NCSoft asks Aion players to fly their fan flags in public

NCsoft and the Aion staff have been spending a lot of time lately working to get the Aion community involved and engaged in ways beyond just playing the game. They began with the Eye on Community feature, brought out Aion apparel, and now NCsoft gives you Aion Around the World.

The Aion team is enjoying the international popularity of their game and want to see it in action. Community Manager Andrew "Tamat" Beegle explains "to highlight the global phenomenon that Aion has become, we want to see pictures of our community members in public locations. We're looking for pictures of our players participating in exciting activities or showcasing Aion-themed merchandise, art, or cosplay."

Tamat and two other Aion team members Ayase and Amboss illustrated the idea by cleverly getting themselves into one photo while 5,000 miles apart. (We anticipate someone taking the idea a step farther by doing the same thing with their entire guild.) Aion will be featuring the pictures on their site for the next few months, so get to work on those wings, grab your camera, and send your photos to the Aion Community email. Have fun!

Aion live server numbers crunched

http://www.massively.com/2009/11/13/aion-live-server-numbers-crunched/#continued

Aion has been out for roughly 6 weeks so we thought it might be fun to crunch some of the numbers NCsoft provides on their official North American website. We've taken a look at realm balance, class balance, and what level Aion's population is at. Data collection occurred on November 12 at noon Eastern. A spreadsheet containing all data can be viewed here.

Realm population balance (Elyos vs. Asmodian)

Realm population balance is 50/50 on 3 of 14 servers. The remaining 11 servers have the Asmodians ahead of the Elyos by a 51:49 ratio. It appears as if NCsoft's forced realm population balance mechanic is keeping things under control, but one wonders how rampant these disparities would be if character creation was unrestricted. We've seen unbalanced two-faction MMOs before.

It should be stated that these numbers only represent a tally of Elyos and Asmodians across all servers and not how organized or active each realm is in PvPvE.

Level range breakdown (average across all servers)

Note: We are unsure if these numbers track all Aion characters ever made or only active Aion characters. You can read them a lot differently depending on what they track.

The declining curve is quite dramatic after Aion's first month and a half. Over 64% of the population is between levels 1 to 20. It quickly plummets to 23% between levels 21-30. Across all servers, the average of players between levels 31 to 35 is 6.3%, levels 36 to 40 is 3.9%, levels 41 to 45 is 1.7%, and levels 46 to 50 is 0.8%.

As the game ages, one would expect this curve to eventually bubble in the middle and finally become a mirror image of the current curve (if these number represent active characters only). Then again, the slope could always look this way (if these numbers represent all characters ever created).

Some servers appear to be further along than others. Azphel, Israphel, Lumiel, Triniel, and Zikel all have a quarter of their players in the 21-30 range. Azphel and Zikel in particular have 2% of their current population between levels 46 to 50, which is quite high comparatively. Other servers seem further behind (in the 1 to 20 range), and they include Fregion (74%), Meslamtaeda (74%), and Kaisinel (68%).



Class balance (average across all servers)

There are 8 classes in Aion and player interest seems well spread across them. A perfect spread would be 12.5% into each and there aren't any classes that seem too heavily favored. The top three most popular classes appear to be Gladiators (17.4%), Sorcerers (14%), and Assassins (13%). The least popular classes are Spiritmasters (10.3%) and Chanters (10.9%).



Top 10 AP earners by class

Here we looked at the top 10 Abyss Point earners on the top 5 most populated servers by legion (Ariel, Marchutan, Lumiel, Israphel, and Azphel) and counted them up by class. As you can see, aside from Assassins being on top for both Elyos and Asmodian, the spread seems fairly even with the remaining classes.

Elyos: Assassins (11), Clerics (8), and Sorcerers (7) came out on top. Chanters, Gladiators, Rangers, and Templars all tied at 5. Spiritmasters were at the bottom with 4.

Asmodian: Assassins (12), Rangers (8), and Gladiators (7) came out on top. Spiritmasters (6), Clerics (5), and Sorcerers (5) were in the middle of the pack. Templars (4) and Chanters (3) were at the bottom.



Top 5 legions by contribution points

Here we looked at the top 5 legions ranked by contribution points across the top 5 most populated servers by legions and counted up the total contribution points. While Asmodians may have a greater population as evidenced by the realm balance chart at the top of this page, it seems the top Elyos legions are holding their own.

Asmodians have a slight lead on Ariel, Marchutan, and Israphel but the Elyos legions are completely dominating them on Lumiel (unofficial roleplay server) by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. Elyos also hold a slight lead on Azphel. Overall, the Elyos hold a nearly 5,000,000 contribution point lead over the Asmodians across the servers polled in total.



We're curious, what sort of meaning do you derive from these numbers? Is there something you'd like us to look into specifically?