Open letter to the NCsoft Community

Greetings Aion Players,

It has been a very busy year for us here at NCsoft West and our executive producer would like to take the time to address our communities today. Lance Stites is the head of NCsoft West's Game Production Studio in Seattle, overlooking many game franchises; including Aion, Lineage and Exteel.

In order to keep you updated on what is happening with our games, Lance would like to provide some insight into recent events and a scope of what is on the horizon for our studio as a whole. Please read on to gain a piece of unparalleled insight into NCsoft West's current operations.

Greetings and salutations,It's been just over three months since I've settled into the Seattle office, and I must say it's been an incredibly busy 100 days. The restructuring has resulted in the staffing of the NCsoft West Game Production Studio, which, as previously mentioned is tasked with supporting the Lineage and Aion franchises, as well as Exteel . At this point I'd like to pause and address the wider audience of all of the products supported by our NCsoft West Game Production Studio— Lineage, Exteel, Lineage II, and Aion .



Our major release with Lineage II on the North American 5 year anniversary was a big accomplishment on April 28. This was Producer Sam Han's first launch at the helm of this project. His many years as Associate Producer and Customer Service experience with the project served him well. Sam and team are currently in planning stages for the upcoming months. Recent additions to the team include Assistant Producer Marissa McWaters and Community Manager Lauren Duncan.

With Lineage and Exteel , we welcome a new face via our European and Korean office. Hyunah Chun will be taking the lead of both projects as Producer. Hyunah will be in transition mode while she relocates to the Seattle office from the European office. We'll continue working with the existing Lineage team to deploy weekly maintenance, events and also work to deliver our next big update. We are also working to update Exteel with the latest content from Korea. While we are making every effort to deliver timely updates, our resources are being stretched supporting existing and upcoming projects.

Of course, all eyes are currently on our next big release: Aion . We have some staff announcements of the team that will lead this project through launch. Brian Knox has been functioning as the project's Producer for the past few months and is doing a fantastic job. He's wrangling all the production elements and working with the various teams to ensure a top quality product and service. Supporting him in this role is Chris Hager, recently transiting from the Lineage II team. Chris is ensuring Quality Assurance support, age ratings submissions, beta tests, coordination with IT teams for server and software deployments, and host of other support issues. Adding to this leadership is Lani Blazier, whom I am happy to report has transitioned from Community Manager to Associate Producer. Lani will continue to support the community effort, but from the production standpoint and will provide guidance to our other Community Managers, Martin Rabl and Sebastian Streiffert. We're interviewing for the French Community Manager position—I'm personally well aware of the enthusiastic French gamer community, having witnessed the Festival du Jeu in Paris of last year, so I do consider this a priority addition to the team.

I know that many fans are extremely anxious, impatient even, awaiting the release of Aion . I can assure you the team is fully engaged in the release of this product. We've got an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content. Our Localization Manager has vendors in place, keeping pace with the French and German translation. We're actively recruiting an additional native German speaking localization Project Manager and have added QA Testers (native French and German speaking) to the Seattle office. We've got Voice Over recordings underway (of course for all three languages) and our PR and Marketing teams are releasing the hounds—you've likely seen the articles on class descriptions hit the internet. We also have tutorial videos in production, this should provide a great Aion first experience—both to novice and experience MMO players. We've shared details of our Collector's Edition recently, our first public access beta event was very well received, and we'll continue these events through our launch. We'll have a flood of information in the upcoming days and invite you all to share the experience as Aion takes flight in North America and Europe this fall.

Faith and arms,

Lance Stites

Executive Producer, Game Production Studio

NCsoft West

Aion trailer 1.5 released into the wild

Aion's launch is coming up this September, and a brand new trailer has been released to make sure that everyone remembers exactly how pretty this game is. For the record, Aion is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Aion's "patch 1.5 trailer" is a glorious eye-candy collection of new zones, monsters, powers, and pretty. The focus here is obviously on the threats of the world as many large bosses are shown while formerly beautiful areas transition into a state of war and decay. The threats that will haunt players are extremely varied, as the video starts off with a dragon but goes on to show demons, foot soldiers, and even a really angry plant-like thing. You know things are bad when you can't even trust the plants.

The second half of the trailer features an Asmodian raiding party taking down the owners of a beautiful airship, as well as a huge battle in the... You know what, why are we still talking when we could just be showing you the pretty first-hand? Jump after the break and take a look at Aion's latest trailer.

Get your Aion wings in Guild Wars

As part of a cross-promotion for both NCSoft products, you can now get some graphical wings to put on your Guild Wars character. The wings promote another NCSoft title coming out in September; the highly anticipated Aion.

All you have to do is purchase an Aion Collector's Edition or a first run Aion Steelbook Edition will receive the Aion wings. Visit this site for more information.

You can view the press release and a video demo of the wings (to come later) below.

NCsoft Announces an Exclusive Cross-Game Promotion between the Aion and Guild Wars®
In anticipation of the launch of this year’s biggest massively multiplayer online (MMO) release, Aion, NCsoft announced an exclusive cross promotion today giving players the ability to call upon the Aionwings emote within the Guild Wars family of games.

Designed as an added value and a way to say thanks to our biggest fans of the Guild Wars and Aion franchises, players that purchase an AionCollector’s Edition or a first run Aion Steelbook Edition will be rewarded with a Guild Wars emote that displays the wings that have become synonymous with Aion.

While the Aion wings emote will stay active in a players account forever, the promotion has a limited run. In order to guarantee a Guild Wars Aion wings emote code, players are encouraged to pre-order Aion at several participating retailers, including GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics and EB Games.

For more information on the Guild Wars AionWings promotion, please visit www.guildwars.com/aion.

NCsoft launch Aion and Guild Wars emote cross promotion

Everyone loves aion wings right? That's one of the reasons Aion appeals so much. Well NCsoft has launched a little cross promotion based on that fact. Essentially it boils down to this: if you buy a first edition of Aion (either the steelbook or the shiny Collector's Edition) you'll get a special emote which will be tied to your account. This will then allow you to summon a pair of wings in Guild Wars!

Unfortunately the wings are purely cosmetic, your Guild Wars avatar won't be able to take to the air but the wings will move and look awfully authentic (as seen in the image to your left). The emote itself can be triggered by typing /aion in any Guild Wars title. Before you ask, it's completely free, has unlimited uses and will become active on September 22nd, the day Aion launches in North America. However it is worth stressing that the code can only be gained by getting physical versions of the game, not through digital download. The code emote is also available to gamers both in North America and Europe and will be tied to your account forever.

For more information on how to get and redeem your emote, as well as check out what it will look like, click here.

Aion ready for takeoff

NCsoft's massively multiplayer online game goes gold in advance of late September launch in North America, Europe.

NCsoft launched its massively multiplayer online role-playing game Aion: Tower of Eternity in Asia last year, and the title paid immediate dividends, leading to consecutive quarterly revenue spikes of 51 percent and 70 percent. The South Korean publisher will soon find out if the game's appeal spans the world, as today NCsoft announced that Aion has gone gold in preparation for its September North American and European launches.


Who needs a mount when you've got wings?
A story-driven MMORPG, Aion presents a conflict between two ancient races who have only recently reestablished contact with one another. One of the game's distinguishing characteristics is the importance of flight, which NCsoft promises will impact combat and quests as much as exploration.

The game will launch in North America on September 22, while Europeans can get their hands on it starting September 25. NCsoft claims the game's closed beta testing--which was tied into a preorder promotion--has already seen users collectively log 3 million hours of play time.

Aion Launches This September!

Your adventures in Aion begin this September! NCsoft is proud to announce that Aion launches in North America on September 22, 2009 and makes its official debut in Europe starting September 25, 2009.

Not only can you find the game at your favorite retail store, Aion will also be available as a digital download at NCsoft.com, Direct2Drive, and through Steam this September.

Don’t forget to take advantage of the special preorder promotion at participating retailers now to receive access to the Aion Closed Beta events as well as a head start to your journeys in Atreia.

Take to the skies and become a part of a stunning world brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies, and ancient secrets. Become a part of Aion this fall!

Aion Chinese Beta Sign up

How to play the chinese beta of Aion? Read our tutorial. Click "Read more"

Step 1: Download

Aion China Open Beta Client – Part 1 von 5 → 89.33 MB
Aion China Open Beta Client – Part 2 von 5 → 1.86 GB
Aion China Open Beta Client – Part 3 von 5 → 1.86 GB
Aion China Open Beta Client – Part 4 von 5 → 1.86 GB
Aion China Open Beta Client – Part 5 von 5 → 370.49 M

You can download all parts of the game at the same time.

You can also download the game on Rapdishare (31 Parts)

Step 2: Aion Beta Account Sign up

SNDA - Sign UP

The Account name: between 4 to 16 characters long, lower case letters or numbers, no number at the beginning

The Password: between 4 to 10 characters long, lower case letters or numbers, no number at the beginning

Error messages:

Account name isn't available

Step 3: Installation

If you have downloaded all 5 Parts of the game copy them to a folder, but don't unpack them. Start the Setupexe namend "AION_Setup_0.9.5.0.exe"

Step 4: Patch the game

To start the patch click:
Start → Programm Files-> The second entry (beginns with Ó)

Step 5. Change language to english

Download the language package:
English

Copy the language pack to the installation folder and unpack it.
Example:
C:\Programm Files\SNDA\AION\ÓÀºãÖ®Ëþ\L10N
To the folder L10N.
The folder L10N should include this:
Folders: „CHS“ and„ENU“
Files: „CHS.pak“ and „ENU.pak“

Now you have to change the "region" to USA
Start → control panel → Regional settings

Aion Open Beta Hosts 170k Users in First Week

Eleven thousand people in two minutes?!?! Aion Open Beta Hosts 170k Users in First Week.
Check Aion Open Beta Registration Guide.

Even though NCsoft is lagging a bit in the revenue department, their latest endeavor, Aion: The Tower of Eternity is going gangbusters during their Korea open beta. They reported over 11,000 people logging in during the first two minutes that the beta was opened up. More from Korea:

Since Tuesday's launch of open beta testing in Korea, concurrent user numbers have already jumped to more than 170,000 players, making it the most popular beta event in Korean history. According to NCsoft officials, more than 11,000 people were logged into the game after only two minutes of open beta service. In less than an hour, that number had ballooned to 40,000.

Those are some impressive numbers by any standards. Ncsoft has made quite a name for themselves with Lineage and Lineage 2, but they seem poised to do so with Aion as well.