The first purpose is to create your character so the instant headstart... starts, you can leap in and start playing. The second purpose is so that you can reserve the name that you want. Obviously if your name is Death or Assassin, there's a good chance you're gonna get boned anyway, but for names like mine it's a boon. Zot isn't exactly a popular name but it is a three letter name, which tend to get snapped up fairly quickly in MMOs in my experience. These are just courtesies that NCSoft have bestowed upon us valued preordering types.
This is what goes through Korean's minds when they think westernOne of the worst things about MMOs is the reserving of names. It's all fine and good if you genuinely have a unique name you are also known as and want to stop other people from purposely taking it to inconvenience you or impersonate you, but that's actually pretty rare. Mostly people just reserve names they like, so that on the off chance they create an alt they can use it. Often the name is lost for eternity. I was lucky in WoW; I had a tendency to name my characters 'Drey' going from server to server. On one particular server my friends had rolled on it was taken. I added the name to friends and luckily they logged in a few days later. It turns out the guy actually was playing with that name, but didn't like that character anymore and agreed to delete it for me. See, WoW wasn't always so bad...
Getting back on track, to the end of just reserving just your own personal name, NCSoft are limiting the number of characters you can create during this event to two. Once headstart hits you can create characters to your hearts content but I urge you, the reader, to go light on the reserving. We've all been in the position where you've just thought of the best name ever but it's taken by someone who never logs on. Don't be that guy!
There's probably a third reason for preselection: to get a better idea of population numbers. Preselection will likely show NCSoft whether or not they need to switch on a couple of extra servers come Live. It will also be a better test of their faction balancing system than OB was as legions won't be as keen to say "you know what, screw it, we'll go Elyos" this time around. In fact I fully expect that tomorrow will be a day of mass Kyoou-Kyoouing as legions complain that only a portion of their Asmodian guilds can make their characters. It's a better strategy to shaft people's plans and force them into the undermanned faction in the long term, but boy will we hear plenty of the opposite if things go the way I suspect they will ;)
Meanwhile... I'll be stuck with boring white wings.Stupid Asmodian overpopulation.
Not long until headstart now... maybe Tora will update that countdown to the right. :P
Fix't.
ReplyDeleteHey man, don't knock the boring white wings ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm in full agreement with the whole 'don't reserve a name just 'cuz you can' approach. It just spoils the game for others.
Someone on an old WoW server I frequented reserved One through Nine. Clever but selfish xD
ReplyDelete"This is what goes through Korean's minds when they think western"
ReplyDeleteHell, that's what i think of us too :)
The servers came up almost 40 minutes late, but we got our names.
ReplyDeleteWell... most of us. "Lewin" is apparently the name of an asmodian NPC and is thus on the exceptions list. Lewin is quite angry :p
It's begun; three threads on the Asmodian lockout within a minute of each other. Took a little longer than I thought, though. There must be some kind of internal limit till when the lockout kicks in to smooth it over for the first batch of rollers.
ReplyDelete:( my poor name. Sada will do.
ReplyDeleteFrom the looks of this status page (http://na.aiononline.com/en/news/preselection-server-status.html), the NA servers are filling up rather rapidly. Six of the Twelve are locked entirely for character creation.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Nezekan is full of Asmodians. Most forum dwellers are shrugging it off and telling people not to worry, just keep trying. My advice is, if you REALLY want to go Asmodian, keep trying. It may take hours; it may not happen at all. If you're an Asmodian legion trying to get into an asmo-locked server, consider switching to Elyos.
The simple truth is that there are much more Asmodian players than Elyos and the server configuration will only allow a maximum of 10% more asmodians than Elyos. Always. No exceptions. There will be a point where the trickle of Elyos characters dries up and any asmodian-wannabes that didn't make it are boned. The situation will not magically improve; the only way you'd get in as Asmo is to spam click create like everyone else, hoping that you get there first when someone creates an Elyos character to unlock the realm, or other Asmodians give up and roll Elyos.
... that said, it *might* be worth waiting until Headstart or Retail Launch to see what side the masses favour. I wouldn't expect anything more than just another shitload of asmos though.
ReplyDelete.. and to spam another comment, just as I clicked post, the servers all unlocked. xD
ReplyDeleteMost are only allowing Elyos characters, but still it's something. I didn't expect them to remove the locked server status but now that they have I can see the method behind the madness: they are ensuring that it's tougher for people to just ride the server bandwagon, in an effort to spread people more evenly across the servers.