretty quick: NCSoft means business when it comes to server balance.
Very quickly many of the servers were “full” on the Asmodian side. Asmo was locked out on nearly every server after just a few minutes.
What was awesome though, is that it was not a complete lock out. As more Elyos characters were created, more Asmo slots opened up. If you were trying to roll an Asmo and failed due to the lock, you could continue trying and grab one of the slots as they opened.
Many people did not like this and understandbly so, but I think it was a fantastic decision for the long run health of Aion. Many people probably remember all to well how unbalanced the WAR servers were on release. The unbalanced server population in WAR greatly contributed to the decline of the game. It is something that, a year later, they have still not recovered from.
NCSoft is taking a hardline approach to keeping the servers balanced and, in the long run, I think it will pay off. Balance is vitally important for a PvP game and NCSoft is not going to mess around with it.
If you are not able to create your chosen race on any given server, continue trying until a slot opens up. This maybe frustrating but you will thank them in the long run.
Filed under: Aion, General Commentary |
Aionic Thoughts 
I think the balance lock out is an excellent idea. The fail that i perceive, however, is that the server my legion chose is already locked out completely, not just for factions. Less than 4 hours after preselection opened and only half of my legion was able to create characters before the server we picked was closed entirely.
Unfortunately my work shift was scheduled during this time. I realize servers will open again during headstart, and woe to me if I’m not fast enough to get in.
Keep trying Awl. The lock is coming and going as more characters are made on the other side. I have heard that the current lock percentage is 10%, so if there is over 10% more Asmo on a server it locks them out until they drop below. Keep trying.
Yeah it’s not the faction lock, the whole server is down for anybody who has not already created, Asmo or Elyos. We’re trying to roll on Triniel, and Zikel is also closed for everyone. I believe there are at least 2 other servers totally closed.
People in my boat will just have to wait til Sunday.
I understand the need to do this but its still very frustrating. A lot of people are saying the should have waited until launch day but I think that would probably be even worse to do then. All in all I will just have to be patient and hope that I’ll be able to roll the race I want on the server I want come head start or the whole point of my pre-order is pretty worthless. 😦
Nah, its a good idea, a great one in fact. I fully agree with your views on it Naamah.
Well, in theory it is cool, but my brother, who also pre-ordered a collectors edition couldn’t create a character on the same server as me thanks to this. Balance is fine, but if I cannot play with my friends then it blows. Hopefully things will ease up.
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I got locked out of asmo for the first hour or so, but I just kept trying every few minutes and finally a spot opened up for me and all was good.
I think everything I have seen NCsoft doing to prepare for a smooth release so far has been professional and justified. We really cant complain about the way Aion has been handled at all….
Not when we remember back to how badly some beta launches have been handled.
I shall not name names 🙂