Another 5000 Open Beta Keys (EU) at Eurogamer

Be quick and grab one over at Eurogamer if you still have friends that lack one.

Cannot connect to the authorization server. (EU)

Just a quick note: I had this very problem earlier this morning, despite never having it before. I tried it a few times with the suggested command line fix, but it did not change anything. What did help me was: Make a backup of the addcache.xml file in your Aion folder to be save. Open the original file with a text editor and change the content in both lines to -ip:206.127.147.28 -port:2106 -cc:2, now save the file and make it read-only. It seems that Aion somehow messes around with the file at every login. In addition enter the command line from above in your Aion launcher properties - not even sure thats needed with the read-only file, but was too lazy to try it out and it can't hurt. After i did the above i was able to log into the game fine, no problems anymore at all. Reminder: I play on a EU server, you need to change IP data for us. Maybe this helps some of you. Please remember you made these changes and revert them back after open beta.

On an open beta related note, NCsoft posted some Open Beta Updates to let us know they are working on the fixes. The official forums still contain very little to no information on the known infos tho. Looks like they're throwing out more beta keys as well.

Beside the login, crash, lag and Game Guard problems the game currently has to deal with there are also some wierd ingame bugs that annoy the hell out of me: If you use shield skills like eg. Shield Defense I your auto-attack is turned off sometimes. In addition the "new" left-mouseclick camera look is not behaving like we're used to and if you move at the same time while looking around some wierd behaviour occurs, like turning you into a different direction and such.

And remember: The Monster Raffle Contest is still going on!

Open Beta upon us

The Open Beta started... for some at least. Seems NCsoft is having serious issues, many of which have a different cause. One of things that really annoys me is that if you try to login and the NCsoft authentication server is down, the game will close on you instead of just informing you and let you try it again. WTF? From reading the boards it also looks like that there are still error windows that have not been translated properly yet and point customers to the korean website/support. There is a poll on the official beta forums, that reads (accumulated): 46.80% with lag issues, 34.59% having different issues that prevent playing properly and only 18.61% have no issues at all. Ofc a poll like this is not representative, but gives an indication.

Do i have trouble myself? Yes, i do. Game Guard closes my game via "The game or Game Guard was modified." error. From what i read the latest Game Guard version injected some new issues with Firewalls and such. During the initial closed beta i had trouble with my old firewall and switched to the free version of Agnitum Outpost Firewall, which is very good and i can only recommend. After giving Aion and Game Guard all access via the settings i have not had any problems with GG anymore during the CB events. Well, now it seems GG decides the Firewall is a threat. Funny thing is that just disabling the firewall for testing purpose is not enough. I've read on the forums that people with Comodo or Outpost Firewall have had success to get rid of the error by completely deinstalling the firewall. But c'mon... seriously? I will not pay to play a program that has me deinstalling firewall software that is configured correctly to give Aion and Game Guard full access. It's worse enough Game Guard being a rootkit and hooking *every* process on your computer, instead of just protecting Aion memory & files. This behaviour causes GG for some players to use up 25%-50% of CPU power btw. Does it surprise you that more and more players are willing to test unauthorized programs to kill Game Guard? I won't touch any of those and can't advice this, but can understand more and more players getting annoyed. NCsoft promised us that all Game Guard issues would be solved for launch, so far it does not look very promising tbh.

More issues (and I'm not even posting all):

If you get the ID/password mismatch error, thats usually due to you not updating your game account (NOT master account) password. Go and check if your account says you're ready, if not change your password and you are good to go.

"You cannot run any more client" is another error a bunch of people gets. No fix for this so far, even reinstalling the client does not seem to fix this.

Some players get an error message cause their account has been suspended temporarily due to missed payments. Others report their Beta accounts being banned completely due to violating the user agreement.

Legion names get cut off after 16 characters despite initially being able to use 32 characters.

Some huge lag and disconnect issues for people as well. For some people adding the server IPs to the command line of Aion did help.

Another issues seems to be the automatic race balancing rules. No one knows yet how wide the margin is, but i hear a lot of players complain they are not able to create the race they want on their servers. Either there is a large imbalance in player preference or the margin is very small.

Add to all those many more smaller Game Guard problems and issues people have and you can imagine why people are upset. One thing that bothers me is the bad information flow from NCsoft towards the players. There is no proper thread with informations on all issues and if there is a solution or how they will fix it. The offial Aion website does not have any infos at all concerning issues, people are somehow forced to read the twitter feeds from the community team - which IMO is bad information policy and they make it too easy for themselves. We need proper info channels, some players can't even access the beta forum as they have issues creating an account. Twitter is fine for marketing purposes, but NOT for support. There are very few posts from NCsoft support in the official beta forums, its mostly players trying to help players. Is this the kind of support we can expect after launch? Or is it just that NCsoft does not have any answers to give us? Then maybe an accumulated thread with known issues, which is updated regularly, would help.

Do i think Aion is ready for launch? Maybe... if they can deal with the issues today and not on the last day of the open beta phase. But the communication channels between the NCsoft Community Managers and the player base definately is not atm. There needs to be official info on issues. On a sidenote: My last email to Ayase is unanswered since August 26th btw, which is why i did not bother to ask further questions about more official infos.

I'll try to keep you guys posted should i hear about proper working solution to errors.

Here are two threads at AionSource that are updated regularly that might offer some help:
Installation & Troubleshooting FAQ
Gameguard Error Codes (and some other errors) and their Known fixes

Eurogamer hands out 5000 EU Open Beta Keys

Be quick and grab one here: http://gamers.eurogamer.net/giveaways.php?id=86949

Open Beta Dates

Update
Following this press release over at gamesindustry.biz the dates are:
06/09 - 13/09 Access to the Open Beta
18/09 Access to the Aion Server and Character pre-selection
20/09 Access to the Head Start Program
25/09 Release (22. for US i think)

There has been no official confirmation on the Aion website yet, but since the dates are very close to what some online retailers did send out to customers... probably really the true story. ;)

Gamescom 09 recap

During the Gamescom NCsoft posted a lot of stuff and the community team used twitter to talk with people. Like with every MMO most of the things said are just marketing blahblah and don't give any new infos mainly answering questions with facts we already know or just telling us the devs are "discussing" it. There were a few interesting tidbits i did gather from the interviews tho:


# Open Beta announcement this week. Open Beta version will be patch 1.5 already.
# Pre-Selection will let you create your char and choose a name *before* the headstart, so you'll be able to just jump into the game once headstart servers open.
# Patch 1.5 download will be around 4-5 GB for beta players and will be provided via BitTorrents and Partner Downloads (probably like Fileplanet and such).
# Pre-Order rings will add a visual effect and a small resist to the elemental type pending on ring version. Cool thing: It's not really a ring, but an item you keep in your inventory for the effect.
# Confirmation NCsoft is working on a housing system.
# cross-server battlegrounds are being explored by the devs.
# Some new Abyss zone with more compressed PvP (did not sound like they'll change the current Abyss but more like add a new zone)
# Mounts will be added, but not for transportation. So probably either for sieges or just being fluff with the possibilities to customize them.

Videos can be found here:
Interview (en): Lani Blazier & Producer Brian Knox
Interview (en): Lani Blazier & Lead Designer Yongchan Jee
Interview (en): Gamona (german fansite) & Lead Designer Yongchan Jee
Gamescom 09 Game Demo (en): Part 1 & Part 2

Edit: Two new HD videos from Gametrailers: part 1 & part 2.