No Aion today. and not just for this morning. It will be down for approximately 13 hours (or more?) while the servers are merged. While touting that there will be better opportunities for grouping and better economies, there is sure to be a log jam following this effort in many aspects of the game. First of all they are changing all the characters names. Due to the possibility of someone else having the same character name on a different server which has now merged with yours, when you do get back into the game you may not recognize yourself. They say that a few letters will be added to the character’s name to distinguish it from everyone else. Are you confused yet? They are providing everyone with a free name change voucher so that you can fix it. Also if you belong to a Legion, the names of those will also be altered.
Despite the hype one wonders what has prompted the need for such dire changes. With the real world economy the way it has been, and interest in MMO’s and PC games in general waning, it is easy enough to guess what has happened. In spite of terrific numbers when it premiered, the populations must have fallen off drastically. Many of those early character slots were taken up by robots, gold farmers, and the press. It would be a shame to see Aion go down the way of Auto Assault and Richard Garriott’s farce Tabula Rasa since it is truly a great game.
I like to take an MMO on slowly since it is supposed to have a playable life of four to five years. Many people raced right through it as fast as they possibly could. Which I believe misses the point of playing an MMO.  But will Aion be able to reach it’s maturity like Guild Wars has done with five years under its belt?
I for one am not looking forward to having more people on my server. As a solo player I’m usually 100% anti social. What I enjoy may only relate to about half the players, but those of us long term campaigners who like to roam about in a virtual world, and revel in the escapism of a place with out people may come up disappointed. Following the merger it could  mean more crowds, more hawkers shouting their wares, and even more intensely packed common areas.
For now I missing that fishing trip I planned for this morning off the Cantas Coast.