Aion 24/7 GM support 'coming very soon'

by Kyle Horner Oct 14th 2009 at 1:00PM

Aion has a lot of great qualities, although one of the biggest issues in-game towers above pretty much any others: 24/7 in-game GM support. Whether it's gold spammers, bugs or some issue that goes above and beyond asking for help in guild chat -- constant GM support is essential for happy customers.

So you'll be happy to know it's coming very soon! At least, according to recent Twitter activities by the community team. As the weeks continue to churn for this newly hatched (at least in the west) MMO, having a quality support team is going to make or break many potential players' opinions when their hesitant friends ask, Aion"Should I pick up Aion?" Thus, this is good news. Not as good as it actually happening, but very close!

[via TTH]

Tags: aion, community, game-master, gm, gm-support, gold-sellers, gold-spammer, ncsoft, rmt, technical-support, twitter

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

mrblister said on 1:26PM 10-14-2009

I'm actually kind of shocked that this is even an issue. Should have been in at the start.

The Claw said on 5:48PM 10-14-2009

Yeah, I'm amazed that possibly the biggest MMORPG launch of the year, and they didn't think they needed at least a skeleton crew providing 24/7 coverage? Wow.

Leshrac said on 1:34PM 10-14-2009

I agree, I'm shocked that the GM's don't have a larger presence, but I am super amped about having 24x7 support.

danarchy said on 1:40PM 10-14-2009

You can tell an obvious and definite difference when there are GM's on and when there are not. The spam for one is nearly non existent during "business hours" because either the gold spammers are aware of those hours or their banning the crap out of them. Thankfully the game is solid enough I have not yet had a need for a gm, but with the asshattery common in pvp heavy games they need to get that in place soon.

Temko said on 5:24PM 10-14-2009

This game is getting so much leeway due to it's hyped up nature that it scares me.

- 4 hour queues
- Botting, Macro's.. name it
- Gold Spammers
- Lack of GM support outside 9-5 business hours.
...

the more i thin on it the less i wan to touch this game :S

Justin said on 6:37PM 10-14-2009

"This game is getting so much leeway due to it's hyped up nature that it scares me.

- 4 hour queues
- Botting, Macro's.. name it
- Gold Spammers
- Lack of GM support outside 9-5 business hours.
...

the more i thin on it the less i wan to touch this game :S"

To my knowledge none of the servers have 4 hour queues anymore. People left their characters logged in all day every day and that caused the queues. When they changed shops, they fixed the queues. Botting and Macros are present in every MMO. Glider ring a bell? Gold spammers? I will give you that one, however they are currently doing ban waves to target spammers. And quite frankly it cannot get any worse than it currently is so therefore it has to get better.

The GM support is pretty thin, however the game is polished and the bugs that are there don't really require GMs. So while it would be nice, I personally haven't even needed a GM once in my near month of playing. So before you spew ignorance how about you actually I don't know, research before you speak.

Accordance said on 5:57PM 10-14-2009

I agree wholeheartedly that GMs should have been present from day one. It's great that GM intervention is being taken seriously now, but that it wasn't initially doesn't seem like an accident. I'm curious as to what the thought process was there.

That being said, Aion works well and it's graphically pretty, but it's shallow. I keep waiting to get the quest that introduces my character into the grand story, but there is no grand story that I've seen so far aside from the Balaur vs. Asmodian vs. Elyos story, which seems like it's written as an afterthought as an excuse to PvPvE. The quests are written well, but the ideas behind them are lacking (rescued two pigs so far - does everyone have pet pigs?)

I'll keep grinding my way through it for a while. I want to get to the Abyss where the meat of the game is said to exist, but I can't see it lasting long if all there is is repeated PvP amidst weakly written PvE.

Leshrac said on 6:06PM 10-14-2009

Overall its a fun game, you have to deal with A LOT of shit (bots, spammers, ex-a-hole WoW players), but the core of any MMORPG; combat, in AION is fun. Its not better then WoW, EQ1 will always be my favorite MMO.

AION will not go down in MMO history as the best thing ever, but it is a serviceable game and a nice time burner for me atm.

TexRob said on 8:50AM 10-15-2009

I also loved EQ. This was something EQ did right, having a dedicated live GM during the day, and then floaters for off hours. I can even remember big issues happening during a first dragon kill or something, and the lead GM would show up in the middle of the night, presumably because he was called/paged. Having a dedicated GM like this, can lead to power hungriness, but overall he did more good than harm. If you give someone the power to make decisions, those decisions can always be swayed.

Anyhow, I think what Aion will go down as, is the single best engine design/choice with the Crytek engine. I think if Warhammer had chosen an engine like this, and tweaked it, you'd be seeing that game doing a lot better than it is. I used to defend it, that it wasn't "that bad", but this game looks 3x better and runs 3x faster, it's really amazing what they've done here. To me this game sets the bar for visuals, and not just single frame visuals, the whole package (animations, chaining of animations, weather effects, ability to do fire and water without causing game slowdown).

I think it's a really good game, that with time and the right expansions, could be a great one. This thing does a lot of things very well, don't discredit being very above average at a lot of things.

Lethality said on 7:10PM 10-14-2009

Absolutely no fucking excuse for not having this ready to go on day 1. They don't even have their petition system working so that you know about it, until 24 hours AFTER you submit a ticket and they tell you to go to the forums.

Very easy /cancel for me.

Verit said on 8:04PM 10-14-2009

I had a problem where my character de-leveled - no GM help what-so-ever. I kinda quit playing.

Sally said on 11:52PM 10-14-2009

Well, I am having a LOT of fun playing the game. The animations are stunning. Even the little animals do amusing things (such as swat a fly out of the air then stomp on it).

Is it the best thing out there?? I dunno.

But I really enjoy it, the community seems great on my server anyways. The combat system is really, really fun. The crafting is rewarding, challenging, and a complete mini game in itself. The skills are effective and meaningful. The graphics are out of this world. The dialogue is often amusing and interesting to read. The auction house is another mini game...getting green drops, listing them, then getting your cash. The macro system is fantastic. I wish every game had it. Easy to use, helpful tips and a walk through if you need it. The classes each get better and better the higher you go.

I think it is well done. And I have not had to wait even once to get on - no server ques in sight.

Botting? Meh, do not notice.

Spammers? Well, they are bloody annoying and blocking them in the first few minutes of log-in is yet another mini game in itself lol

I strongly advise everyone to at least try this game and stop being a hater without having any personal experience with it.

arabica said on 12:54AM 10-15-2009

I simply can't believe how many people had no idea what they were getting into. This is NCsoft West we're talking about. The last event they introduced to L2 was so show-stoppingly bug filled that the event items could be used as AoE grenades that kicked other players offline. Their reaction? They ADVERTISED the bug and how to trigger it then claimed to have GM's watching for people who were making use of it(basically every one that enjoyed a good laugh).

MMO players through the word "incompetence" around too lightly but NCsoft's ability to not test anything, ignore botters, fuck up their own forums puts them head and shoulders above anyone else in the industry. At times I'm simply in awe.

Check their Facebook page for deals on power-leveling services in Aion:
http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=3349430601

The ad has been there for weeks...

Bawjaw said on 8:08AM 10-15-2009

Maybe explains why this guy has been botting for 4 days while getting people to report him and still has not got a ban:

http://www.aionsource.com/forum/aion-discussion/74580-amusing-experiment-robots.html

derdickeguru said on 8:29AM 10-17-2009

Just as a side note to a otherwise great episode:

Have you checked the exchange rate between the Euro and the US
Dollar , because your math seems off.

Exchange rate is 1:1.50, what means that 40 US $ (expansion & bonus feature pack) are only 26.67 Euro, less then the 28 Euro that you have to pay in Europe for the same product.

So far I have not seen a game or game fee that is cheaper in
Europe compared to the US, but of course I haven't seen all of them.

And thank you for the very entertaining podcast.