Aion Open Beta Starts September 6th

NCSoft announced today that the open beta for upcoming fantasy MMO Aion will begin on September 6th, extending through to the 13th. The client is available now. The game launches on September 22nd in the US, with a two-day head-start given to players who pre-order. NCSoft has also said they'll be showing off Aion in more detail at the Penny Arcade Expo, expanding on the information they provided at Gamescom (video).

Rootkits for everyone!

[regular_gonzalez]

A word of warning - Aion uses GameGuard [wikipedia.org] which for all intents and purposes, is a rootkit. The article is a bit outdated w/ regards to incompatibility issues with other apps, as the Steam incompatibility was fixed a month or two ago iirc. Either way, it's a terrible and invasive bit of software that I won't allow anywhere near my PC.

Re:Who cares?

[Tridus]

Yeah, pretty much. I wasn't impressed and cancelled my order. Blizzard doesn't have much to worry about here. It gets really good when you get into the forced PvP part. Once people learned that, every single person in my WoW guild who had been interested decided not to bother.

It seems that being ganked isn't exactly a feature people look for in games.

Re:Rootkits for everyone!

[Datamonstar]

Yep. it's another ADMINISTRATOR account that silently gets added to your system. Once I figured out what it was I disregarded it, but I was still pretty pissed.

Re:$50 + Pay 2 Play = No thanks!

[space_jake]

If you want a mature-ish WoW experience. Join a mature guild and turn off all of the public channels.

Re:Gameplay beyond level 20: Unfair ganking.

[gone9teen]

The one thing that people do not seem to know about Aion is that you can be ganked but there is 10+ channels to select to quest in. It's an option that quite a few don't know about until you get to near 15+. If you can't find an NPC you need in one channel? You switch channels and hope that it's there. If you are getting ganked in one channel you can switch channels and they would have to figure out which channel you were in to follow and each time you switch it takes time.

Re:Where's the download for Mac?

[toolie]

Looks like you'll have to stand in line with the other 5 people wanting the Mac download.

Re:Gameplay beyond level 20: Unfair ganking.

[Tridus]

Actually its entirely true. Someone beat me to the Warcraftrealms stats.

So, I've got that. I've also got the server count, showing more PvE/RP (129) servers then PvP/RP-PvP ones (112). And on top of that, the average population is higher on the PvE side (3.9 million to 2.5). More PvP servers run at low population then PvE servers do.

Now, what have you got to disprove it?

It's a fundamental reality - more people dislike being ganked then like ganking. Which makes sense, really. There's nothing very cool about one shotting someone who can't fight back unless you're some kind of reject that is terrible at the game and thus can't beat players your own level. ... so to quote you, proof or retraction. :P