Aion's European community team makes the leap across the pond

Going along with the continuous restructuring of NCsoft West, the European Aion community team has recently been invited to take the long swim across the Atlantic Ocean and join US community manager Liv in Seattle, forming a unified Aion community team.

Sebastian "Ayase" Streiffert, the United Kingdom community manager, and Martin "Amboss" Rabl, the German community manager will be flying to the United States, while Loic "Atreid" Claveau, the French community manager, has declined the position in favor of moving to the marketing department in Brighton.

Ayase, Amboss, and Atreid have all written blog posts reflecting on their individual decisions, and they can be read over at the Aion Europe community site. Amboss's and Atreid's posts have been written in their native languages, but it's nothing that a web translator can't handle. (And by handle I mean rip to shreds, but at least give you the general idea.)

Welcome to the United States, Ayase and Amboss!

Aion Obama character

We're generally apolitical in terms of our content here at Massively, but this is something worthy of note: Obama in the fantasy MMO Aion: The Tower of Eternity? (We're sure this unscheduled appearance will come as a surprise to the President, himself.)

NCsoft really didn't have this in mind when creating the game's lore, but some rather inventive beta testers have created something which show off just how good Aion's character creation is. The end result is a player-created video that depicts Obama in ways his publicity people never anticipated, as an Elyos 'kicking ass' and saving trees on the road to ascension as a Daeva... Yes, this may piss off a few people -- namely the POTUS -- but it's all in good fun. Check out the YouTube embed below the cut in high quality.

Aion's Morheim zone receives video tour treatment

Volcanic valleys full of floating islands of pouring magma are just one of the many amazing vistas you'll see in the newest Aion video zone tour for the Morheim. It's probably the 100th time we've said it, but this game's environmental visuals are without a doubt drop dead gorgeous. We don't always agree on everything here at Massively, but if there's one thing you can be sure we've reached a consensus on, it's this.

It probably helps that these videos just keep on coming out, too.

Another strikingly impressive part of the video tour stems from its showcasing the amount of diversity in just this one particular zone. Beyond the flaming hot craggy regions, there are icy frozen tundras and classically built tree houses and, uh, well tree people too. You can find the full video just after the break.

Aion: 1 million in China, and growing?

We knew Aion was a hit in Korea (currently the most popular MMO on the market there), but Aion's success in China was something of a wildcard...until now.

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Shanda's (Nasdaq:SNDA) licensed pay-for-time western fantasy MMORPG AION recorded more than 1 million paying users by April 19 in the five server farms in commercial operation. The game began charging RMB 0.48 per hour with the release of its first commercial operation version 1.0, "Yao Sai Pan Long," on April 16.

Source: JLM Pacific Epoch - Shanda's "AION" Hits 1M Paying Users

As a result of this amazing response, Shanda is rumored to be in the process of spinning off their games division into its own company (that's a good thing).


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DoNews quotes an unnamed insider as saying that Shanda plans to list its game business early this or next year. Shanda has hired headhunters to search for a CEO and vice president and is injecting more assets into the game business, said the insider. Shanda's "18 Fund," "20 Fund" and "Fengyun Fund" will all be included in the to-be-listed game company, according to an industry insider. Quoting insider confirmation, Sina reports that some investors visited Shanda two months ago to discuss the listing. Shanda hopes the success of licensed western fantasy MMORPG AION will pave the way for the offering, said the source.

Source: JLM Pacific Epoch - Rumor: Shanda to List Game Business


That's it for China news for now, how about some an interview with Liv by Gamespot? Most of the info is rehashed, but I didn't read the article for that. I read it for the comments at the bottom...which are either enraging or hilarious, depending on your disposition. Here's a few good ones. Try to find all the logical fallicies, or shallow/tired arguments. I especially love the kids complaining about monthly fees, and the xenophobes afraid of anything not developed in the magical "West" part of the world, wherever that is this week.


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all the MMO's are starting to look pretty the same... out of ideas i guess..

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Mehhh another MMO with shallow and repetive battles for the multiplayer junkies...

And i am never going to pay monthly fees for a game so no thanks

Companies follow the easy way these days by believing that they will make a similar success like WoW...

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I have only one question... Monthly fees?! No monthly fees => I'm buying, monthly fees => sorry I will buy something else. Having no monthly fees is the reason why I played Guild Wars for 3 months and the game was actually good.

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People are playing the chinese version, you can do it if you know how. Overall the impression is mixed. One thing that you will notice is that its a typical korean grinder. Honestly, if you are into that kind of game, just play Lineage 2. The art style impresses me, but sadly thats all there really is to these types of games. Remember, these are not japanese game developers, meaning, they try to look like a FF game but the overall good game design isnt there. Korean and Chinese mmorpgs havent learned anything yet in that regard. They are mechanical mass produced games, once you play one you feel like you played them all... Western mmorpgs still offer better game design. Keep this in mind.