For online gamers, the place to be this weekend is the free open beta test for Aion the latest game over the last five years to try to knock World of Warcraft off its multi-billion dollar throne where it reigns as the king of subscription-based Internet games.
World of Warcraft is almost five years old now and where contenders like Vanguard, EverQuest 2, Age of Conan, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Warhammer Online and Lord of the Rings Online have failed to make a major dent in what is now WOW’s more than 11 million player user base, Aion has by far the best chance yet.
Perhaps most important, Aion, developed by NCsoft of South Korea, has already been available in that country, by far the world’s most intense online gaming market, since last November. The game has also been available in China since April. Aion has garnered several million players in Asia, giving NCsoft the ability to polish and tweak the game for some of the world’s most demanding players in advance of its scheduled retail release in North America on Sept. 22.
This is just a chuck from an article in The New York Times. This just shows what kind of an impact Aion has already made and will be making with the upcoming launch in Europe and North America. Please do read this article.
Ok I understand marketing the game on twitter but tech support on twitter is stupid there’s is like 4 different locations where people need to check to get info on tech support where as you should just have 1 central hub.
I don’t know if you get kick backs or a cross promotion type deal for generating hits on twitter but its stupid..
When people are paying for a service you shouldn’t need to track it on a 3rd party service to get support and updated information.
First of all, this guy doesn’t know the difference between Tech Support and keeping a community informed and updated. The NCsoft employees who use Twitter, have been using it for a while now and I’ve been following them for a while and the information they give you on Twitter is just amazing. Yes you need a Twitter account, yes you need to see what’s going on on Twitter, but the information you get makes up for all of that.
Twitter being the water cooler, being updated about aion_liv having a coffee accident or aion_ayase going out to get some coffee is something that you can expect. But don’t be fooled by these tweets because there are tweets being send which contain valuable information. This tweet for example, which tells you that the maintenance is over and you can log back in again. Don’t you think it’s worth knowing this information? And unlike the slow loading forums where you can wait for minutes before you even find the announcement, the tweet is send to you directly if you’re using a Twitter desktop client such as Seesmic (which I use) or Tweetdeck.Back to the betaboards thread. The “Bundywow” user keeps ranting about how NCsoft should use a proper forum and what not and he’s being backed up by quite some people who don’t realize the power of Twitter. But there are people that do understand the power of Twitter and why NCsoft employees use it. Just take a look at this reply from a user named “Kardinal”.
Even if they could have accessed the forums and posted relevant info here, it wouldn’t have gotten out to anyone yesterday because the forums were really inaccessible. So yes, they could have revealed better that alot of relevant emergency info is being posted through twitter but that constant stream of info is lightyears better than maybe getting a situation update every few hours through “official” channels.
Oh shut up!They use twitter because its easier, and a lot of people have it. If anything gamebreaking happens they will most likely tell us on the server.
The power of Twitter is its simplicity. You send your 140 character (or less) message and instantly all your followers are updated. If 1 person in a guild reads this tweet, he can tell his guild members or other friends. Imagine how fast this short innocent tweet can easily update hundreds of not thousands of people within a few seconds. How much easier is it to keep track of someone’s tweets than it is to keep an eye out for a possible announcement on a forum? I’ll tell you, it’s A LOT easier. Even when you’re in game, you’ll be updated with information about servers going down in x minutes.
I think I made my view about NCsoft employees using Twitter clear. I’d say keep on going like you’ve been in the past. I love being updated on the fly without sifting through forums. When it comes to Twitter, don’t mind these people. You can’t keep everyone happy especially people with attitudes coming over from World of Warcraft. I love the fast communication between NCsoft employees and their followers/customers thanks you Twitter, so keep it going!
What they are doing is providing niche gaming. It’s niche gaming that console games have been offering us all along: you wouldn’t expect Final Fantasy to have online PvP tournaments, or NBA 2K10 to offer a deep storyline with multiple plot twists and an open world map. These games have a design plan catered to specific styles of game play. Why should MMOs be any different?
A very interesting article to read. Especially the part you see quoted here is something I found to be true. Now we’ll have to wait and see how things are going to turn out for Aion in NA and Europe.