Aion Guides

Aion 2.5 important changes, and Patch Aion 3.0 is preparing.

2011-03-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

Aion 2.5 is on the horizon as it is pushed onto the Korean Test servers. With this update, the game is prepared to take on its next update which will be Aion 3.0.

The test server launch of Aion 2.5 not only made an impact for the test server but the main servers as well as Aion Korea celebrates its 43rd server!

Before we start, I'd like to give you all a glimpse into 2.5 with the following trailer that was shown to the press on January 4th, 2010.

I also would like to note that the imagery I will present will be coming from Aion's Powerwiki http://powerwiki.na.aiononline.com/aion/Korean+PTS:+Initial+2.5+Patch+Notes
Nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy my writing as I take you on a flight through the important changes of Patch Aion 2.5

To start things off.. above you seen a beautiful Aion banner that will be used to represent 2.5. That wasn't the only thing that got chanegd in the start up of Aion 2.5. The character creation screen also got revamped for the second time!

And to push this even further, the creation options itself now supply even more options for you to choose from.

Also, new faces and hair have been added. Below are the provided examples

Personally I think a lot of them look pretty awesome. Though the new ones with the big eyes kind of remind me of those anime figures that you can buy lols.

However, by simply looking at that, you realize how much more impressive the graphic engine has become. Aion 2.5 will also feature an option for players with capable graphic cards to use a higher quality option.

As you can see from the picture from above, the Aion world looks even more clearer and more beautiful. The two pictures on the left feature Sanctum, the capital city of Elysea and Poeta, the beginner city for the Elyos race. On the right, I recognize a more beautiful version of Pandaenomium and under it I could only assume it would be Ishalgen (though I'm probably wrong. I've never played an Asmodian )

Two important things of this expansion I can't avoid pointing are the legion and pets. First of all legions finally get some change. The legion can be expanded up to level 5 now with new items in the shop. Also members can now have a more different variety in positions asside from being, legionary, centurion, and brigade general.

The most notable aspect of the legion change is of course the capes.

On the picture above, the left side is the legion capes for Asmodians and the right side being the capes for the Elyos.

In 2.5, the capes have changed to the pictures shown below.

The pictures above actually show something beyond the new capes, it shows how the default capes will actually look like from now on. The left being the Elyos design and the right being Asmodian. Both capes have grown in size and length and the Asmodians no longer bare a one sided cape.

Continuing on, the pets have also received an upgrade. Pets now interact more and are rather more helpful. You can gain free gifts from pets for keeping them happy and by interacting with them.

Also, besides that, pets also now have the function of automatically picking up nearby items as well as using items for you. When you use these skills, your pet will glow. It glows an orangish color when using items for you and blue when picking up items as shown below.

The world map has also gotten a major graphical overall as it has more functions that work alongside quests and a new display. Unlike the old map, the new version no longer looks like a scroll or piece of aged paper with a map drawn on it, the new map is rather detailed and shows physical structure of the land. Below are two pictures

I'm not quite sure what the top one shows but I can say that the bottom one is the Asmodian territory in Balaurea known as Gelkmaros.

Now to wrap things up, I would like to conclude with the two new instances in Aion 2.5. Why we can't have such a major update on Aion without new instances so here they are. Though these new instances aren't exactly meant for level 55, they seem rather fun and just out there for the fun.

The first one is known as Araka. The basic story focuses on the farm, Araka and how it provides Drana to Tiamat's territory. Your mission is to go there and stop the flow of Drana from the farm.

The second one is the Academy Bootcamp. You might have noticed this instance if you had watched the video I provided above. The bootcamp was opened up because there weren't exactly positive results in attacking Balaurea, the camp is now opened to train and prepare Daevas for future combat. You will need to fight your way through monsters as they enter the arena. Each round becoming harder and harder. The test will be to see how long you can survive and will you make it to the end!

Both instances are for levels 50 plus and has 22 hour cool down.

Well I hope you enjoyed this. Though there are many more changes, I have listed the ones that I believe were the most notable so feel free to visit the powerwiki page I provided above to get even more info about this amazing patch that will help set the stage into 3.0!

AION PTS 2.0 Thoughts!

2010-08-31T08:36:00.002-07:00

Well what do you guys think of aion 2.0 so far? The Aion PTS servers went back online about 12 hours ago with aion 2.0 brought in. As for me, I think it looks beautiful. The new login screens give it a diversity (thought I'll miss the original one) and makes it very exciting considering there's 5 different scenes you can be greeted by when you open your game. Always fun to open your game of Aion and have a chance to see a giant dragon roaring at you while waiting for you to log in.. (HE'S GONNA EAT YOU!)

I also happen to think that the new character select screen is very nicely done. YAY NO MORE SITTING AT THE BEACH OR FROZEN WASTELAND! We all get our own cozy spots =p
Once again.. really beautifully designed (think we should get NCSoft Korea to design my house)

Lols.. Furthermore the music has changed in a few places. For one you can notice it right away if you have music on and log in. The login screen no longer use the tower of eternity as its opening theme and instead uses a new theme called Annales of Atreia. Also a selection of music from the vision trailer makes its appearance in the game. So yeah.. you might be hearing new sounds while exploring a place you thought you knew so well.. After all, they called in the orchestra to create a new soundtrack just for this expansion! AION PTS 2.0!

In the credits it appears that originally the expansion was titled Advancing into Balaurea.. hmm.. might wanna remember to change that to "Assault on Balaurea" though NCSoft.. lols xD

Anyways.. Kinda sad that the credits song for Assault on Balaurea is just Daeva's Oratorio. Would have been better if Forgotten Sorrows was kept. Oh wells, not complaining since you can still hear it by looking at the Tower of Eternity credits..

Anyways.. I didn't do much but I noticed the map change where it actually just tells you straight off the bat where npcs are will give you quests. That's a rather nice feature. As you can see from the picture, I HAVE A LOT OF QUESTS AHEAD LOL.. If anyone ever says there's not enough quests in Aion, I think these arrows were added exactly to prove them WRONG!

Another useful feature is there's now bulletin boards that has a list of npcs in town and you can just find their name there to have their location marked on the map. A very useful feature for those diving in and even returning players for Atreia is always changing and even veteran players might find this feature as a nice guide to help them quickly find the npc they're looking for.

Of course a cute feature everyone's had their eyes on is pets! These little critters are just jumping around in Sanctum market at the pet shop hoping you'd stop by and buy one. There's many types of pets and each one begins with an egg. The eggs can range from 150k - a few mill so save on money if you want to collect them all =D
In the future there's other ways to get these adorable fellas like events and quests so keep your hopes up if you're always broke

Well as of only level 10 this is already quite some interesting stuff added. Of course this is just the beginning. People noticed that the new hair designs didn't make it in yet and Community Manager, Tamat, has confirmed that they will be adding more in the next week before release so keep your eyes wide open and explore the new world of Atreia. I'll explore more myself later on after I get my gladiator to level 50 and see what else fun stuff I can talk about but anyways.. enough about me.. WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS? Find anything interesting in aion 2.0? Here For More.

Aion: Assault on Balaurea zone trailer -- Inggison

2010-08-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

NCsoft unveils a video tour of Inggison, a new zone introduced in Aion's upcoming expansion, Assault on Balaurea. No longer confined to Atreia on the interior of the planet, players will venture forth to the lands on the outside. Filled with a variety of new plant and wildlife, Inggison is the Elyos foothold in Balaurea.

Even as they bask in direct sunlight (a treat not possible in the sundered lands of Asmodae and Elysea), Daevas in Aion will encounter new foes -- such as the Balaur-worshippers of Undirborg -- and fight old ones, as the Asmodians try to claim the Temple of Scales and Altar of Avarice Fortresses.

After watching the video, Massively asked Chris Hager, Producer of Aion, NCsoft West, a few questions about this new area.

Check out the video after the cut, as well as Chris' comments.
http://www.massively.com/2010/08/26/aion-assault-on-balaurea-zone-trailer-inggison/

Massively: About half-way through the video, we see what appears to be an Elyos style city -- are there going to be areas that are settled by the Daeva races, complete with mail, warehouse, and broker services? If so, how many encampments are present, and how much of the area is wild?

Chris Hager: Each of the Daeva races have established permanent cities in Balaurea. These permanent cities are where players will arrive when they first arrive in Balaurea. They will have all of the services that the other cities in the other areas have (how can a Daeva survive without broker access?). There are also encampments throughout the areas that are race specific safeholds (similar to other maps).

If this is a Daeva fortress, how does lore account for it? Is it related to the hint we receive after completing our level 50 campaign quests?

The fortresses for each of the races are new to the Assault on Balaurea expansion. If you want to get really into the lore, the Elyos Inggison fortress is actually an illusion fortress maintained by the Wisplight Legion with aid from Kaisinel (Lord of Illusion). The Asmodian Gelkmaros fortress was made on the ruins of an old Balaur fortress that had been destroyed in the past by Marchutan.

Will the Balaur have a home base/city where they reside? If so, can it be invaded? Will there be any Balaur NPC's that can be interacted with?

The Balaur will own the two fortresses in each of the new zones. Aside from that, you'll find the Balaur scattered throughout the areas and in the new instances, but they won't have a home base or city that is constantly Balaur controlled.

The land was surprisingly lush in most of the video, although there were definitely some barren areas as well. How many different zones will be available for adventuring right at the launch of the expansion? Are there more zones planned for the near future?

At the launch of Assault on Balaurea, there will be two new persistent zones as well as a zone that adjoins them. Inggison will be the Elyos side, Gelkmaros for the Asmodians, and Silentera Canyon will join them both together. Within the two race controlled zones, there are a lot of different and unique areas to explore. With this being the home of the Balaur, a previously unexplored area, you'll see brand new creatures, surroundings, and an environment that looks unique to other areas in the game. Right now we don't have any information to share on any future zones.

Aion 2.0: Assault on Balaurea Dated September 7th

2010-07-29T08:16:00.001-07:00

NCsoft unveiled the official release date for Aion: Assault on Balaurea, the next exciting chapter in Aion that entrenches players into a rich storyline in which their actions will determine the fate of the world. Aion: Assault on Balaurea releases digitally to PCs in North America and Europe on Sept. 7, 2010, however, players looking for retail boxed copies of the full game featuring exclusive in-game pets will find them at select retailers in North America on Sept. 7 and on Sept. 10 in Europe.

In Aion: Assault on Balaurea, the exciting new chapter of Aion, characters have the ability to align together to launch massive counter assaults against the invading Balaur on their homeland while experiencing new and updated instances and zones, an increased level cap, new weapons and items, new skills and added flight mechanics. Characters will not be alone as they explore the new areas, as Aion introduces functional pets equipped with in-game benefits.

Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online gaming experience where flight offers much more than just a way to gracefully explore the landscape - it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will use flight to dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save and control a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict.

For more information about Aion and Aion: Assault on Balaurea go to http://news.mmosite.com/specials/aion/index.shtml

Wings Over Atreia: Armsfusion explained

2010-06-19T18:02:00.001-07:00

With a few more days of Aion's 1.9 patch under our collective belts, not to mention a couple of additional levels, I think it is safe to start discussing a few of the changes this patch has wrought in more detail. The Armsfusion system has been a subject of some confusion for my circle of friends, so it's as good a place as any to start.

In a nutshell, Armsfusion is used to generate better versions of two-handed weapons. Initially, I'll admit to glossing over it in the patch notes, simply because the name made it sound like something applicable to melee classes. While this is true, in that it can result in some nice new staffs, polearms, and greatswords, it also applies to the pew pew crowd, since technically the ranger bow and sorcerer/spiritmaster tomes and orbs are all two-handers, though not in the traditional visual sense.

Fly past the cut for more details on building the perfect two-handed beast.

The basics

So what exactly is Armsfusion? It's basically a way to combine the stats of two distinct weapons into one, and the process requires the player to choose a primary item for its stats and appearance, as well as a secondary item from which partial stats will be applied to the primary. It's also worth noting that the secondary weapon will be destroyed in the combine, so make sure you're not dropping any one-of-a-kind weapons in the secondary slot.

In something of a departure for Aion crafting, there is no chance of failure when completing an Armsfusion combine (and there was much rejoicing from Sanctum to Pandaemonium). Also, your chosen two-handers must be of the same type (i.e. you can't take the stats from a bow and apply them to an orb, but you can combine a polearm with another polearm).

So now that you know the basics of how to make use of the Armsfusion system, why would you want to? In a nutshell, the process adds roughly 10% of the secondary weapon's attack and magic boost stats to the primary weapon. Furthermore, all manastone slots, as well as manastones themselves and bonus statistics will port over during the combine. Similarly, any Godstones in the primary weapon will carry over to the new fused weapon, while any Godstones in the secondary weapon will be destroyed during the combine. While Armsfusion does destroy the secondary item, the process can be reversed to make use of a different weapon to combine with (called Armsbreaking).

Extendable weapons

For extendable weapons, the appearance and characteristics of the primary weapon will be retained after the combine process (i.e. if the primary weapon is extendable, the new fused weapon will be as well). As you've probably guessed by now, the appearance and any extendable characteristics of the secondary weapon will be destroyed.

Other considerations

While the basics above will allow you to successfully combine weapons, there are a number of other factors you should consider before pulling the trigger. For example, the secondary weapon's level must be equal to or lower than that of the primary. Also, combinations of weapons that feature multiple cast speed, attack speed, or PvP damage bonuses of the same type will result in the highest bonus being applied to the final Armsfusion product. Additionally, once a weapon has been fused, it becomes unsellable, untradeable, and unstorable in either your account or legion warehouse. Finally, in terms of enchantment levels, your primary weapon will retain its enchantment after the combine process, while the secondary weapon's enchantment will be destroyed along with the weapon itself.

Getting started

To get started on your combines, you'll need to visit an Armsfusion officer in your race's capital city. For the Elyos, the Armsfusion officer hides out atop Elyos Square in Sanctum, near the skin-changing merchant. Asmodians looking for their Armsfusion officer will find him on the Pandaemonium Market Street. Don't forget your wallet or pocketbook, particularly if you're combining high-level weapons, as the process is exceedingly expensive for all but the richest of Daevas.

To summarize, the Armsfusion process consists of:

speaking with the appropriate Armsfusion officer to begin choosing your primary and secondary weapons viewing the cost (in kinah) and preview the fused weapon accepting the confirmation dialogue pwning face with your new weapon (and cry over your lack of kinah) And now, your new columnist...

There now, that wasn't so hard, was it? That's all the time we have for this week. In closing, I'd like to take a quick moment to thank those of you who've read and commented on Wings Over Atreia over the last three plus months. As of next week, I'll be passing the torch to Massively's new Aion correspondent, MJ Guthrie, and she'll be your guide as you continue your journeys around the Aionosphere.

Despite the fact that Aion has its share of problems (which many of you remind me of on a weekly basis), I've enjoyed covering it, as well as talking to all of you, and I hope to see some of you in the comments section of my other columns. I'll still be toodling around on my Lumiel sorceror from time to time, so I also look forward to seeing (or killing) you folks in-game. Until then, keep the blue side up.

Aion guide to Daily Quests available

2010-06-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

New (or newly returned) to Aion and curious about the recently added daily quests? Well you're not alone, as your humble correspondent has been playing for awhile now and was having trouble unearthing any definitive information regarding the system just added in the 1.9 patch.

Happily, NCsoft has updated its PowerWiki with a lengthy entry devoted to answering all of your daily quest needs. Everything from where to get to them, to what kind of rewards they offer, to how to join the requisite NPC factions, is available in the new article.

"Every morning at 9 o'clock, the organization will send a new Quest notice that can be found at the bottom of your screen. Once you click on the icon, you can choose to either accept or decline the Daily Quest. If you accidentally decline the Quest, you can quit and then re-join the organization to get it again," the article says.

Check out all the details over at the official Aion PowerWiki.

Aion™ Refer a Friend Program Starts June 23rd

2010-06-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

NCsoft is dangling a few goodies in front of current Aion subscribers in the form of their revamped Refer A Friend program and its myriad incentives. If you've got an active account that's over six weeks old (and have paid for at least six weeks of game time), you can log into your NCsoft Master Account and click the Refer A Friend link in the Actions section to get started.

If your referral purchases either a retail box or digital copy of the game, you'll be gifted with three Major Ancient Crowns, currently valued at a whopping 6400 AP each. If your referral signs up for one month or more of Aion game time, you'll get a free paid month credited to NCsoft Master Account. Your friend isn't left out either, as NCsoft will email each referral a serial code that includes XP bonus items, running scrolls, courage scrolls, and recovery serums.

Check out the official site for all the details and regulations. Or check the full articles here:

Aion™ Refer a Friend Program Starts June 23rd!

Refer a friend to play Aion, and you could get free in-game items and free game time!*

When you refer a friend, we'll send your friend an email containing a free demo serial code and a bounty of in-game items that are helpful for leveling a new character.

If your friend buys a new copy of Aion (from a retail box or a digital download), you'll receive your own in-game items. If your friend pays for a subscription for at least one month of Aion game time, you will be automatically credited with one month of free game time!

*Subject to the terms and conditions listed below.

Who is eligible to participate?
You can refer a friend if your game account is current and in good standing, your account is at least six weeks old, and you have paid for at least six weeks of game time. (Time included with a box or a full download version of the game applies, and paid time from any of our supported payment methods is valid.)

What do I get, and what does each friend get?
When your friend buys Aion (applies a digital or retail box serial code to his or her account), you get three Major Ancient Crowns.

We'll email each friend a free demo serial code and in-game items, including:

25 Lodas Amulets
100 Lesser Running Scrolls
100 Lesser Courage Scrolls
100 Greater Recovery Serums
Each friend can apply the in-game items to up to five unique characters.

How do I refer someone?
Log in to your NCsoft® Master Account.
Select your Aion game account from the accounts listed under Game Accounts.
In the Actions section, click the Refer a Friend link.
Fill out the requested information.
Click the Refer a Friend button.
Once we have sent your friend the email, you'll receive an on-screen confirmation.
Periodically, return to your Refer a Friend page to check the status of your outstanding invitations.
How many friends can I refer, and can I get multiple sets of items and free months?
You can have a maximum of four referrals outstanding at once. For each new friend that you refer who meets the requirements, you'll receive the in-game items and a free month of Aion game time. As soon as one of your friends buys Aion, you'll receive your in-game items, and we'll allow you to refer an additional friend. As soon as your friend enters its first billing cycle, you will receive a free month credit applied to the account that referred the friend.

How do I check on my referrals?
Once you are logged in to your Aion game account, you can check the status of all of your outstanding invitations on your Refer a Friend page.

When do I get my in-game items?
You get your in-game items after your friend buys Aion and applies a digital or retail box serial code.

How do I get my in-game items?
Log in to your Aion game account periodically to check the status of all of your outstanding invitations on your Refer a Friend page. When the Invitation Status table indicates that your friend has bought Aion:

Click the Apply In-Game Items link in your Aion game account in the Action section.
Select a server in which you have made a character, and click the Next button.
Select a character to receive the Refer a Friend items, and click the Next button.
Click the checkbox next to the appropriate item pack, and click the Next button.
Review the confirmation page, and click the Apply the Items/Item Packs to This Character button.
Once you've assigned items to a character, log in to Aion and retrieve the items via in-game express mail.

When do I get my first free month?
You get your free game time after your friend buys Aion and pays for the first month of game time. (Time included with the digital client or boxed game purchase doesn't apply.)

How do I get my first free month?
Log in to your Aion game account periodically to check the status of all of your outstanding invitations on your Refer a Friend page. As soon as your friend enters its first billing cycle, you will automatically receive a free month credit applied to the account that referred the friend.

How does my friend get the items?
The instructions on how your friend gets his or her items are included in the email we send to your friend.

Are there any limitations on the Aion demo serial codes?
Yes, Aion demo accounts are good for three days, five hours, or level 7, whichever is reached first. At that point, the Aion demo account expires. All of the character information and progress is retained so that a player can continue the adventure when he or she upgrades to a standard Aion account.

To upgrade an Aion demo account to the standard game (to buy Aion), go to the Aion section of the NCsoft Store, or purchase a retail box at one of our partner retailers.

Terms and Conditions
This offer is void where prohibited and is subject to server space availability. This offer can be suspended by NC Interactive, Inc. at any time and for any reason. At the time of the referral credit, both the referring and the referred customer must be current in their payments and in compliance with the Aion User Agreement. If both parties are not current and in compliance, the referral credit will be denied. If a referring customer cancels his or her account, all remaining referral credits are forfeit. A referral credit cannot be refunded. A referral credit has no cash value.

Help and Support
For additional information and help, visit the knowledge base at the Aion Help and Support page.

Aion full client torrent available

2010-06-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

Thinking of returning to Aion to check out the Aion 1.9 patch? You're not alone, as folks are beginning to trickle back into the world of Atreia to partake in the improved XP and other tweaks. If you've deleted the game from your hard drive, or you're a new player, you might want to check out the full aion client torrent that NCsoft has just released.

Given that the game has been out for nine months, and has been patched fairly regularly, you're likely to have a lengthy download and update process if you re-install from your original game discs. Happily, NCsoft has bundled the entire game client, as well as all the patches up to and including last week's 1.9, into a file that you can grab from FilePlanet. Alternatively, you can can grab a aion client torrent from GamersHell or NCsoft's own server.

Check out the official news posting for further details.

Aion 1.9 Full Install Client Now Available

It’s been nearly nine months since the official release of Aion in the West. In that time, we’ve given you numerous small updates and the large much-anticipated 1.9 update.

We have just released a fully updated version 1.9 client installer. This client includes all the smaller updates and allows anyone to jump straight into the game after installing with no patching required!

This full client is available via direct download from our partners at Fileplanet and GamersHell, it’s also available from our own Torrent server.

NCsoft Torrent:
ftp://ftp.ncsoft.com/Aion/Client/Torrent/Aion1.9.0.1_FullInstaller.zip.torrent

FilePlanet Direct Download:
http://www.fileplanet.com/204286/200000/fileinfo/Aion-Client-v1.9

GamersHell Direct Download:
http://www.gamershell.com/download_59678.shtml

Enjoy.

—The Aion Community Team

Aion 2.0 Balaurea Trailer

2010-05-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

NCsoft has released Assault on Balaurea trailer for the upcoming Aion 2.0 in Korea. Balaurea is a new zone in Aion 2.0 where Players can explore the vast lands of Baluarea, the home of the Balaur, ruled by the Dragon Lord Tiamat. There are three new regions: Gelkmaros, Inggison and Silrentera. In which Gelkmaros and Ingisson are the fortresses established by Asmodians and Elyos. Silrentera is a neutral zone. Each area featuring completely new environments, powerful monsters and unique flight mechanics for players to enjoy.

Read Aion 2.0 NA/EU schedule here:
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-18/confirmed_aion_1_9_will_hit_na_eu_in_june,1.shtml

#Monsters level 51 and above appear in these new regions.
#These new regions contain unique environments.
#The Elyos fortress is located in Inggison. The Asmodian fortress is located in Gelkmaros.
#There are two fortresses and four artifacts in each region.

More Aion 2.0 Balaurea Trailer here:
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-24/aion_2_0_balaurea_trailer_monster_screenshots_map,1.shtml

Aion 2.0 Wonder Girls Costumes & Hair Styles Unveiled

2010-05-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

NCsoft has cooperated with Wonder Girls, who used to appear as playable characters in FreeStyle BasketBall. Coincide with the launch of their newest EP, 2 Different Tears on May 16th, they appeared in Aion 2.0 Korean Test Server. Player can join 3 Wonder Girls quests as well as try Wonder Girls' dresses and hair styles(page5) on.

Click the image to visite Wonder Girls' Aion Official Special Site.

In an interview with NCsoft for Aion, new member Hye Lim said that honestly they didn't know what game it was at first but after watching it, the game seems pretty cool and you can even dance in the game! The dancing in the game seems similar to their new 2 Different Tears dance as well.

Confirmed: Aion 1.9 will Hit NA/EU in June

2010-05-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

For a while now, they've been shoring up the XP gap in Aion, helping to push players over the hump of the long grind. While there's an upcoming double-experience weekend starting this Friday, the Aion team has informed the community that these golden days of glory may be short-lived, with these special weekends becoming a rarer occurence in the future.

This seemingly-depressing announcement is actually because Aion is switching from "shoring up" to "fixing" XP issues. On June 2nd, aion patch 1.9 will hit Aion's servers, and with it a host of solutions to the XP gap. The Aion community team has laid out three ways the XP will flow like rivers of honey. Wait, that would be slow and sticky. Let's go with Jell-O. In any case, 1.9 will add more quests, increased XP for quests and a new "Energy of Salvation" system that awards experience bonuses the longer you play.

So while double-experience weekends might become a scarce event in Aion, it's hopefully for the best overall.

NCwest today sent a letter to Aion players which released detailed release schedule of Aion 1.9 update. Aion producer - Chris "Kinslon" Hager announced in the letter that the 1.9 update will be available on the North American and European public test servers on Tuesday May 25, 2010. A week later, the 1.9 update will hit North American and European Live servers on Wednesday June 2, 2010. This schedule corresponds with NCSoft KR's Q1 2010 report call last week.

Chris also mentioned that the NA/EU plan for Aion 2.0, which was recently released on the KR PTS Server, is already under work.

Full Letter from Aion's Producer:

Greetings Aion Players!

Spring is in the air, the sun is out and the days are getting longer, and that means it's time for update news! After much anticipation, I am happy to announce the 1.9 update will be available on the North American and European public test servers on Tuesday May 25, 2010. A week later, the 1.9 update will hit North American and European Live servers on Wednesday June 2, 2010. As you might have read in the 1.9 patch notes or the 1.9 Q&A with Kinslon, the 1.9 update includes a number of great game improvements based on player feedback from around the world. We listened to your concerns about where the game play experience was less than stellar, collected data to support this, and requested those changes to the game for the 1.9 update and we continue to provide this feedback for future updates too. Along with a reduction in costs, better experience for quests and increased loot drops, we also threw in a collection of exciting systems and updates such as arms fusion, daily quests, rental weapon/armor system and a new look for group UI feature that are all aimed at improving the player's experience.
Just as 1.9 is a culmination of your feedback, we are constantly monitoring the community to see what the most relevant issues are. Back in October and November one of the hot topics were server queues and at that point we promised that character transfers would be available to help combat the queues. Again in the first part of this year, we promised these in the first half of 2010. I'm happy to report that the character transfer service will be live in the middle of June and we will be offering them to all of our players for free for a limited time. As we get closer to the live date of the character transfer service we'll be releasing more information so that you can prepare yourself and coordinate with your legion and other online friends.

One of the more recent concerns that we've heard is related to server populations, both in North America and Europe. Some of the specific concerns you've told us about deal with difficulty finding groups in game, having resources to contribute to the overall server economy, and being able to gather strong enough forces to enjoy the end game content, particularly the Abyss PvP zone and Fortress Sieges. We heard your concern about this and did a comprehensive examination of all of our servers across North America and Europe. After reviewing all of the game, character, and server data we found that certain level ranges or classes had healthy numbers, but across ALL level ranges and professions most of our servers didn't have ideal populations. After a score of meetings, it was decided that the best thing to do is to merge some of our servers so that we have fewer, fuller servers with characters (and players) that are balanced better in population across all levels and classes. The primary goal of merging the servers is to create an environment that gives you the best possible experience in Aion.
I don't relish the idea of mergers. (It takes a lot of work to make them happen!) However, once it is complete you should notice improvements in each of the new server economies, an abundance of players to group and run instances with, a number of great Legions to join or people to form new ones with, and a more tightly knit community. When all is said and done, Aion will be a better game because of the server merge. We're in the planning stages, and will have more information on the timing and execution in the coming weeks.

Finally, as you might have read in the 2.0 patch notes, 2.0 was recently released on the KR PTS Server. Even though we have several other large initiatives underway, we are already working on bringing 2.0 to the North American and European to our shores. It is an immense undertaking that adds a lot of new content to the game, but we are working steadily towards a fall target release date and are on track. To get a preview of what is coming to Aion with 2.0 check out the initial patch notes.

As you can see, we have quite a busy couple of months ahead of us; all aimed at servicing your needs and making Aion a better place to play. I am excited at the prospect of what our players can expect in the near future, and can't wait for the results to speak for themself.

Thanks,

-Chris "Kinslon" Hager

Aion 2.0 bosses viewable on Korean test server

2010-05-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

MMOSite brings word of a few new boss sightings on Aion's Korean test servers. These bosses, part of the recently released 2.0 update, include Kaisinel's Agent Vielle and Marchutan's Agent Mastarius, as well as the nasty final boss from the Debris instance at the core of the Abyss which requires a 12-man group and plenty of coordination.

Additionally, a new rock-themed world boss has been sighted, as well as the Red Tear dragon, the latter of which reportedly reflects player damage and must be killed in under one hour.

Drop by MMOSite for the full article as well as a selection of screenshots from the test server.

Wings Over Atreia: The Xeno experience in Aion

2010-05-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

You'll have to forgive me for being somewhat surprised as I sit down to write this week's column. I guess given the general grindiness of Aion's high levels plus the weekly quota of "you sucks" that I get in ye olde inbox for daring to write about the game have conspired to make me a little bit gun shy when it comes to actually having fun in the world of Atreia. Oh, and let's not forget about NCsoft's refusal to answer tough questions (or any questions, for that matter) that your intrepid journalist has about Aion.

All that negativity aside, there must something to the whole yin/yang concept, as an otherwise detestable week yielded what has been one of the most enjoyable in-game experiences to date. It was such a blast, in fact, that I'm compelled to recount at least a little bit of my group's harrowing run through the gauntlet colloquially known as the Aion Xeno quest.

What is the Aion Xeno quest, you're probably wondering? Well if you're a middle-aged (i.e. over 40) Elyos you probably already know, but if not, the short version is that it's a lengthy quest chain that culminates in a fairly spiffy gold weapon. As you would expect, the tasks required to obtain it are numerous and arduous, but when coupled with a good group and a bit of luck, a fun time can be had by all.

Fly past the cut to find out how.

The first step in the process is to head to the library in Sanctum. There you'll find an affable NPC by the name of Xenophon who will give you a series of quests beginning with A Disturbing Report. The majority of these quests are "go here/kill 10 of these" type tasks, and advancing the chain to the good parts will probably take you and your group the better part of a couple of hours. Grouping here is a necessity, not only because many mobs you'll encounter are big nasties, but also to maintain your sanity during the tedious trek to and from the objectives.

Honestly, I'd never have made it through the Xeno quest with a pickup group; not only is a skilled (and familiar) group essential but, assuming you're all friends, Ventrilo shenanigans usually livens up the considerable grind. My particular party strung the quest line out over a couple of nights, but taken back to back, the whole ordeal can easily last upwards of six or seven hours depending on group competence and random PvP roadblocks.

For our purposes we'll skip ahead to the fun stuff, namely the quest called [Spy/Group] A Suspicious Box which, as you might have guessed, is a spy quest that sends you rifting into the heart of Asmodian territory. One of the great annoyances of Aion rifting is the fact that you're constantly waiting for the portals to spawn. There's nothing more infuriating than gathering a good group and making plans to invade Asmodae, then having to cool your heels for a couple of hours because the silly rift hasn't popped. Knowing this, we plopped an alt down in front of the Xeno rift (right outside the Lepharist Poison Research Center in Heiron) and periodically checked to see if it was up.

Once we managed to get through, we found ourselves unceremoniously dumped amidst the snow-swept hills of Belusian. If you're like me and have virtually no experience with the Asmo side of the game beyond the occasional rifting excursion into Morheim, you'll be in for a treat here, as the landscape around the Xeno rift is quite beautiful, and starkly different from anything on the Elyos half of the world. Unfortunately we didn't have a ton of time to admire the view as we were quickly set upon by the hordes of elite Lepharist mobs that surrounded the rift. After cutting a swath of destruction away from the portal and finding a safe spot to catch our breath, we decided to call it a night and continue with our quest the following evening.

The next night, things got hairy in a hurry. Upon logging in at our presumed safe spot, we found ourselves face-to-face with a couple of Asmodian players, one of whom was a level 50 Chanter in gold gear, which, for the uninitiated, means that my group of low-40s couldn't even dent his health bar, much less kill him. We managed to send his Sorcerer pal back to the rez pad, but several of us fell to the Chanter before he tired of chasing those of us left alive around the elite areas of Belusian. After skulking about and rezzing one another (presumably because our antagonist found better things to do), we continued on to talk to an NPC known as Lethe, who directed us to acquire five Entry Permits which drop off of the elite Scholar mobs found scattered throughout the area.

Waiting for us, like some perfectly scripted scene out of a particularly kick-ass Western film, was a line of Asmodian players blocking the entrance to the dungeon.

XP was pretty good here as we mowed down mob after mob, and, probably due to the fact that the area is rather dangerous courtesy of the high concentration of elites, we managed to get everyone their drops without any further Asmodian player interference. The respite was short-lived, however, as after turning our permits over to Lethe, our radar lit up with big red dots.

The battle was quickly joined as a group of Asmo players descended upon us in a furious cacophony of blades and spells. Several of the attackers were higher level and well-geared, and just as the tide of the battle seemed to be turning against us, another group of Elyos (no doubt intending to run their own Xeno instance) arrived and lent their assistance.

The resulting battle was a ton of fun, and if more of Aion's PvP resembled these types of breathless, running skirmishes where something is actually at stake (in this case, the huge inconvenience of losing our kisk and having to re-enter the Xeno rift), I daresay the game wouldn't have as much trouble retaining players. Working together and improvising with a second group was an exhilirating experience that showcased Aion's PvPvE potential, and is indescribably more fun than zerging at a fortress siege or hammering on a single fort general for forty-five straight minutes.

We fought the Asmos in, around, and over the stone courtyards and bridges that dot the landscape near the Xeno instance, finally driving them off as their Cleric fell to our focus fire. We hurried to dispatch the quest boss as originally directed by Lethe, and once he succumbed to our combined onslaught, we headed across the rickety wooden bridge and up to the entrance to the Xeno instance proper. Waiting for us, like some perfectly scripted scene out of a particularly kick-ass Western film, was a line of Asmodian players blocking the entrance to the dungeon. It's moments like these that I rue NCsoft's decision to encrypt cross-faction chat, as I can only imagine how awesome it would have been to engage in a bit of mano-a-mano smack talk. As it was, we charged, they died (actually a couple of them force-logged), and we hurtled ahead into the darkness of our private (and well-earned) dungeon.

I wish I could tell you the rest of the Xeno instance was that much fun, but in reality it went like all dungeons go with a particularly effective group: cautious pulls, practiced PvE strategy, and an ultimately successful run that netted everyone a ton of XP and the golden class-specific weapon of their choice. Ultimately, it was a great night in a game that has sorely lacked them in recent weeks, at least for me personally. If there were some way to bottle this particular experience and pour it liberally over the rest of the game, Aion might get around to being fun all the time rather than in spurts.

Until next week, keep the blue side up.

AION 2.0 Patch Notes - Environments

2010-05-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

AION 2.0 Patch Notes - Environments

1. The Balaur homeland, Balaurea, is now accessible to the Elyos and Asmodian forces.

There are two new regions: Gelkmaros and Inggison.

These regions are both governed by the Dragon Lord Tiamat.

Gelkmaros and Ingisson, hidden from view for so long, have retained an appearance reminiscent of the Atreian mainland before the Cataclysm struck. However, the Drana in these lands has also left its mark; there are many areas where the laws of nature are not obeyed.

Monsters level 51 and above appear in these new regions.
These new regions contain unique environments.
The Elyos fortress is located in Inggison. The Asmodian fortress is located in Gelkmaros.
There are two fortresses and four artifacts in each region.
Flight plays a new role: each region contains new windstreams.

2. Windstreams have been added.
Windstreams are naturally occurring phenomena unique to the Balaur regions. Daevas can enter these windstreams, and are carried in the direction of the stream.
The Daeva’s flight timer is not used whilst in the windstream. Daevas cannot attack or be attacked in the windstream.
Some windstreams are stronger than others. Blue windstreams are powerful, and cannot be left until the windstream has run its path. Purple windstreams are weaker, however, so Daevas can leave them wherever they please. Daevas can leave purple windstreams by simply changing direction, or jumping.
Daevas who leave purple windstreams with a change in direction will simply glide away; Daevas who break from the windstream by jumping will start to fall.

3. Daevas can now move about via updrafts and geysers.

Players can ascend to higher areas using updrafts and geysers, or by entering certain windstreams.
Some of the updraft and geyser locations are blocked by monsters. Daevas must defeat these monsters in order to use them.

Daevas can enter updrafts by gliding into them.
Daevas use geysers by standing above them and waiting for an eruption.

4. [Elysea] Modifications have been made so that monsters cannot climb up a certain region inside the Theobomos Lab dungeon.

5. [Elysea] A bug where players cannot climb up trees in some parts of Heiron has been fixed.

6. [Asmodae] A bug causing players to glide abnormally in some parts of Beluslan has been fixed.

7. [Reshanta] A bug causing the glass wall inside the fortress dungeon (Abyss top layer) to appear opaque has been fixed.

8. A bug causing some monster skills to not be applied in certain parts of the Draupnir Cave has been fixed.

9. Changes have been made so that players cannot stay for extended periods of time in certain regions of Elysea, Asmodae, and the Abyss.
Kisks can no longer be installed in certain areas.
Spiritmasters cannot summon their spirits in certain areas.
Players who log out or are disconnected in certain areas will now reappear at an Obelisk when they next log in.

Aion 1.9 & 2.0 Announced release dates

2010-05-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Although the folks at NCwest have said that they are still working toward a May release for 1.9, their beloved parent company NCsoft had this to share last Friday.

Release dates for Aion 1.9 & 2.0!

Whilst we still await seeing 1.9 on the PTS, NCsoft announced via their Q1 2010 quarterly earnings report call that their global plan is to release patch 1.9 in June-August 2010, followed by patch 2.0 in September-October. They also confirmed that for each release, NA/EU will be implemented ahead of other Asian territories. This means that, for example, although some territories will see 1.9 as late as August, we can expect to get our paws on it much earlier.

Our own community team from NCwest have confirmed to us that they are still working toward a May release date for aion 1.9, so there is certainly hope on the horizon for the next few weeks.

If you would like to know more about the quarterly earnings call, you can download the English translation of the call here and listen to it, but be warned it is 30 minutes long!

Highlights from the call:

"Aion was down 21% quarter on quarter but up 67% year on year. As opposed to a solid domestic user base, Aion in overseas markets experienced the decline of active accounts resulting from natural decline and massive elimination. However, we could expect some recovery soon because content updates such as 1.9 and 2.0 are scheduled in May and the third quarter respectively."

"In terms of the overseas update schedule, the 1.9 update will be from June to August so it will depend on the territory. We are planning to update 1.9 in the EU/US first then in other asian territories afterwards."

"As for the 2.0 update, it will be sometime in the fall so we are looking for sometime then between September and October and also, it's the same, we will probably begin to update it in the EU/US and the Asian countries afterwards."

"As for the Aion performance in the Western market, I should have mentioned that the number of active users has declined since the launch of the retail package in September and October last year. But I'm also very confident that at this point EU/US is able to maintain the current level of active users and since we're expecting the 1.9 update soon, and also 2.0 in the third quarter."

"Probably we'll also be able to reactivate the dormant users, because we have a huge err...the amount of dormant users who are just waiting for the improvement in game design and game play, and also the new content. We will be able to provide those new changes with new content in 1.9 and 2.0 so we'll be focusing on reactivating those dormant accounts at this point. I regret that we are not able to provide any specific figures on our game operation."

Aion Patch 1.9 New Zone Preview

2010-04-24T08:51:00.001-07:00

New Aion 1.9 patch notes was up on the official Aion site, the note is very long so here we go.

Check Out Patch 1.9 Details.

Korean PTS: March 3rd Test Server Update Aion Patch 1.9 Announcement

In our ongoing effort to share information on a global level, I would like to share the Korea PTS patch notes for 1.9 that were recently announced. Please note that these patch notes are for the Korean PTS 1.9 patch, and is not representative of the final 1.9 patch to be published in the West. Names, locations and features are all subject to change depending on the live Korean build and territory needs. As of now there is no announced date for when this update will available for NCsoft West. However, we are actively working on the localization process and hope to bring you the 1.9 patch contents as soon as we can.

Thanks,

-Chris ‘Kinslon’ Hager

Content

Also Cori From AionHun had posted some Zone preview and New level 55 Wings pictures on Aionsource Click Here to Check them out

Aion Quest Guide: Fragment of Memory (Elyos)

2010-04-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick guide for the Elyos campaign quest Fragment of Memory. I had a lot of trouble when I first attempted this quest at level 27ish on my Elyos Assassin, the quest itself isn’t hard, no killing require, the hard part is to actually find the NPC Lugbug in Reshanta.

To begin this quest you must first be at least level 26, once level 26 teleport to Reshanta(Abyss) Teminon Fortress(Elyos home base) and speak to Michalis to begin this quest. Michalis wants you to meet with Pernos in Poeta, then you must go to Reshanta and find Lugbug.

Before you actually go to Reshanta DO NOT FORGET to get a Temporal Stone which is required later to complete the quest, get the stone now so you don’t have to make an extra trip after. To acquire the Temporal Stone you can either craft it yourself with Alchemy 199 and above, or you can purchase it from other players usually there are lots on the Trade Broker under the Other section.

Once you have a Temporal Stone, go back to Reshanta and find Lunbug. Lugbug is located in the middle of Lower Reshanta(Abyss), he is on a small island, and is literary in the middle of the map below the core. The core itself isn’t shown on the lower Abyss map, but you must think 3D, there is Upper Abyss, Core, then Lower Abyss. To reach this island you must fly there, but at level 26 you probably won’t have enough fly time to get there. So you must glide, gliding prolongs the amount of fly time you have. If your familiar with gliding in no fly zone then fly-gliding is pretty much the same, all you have to do is fly up like you would normally do, then push space bar to glide, to go back to fly mode just push space bar again. Even with gliding at level 26 you’ll probably run out of flight time so keep a few regular fly serum with you to recharge your fly time as needed, it beats dying and losing exp.

Here is a map that will show you where to start gliding, and where to the Lugbug island is located on the map (Click Image to Enlarge).

Also keep in mind that Abyss is an open pvp zone, and both Elyos/Asmodian has to speak to Lugbug to complete their campaign quest so beware of Asmodians.

To complete this quest once you’re on the island speak to Lugbug, he wants you to activate “Artifact of the Inception” with your Temploral Stone, then speak to Lugbug again for your rewards.That’s all for this Aion quest guide Fragment of Memory for the Elyos.

Aion Quest Guide: Looking for Leibo (Asmodian)

2010-04-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

Aion Quest Guide: Here is a quick guide for the Asmodian campaign quest Looking for Leibo. I had a lot of treble when I first attempted this quest at level 27ish on my Asmodian Assassin, the quest itself isn’t hard, no killing require, the hard part is to actually find the NPC Lugbug.

To begin this quest you must first be at least level 26, once level 26 teleport to Reshanta(Abyss) Primum Fortress and speak to Scoda to begin this quest. Scoda wants you to meet with Munin in Ishalgen, and Munin wants you to go to Pandaemonium and speak to Kasir, then Lyeanenerk.

Now you must go back to Reshanta and find Lugbug, but before you actually go to Reshanta DO NOT FORGET to get a Temporal Stone which is required later to complete the quest, get the stone now so you don’t have to make an extra trip later. To acquire the Temporal Stone you can either craft it yourself with Alchemy 199 and above, or you can purchase it from other players usually there are lots on the Trade Broker under the Other section.

Once you have a Temporal Stone, you must go back to Reshanta and find Lunbug. Lugbug is located in the middle of Lower Reshanta(Abyss), he is on a small island, and is literary located in the middle of the map below the core. The core itself isn’t shown on the lower Abyss map, but you must think 3D, there is Upper Abyss, Core, then Lower Abyss. To reach this island you must fly there, but at level 26 you probably won’t have enough fly time to get there. So you must glide, gliding prolongs the amount of fly time you have. If your familiar with gliding in no fly zone then fly-gliding is pretty much the same, all you have to do is fly up like you would normally do, then push space bar to glide, to go back to fly mode just push space bar again. Even with gliding at level 26 you’ll probably run out of flight time so keep a few regular fly serums with you to recharge your fly time as needed, it beats dying and losing exp.

Here is a map that will show you where to start gliding, and where to the Lugbug island is located on the map.

Also keep in mind that Abyss is an open pvp zone, and both Elyos/Asmodian has to speak to Lugbug to complete their campaign quest so beware of Elyos.

To complete this quest once you’re on the island speak to Lugbug, he wants you to activate “Artifact of the Inception” with your Temploral Stone, then speak to Lugbug again, and go back to Scoda to get your rewards.

That’s all for this Aion quest guide Looking for Leibo.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide

2010-01-30T08:33:00.000-08:00

Some great tips about how to extract Aether in Aion----important materials in aion crafting system.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
1. If you decide to start Aether Collection, make sure you've kicked your character's level up a notch to avoid unnecessary EXP losses and reduce the risk of huge costs for regaining experience through a healer.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
2. Don't panic when the flight starts falling down. You have to stop freaking out over death, take the bull by the horns and rectify any situation.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
3. Never press the Space key right after the crash of flight occurs. A decision like this will be a nail in your coffin. 99 percent of all deaths in flight crash are due to you spiral out of control and frantically hit the Space key immediately.

The right way to handle this situation is to press the Space key when the flight is 10 meters above the ground or any other buildings and the flight will slide right through the sky. Given sliding height like this, the worst situation is you get hurt instead of going to die.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
4. If you are unaware of the flying height or make wrong judgment about it , hit the Space key quickly to make the flight slide through the sky second time. This remedy measure will only work when the flight is still flying at high altitude. Here are two examples. The flight can slide second time if you are collecting 100P Aether. It is impossible for the flight slides second time when you are collecting 50P Aether in the Verteron realm

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
5. A boost to the proficiency in Aether Collection will speed collecting progress. When you are collecting low level Aether, you will easily fulfill the collection 5 times within the limited flying time without using any portion or being equipped with gear that will extend the flying time.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
6. Every life skill in AION includes a celebration gesture. When your character repeats this gesture on the ground to celebrate a victory in collection, it does no harm to you other than making your feel deadly boring. It will mean live or death when you are collecting Aether in the sky.

So, when you are flying high and collecting Aether, hit the A, or S or Q key to terminate this celebration gesture once you hear the sound of Ding. At the same time you have to right click or double click Aether to continue your collection. The mastery of this skill will help realize continual collection without being interrupted.

This skill can be applied to collecting Aether on the ground either.

Aion Aether Extraction Guide
7. Aether will spawn every 4 minutes. During this period, you can take a break from a collection fever and doing whatever you want to get relaxed. Do remember log back to the game after 4 minutes.

Last but not least, there are two reasons for learning AETHER collection. One is to make preparation for party PVP and the second is to earn money.

Aether is widely used in crafting. Especially when you are crafting green or blue items, you are going to need special Aether with high purity. These kinds of Aether are rare, expensive and a money black hole.

Aion Assassin PVP Guide

2010-01-17T02:33:00.000-08:00

I think assassin is one the best pvp class in Aion. Here I want to provide some tips about assassin pvp problem. I’m not talking about the operation skills, coz I was not good at this myself. But I think some other factors are also very important. Ok! The following is my collection

1.How to choose Godstone (what's Godstone?)
We know God stone has many awesome special effects, such as Daze, Paralysis, Blind, etc.
Proper choice of Godstone is essential in pvp. Each weapon can equip only one Godstone.

My collocation of godstone:

1 Aegir's Eye Beam + Suthran's Threat
Aegir's Eye Beam
Imbues a weapon with the ability to blind the target for 8 seconds with 5% probability. Equip by visiting a Godstone Enchanter NPC.
Suthran's Threat
Imbues a weapon with the ability to paralyze the target for 5 seconds with 2% probability. Equip by visiting a Godstone Enchanter NPC.
2. Godstone: Suthran's Threat+ Godstone: Suthran's Threat
3.Other recommended God stone: Daze stone; magic fire smash

Tips: there are other Godstones also have bilnd and paralyze effects, I didn’t list all the items. you can also find your own collocation.
When your enemy is blind or paralyzed, you can realize the power of God stone.

2.(KEY) How to choose Stigma stone What is Stigma System?

Sealed within each Stigma Stone is a powerful skill that makes a significant addition to your character's aresenal. While some of these stones are readily available, others can be very rare and therefore prestigious. Stigma Stones can be equipped on your character through the Stigma panel. The number of Stigma Stones you can equip depends on the level of your character.

Level 20: 2 Stigma Slots
Level 30: 3 Stigma Slots
Level 40: 4 Stigma Slots

Here I will talk about how a lvl 40+ assassin choose the Stigma stone

Assassin’s Stigma Skills

• Convenant of Speed I :(lvl20): Self-buff. Increases movement speed by 20% for 30 seconds. 120 second cooldown.
• Convenant of Evasion I :(lvl20): Evades magical attacks twice for a period of time.
• Apply Poison I :(lvl28): Applies poison to weapons. For 120 seconds gives a 2% chance of causing faint to enemies. Consumes 2 Skolopen's poison.
• Smoke Bomb I :(lvl37): Blinds enemies within 15m for 15~25 seconds. 600 second cooldown.
• Ranged Seal II :(lvl40): Deals 55~59 damage to a target within 10m and carves a seal to the 3rd degree. (Lower level of skill available at lvl 34)
• Linked Seal V :(lvl 41): Deals 56~60 physical damage and carves a seal to the 3rd degree. (Lower levels of skill available at lvls 20, 25, 31, 37)
• Sneak Attack IV :(lvl43): Moves behind an enemy within 20m and deals physical damage. Has a chance of causing target to faint. Exact damage numbers unknown. (Lower levels of skill available at lvls 25,31,37)
• Throw Blade I :(lvl44): Deals 582~586 physical damage to a target in an aerial shackle state wtihin 20m.
• Seal Explosion of Light I :(lvl45 Elyos): Causes the seal on a target within 20m to explode, dealing damage and putting target in a fainted state.
• Seal Explosion of Darkness I :(lvl45 Asmo): Causes the seal on a target within 20m to explode, dealing damage and returning a part of the damage as HP. 3600 second cooldown.

The best choice:
1. Sneak Attack(MUST)
2. Convenant of Speed(MUST)
3. Convenant of Evasion(MUST)

And the last one I have two choices: Throw Blade for high attack(PVP), Smoke Bomb for pve and instance (to save you and your team),

And we will have higher stigma skills(I will write about this next time)

4. weapons choice
I’d like to say it depends on your own.
Double daggers : high att-speed, but low normal attack and skill attack
Double sword: low att-speed but high normal and skill attack
Dagger+Sword: mediocre way

5. personal tps:
1. enough supply. Don’t try to save money. You should remember that medicine means survival .
2. we are assassin, we love sneak attack and we run away at the best time.

OK! I hope all assassins can enjoy aion pvp in the Abyss.

NCSoft asks Aion players to fly their fan flags in public

2009-11-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

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?

Aion New Costumes from Korean Test Server

2009-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

We are familiar with Eastern countries' traditional costumes in Aion 1.5. The good news is that NCsoft is creating new western countries' traidtional costumes and they have already come out in Aion Korean test server. Let's take a first look at them.

Image
Name
Hearthstone slots
Description

Kaftan / Sarapan
0
Russian traditional costume.

Image
Name
Hearthstone slots
Description

Himation / Kiton
0
European traditional costume.(lol they call this European..)

Aion Online: Grinding Guide and Tips

2009-11-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Aion Online is an MMO of not only quests but definitely grinding. There really isn’t too much of a way around it. There are a ton of quests but to be honest sometimes its worth just grinding out that extra two or three boxes to level. So this post should help gamers with grinding and some general leveling tips.
General Tips
———————————————————————————-
- The trick is to get levels in 3’s so you only have to hit the main city once and a while.
- Always sell when heading back from quests. The “Sell All Misc” button is your best friend.
- Bandages, Odella Powder and potions are a great to stop downtime.
- Power shards can help give you that extra damage when grinding to kill mobs faster.
Grinding Tips
———————————————————————————-
- Find a spot to grind that has 2 or 3 gathering nodes that way when you are waiting for the mobs to respawn you can gather and gain some Kinah.
- Ideal grinding spots are where you have a bunch of low level mobs where you can use some AoE skills if you class has any.
- If you have no AoE skills than a good grinding spot is where there are higher level mobs, maybe a level or two above your level which are spaced out to reduce adds, but will give extra xp. Make sure you have a decent Accuracy or Magical Accuracy so you can hit the mobs.
- In a group? Find a spot which has elite mobs, more Kinah and better item drops. Otherwise group grinding is actually not helping you because the xp is being split among the group.
Grinding Guide in Asmodian Areas
Grinding Guide for lvl 10-12
Altgard: Altgard Ice Lake (all kinds of animals)
Grinding Guide for lvl 12-14
Altgard: MuMu Farmland (mumu mobs)
Grinding Guide for lvl 14-15
Altgard: Area doesn’t have name but mobs at the coast north from MuMu Farmland (various mobs, because MuMu farmland gets too low)
Grinding Guide for lvl 15-17
Altgard: MuMu Village (mumu mobs)
Grinding Guide for lvl 16-18
Altgard: Gribade Crater Lake (various mobs, can go at 16 if you get bored of MuMu Village)
Grinding Guide for lvl 17-19
Altgard: path from Trader’s Berth to Urutemheim (birds)
Grinding Guide for lvl 18-21
Altgard: Impetusium (ghost mobs all around, can go at 18 and can leave at 20 too…)
Grinding Guide for lvl 17-20
Altgard: Blackclaw Village/Blackclaw Outpost (requires group!!)
Grinding Guide for lvl 20-22
Morheim: Morheim Snowfield (all kinds of animals here)
or if it’s crowded:
Grinding Guide for lvl 20-22
Brusthonin: Southern Polluted Area (all kinds of bugs and stuff here)
Grinding Guide for lvl 22-24
Morheim: Patamor Thicket/Patamor Ridge Path (shrooms, if it’s crowded go uphill north to earth elementals it’s usually empty there)
Grinding Guide for lvl 24-26
Brusthonin: Havenjark Farm/Havenjark Public Cemetary (all kinds of zombies)
Brusthonin: Vigrid Western Plain (elyos mobs)
Grinding Guide for lvl 23-27
Morheim: Taran’s Cavern (requires group!!)
Grinding Guide for lvl 26-29
Morheim: Fortress of Sorrow (ghosts)
Here’s a gap.. I don’t know good 29 grinding spot so I went to abyss and did all quests available to hit 30… you can stick to fortress or move to 30 grindspot I guess.
Grinding Guide for lvl 30-32
Beluslan: Beluslan Fortress (animals all around)
Grinding Guide for lvl 32-34
Beluslan: Mosbear Snowfield (mosbears, sadly they do annoying debuff that makes grinding as cleric hard if you can’t kill them fast enough)
so, you might want to
Beluslan: around Mahisha’s Nest (animals and some amethyst imps)
Grinding Guide for lvl 34-35
Beluslan: Besfer Ghost Village,Mosbear Snowfield / Morheim: The Crash Site, Alsig Village Area / Upper Abyss
Grinding Guide in Abyss Areas (Both Factions)
Grinding Guide for lvl 25-26
Memory Reaper – level 25 – Abyss – Quest for them on lower layer south eastern outposts
Grinding Guide for lvl 27-28
Sulfur Oculazen – level 27 – Abyss – north west of Sulfur Fortress, the floating eyes
Grinding Guide for lvl 27-29
Sulphur killing the plagued tree things that are level 28, mixed in with those ranged worms.
Grinding Guide for lvl 29-30
Upper abyss drakes or immortal plumas, if you don’t suck
Grinding Guide for lvl 30-32
Upper abyss drakes or immortal plumas ( Drakes are on the left side of upper abyss at the ruins. Called Garchicans or something.)
Grinding Guide for lvl 30-31
Mirrorglass Waterworm – level 30 – Abyss – upper layer Lake Asteria
Kill Ghosts at Ruins of Roach. They are squishy
Upper Abyss – The two lager islands due west of Lake Asteria
= Top Island – Balaur level 33-34
= Bottom Island – Undead level 34-35**Both Elyos and Asmos can grind here. Beware, both do, and often. This seems to be a highly publicized spot, and ganking will happen…FREQUENTLY.
Grinding Guide for lvl 34-35
Upper abyss Undead/balaur or Heiron grind near observatory

Aion sells over 970K copies across NA and Europe

2009-11-13T08:26:00.000-08:00

NCSoft has revealed during its financial report for Q3 of its fiscal year that Aion has sold more than 500,000 units in North America and 470,000 in Europe.

The Korean publisher’s financials are up 112 percent to KRW166 billion ($142 million) with net income for the July-September period at KRW46.9 billion ($40 million), which is a 836 percent year-over-year increase, with Aion contributing to 52 percent of those figures.

MMOs Lineage contributed 16 percent, City of Heroes/Villains 4 percent and Guild Wars 3 percent.

Revenues from Korea accounted for 48 percent with North America, Japan, Europe, and Taiwan following in that order

Aion preselection and head start programs detailed

2009-09-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Aion is right around the corner and there are two big things you should be aware of leading up to its North American launch on September 22 (September 25 in Europe): preselection and head start. These items are only of concern if you are a preorder customer.

Preselection begins this Friday at noon PDT (3PM EDT). Eligible players who preordered the game (check your master account status: as long as it doesn't say 'beta' you're golden) will be able to log into their game clients and create a total of two characters on their server of choice. This will help you get on the same server as your friends and hopefully reserve your favorite names (see official server list). Our understanding is that you can make two characters on one server or one character on each of two servers for those wanting to reserve an Elyos and Asmodian. Preselection closes on Sunday, September 20 at 9AM PDT (noon EDT).

Aion's head start will begin on Sunday at noon PDT for those eligible players who preordered as well. It appears that both NA and EU players will have the same preselect and head start dates and times. The head start program allows players to experience the full spectrum of what Aion has to offer as there are no level/zone restrictions being put in place. It's just as if you're getting to play the full release... two days early (five if you're European). Want to avoid the launch day crowds? Play the head start!

Help NCsoft help you: Aion server poll arrives

2009-09-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

NCsoft has put up an official server select poll up on SurveyMonkey for Aion. Anyone can participate by choosing which region they're from, whether or not they're a role-player, and then which server they plan to play on. The results will be released on September 18 to help preselect players decide which servers they should make characters on.

There is currently a bit of a competition going between Lumiel and Zikel as the official Eastern role-playing server. Before the release of this official poll, Aion role-players were gathering up to declare Lumiel the unofficial RP server because NCsoft didn't appear as though they were going to arbitrarily pick one. Recently, many Warhammer Online players from Phoenix Throne (the biggest and only official RP server) decided to organize an effort to steal the vote for Zikel. Many other hardcore PvP guilds seem to be vying for Zikel as well. We won't know the results of this until Friday.

There seems to be another battle going on between Eastern and Pacific servers as well. We haven't been able to confirm any exact times, but apparently certain PvP events will be 'timed' in Aion, such as fortress vulnerability and the Dreadgion. The issue arises when players of the same guild who live in different time zones have to decide on a single server to play on. If, for example, a fortress can only be raided from 8PM-11PM PDT, that makes it prime time for west coast players. Eastern guildies who have to work in the morning might not be too keen on playing from 11PM-1AM EDT.

Limited Edition Aion Keyset & Mousepad Now Available

2009-09-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

Are you a profesional Aion fan? Then you should not miss this SteelSeries Zboard Limited Edition Aion Keyset and QcK Aion Asmodian Mousepad which was introduced by SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of game peripherals and accessories. Co-designed with NCsoft, the limited edition gear can provide Aion players with customized functionality and original artwork from the game that allows players to battle and quest with ease into AIon's breathtaking world of Atreia.

The SteelSeries Zboard Limited Edition Aion Keyset will offer the full breadth of in-game commands on color-coded keys across the board. The keyset also provides players with:

- Dedicated action keys, menus, and chat commands that are labeled across 69 keys

- Full customization of each key through the SteelSeries Z Engine

- Quick-access emote keys for greeting, intimidating, or taunting your opponents

The SteelSeries Zboard Limited Edition Aion Keyset and SteelSeries Limited Edition QcK Aion Asmodian Mousepad will retail for $19.99 USD and $14.99USD.

Products are now available for pre-sale at Game Stop and Amazon.com.

About SteelSeries

SteelSeries is a leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, including headsets, keyboards, mice, software and gaming surfaces, selling in more than 75 countries. SteelSeries has been on the forefront of professional gaming gear since its inception in 2001, thanks to continued innovation and product development in cooperation with leading professional gamers. All SteelSeries products are developed in co-operation with professional gamers to ensure optimum performance and durability. SteelSeries supports the growth of competitive gaming and electronic sports through professional team sponsorships and community support all over the world. For more information, please visit www.SteelSeries.com.

About NCsoft

NCsoft, headquartered in Seoul, Korea, is the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Lineage®, Guild Wars®, and City of Heroes® franchises. NCsoft West is a division of NCsoft that holds operating responsibilities for North America, Europe, South America, and Australia/New Zealand. More information can be found at http://us.ncsoft.com.

NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, Lineage, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Aion, and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Preselection Players Can Create Aion Characters Since Sept. 18

2009-09-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

September 13, Aion ended its open beta test. Have you catched the chance to experience Aion? NCsoft NA now is busy encouraging players to preorder Aion for its official lauch on September 22. Preselection is a benefit available to anyone who preordered Aion. If you are not sure whether or not you are eligible, simply log in to your NCsoft Master Account to verify that your game aion account is listed and your account type is not designated as "Beta".

Starting 12:00 p.m. PDT (more) on September 18, 2009, eligible players will be able to start their game aion clients and log in to create a total of two aion characters ahead of everyone else. You can name and create these two characters through the standard character creator and be ready to play with these characters right when the game Head Start Program begins (but not beforehand). Preselection will end 9:00 a.m. PDT on September 20, 2009 (more).

Aion - Video Podcast #3 - East Meets West

Above is the third part of a special behind-the-scenes look at Aion released by NCsoft, entitled "East Meets West," showcasing the work that has gone into bringing an Eastern game to the Western audiences. Besides, Aion will be launching in Europe on 25th September 2009.

Aion: Third Video Podcast Released

2009-09-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

NCsoft released the third part of a special behind-the-scenes look at Aion, entitled "East Meets West," showcasing the work that has gone into bringing an Eastern game to the Western audiences. Aion will be launching in Europe on 25th September 2009.

View the video here.

NCSoft sells over 300,000 Aion pre-orders

2009-09-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting interview with Véronique Lallier -- NCSoft's managing director of publishing -- over at GamesIndustry.biz that reveals Aion has sold over 300,000 aion pre-orders so far. Not too shabby if you ask us. The interview also covers a lot of what's been going on over the past year with NC West, NCSoft's 'umbrella' for their western subsidiaries.

The main goal of NC West is to give the company a stronger foothold in European and North American markets. Now based out of Seattle, employees can be closer to their players and be more responsive to their needs. Stepping back from their original strategy of making casual games, the Seattle studio is also focused on making more triple-A MMOs for the West. What's on the horizon for NCSoft? Apparently, we can expect to hear more about Guild Wars 2 next year and their Korean studio is working on Blade & Soul, which they claim has even better graphics than Aion. There are a number of unannounced titles as well.

We should have the results of our own Aion interview with NCSoft out shortly, so make sure to stay tuned for that.

Aion : Open Beta Ends, the Wait Begins

2009-09-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

The Aion Open Beta test ended on Sep. 14 at 8AM CST, and with the doors now closed, the wait begins. The doors will open once again on September 18th for players eligible for the Pre-select program, which allows players to select their servers, reserve their names, and create their characters a full two days before the Head Start program begins. The Head Start program will then begin on the 20th, with the floodgates opening for the full launch two days later on the 22nd.

So how did the Aion Open Beta go? From what we understand, much like Champions Online, even Aion couldn't escape Open Beta woes; with issues like widespread lag, login issues due to the authentication process, and a bevy of GameGuard errors cropping up.

A aion patch was released during the Aion Open Beta program to address many of these issues and more, and as a result of the aforementioned problems the Open Beta was also extended six hours to 8AM CST this morning.

So now with the Aion Open Beta over, how was your experience? Did you hit the level 30 cap during the test? What do you plan on playing, or doing to occupy your time between now and the game's imminent release? Let us know in the comments!

Aion: ID or Password does not match

2009-09-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Viperlotus: I seem to be having some trouble getting into the open beta. I'm using the same ID and password that I did for the closed beta, but I keep getting this message. To make things worse, the game kicks me out right after that, and I have to go through the starting process again. Anyone having or has had this issue and can help?

EDIT: Hmm... it seems updating my password solved my original problem, but the client keeps closing out due to an "unexpected problem." I imagine this has to do with the instability of the servers, and that other people are having this same issue as well. Either way, thank you for your help.

HERE: NSCoft has said awhile ago that updated their password servers. You have to update your password in your aion account on the NCSoft website. you can just use the same password you used before. https://secure.ncsoft.com/.

LOLI's Aion(Pics)

2009-09-11T19:31:00.001-07:00

Aion open beta hits some hiccups

2009-09-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

Aion open beta hits some hiccups, but aion patches are on the way!

It seems that no game can find that smooth stride regarding their beta testing these days, but thankfully that's what beta testing is for -- squashing bugs. (No matter how much marketing we seem to lump atop these tests these days.)

The Aion development team has heard the community's call regarding the lag, authentication server, gameguard anti-cheating program, forum authentication script, and beta key release schedule. They understand that the problems with the aion lag experienced by North American users, as well as the login server not working, is frustrating. However, they are devoting resources to finding out the cause and will be patching the game ASAP.

As for the GameGuard, it seems the feisty little program has been coughing up more errors than usual for some users, making it another notch on the "to-do" list. Unfortunately, the beta forums didn't feel like cooperating either, leading to some users becoming unable to login and post their problems.

But, the team is making movement forward and will continue to iron out problems before release. We here at Massively wish them the best of luck in doing so.

Are you interested in the Aion open beta? Well no worries, you can grab your key from Fileplanet when you're ready to take to the skies. No Fileplanet membership is required, all you need to do is sign into Fileplanet with a standard account and download away!

Aion Enchantment Guide

2009-09-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Aion Enchantment is a basic way to enchant in Aion , please read the following Aion Enchantment Guide about enchantment and hope you have a good time in this game !

1. First you must creat the aion enchantment stones.

In order to create them, visit a nearby General Goods Merchant and purchase Extraction Tools. One set of tools is used per extraction. In order to extract, you must Right-Click on the Extraction Tools and then Left-Click on the item you wish to extract from.

1) You can only extract from items that can be enhanced. These are your chest slot, legs slot, shoulders slot, hands slot, feet slot, primary slot, and secondary slot.

2) When you extract from an item, that item is destroyed. Do not extract from items you wish to keep or use, obviously.

Once you have extracted an item, you will receive Enchantment stones. They come in the form: Level # Enchantment. The level corresponds to an item's level, not your level.

2. Now How you apply them for an item ?

The first important part is figuring out the level of the item you wish to enhance. Quite simply, the item's level is the required level to use that item (but there is more!). This can typically be found just by looking at the item's statistics, as it will say what level is required. For some items, such as quest rewards, there is no given level on the item. In order to figure out the level of these items, you must know what level the quest was that resulted in that item. For instance, if a quest said "Level 10" in front of it and completing it resulted in an item, that item's level would be 10.

Once you know your item's level, the next step is figuring out what level Enchantment stone to use. In order to do this, you must know whether the item is of White rarity, Green rarity, Blue rarity, or Orange rarity. You can simply do this by looking at the item and seeing what color the item's name is written in. Once you know the item's level and its color use the following to figure out what aion Enchantment stone to use:

White Item = Item's Level +1-10 Levels
Green Item = Item's Level +5-20 Levels
Blue Item = Item's Level +15-40 Levels
Orange Item = Item's Level +30-50 Levels

3. Take note that using the lower extremity will cause you to have a lower chance of success.

If you have a Level 10 White item, you will have a higher percent of success if you use a Level 13 Enchantment stone than if you used a Level 11 Enchantment stone. Also, if you use too high of an Enchantment stone, your chance of success will be diminished as well.

Now that you know how to create aion Enchantment stones and use them to enhance your gear. Thank you for reading and enjoy yourself !

Aion Launch Server List Released

2009-09-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have been waiting for this, so here you go, the official aion server list 9at least starting out) for launch!

Many of you have been curious to learn what the names of the Aion servers will be at launch. We've listed the server names below along with their associated time zones. The servers are aligned to those time zones (e.g. affecting fortresses) so that players on the East Coast as well as those on the West Coast can have blocks of game time to play during each server's prime time. Daylight saving will apply at launch.

Before the start of preselection (which begins September 18, 2009), we will also give our fans from the Oceanic region the chance to take part in an online community poll where you can indicate what server you'd pick unofficially if you want to play with your friends and neighbors. We hope to show instant results in the poll so that you can see which server provides you the best chance to meet them.

We are going to post a similar community poll for roleplayers. We have decided not to officially tag servers as roleplaying servers and enforce specific rules on them. However, we do believe that roleplayers are an essential part of our community, and we support their initiative to claim their own unofficial roleplaying server. Aion gives you the ability to create your own chat channel, and we are already seeing a lot of roleplaying groups out there who are defining their own rules and building up their own communities. Take your time to organize your group before the poll goes live, and then pick the server that would give you the best chance to find players with the same roleplaying interests.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Atreia on one of these servers at launch!

Aion Launch Server List Released

(1)North America: (UPDATED LIST AS OF 09-11-09)

[West] Siel GMT-8
[East] Israphel GMT-5
[West] Nezekan GMT-8
[East] Zikel GMT-5
[West] Vaizel GMT-8
[East] Triniel GMT-5
[West] Kaisinel GMT-8
[East] Lumiel GMT-5
[West] Yustiel GMT-8
[East] Marchutan GMT-5
[West] Ariel GMT-8
[East] Azphel GMT-5

(2)Europe:

[ENG] Spatalos
[ENG] Telemachus
[ENG] Castor
[ENG] Perento
[ENG] Gorgos

[GER] Kromede
[GER] Thor
[GER] Votan
[GER] Balder

[FRA] Urtem
[FRA] Vidar
[FRA] Suthran

NCsoft releases Aion Podcast #3!

2009-09-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Get a firsthand look at the NCsoft office in Seoul, Korea, in the third official Aion video podcast found exclusively at incgamers.com, Gamereactor.net, Gamona.de, EveryEye.it, Hardgame2.com and PowerUnlimited.nl! Join Associate Producer Lani Blazier, Lead Designer YongChan Jee, Lead Artist Hyung Jun Kim, and other members of the development team in your inside peek at Aion. The team talks candidly about how the design makes the game appeal to players across the globe, the future of Aion, and more.

Also, the server list located here has been updated. Please take a look and note the changes.

Aion Version 1.5 Impressions

2009-09-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's been one year since I first saw Aion: Tower of Eternity and those wings I admired are about ready to take flight in the US.

Developer NCSoft has learned a lot since the massively multiplayer online game went live in Korea last year and they've integrated as much as they could into version 1.5, which will be the game that launches in the US this September.

First up is instancing; aion 1.5 adds 14 new instances to players past level 20, a scoring system to all instances to encourage replay-ability and a whole lot more story to pad it all out. NCSoft takes their storytelling very seriously – especially since they're dealing with localization – so they've put professional writers on their adaptation team and skipped automation programs that find and replace text in favor of going through and rewriting text line-by-line.

Also new to aion patch 1.5 are character design options. Aion already had a pretty detailed character creation system to start with from what I can remember, but now they've added 14 new character presets, more westernized character appearances and the ability to create wee people and near-giants with new body types.

As far as classes and balancing goes, NCSoft has added one new spirit for each of the two playable factions in Aion that the Spiritmaster can summon (Spiritmasters can summon up to four spirits). There're also new class specific quests at levels 30 and 50 and a new tier of rarity to items (called "Eternal"). The armor sets have been tweaked, too, allowing for bonuses when you're wearing a complete set and for an ultimate badass look when you match really good armor with some of the incredibly detailed new wings they've added.

The developer showed me a trailer for aion version 1.5 while telling me all I've told you above. In it, I saw dramatic dragons, cat people and somebody being shot out of a canon. But what really impressed me was what I saw when they actually loaded up the game and played through a couple of areas to show off.

First of all, most of the quest text was voiced and it sounded good instead of stilted. Second, the quest text wasn't a line-for-line brick that matched the voice over (NCSoft thinks of quest text as "notes" rather than "the script.") The third thing I noticed was the new tutorial system – it features short videos with pleasing voiceovers that instruct noobs on exactly what they're supposed to do for everything from accessing the inventory to interpreting the map. It was very pleasing to the eye and welcoming for newcomers (and of course completely skippable for the more experienced).

After the show-and-tell period ended, I got to ask Producer Brian Knox a few questions. It was a special moment because I had just worked out in my head that my anniversary with Kotaku was coming up – and it was sort of an anniversary for Aion as well.

Knox said that what he's learned in the year since I saw him last is that developers should never compromise. If they're going to do something, they want to do it right – that's the strategy he wants NCSoft to maintain in its western branch. That's why his team spent so much time and effort on the localization so they wound up with a good story instead one riddled with translation flukes like "Immolate Ejaculation."

Knox also stressed just how much Aion relies on its community for support. The game is introducing a PowerWiki where more experienced players earn rewards for helping out new players by answering questions in the frequently asked questions section. He said that the developer hopes to use tools like these to let the community know they're being heard and that they can have an impact on the game.

The one thing Knox doesn't want to hear about Aion version 1.5 is the dreaded "G" word. Grind, in his opinion, is something that's monotonous and Aion goes out of its way to never be that. It's tough, he says, because the term "grind" has been blown out of proportion in the last five years of MMO history – and that's a lot of time for his game to fight against. But he's confident that his team has gone through the game enough to respond to criticism like "there's nothing to do at level xx!" and prevent mid-level lulls.

Lastly, Knox left me with the admonishment that Aion is not trying to be a World of Warcraft killer. There's room enough in the world for both it and Aion, he says – and Aion is its own game, not a clone.

Sheesh, I could have told you that after one look at the wings. It's quite different to be your own mount and be able to throw down in player-versus-player while flying.

Aion 1.5 goes live in September. Keep an eye on our Penny Arcade Expo coverage for launch party pics.

Aion patch 1.5 official HD video

2009-09-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Korean Aion players are getting ready for the third major content update in patch 1.5. To hype up the occasion NCsoft released a trailer for the upcoming patch featuring all in game footage of the new instances and battlegrounds. The 1.5 patch is the one the Western players will be starting the game with, so you might want to check out what awaits us all. All of you playing the Closed Beta events are sure to recognize the Dark Poeta, inverted version of the Elyos starting area. This is now a new instance full of Balaur that requires lvl 50 and a quest item to enter. There is also a pirate infested instance called Steelrake Valley for lvl 40+ players, new battleground ( Dreadgion ) and new Abyss instances. You can read the translated patch notes here.

But the star is certainly the new trailer showcasing all of the above. Watch it in HD if at all possible because it really is worth it.

Here.

Tags: Aion, Dark Poeta, Dreadgion, patch, Steelrake Valley, video

Aion OBT Patch 1.5 Details

2009-09-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

NCsoft has given a comprehensive list of changes that will take place in the latest aion patch 1.5 for the MMO, Aion, which will feature in the upcoming open beta test.

Players who were on the closed beta test will notice a large addition of content and features in patch 1.5, which is much closer to the version that Aion will launch with later this month. The European and NA client will match the version that players in Korea have, where the game has been live since last year.

The Aion team has apparently done a lot more work on westernisation, and players will notice many changes from the CBT client. The terminology of many skills and items has been overhauled too.

Players are advised that Aion devs will be balancing races on servers during the OBT, so if the population of either race grows too fast when the servers open, players may receive a “This race cannot be created” message. Once the balance has evened out, the message will be removed again.

Anyone who played the CBT will probably not be surprised to learn that one of the most requested features during the testing was to allow the left mouse button to move the camera. This has been implemented, along with many other features including:

New Areas: Theobomos (Elysea) and Brusthonin (Asmodae)
New Instances
Over 40 new default faces have been added to character creation.
Increased PvPvE rewards
UI changes (click-to-move has been disabled by default)
New items
New skills + increased balance
Tons of new quests.
Advanced Stigma Stone System
Chat Channels: Class, Region, Looking For Group, Languages

The full list of patch notes can be found on the official Aion site.

The OBT kicks off on Sunday 6 September at 5pm British Summer Time and runs until 13 September. The game goes on sale on 22 September in NA, 25 September in the UK.

Aion Open Beta Updates

2009-09-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

From the hallowed halls of NCWest comes word on the aion open beta, an interesting read.

It's been an interesting week with lots of not-so-pleasant surprises and various explosions throughout the world of Aion, thankfully NCWest have been quick to respond. More below...

Aion Open Beta Updates

The Aion Team extends a huge thank you for the overwhelming response we have received throughout the beginning of our ongoing open beta testing. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but have managed to resolve many of them with your persistent help, reports, and sincere desire for the game to run as it should.

The main topic of discussion over the past few days has been lag, in particular on the North American servers. We believe we have resolved the issue, but we will aggressively work to continue to improve and prevent similar issues. Over the next couple of days, we will do more in-depth troubleshooting to flush out the issue. It is very important to us that the game plays as intended for everyone, and we won't rest before we reach that goal.

The second issue we are addressing is the authentication server, which from a player point of view, is the login process. We are investigating the issues with its behavior during today and this evening to search for errors in our setups and to try a few different ideas we have that will allow us to understand the player reports and improve its behavior. We will let you know ahead of time if this will impact service in anyway.

The next issue is GameGuard. We are aware that a couple of new errors have popped up since our closed beta tests. We are working on a patch that will address a couple of them. Feedback is essential as we troubleshoot these errors, as the data you give us helps us narrow problem factors down and reach solutions quicker. To give you additional information and suggested fixes that might help your GameGuard-related situation before you need to call upon a customer services representative, we have added a GameGuard information page on AionOnline.

The beta forums have been a quieter than normal, in part due to irregularities with our forum authentication script. Certain upgrades that needed to be made for open beta apparently weren't completed in time, preventing both new and old accounts from logging in. The fix is now implemented. If you were able to log in prior to this update, but notice that you are suddenly unable to, make sure to update your Aion account password following these instructions. Your password update may take as long as 30 minutes before it is effective.

The final noteworthy topic relates to beta keys. Many of you have wondered why we have been so restrictive in distributing them. We know many of you have guildmates or friends who would love to give the game a try before making a further commitment. To ensure that we had time to set our servers up properly and get rid of initial connectivity issues, we throttled the key giveaways and so that we could ramp the distribution up slowly but securely. We are now at a stage where we are confident enough to open this final beta phase up to a much broader audience by giving away North American open beta keys to everyone! FilePlanet is hosting this giveaway, and you will not need to be a paying subscriber in order to get your hands on one of the keys. FilePlanet also have a number of European keys to give away, so get them while they last! Many more European websites in different languages will also be offering European keys.

Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued help in the open beta test. With your help, we will flush out any remaining issues before the upcoming release of Aion!

Aion: Flight 101

2009-09-09T08:41:00.001-07:00

Aion: Flight 101
Flight is probably the thing which has drawn most people to Aion. The idea of soaring high above the cloud on a pair of white/black-feathered wings is a universally appealing one. The reality, however, is a little different. Flight in Aion is not something you can do immediately nor indefinitely and the rules for this are not just to be annoying, they are a part of the game's world and lore.

Join us after the jump when we look at everything you need to know about using your wings.

Getting your wings and using them

Only Daeva can fly and every player will become one at level 9. You get your wings but can't use them properly until you leave the starter zones of Poeta and Ishalgan and head to Verteron or Altgard at level 10. To summon your wings just press Page Up. R will make you rise, F is the descend button and Page Down dematerialises your wings. If you fall off something, press Page Up (even if there is only a fraction of flight time left) just before you hit the ground to save yourself from a grisly death.

You can't fly but you can glide

Flying is -- oddly -- banned in Sanctum and Pandaemonium, the Elyos and Asmodian capital cities. However gliding is something you can do wherever you are. Press the spacebar to jump and if you're in the right place your wings will spread and you can glide. It's a great way to outrun rampaging mobs. You can also glide while flying, just press space again and look for the yellow status bar.

When you can use your wings

At the right hand side of the UI, you'll see a small fair of wings surrounded by a circle. This is your flight timer. The wings will illuminate in areas where you can fly but these will often be few and far between. Why, you ask? Well Daeva use Aether to fly and this substance is slowly draining from Atreia. Some areas have more than others, which explains why certain parts of the world allow free flight and others force you to run like the mortal you once were.

Time is of the essence

Because of the Aether shortage, flight time is at a premium. When you start out you get sixty seconds but as you level up, you also have the chance to pay for better wings. Now these don't just look awesome – and cost a bomb – they also had an added bonus of extending how long you can stay up in the air. We mentioned they cost a fortune though right? The wings can be purchased from special vendors in the capital cities if you're interested in a little window shopping though.

Aerial combat is the key

Once you learn to fly, a whole new world opens up. Literally. Your wings also work in combat (in certain areas). If you're low on health or mana, this can be a life-saver. All you need to do is fly up to flee combat or you can hover just out of range of melee attacks and throw all you've got at whatever you happen to be fighting.

Aion: Transportation 101

2009-09-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Aion: Transportation 101
Transportation is important to any MMO, especially one like Aion which doesn't include the option of a mount. Yes, there are no cats, no horses or flying creatures to ride. It's just you, your feet, your wings and a little magic. Now the starter zones might look small but the main areas are ten times the size which can take a good half an hour to cross, not including time spent dying. Today we're going to have a look at transportation and what you need to know to navigate around. Elysea and Asmodae so join us after the jump to find out the secrets of travel in Aion.
On the wings of a bird

As a mere mortal, your transport is somewhat limited. You can walk, you can run and you can hitch a ride on a bird transporter. It costs Kinah but if you're in a new area, there's normally one or two flight points pre-entered allowing you to get to a new area without dying. It's also a nice quick way of getting from A to B using the scenic route, an epic fly-over of the landscape that will take your breath away. However, this can also highlight potential quest hubs and give you an idea of the terrain you'll be facing.

Bind points and Return

As we've already told you, Soul Binding is very important within the mechanics of the game. However it has another perk as it also allows you to use the "Return" spell every 20 minutes. Much like a teleportation spell or a hearthstone, this little spell will portal you back to wherever you've bound your soul in a matter of seconds. Just make sure you're not in combat when you try to do this and use it wisely. The only problem with this is that settlements are often quite far away from quest areas. This means you will always end up doing some running hither and thither. That said, it's a handy way of saving time and Kinah when you need to hand in a load of quests.

Map reading for beginners

Aion comes with two kinda of map. Press M and the screen will be taken up by a parchment-covered map but press N and you will get a transparent map laid over the screen which will allow you to travel without getting lost. You can also mark a species of mob, NPC or location on the map as well as find out a little about it using the in-built encyclopedia. The map system is such that it's nearly impossible to get lost and if you do, just find a road and follow it.

Gliding

Post-ascension, gliding can come in handy when you need to get somewhere and have a long run ahead of you. You can't do it forever but it can make a five minute run pass a bit quicker as well as avoiding random mobs. To glide, just press the space bar. Don't press forward as well and if you're high enough, your wings will appear and air currents will buffet you in the direction you're heading. Indeed it's possible to go quite fast and quite high.

Teleportation for beginners

When you ascend, you will be able to use a portal to teleport between landmasses, cities and settlements. It's something only Daeva can use (apparently the Aether would rip a fragile human to pieces) and is the only way to get to Sanctum or Pandaemonium. Teleporters are staffed by NPCs who will tell you where you can go and give you a quote. Yes, it costs Kinah (as does everything in Aion) but is the only way to get from one island to another.

Aion: Five things you need to know about surviving in Atreia

2009-09-09T08:37:00.001-07:00

With NCsoft's release of Aion coming up on the 22nd and 25th September in North America and Europe, we thought we had better give you the basics on the land of Atreia ahead of the open beta which begins today. So, we're going to give you all the info you need to dive into their beautifully detailed world. After the jump, we're going to look at the five things you need to know if you've never played Aion before.

Money

The currency of Atreia is Kinah and you use it for everything from teleportation to getting your soul healed. Kinah is awarded for quests and also drops from mobs (though the reason why continues to elude many of us). Aion comes with quite a gold sink though, with teleportation from Sanctum or Pandemonium costing on average between 800-1400 Kinah, depending on where you want to go. Fortunately the average mob drop is around 200-400 Kinah, depending on levels. Our advice is simply this: Save, save, save and save some more.

Soul Binding and Soul Healing

Everyone has a soul, your avatar included. Souls can be bound to special Obelisks which serve both as a bind and resurrection point within the game. These magnificent statues will have an NPC called a Soul Healer next to them who will be able to offer Soul Healing, post level six, that will restore lost XP after you die. The catch is you can only bind to one Obelisk at a time (it also costs money) and Soul Healing gets more expensive each time you use it. So make sure you bind at the town nearest to where you are questing and try not to die!

Legions

Legions are basically guilds but with a levelling aspect. You can pay money to level the Legion up and get benefits like a snazzy cloak and logo. They also come with banks – called warehouses – where you can stash loot and, of course, there are the other perks of playing with people, instant groups and social fun. Join one if you can!

Making money

Since Kinah is all important, you'll want to make as much of it as you can. So start gathering herbs at level one and sell whatever trash or drops you don't need. You can also set up your own store if you want and advertise money. By the time you Ascend, you should have around 10,000 Kinah saved up. You should spend some of this on expanding your Cube though as it makes questing much easier and means you can carry more.

Surviving in Atreia

Always pack the following essentials: potions to restore mana and health, buff food and Manastones (which increase your stats). Don't forget to change your title depending on your class and spec. Also bind often or you'll face a long run and use potions and bandages during and after a fight. The less you die, the cheaper it will be in the long run.

10 reasons to enjoy AION in September!

2009-09-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

AION is coming and many of us have tried it, what's your impression of AION? NCsoft spent 4 years and 18 million dollars on developing AION. And we do see the wonderful graphics and much creative contents in AION. I think there are 10 reasons to enjoy AION in the coming September:

1, Full-scale production. The developers refered to more than 500 mythological books of east and west to creat the world of AION. So you're traveling in a legendary world when flowing in this game. The music in AION is produced by the group which composed music of Lord of Ring.

2, The nice graphics and the wonderful view. Almost in every scene you can enjoy the wonderful view, the mythological architecture and the natural beauty are pleasing to me.

Aion also uses the best weather system I have seen . It makes extensive use of lighting effects; the rain hits the ground, the clouds change, there are fog effects, you can hear the thunder and lightning is applied to the environment objects on thunder strikes, etc...

3, PvPvE System
The end game of Aion will revolve around battles within the Abyss (PvP Zone). Within the Abyss are castles where large scale battles will take place. The game currently does not allow factions to fight within their own. Guilds in control of a castle are entitled to funding from taxes and players within the faction get specials from NPCs.

The participation in PvP is rewarded with PvP "Points". The game ranks you as you win battles against fellow players. At certain ranks your wings will change in appearance to show your status. Also certain items can be purchased with these points like high end armors and weapons.

4, Flying! You may fly from level 9, and fight in the air. If your charater jumps from the Sactum, don't worry, just spread your wings.

5, The diversified crafting system.
In Aion, there are six crafting skills including weapon smith, armor smith, alchemy, cooking, sewing, handiwork.

Yeah, you may design dazzling clothes, armors and badges in your interest!

6, Easy to earn kinah
It's a pay to play game, so leveling or fighting is relatively fair(). Easy to collect weapons and sell them for Kinah. My package is always full of potion, food, weapon and remainder of the monster.

7, Powerful social animation system
Dance! Yeah, you may dance as a famous star in AION. Expressing your emotion such as laugh, sleep, wave, anger...by powerful social animation system is so easy. Your character will catch a fish when standing in the lake, take a lotus leaf as umbrella when it's raining...

8, Wonderful places for dating

9, Suprises!
Suprises are almost everywhere when you're hanging around in AION. You may be changed into little corn or parrot to fullfill the quest. Suddenly you can see the fabulous pterosaur flies gracefully over the sky...

10, More to be explored by you!^^

North American Aion servers to be located on east coast

2009-09-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

One of our keen-eyed readers tipped us off as to a forum post by Ayase, aka Sebastian Streiffert, Aion's community manager, which confirmed an original email stating that Aion North American servers will be located on the east coast. Forum-goers whipped themselves up into a frenzy quite quickly over this news, especially those residing in the Oceanic region.

Gamers from Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore are often faced with crippling latency issues when playing on servers located stateside. This is usually mitigated by having some west coast servers or actual dedicated Oceanic servers. Since Aion has such a focus on PvP(vE) where lightning fast reflexes and speedy server responsiveness matter especially, you can kind of understand their concerns. Ayase's response after the cut confirms this news and tries to assuage their fears.

Ayase's response:

"It is correct that our North American servers are located on the US east coast, and the game servers for many of our other games have been for a long time as well. If any Oceanic players present here have participated in our closed beta stages, I do however think that most of you will be able to vouch for that this added distance does not constitute a major problem when it comes to latency.

Our servers are well-optimized and Aion is in its very core designed to tackle challenging client-server distances. Aion might not be launching with explicitly designated Oceanic Aion servers from day one, but we will carefully monitor the situation and if we see a large number of players experiencing issues as a result from their distance to our game servers we'll make sure to take action; to do our best to prevent any such issues from continuing."

Aion comic book

2009-09-06T02:20:00.001-07:00

NCsoft and DC Comics have teamed up to create a limited edition comic based on Aion which focuses on the Asmodian Daeva Aiva. She might look familiar as her image is used to advertise the game and a statue of her will also be found in the Collector's Edition when Aion is released later this month.

"Aiva's Story" is the work of artist Neil Googe and writers David Noonan and Ricardo Sanchez. Aiva's life is torn apart when her family is killed by an Elyos raiding party. Embittered, she endures a harsh life as a mercenary, fighting Karnifs and the Mau. She brings with her a festering hatred for the white-winged Elyos, eventually ascending to Daevahood and is posted to the Abyss. The comic book will be available (albeit in limited quantities) at the Aion booth at this weekend's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle but fans will also be able to get their hands on a copy by purchasing the game at GameStop in the US and Electronic Boutique stores in Canada..

Will you be playing Aion open beta this weekend?

2009-09-06T02:13:00.000-07:00

With Aion's open beta set to launch this weekend (September 6-13), we're curious: Do you plan on giving it a shot? The game has gone through several closed beta phases dating back to early June. All closed beta phases leading up until the very last one were using an older version of the game client (1.1). They've recently upgraded to 1.5, so we highly suggest giving it a try before making any final judgments based on early testing experiences. We also hear the open beta version will be the version Aion launches with in North America and Europe. Be sure to read up on Shadow of the Balaur.

Aion Open beta characters will be capped at level 30, which is high enough to test a good mix of what the game has to offer including Rifts and the Abyss. Rifts are portals that will take you into your enemy's PvE lands and the Abyss is a giant PvPvE zone where the game's three factions battle for supremacy. I'm personally going to play a bit next week as an Elyos Gladiator named Snafzg on the NA servers, so make sure to say "Hi!" if you see me putzing around. Settling on a class has been challenging thus far.

Aion Abyss rankings show assassins like it on top (Korean)

2009-09-06T02:12:00.001-07:00

Aion Abyss rankings show assassins like it on top (Korean)

We stumbled upon this interesting Aion chart that shows off the current Abyss rankings on the top five Korean servers. There are a few things you should know before drawing any absolute conclusions. First, the list only ranks players by their total Abyss Points (AP) and doesn't factor in many of the variables associated with AP gain (e.g., solo, group, PvE, PvP, exploit, etc.). Also, it doesn't necessarily reflect class imbalance issues (power or population), but we're sure that's the conclusion most people will jump to.

After tallying up the class numbers, you can see that Assassins seem to be dominating the Abyss rankings, while Spiritmasters are at the bottom. Of the top 100, 48 are Assassins and 2 are Spiritmasters. With three classes tied for second and a few others not far behind, at least that seems quite balanced in terms of class spread. Exploitation is also mentioned in this thread and there appears to be one blatant case of it in the rankings (i.e., the level 30 Ranger with the top rank for his server). PvP games inevitably result in lists like this and it will be interesting to see how things pan out on the North American servers when Aion launches later this month.

Aion Open Beta Client Available for Download

2009-09-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

The Aion Open Beta won't begin until September 6th, but that doesn't mean you cannot be prepared. As such, Ncsoft have made the aion open beta client download available in advance so you can be all ready to go once the big day comes!

Following our recent announcement regarding the commencement of Aion's open beta, we have taken steps to ensure a smooth setup and preparation process for all participants. While our Launcher will incrementally update your client, the new and patched Aion open beta client has been distributed to a select few partners around the web to prepare for our open beta test. To get your hands on it, you may visit FilePlanet or download it from GamersHell (available later this week).

We have also added a new option that the Aion community has long anticipated: downloading the full aion open beta client via our BitTorrent tracker (md5 checksum). We have even arranged for a torrent patch for those of you who already have the closed beta client installed but want to get prepared for open beta!

As added extra spice, FilePlanet will--in addition to distributing the client--be giving away a load of open beta keys starting on Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Get on the starting line if you do not have an eligible Aion account already! Eligible accounts include any previous closed beta participants and those who have preordered or prepurchased Aion.

Remember to update your Aion game password if your Aion account was created prior to July 29, 2009.

Aion PvP Ettiquitte/beginners guide

2009-09-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

General Discussion » Aion PvP Ettiquitte/beginners guide

This is just a simple guide about becoming a PvPer in general and really can be applied to any game, but I will make it specifically for AION in this case.

Q: I was just killed while levelling! It's not fair! What should I do?

A: Kill them back

Q: I was just killed while levelling! He's alot higher in level than me and I can't kill him back! What should I do?

A: Level harder, then and kill him back.

Q: I can't do my aion quest because I keep getting "ganked!" What should I do?

A: Go somewhere else and level.

Q: But I still can't do my aion quests! How am I supposed to level?

A: Grind mobs.

Q: But grinding is boring and takes too long!

A: Learn to have discipline.

Q: When I get to higher levels, should I "gank" other players? Why?

A: Yes, because you win and you help your faction win.

Q: When I get to higher levels, should I "camp" other players? Why?

A: Yes. because you win and you help your faction win.

Q: But isn't ganking and camping cheap and unfair?

A: No. The only important thing is that you win. Fairness doesn't matter

Q: Is it ok to train mobs into players of my own faction

A: Yes. Training mobs helps train members of your own faction by training them to react to unexpected situations.

Q: Help! I've just been killed using an exploit! What should I do?

A: Use the same exploit on others.

Q: Isn't using exploits cheating?

A: No. The only thing that matters is what you can do and what you can't do.

Q: Should I cry about being killed on forums

A: No. That makes you a "newb"

Q: Should I do silly emotes like /facepalm?

A: No. That makes you a "newb".

Aion Level 50 Daevonian Armor/Weapon

2009-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Aion
First thing is first, unlike the level 30 set, you do not need several character of a certain level to obtain the set. You only need one. You do however have to go through quite a long series of chain quests to get everything, and it's no walk in the park. It takes time and is expensive. It is not however the most expensive equips in the game nor (depending on preference) is it the best armor in the game, the weapon come pretty close to being the best however. In my opinion, this is actually a cheap (Compared to price of better gear) and fast way (Fast when compared to getting a full set of the best stuff) to obtain a decent set of gold equips. To be able to start the quest for the first piece of the armor, you will have to of completed the level 30 Daevonian quest, don't worry you only have to do it once, it is however quite a bit of running around, and you get to choose which piece of the armor you want. Some of the following names may be different for the Asmos as this is based off Elyos, the quests themselves are very similar for both factions.

OK, so you've leveled to 50, you have done the level 30 Daevonian quest and you are ready to get some decent gear:

Chain Quest Part One: Class Preceptor's Consent

This first part of the series is quite easy compared to some of the others. To start the quest you need to get it from the guardian of your factions main city (Sanctum/PandaTown). The series itself is quite straight forward, all you have to do is go around to each of the classes job instructors and get letters from them. They are the job instructors for the high level skill books, not the lvl 25 and under skill books. After that you need to buy a special item for just over 4.2mil Kinah from a vendor which is also in your factions main city, talk to another NPC and you are done. You will be rewarded with the first piece of the set, the boots =D

Part Two: Information Gathering Ability Test

This one like the last involves talking to NPCs everywhere, once again you need to buy the same special item for 4.2mil Kinah and get the Gloves. Fairly Simple, except for the part where these NPCs are only there at cerain times of the day/ month =D

Part Three: Combat Capability Test

Like the last one, talk to some NPCs, one of the NPCs will require that you have completed a quest from him/her beforehand. Pay 4.2mil kinah for item, recieve Pauldrons.

Part Four: Crafting Skill Test

You are probably thinking by now, lol these are easy, just talk to a few NPCs, pay some 4.2mil Kinah, its nothing....Welcome to part four =D. As you can probably gather from the title of this one, you will need to do some crafting. This is not just any crafting though, you need to have a craft level of 449p, that means you have to have expert and maxed out expert. Not only that but you have to crit the craft and this is no easy craft. Take a look for yourself at the materials that is needed: Link. These will take quite some time to obtain all of them. Then if you don't crit the craft, you have to get them all again. After you have finally done that and have your critted item buy an item for 6.2mil this time, hand it in and get your panties =D

Part Five: Test of Luck and Persistence

This one like the title says, requires a lot of luck and patience. You need to find an item that spawns in one place at a time, only spawns at certain times and has a LOT of different spawn locations. You also need to be able to "capture" the item and you will hvae to pay 3.2mil kinah for the "capturer". Once you have done that, buy the special item for 4.2mil kinah and recieve your top =D

Final Part: Test of Loyalty and Cooperativeness

This one is going to be quite time taking and challenging. First up you need to kill a certain mob to collect a certain item, you need 600 of them. Next you need to kill Menotios. Don't know what that is? It's a world boss of the abyss, located right in the abyss core, it is one of the hardest bosses in the game, (not that hard though, I've killed it myself with a legion) and it's level 51, but that's not all the killing you have to do, there's more. You guessed it, now you have to kill the final boss of the Dreadgion Instance, no idea what his name is though. After that, pay out 13mil kinah for the item and recieve your weapon =D

Final Final Part: Evil is Awesome

This part is simple, give all your moneys and items to Evil and get nothing in return. Have a nice day =D

Aion Bot v 0.2 EU

2009-09-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Cheers here you can downlaod my little Aion bot its nothing special but its enough to lvl ur char a bit…

features:

-target mobs and kill them
-loot
-heal your char
-looking around for mobs

instructions:

1.Get a GameGuard Killer that you can avoid GG

2.Change your desktop resolution to 1680 x 1050 and change Aion to windowed mode

3.Place “pick up item” at 9, and bandages at 0

4.Place ur skills on 1-8

5.Open the settings.txt and change the Mob which you want to search for and save changes(Codes are in the Monstercodes.txt [will be updated])

6.Start the Exe file and switch to Aion

Update:

-targetting updated

-heals your char when HP gets low and not after every mob

-Attacking until mob dies so the attack timer isnt needed anymore

ToDo:

-Buff system

- Anti stuck

-Autologin and Relog

-change to memory reading and add a waypoint system (in very very far future )

Download

Category: Aion Hacks & Bots / Tag: aion, aion bot, aion hack, aion heal bot, aion loot bot, aion moblock, bot, loot

AIon CBT to OBT installer is out!

2009-08-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

The CBT to OBT installer is UP on Fileplanet. Download that here!

Just to clarify, you need to be a FilePlanet member in order to download from their servers but you do not need to be a PAID subscriber. That just gets you faster download access. Just FYI :)

Also, they've told us that a torrent will also be available for this, so if you're waiting for that, keep checking this thread and I'll update as soon as I have the link!

Happy downloading, everyone!

EDIT:
Originally Posted by Brian Knox via Twitter FilePlanet full client and the patch from CBT is legit!! Announcements coming soon also torrent link soon...

EDIT2:
Here is the FULL 1.5 CLIENT on FilePlanet for those who can't upgrade from CBT to OBT.

EDIT3:

The Torrent file is up!
Full Client

CBT-OBT Torrent

NCSoft West is getting ready for PAX

2009-08-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

The Penny Arcade Expo is definitely a happening place to be this year. 3-day passes and Saturday-only passes have completely sold out. Friday and Sunday only passes are very close behind, so if you plan on visiting the Aion booth this year and don't already have a pass for one of those days, I suggest you do it soon!

I will be there covering the booth, talking with the team, showcasing version 1.5, and meeting all you happy people.

Of course, Aion and the NC West team will be there, too! Here's a writeup from the Official Aion site concerning PAX:

From www.aiononline.com

September 4, 2009 marks the opening of the sixth annual Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a major North American gamer festival that takes place in the heart of Seattle, Washington.

With gamescom still in our rear view mirror, Aion is ready to follow up on last year's efforts at PAX and once again glide over to the convention center with the entire Aion team tagging along for the ride. Don't miss out on this excellent opportunity to view our beautiful booth (#642), get some hands-on time with the latest version of Aion, chat face-to-face with our present staff, or walk away with some much coveted swag.

Follow our Aion community blog throughout the coming week to get a peek of what delicious highlights to expect!

See you there!

AionArmory update complete with 1.5 translations!

2009-08-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

That's right everyone, now that the aion 1.5 client is officially available for download via FilePlanet ( Full Client CBT to OBT Patch ) and Torrent ( Full Client CBT to OBT Patch ) Due to this, AionArmory has updated it's database!

The rest of the armory has been updated as well to correspond to text changes for skills, gear, etc. Some of the translations have been re-done and they look much better now!
We are still missing some sockets and drops informations for the new 1.5 items, everything should be in the database by tomorrow.

Stop on over and check out the changes and have a look below for a recap of some of the most recent changes as well.

Enjoy!

Updates : (07/28/09)

4500 items added from 1.0 to 1.5 Items - Aion
418 new quests Quests - Aion
New spell haste bonus Items - Aion
160 new skills
Item sets have been added.
The item navigation panel has been reorganized a bit for easier utility.
Editing/Addition of quest objectives is now available, all changes will go into the admin approval queue.
Recipe tooltips added.
Recipe syndication added.
General fixes.

Bug Fixes : (07/02/09)

Crafting materials will no longer show recipes.
Cooking items will no longer display incorrect values.
Fixed some missing/hidden items (e.g. Od)
All spells should have correct values now.
General bug fixes in all areas.

Improvements/Additions: (07/02/09)

Users can now submit multiple item drops at a time.
Users can now submit data edits which will go into an admin approval queue.
Users can also submit new entries(right now only guides) that also go into an admin approval queue, further additions/tweaks pending.
Items now include manastone/godstone stocks.
Recipes now display required level.
Items that start quests now show it on the item page, a filter has been added also.
Title list now shows the quest required to obtain each title.
Additional filters have been added for new item fields.
Spell filters added.
Description filter on items added.
SpiritMaster spells now show which pet they are related to.
Spells now state if they are stigma-based.
Recipes show rarity, filter added.
Weight-scale is now pinnable, upgrade tab on items.
Items can now be marked as World-drops or faction zone specific.
Enhanced editing bar for submissions (currently Guides)
Syndication search box support.
Latest edits menu added.
More items have been marked for their particular race/faction.
Latest edits/submissions added on user profiles.
Hefty increase in item drop data.

Bug Fixes: (06-19-09)

No search results are found when searching for Armor - Rings.
Duplicate entries (example: Amethyst Gem Recipe, Adamantium, Angelica, etc.).
Cleric and Priest skills reversed.
Refine filtering wasn't parsing correctly (example: Jelly on cooking doesn't have any hits, zones)
Filtering by Cooking Recipes was listing other profession recipes such as swords, armor, etc. - not cooking recipes.
Crafting Materials were resulting in a Crafting Recipes search.
Incorrect tooltips were show 0's instead of actual values (example - Spiral Arrow I).
Search bar not working sometimes on IE.(not able to replicate)
Issues with syndication.
Choosing subzone does not refine properly.
Item stats incorrect (Commando BP +17 flight instead of +17 agi)
Incorrect email links were linking to mailto:filters@runesdb.com
Shield category was missing..
Items were showing the wrong extra +% in their description
Things like attack speed didn't have % values.

Improvements: (06-19-09)

General tooltip style has been improved.
More key-data is now displayed within tooltips.
Zones have filterable gather list. (May be in need of UI adjustment)
Race fields have been added to recipes.

Aion Open Beta Client Available and Headstart Programs

2009-08-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

In the next 4 weeks, Aion will treat European and North American gamers to two opportunities to jump into the world of Aion and explore Atreia as Asmodian or Elyos characters ahead of its release in Europe on 25th September and North America 22th September. Aion's Open Beta Test featuring version 1.5 will take place 6-13th September and will include numerous Western enhancements, including improvements to Aion's innovative character customization with a host of Western styles, as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing and improvements. Open Beta will retain a level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians characters at 30 allowing players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore the lands of Atreia together, as well as the Abyss.

Players who have pre-ordered Aion will be treated to a Pre-Select and a two-day Headstart period giving them the opportunity to explore, organize and progress through the game prior to the official launch. Pre-Select will take place on 18th September, while Aion's Headstart will begin 20th September. Players can still participate in the Aion's Pre-Select and Headstart programs by pre-ordering the game through several participating online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

The new and patched Aion open beta client has been distributed to a select few partners around the web to prepare for our open beta test. To get your hands on it, you may visit FilePlanet or download it from GamersHell (available later this week).

A new option that the Aion community has long anticipated was also added: downloading the full aion open beta client via BitTorrent tracker. And a totorrent patch was arranged too for those of you who already have the closed beta client installed but want to get prepared for open beta!

As added extra spice, FilePlanet will--in addition to distributing the client--be giving away a load of aion open beta keys starting on Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Get on the starting line if you do not have an eligible Aion account already! Eligible accounts include any previous closed beta participants and those who have preordered or prepurchased Aion.

Aion Calls For CB Players To Update Their Passwords

2009-08-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

Aion official site updated a new post, saying that the CB players who created their accounts before July 29th, 2009 need to reset their passwords, as it upgraded account system that day.

If you not sure what your registered date is, you had better go and change or re-type the password for the account data upgrade. Here's the solution:

1. Log in to your NCsoft Master Account.
2. Click Game Accounts.
3. Select your Aion game account.
4. Click Change Password link in the Actions section, and follow directions to update your password.

If you wish, you can input the same password as the one you used previously. If you are an Aion closed beta tester, but created your Aion beta account after July 29, 2009, no action is needed, as your account is already prepared.

Once you follow these instructions, you should be ready for launch and for a bright future in the world of Atreia. See you there!

5 Reasons Why Aion Can Take on World of Warcraft

2009-08-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Every time a new Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) is released, the proclamation that it will topple the king of all MMORPG's, World of Warcraft, is inevitable.

First there was Age of Conan, then there was Vanguard, then Tabula Rasa and Warhammer Online. Despite each of these titles’ aspiration to take down Blizzard’s MMORPG, none have come close to reaching World of Warcraft’s estimated 11 million subscribers.

And then there’s Aion, NCSoft’s latest online role playing game which is set to launch in the United States on September 22nd. Described as an amalgamation of the best aspects and features of modern MMORPG’s, Aion is striving to become one of World of Warcraft’s largest competitors.

However, even though Aion has an already large subscriber base in Asia and is being helmed by the team behind successful MMO’s like Guild Wars and Lineage, does it have what it takes to make a substantial dent in World of Warcraft’s notoriously large subscriber base?

Here’s some reasons why Aion could just be the next MMORPG you’ll become addicted to starting late September.

5. Aion has been around since 2008

One of the main reasons why new MMORPG’s fizzle out and eventually fade into obscurity is because their subscription base isn’t stable. Initially, there’s a huge surge of first-time subscribers who are curious to check what all the fuss is about, but eventually, a staggeringly large amount of gamers end up returning to more established and populated options like World of Warcraft

It takes time and money for a game to flesh out its end-game content and iron out the kinks and glitches, but unfortunately, most gamers aren’t willing to stick around long enough for that to happen. It’s a Catch-22, really, and it’s this unfortunate dilemma that has doomed games with tons of potential like Age of Conan.

Aion, however, already has a stable, established subscriber base It was launched in Korea in November of 2008, and has since accrued an estimated 4 million subscribers in Asia alone. Additionally, the developers have had almost a full year of feedback from gamers actively playing Aion on live servers to ensure a successful and smooth launch in the United States.

There still is tons of room to grow and improve, sure, but if the numbers coming out of Asia are indicative of anything, Aion is a MMORPG that has the longevity, quality and popularity to stay around for quite a while.

4. Better graphics and customizable character appearance

As artistically creative and beautiful as World of Warcraft’s is, there’s really no denying that it’s aging graphics engines is one of the game’s weakest aspects. Aion’s graphics, however, look absolutely stunning for a MMORPG, thanks in no small part to Crytek’s heavily modified CryEngine that the game is built on. Not only did Aion take GameAmp’s 2006 E3 MMORPG “Best Graphics” Award, but it also offers a wealth of character customization options that World of Warcraft can’t even dream of competing against.

When you first create your character, you can modify virtually every aspect of your character. Gender, race, height, size of individual body parts, skin tone, hair styles--everything from your character’s voice to their facial features are customizable, allowing you almost limitless creative freedom in the creation process.

But that’s not all. You can even modify the appearance of your in-game weapons and armors through merchants and other non-playable characters in Aion. If you want to change the color of your armor, just purchase a dye. If you don’t like the way your sword looks, merely swap it out with the model of another sword without effecting its actual stats.

3. Hybrid of PvP/PvE Content

In World of Warcraft, there’s a pretty defined boundary between the world of Player versus Player (PvP) and Player versus Environment (PvE) content. With the exception of the rare city raids, random ganking and Wintergrasp battles, you’re usually either raiding PvE dungeons or participating in PvP battlegrounds and arenas. The two worlds seldom overlap.

Aion, on the other hand, is promoting a new type of gameplay appropriately named PvPvE. In PvPvE, you’ll find yourself fighting alongside other members of your faction to control strategic locations where vendors who sell exclusive items can be found.

However, while you’re busy waging war against enemy gamers, a third faction of NPC’s, the Balaur, will periodically intervene and radically alter the course of battle. Sometimes the Balaur will ally with you, sometimes they’ll fight against you, and sometimes they’ll attack both sides to make each battle exciting and unpredictable.

2. You have freaking wings

Seriously. How awesome is that? You obtain your wings early on in Aion and they grant you the ability to take flight for short periods of time. Later, you get the option to purchase upgraded wings which allow you to fly for extended periods of time.

While World of Warcraft does have some sweet flying mounts, you can’t really do anything on them besides travel. However, the celestial wings in Aion are not a silly gimmick or a mere form of transportation. Rather, flying is an integral part of the game play and adds a brand new dimension to both PvP and PvE combat.

For instance, picture a fight between two gladiators. They run around, strafe, looking for openings and lunge in when the time is right. Now imagine both gladiators are still trying to stab one another, only this time they’re strapped in fighter jets and are doing some super sick barrel rolls in mid-air miles above the ground, inverted plunges, nose dives and all sorts of other jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics.

Awesome, right? That’s the typical PvP experience in Aion. Only minus the fighter jets, of course.

1. Does anyone still want to play World of Warcraft?

I love World of Warcraft. I really do. But after five years of playing, it’s gotten old. There’s only so many times you can raid Naxxaramas, Ulduar or the Argent Tournament stuff before you begin to feel that the game’s once exhilarating and intense gameplay has become a repetitive and tedious chase for shinier, newer gear.

Blizzard has done a fantastic job of adding new content to keep things fresh and exciting, but even the most hardcore World of Warcraft fan will probably admit its time for something different. At least until Icecrown raids and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm draws nearer anyway.

Will Aion kill World of Warcraft? Not a chance. World of Warcraft has been around for almost five years now, and part of the reason why it’s so popular is because it is a genuinely good MMORPG. However, I do think Aion has a very good chance of stealing a nice chunk of subscribers from the MMORPG behemoth.

If Aion is everything its hyped up to be, then it could very well be the first game in a long while to give World of Warcraft a decent challenge and make gamers excited about MMORPG’s once again.

Enclosed is the official CG trailer for Aion, which is set to be released on September 22nd.

Open letter to the NCsoft Community

2009-08-28T18:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

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.

First Steps in Aion

2009-08-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today I'll be discussing the closed beta test five of NCSoft's upcoming MMO Aion and my initial experience with the game. Now personally I have been looking forward to the release of Aion for a while. When I heard that if you pre-order or pre-purchase the game from either retailers or directly from NCSoft that you could gain access to the beta events, I thought I would take a shot. So I ordered a copy directly through the Aion website and received my beta key within a few minutes. It was pretty quick and painless to download the game client and have it install the game and setup my master account. I checked the website to see what the focus of this beta test was going to be. I was happy to see that it was to be the starting levels from 1-30 and the main character races, Elyos and Asmodians. This was also going to be the first beta with the first of the English voices.

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The beta event was held from noon on July 31st to August 3rd at noon PDT. Watching the clock True to their word, at 12:00 PM I got my first taste of what I hope to be a rich, fantastical world. After logging in, I found that there are two races to choose from: The Elyos, or the Asmodians. Elyos are a race that has living in sunlight since the world of Atreia suffered the Epic Cataclysm that destroyed the planet. The Asmodians have been surviving in a much harsher, darker environment.

My first real dilemma: do I choose darkness or the light? For my first character I choose to be Elyos. After selecting your race, you're given the option to select your gender. Once your race and gender are settled you are brought to a scene with the four main classes: Priest, Warrior, Scout and Mage. These classes are pretty self explanatory. I went with the Scout.

Next, you are taken to your character customization screen. What impressed me is the sheer amount of customization that can be done on your character. There are several different default settings for the way your character looks, but if you switch over to the advanced options you have some serious granular control of most of the physical aspects of your looks. So you shouldn't see someone running around that looks just like you do. I spent about 20 minutes going over all the different options before I was happy with my look.

There is an opening scene after you go though the initial character creation that brings you to the beginning zone of the game. Like most MMOs, the NPCs that you need to talk to in order to find out what you should be doing or to receive your quests have an indicator above their heads. I've watched some people that when they are playing they will run up to the quest givers and it looks like they just click on them get the quest and then run off to the next quest giver in the area. Myself I prefer to take my time and read the story that goes along with the quest. That is why I'm playing, I want to really get into the whole lore and story of the game. The first NPC that I encountered started off by letting me know that I was part of a mercenary group that had been hired to provide security for the area of Poeta.

As I was about to accept my first quest I was disconnected from the server and completely dropped out of the game. I was a bit perturbed but chocked it up to the servers being under a lot of stress as people were probably still logging in and going through the same process. So I logged back into the game and selected my server and was shocked to see that my character was gone. Thinking that maybe I had gone onto the wrong server I went through all of the other servers and it was nowhere to be found. I resigned myself to going through the whole creation process again and created a character that was almost the same. This time after accepting that initial quest I was able to explore the starting zone some. I did notice that there was some lag while attacking mobs or interacting with NPCs and I was disconnected again. Luckily this time when I logged back in my character was still there. After that second disconnect things seemed to settle down and I didn't notice any more lag while I was playing.

I played for a couple hours then had to run some errands. These took longer than I had hoped and I wasn't able to put in as much time on the beta as I was hoping to. So while I was away from my computer I was reading the beta forums and I saw that there were quite a few people mentioning they were having major server lag or were running into the error where you are not able to create a character on the server. There were other people that mentioned like I did a bit of lag at the beginning but after a little bit of time there were no problems. I was happy to see that the Aion staff were monitoring the boards and were letting people know that the character creation error was due to them disabling that feature on the existing servers so people would populate the new servers that were brought online to balance out the player load across all the servers. They were also noting down the reports of server lag and would be looking into that issue also.

To find out how I did progressing through the first 10 levels of my Elyos scout keep an eye out for my next article. Thanks for reading and I look forward to keeping you up to date on the latest happenings in Aion.

NCSoft Profits Increase 450 Percent In Q2!

2009-08-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

NCSoft's second quarter profits have increased over 450% after the successful launch of Aion and the continued strength of Lineage II. The release of Aion last November in Korea and July in Japan and Taiwan brought in nearly 40 Billion Korean Won (About $37 Million).

The company has had such strong performances the first few quarters they've raised their outlook for the year to around $470 million in sales and around $150 million in operating profits.

Aion is due to release late September in North America and is expected one of the best MMORPG releases of 2009.

Here's the original story from IndustryGamers.com about NCSoft's Q2 Profits Jump 451%:

NCsoft just lost two key people in the West, but its business overall is going strong. Today the Korean MMO publisher announced its second-quarter and first-half earnings, noting that net income was up a whopping 451% in Q2, totaling 33.75 billion Korean won (US$27.3 million). Sales were up 70% to 137.77 billion Korean won. Operating profit was also way up, climbing 353% to 47.5 billion won Aion, which launched last November in Korea and this July in Japan and Taiwan, brought in 40.6 billion Korean won. Lineage II wasn't far behind, generating 37.36 billion Korean won, followed by the first Lineage at 27.48 billion Korean won. City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars and others made up the remaining sales.

Thanks to the company's strong performances in the first couple quarters, NCsoft also raised its outlook for the full year to 586 billion Korean won ($470 million) in sales and 180 billion won ($144 million) in operating profit.

Aion Official Release Date

2009-08-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Finally the wait is over and NCSoft has announced the Official Aion Release Date!

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 this September! Some questions maybe you are interested, check them out at below:

(1)What's the price for aion?
The Aion Limited Collector's Edition will sell at an anticipated price of 69.99 € (US$69.99/Ј54.99), while Aion's standard edition will sell at an anticipated price of 49.99 € (US$49.99/Ј34.99). Both retail packages include 30 days of game time. After 30 days, a monthly subscription fee of 12.99 € (US$14.99/Ј8.99) for the game service will apply.

(2)What's the difference between special edition and regular edition?
In Collectors Edition u will get any things more, like a poster, a figure of a female Daeva, soundtrack, some ingame items (wings, ring etc.) and 30 days to playI guess the regular one is only the game.

AION TOWER OF ETERNITY MUSIC SOUND

2009-08-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

《AION TOWER OF ETERNITY MUSIC SOUND》
11 aion sound tracks from Aion game are now released!

Registered members can get the first taste of this wonderful aion music , you can find the aion music player on the members page here.

01. The Tower of Eternity - 1:21

02. The Wings of Knight - 1:11

03. A Fairy of the Peace - 0:58

04. Song of Moonlight - 1:04

05. A Battlefield - 0:58

06. Blue Forest - 1:08

07. Death Waltz - 0:58

08. Sea of Memory - 1:01

09. Kingdom of Light - 1:11

10. Tempest and Triumph - 1:03

11. Deva's Oratorio - 1:04

Tags: AION , AION THE TOWER OF ETERNTY , AION TOWER OF ETERNITY .

Aion Spiritmaster Guide

2009-08-17T06:25:00.001-07:00

This a basic aion guide for the Spiritmaster class. For more in-depth Spiritmaster-specific strategies, tips and tricks, this Aion Spiritmaster Guide is very much recommended. You will also find the Aion Strategy Guide and Aion Kinah-making Guide extremely useful as supplements to the class guides.

Aion Spiritmasters rely on taking control of fierce creatures from four cardinal elements of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. They can summon these elemental spirits and use them to their advantage. Spiritmasters can only summon one elemental at a time and their versatility lies in the type of spirit/elemental they summon in specific situations. Each elemental has their own strenghts, weaknesses, unique skills and abilities. Earth elementals are made for melee combat. With their high vitality, physical and magical defense, earth elementals can serve as spiritmaster’s personal tanks. Fire spirits have close-ranged, high burst damage with average stats and lower than average magical defense. Water spirits are usually used for healing that has exceptional magical defense but lower than average stats. Wind spirits are primarily used for magical offense, but can be fast melee attackers as well. Elementals undergo four stages of growth. With each stage, they grow larger and fiercer. The spiritmasters’ real strength is only gauged by their abilities to take command of these spirits but how they channel their abilities to make their summoned creatures more powerful and efficient. Spiritmasters can still use spellbooks and orbs as their weapons, and they can only wear robes for their protection.

Aion Spiritmasters can summon their first spirit as early as level 10. Though they can’t use high damaging spells and crowd control abilities, spiritmasters still retain all of the mages’ skills, including the invaluable Stone Skin skill (raises a protective shield for 5 minutes or after absorbing a certain amount of damage). Their passive skills are not that impressive. Aside from the typical stat boost and special effect (increased mana regeneration for instance) during flight, concentration or basic dress skill, spiritmasters has a passive skill that lowers the enemies’ resistance to weakening magic. Aion Spiritmasters can also increase their spirits’ stats and defend themselves with damaging spells with HP siphoning properties. They can also order their spirits to inflict negative status ailments to targets, such as decreasing the enemy’s defense, lower their elemental resistance or stagger them. While lacking long-ranged burst and nuking spells of sorcerers, spiritmasters can still bind and restrict enemy movement if ever they feel threatened or if ever enemies get too close. As spiritmasters increase in level, they gain access to even more devastating and powerful support spells that can make their summoned spirits unstoppable. Spirits can also perform the function of a remote chanter, though spiritmasters simply channel chant-like skills to the spirits. The best example for this are the Wall of Protection skills available at level 34. For example, when Wall of Protection: Fire is active, all party members within a 15m radius of the spirit can reflect a small amount of damage when attacked and also increases their physical attack by a certain percentage. These bonuses not only enhance the party’s offensive capabilities, but they also have another party member to help in the offensive, in the form of the spiritmaster’s elemental summon.

Spiritmasters are one of the most complex classes in the world of Aion and their greatest strength lies on what and when to summon the correct spirits at the right time.

To find more in-depth information about the Spiritmaster, check out this Spiritmaster Guide. There you can also find many other class guides as well as the Aion Strategy Guide and Aion Kinah-making Guide which can help you to easily gain more leverage above other players.

Aion Spiritmaster Guide

2009-08-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

Aion Stigma System Overview

2009-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Aion Stigma System allows players to further customize their characters, so that players of the same class are not necessarily identical in their abilities.

Sealed within each Stigma Stone is a powerful skill that makes a significant addition to your character's aresenal. While some of these stones are readily available, others can be very rare and therefore prestigious. Stigma Stones can be equipped on your character through the Stigma panel. The number of Stigma Stones you can equip depends on the level of your character.

Number of Stigma Slots

Each character can equip up to 5 stigma stones. However, with the current level cap at 45, you will be able to equip a maximum of 4.

Level 20: 2 Stigma Slots
Level 30: 3 Stigma Slots
Level 40: 4 Stigma Slots

Aion Stigma Quest

In order to gain access to your stigma panel, you will need to complete a quest. The quest can be acquired at Level 20, and is common for all classes of the same race.

Aion Stigma Stones

Upon completing the stigma quest you will receive your first stigma stone. Other stigma stones can be acquired as drops from monsters. Regular monsters drop stigma stones very rarely, while named monsters are more likely to have one in their possession.

Stigma stones can be traded, so you can always acquire it from other players if you don't want to test your luck at a drop.

Equipping Stigma Stones

In order to equip a stigma stone you will need to talk to a Stigma Master, located in major cities.
You will also need to have the required number of Stigma Shards. The number depends on the level of the Stigma Skill.

Stigma shards are common drops from monsters in the Abyss area. You also get shards as a reward from the Stigma quest (1 time only).

Shards consumed when equipping a Stigma stone will not be returned if you unequip the stone, so be very sure when you choose which Stigma stones to equip.

Why Use an Aion Leveling Guide

2009-08-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

As you start playing Aion, it can be said with confidence that your progress in the levels of the game will come to a halt after a certain period of time. If you are a keen MMORPG game fan, than you must know what that could mean. It can be really frustrating to see your character stuck in the same level for a very long time, while your opponents and other fellow players are making progress to the next levels by leaps and bounds. It really hampers all the fun that you have been having with a game, that you otherwise enjoy playing. Here is the Source.

You will find progressing through levels much easier and faster if you use a quality Aion Leveling Guide. An Aion Leveling Guide will explain strategies for each level separately to help you to level. It will tell you which activities to follow at a certain level, and when to stop engaging in them to benefit your cause of fast and effective leveling. For example, it will recommend you when to engage in crafting activities and to what extent, which weapons to select at a certain level, and how to spend your Kinah at a certain level. It also guides you to a limit about Kinah earning, since having a good store of Kinah will improve your chances of progress, but will also tell you when to stop unless you are playing the game for Kinah earning only.

Leveling fast and effectively is what will determine your success in the game. Not only will you feel better that way, but will also be able to create an impression on your close band of players. It will offer you a sense of achievement and satisfaction, for leaving behind thousands of other capable players, achieving the top ranks in the game. Through these aion leveling guides, you could also master your class, and earn a distinction among all the players on your server. Or even if you are thrilled about the idea of exploring the reward content, a quality Aion Leveling Guide is just what you need to attain that spring in your step, when it comes to advancing Aion levels.

Aion leveling guides are made for players tired of slowly grinding experience every few levels, tired of looking for places to pick up quests and figuring new ways to level up. Many players spend months and months figuring out these things for themselves. This information is literally being handed to you and you should take the opportunity now.

Final Aion CBT promises a sneak peek at launch day content

2009-08-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

Is it nearly September? Apparently so as the sixth and final Aion Closed Beta Test (CBT) kicks off this weekend. Over the last five CBTs we've had the chance to play both Elyos and Asmodians, to see the starter zones and the Abyss, to taste the PvPvE content, find our avatar's voice and, of course, spread our wings and fly. According to the game's official site, CBT 6 sees the level cap at 30, ready for some higher level content from The Shadow of the Balaur, also known as aion patch 1.5.

Perhaps more promising is the announcement of new story-driven content designed to give us a taste of what is to come: "We want to conclude closed beta testing on a high note, so we are arranging a series of story-driven in-game events, in part hinting at some of the much-anticipated content forthcoming in with our massive release day patch."

Here's hoping for a little Dreadgion action and a taste of Dark Poeta when the beta kicks off this Friday at noon PST and 8pm CEST over in Europe. We'll keep you updated as soon as the Aion dev team get into more specifics about their plans.

Aion Sorcerer PvP Guide

2009-08-16T08:25:00.001-07:00

Aion Sorcerer PvP Guide

Source: T3h P0w4rb00k for info, Aion Armory for skill names in English

This is a list of how-to-fight different classes for the version 1.2. There are articles for each of the classes. As of right now (June 28, 2009) there are guides for Templar, Gladiator, Sorcerer, and Cleric, others are still in process.

This aion guide explains how to fight against other classes using tips for General situations.

PC means members of Opposing Factions (Elyos, Asmodians, Balaur)

Note, AionArmory?s Database is from 1.0 so skills from it has lower damage value than the 1.2?s actual values (Korean Powerbook values are higher)

Tips from Player 중독된 보이, Server 페렌토, Lvl 50, Asmodian

Using the Chat If you look in the chat tabs theres a tab named Combat. Take that out to another place in ur UI, go into options, click on Combat ? Third, uncheck everything else, make the font colored Red, then click Change

PS: I’d check only Enemy NPC info, theres like 4 of them.

Second, Aions Utility Damage Class, Sorcerer

Sorcerer?s PvPThey possess the most diverse skill line out of all the classes in Aion.

They have many skills that shut down enemies as well as ones that deliver tremendous damage.

However, their HP is very low, and their robes provide little defense, will often get killed by attackers.

Despite this weakness, players have brought out secret abilities hidden within the Sorcerer profession, and those players have become the some of the best at PvP.

They have understood their own skills well, seen what their opponents do when confronted with these skills, and have witnessed their reactions as well. They were gracious enough to put these experiences into this manual.

Aion Guide - no fall damage when out of fly time

2009-08-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

No fall damage when out of fly time

This might be a “duh” kinda thing, but I decided to post it anyway. If you’re running out of Airtime, and you aren’t near the ground, simply hit your land key and bring your wings back in. As you get close to the ground, tap glide and you won’t take any damage! I’ve used it a ton when farming Aether.

edit: if you let your time COMPLETELY run out, you actually get 3 seconds of fly time automatically put on as soon as you start falling. Use this wisely!

Aion Guides Blog is collecting prenty of Guides for you, and i hope you can enjoy stay here. Just check back frequently for more information:)

New Version of the Aion Bot

2009-08-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Set you whole PC to chinese: Location, Number Format, Non Unicode Stuff. Unzip the Bot into a folder without special characters. If your Aion is not in a folder without special Characters make a copy of the whole folder and put it somewhere without special characters.

Start AionJn.exe, use the integrated Browser to point the path to your Aion folder without special characters.
Select your region and simply press start(bottom right). The other fields are not enabled since this beta is free and no password is needed.

Aion will start, login, select your character and a short while after the bot Window with your character Name in it will popup.

Congratulations you are ready to bot !

Now you just have to setup the bot, the translation is here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UKLG2Q60
Made by me, Castielle / Kane49. (Not 100% Accurate but most stuff is right)

Hope this helps and have fun botting, routes and stuff work really good now.

Making A Aion Bot From MMOViper

2009-08-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

Tault owner has confirmed that MMOViper is working on an Aion Bot.
Thanks Nicholas!

Keep in mind Tault and MMOViper don't seem to be related//owned by the same person, just partnered.

The tault site that is affiliated with mmoviper you would see this image under the aion section:

Now the person who makes MMOViper has made lots of mmo bots, from warhammer online to Lotro, and now aion bot!

I would not suggest checking out tault or taultunleashed because the content there is stolen from other sites and they definitely do not have anything close to 1,000,000 members like they say they do. I'd be surprised if they had 500 members even.
We'll see if MMOViper will come out with a bot though, most likely he will but hopefully we do get a good Aion Online bot and really get the Aion Online economy booming like WoW is.

Aion Open Beta Registration Guide

2009-08-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

Aion Open Beta Registration Guide Here! Now you can Step by STep to registering on AION Korea. Have fun, If the torrent link doesn't work use the link in the websit n_n!

Scource here.
And thanks to Codie For the Aion Open Beta Registration Guide BTW ^_^.

Quote:

Step by STep to registering on AION Korea!

Here is first part. The registration.
EDIT: Registration wil be usefull MID NOVEMBER when the Korean client goes into Open Beta

EDIT: Registration will only work in internet explorer for some reason!

Ill try to translate the ingame interface once i successfully DL and install it.
Thumnails are in step by step order Picture Guide to help you register on Korean Site! This was a rush job, I did my best, especially as im not Korean myself!

Aion beta Forum

2009-08-15T22:41:00.000-07:00

Ok now, AION Beta forums are now opened and you need to register. But when I enter my AION game account and it says "Invalid game account". Many players may face some problems when enter AION.

Aion is a visually stunning massively multiplayer online RPG where you ascend to divinity and fight in an epic celestial war. NCSOFT opened their official forums for the Aion beta!

Check it out:
http://betaboards.aiononline.com/.

Aion Classes Skill from level 1 to 50

2009-08-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

All Classes Skill Cost in Aion from level 1 to 50

1. 剑星-Gladiator

Level Skill Cost
【3级】 112
【5级】 344
【7级】 461
【9级】
【10级】 5534
【13级】 6923
【16级】 11078
【19级】 10503
【22级】 50788
【25级】 76354
【28级】 96961
【31级】 108507
【34级】 423405
【37级】 517719
【40级】 1293426
【41级】 212974
【42级】 173151
【43级】 189311
【44级】 184694
【45级】 714688
【46级】 745700
【47级】 409790
【48级】 217015
【49级】 233753
【50级】 1516793
【1~50】 7,201,368 =Total

2. 守护星-Templar

Level Skill Cost
【3级】 112
【5级】 344
【7级】 461
【9级】 1384
【10级】 4842
【13级】 7384
【16级】 11942
【19级】 7484
【22级】 46860
【25级】 54827
【28级】 88880
【31级】 114277
【34级】 353224
【37级】 346300
【40级】 1000228
【41级】 139559
【42级】 158144
【43级】 171996
【44级】 184694
【45级】 837472
【46级】 512525
【47级】 487707
【48级】 197392
【49级】 207781
【50级】 1174534
【1~50级】 6,110,353=Total

3. 弓星 =Ranger
Level Skill Cost
【3级】 112
【5级】 344
【7级】 461
【9级】 1384
【10级】 5534
【13级】 6923
【16级】 11078
【19级】 10503
【22级】 50788
【25级】 76354
【28级】 96961
【31级】 108507
【34级】 423405
【37级】 517719
【40级】 1293426
【41级】 212974
【42级】 173151
【43级】 189311
【44级】 184694
【45级】 714688
【46级】 745700
【47级】 409790
【48级】 217015
【49级】 233753
【50级】 1516793
【1~50级】 7,201,368=Total

4. 杀星=Assassin
Level Skill Cost
【3级】 57
【5级】 570
【7级】 400
【9级】 1143
【10级】 4747
【13级】 5948
【16级】 9778
【19级】 4975
【22级】 40040
【25级】 68640
【28级】 82368
【31级】 64064
【34级】 358644
【37级】 461032
【40级】 1021020
【41级】 49764
【42级】 129272
【43级】 140712
【44级】 228228
【45级】 466752
【46级】 631488
【47级】 480480
【48级】 322608
【49级】 255684
【50级】 1063920
【1~50级】 5,892,334=Total

5. 魔道星-Sorcerer
Level Skill Cost
【3级】 114
【5级】 574
【7级】 1152
【9级】 1096
【10级】 4897
【13级】 9232
【16级】 11308
【19级】 13617
【22级】 51942
【25级】 69260
【28级】 124668
【31级】 210088
【34级】 422488
【37级】 651042
【40级】 1042362
【41级】 425950
【42级】 394784
【43级】 429414
【44级】 464044
【45级】 358421
【46级】 1045829
【47级】 243565
【48级】 494056
【49级】 779178
【50级】 813806
【1~50级】 8,062,887=Total

6. 精灵星=Spiritmaster
Level Skill Cost
【3级】 116
【5级】 584
【7级】 1174
【9级】 1116
【10级】 6164
【13级】 8106
【16级】 18795
【19级】 11514
【22级】 49350
【25级】 98112
【28级】 141000
【31级】 163912
【34级】 345454
【37级】 628635
【40级】 1101574
【41级】
【42级】 229128
【43级】 375418
【44级】 269079
【45级】 554608
【46级】 606308
【47级】 283179
【48级】 287879
【49级】 754950
【50级】 1540448
【1~50级】 7,476,603=Total

7. 治愈星=Cleric
Level Skill Cost
【3级】 114
【5级】 486
【7级】 528
【9级】 1878
【10级】 7927
【13级】 1996
【16级】 9866
【19级】 12687
【22级】 68150
【25级】 69912
【28级】 70500
【31级】 108100
【34级】 472350
【37级】 556956
【40级】 1085128
【41级】 220315
【42级】 169202
【43级】 184478
【44级】 595734
【45级】 715585
【46级】 532282
【47级】 207978
【48级】 211503
【49级】 781385
【50级】 692083
【1~50级】 6,777,123 =Total

8. 护法星=Chanter
Level Skill Cost
【3级】技能 114
【5级】技能 468
【7级】技能 528
【9级】技能 1878
【10级】技能 6280
【13级】技能 7050
【16级】技能 8223
【19级】技能 15507
【22级】技能 59925
【25级】技能 89299
【28级】技能 63450
【31级】技能 224425
【34级】技能 366604
【37级】技能 797832
【40级】技能 593382
【41级】技能 207390
【42级】技能 206803
【43级】技能 676809
【44级】技能 198578
【45级】技能 323717
【46级】技能 1339520
【47级】技能 256154
【48级】技能 259679
【49级】技能 1090416
【50级】技能 797835
【1~50级】 7,591,866 =total

--------------------------------------------
Gladiator level1to 50= 7,201,368
Templar 6,110,353
Ranger 7,201,368
Assassin 5,892,334
Sorcerer 8,062,887
Spiritmaster 7,476,603
Cleric 6,777,123
Chanter 7,591,866

Aion Wings and flying

2009-08-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Aion Wings and flying

Due to Aion's unique system the skies have opened up like never before!

The quest for becoming a Daeva (taken at level 9) earns you your wings at level 10. When you first obtain this ability you will only be able to use flight for a one minute period with the "cooldown" being twice that. However as your character progresses there will be items/abilities/situations that will result in higher flight times.

Elyos and Asmodians both get wings however these will be uniquely styled based on the race.
You can fly freely or follow a flight path (Which appears to be the same concept used in WoW, albeit far more stylish), depending on the area. Using a flight path to get to an area will not exhaust your flight bar as you are using some form of "spiritual bird" rather than your own wings. It is assumed this will be a far faster means of travel that standard flight as well.
Wings can be personalized or upgraded through PvP. Specifics are yet to be announced.
Some skills act differently or are available only when you are flying. That makes the flight system more of a strategic element than a transportation mechanic.

Aion Wing stats

Note: I have not confirmed this information.

Please note these stats come with the wings and are the same for both Elyos and Asmodian.

Level 10 – One minute of flight(60 seconds).
Level 30 – +30 Seconds of flight time(90 seconds total).
Level 30CE – +40 Seconds of flight time(100 seconds total).
Level 40 – +60 Seconds of flight time(120 seconds total).
Level 50 – +35Seconds +120HP(95 seconds total). – This tickles me as a PVP thing honestly, since flight time is much less limited in the Abyss due to the aether rings and HP is key for mitigation.

How to earn wings in AION?

The chance to earn your wings and become a Daeva comes relatively early in the life of every true Asmodian, though the path itself can be hard and somewhat mystifying. As you reach level 9 you discover that you must find the Asmodian known as Munin, who has been detained deep within the Ishalgen Prison Camp.
Trapped within a crystallized prison cell, Munin is your key to Ascension. This Daeva can discern the future, even trapped in his cell. This expert fortuneteller will be able to tell your future and how you will ascend to be a mighty Asmodian, but first he needs items that can help piece together your past.

NCsoft Europe presents details of what Asmodians must do in order to be able to fly in the epic and beautiful Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) RPG, Aion: The Tower of Eternity. The chance to earn your wings and become a Daeva comes relatively early in the life of every true Asmodian, though the path itself can be hard and somewhat mystifying. As you reach level 9 you discover that you must find the Asmodian known as Munin, who has been detained deep within the Ishalgen Prison Camp.
Trapped within a crystallized prison cell, Munin is your key to Ascension. This Daeva can discern the future, even trapped in his cell. This expert fortuneteller will be able to tell your future and how you will ascend to be a mighty Asmodian, but first he needs items that can help piece together your past. He will need these items, the cards of fate, from three different disciples in order to proceed.
The first appears as an old tailor by the name of Urd, who resides in Aldelle Village, which you should already be familiar with as it was one of the first places you would have passed through as a young Asmodian. Urd give you a card that represents your past—“I see two twisted creepers”—and sends you to the next disciple, the Old Lady Fortuneteller.

She lives out in the Munihele Forest, located roughly halfway between Aldelle Basin and the Prison Camp. You can find her near a small log cabin, well off the beaten path, where she goes by the name of Verdandi. The hermit will read your palm and gives you a card of fate detailing your present state, though you are warned you will not understand what it means (though Munin will).

Verdandi then directs you to your next and last stop, this time to have your future read by a young woman named Skuld. She resides on the cliffs above the sea just south of Anturoon Crossing. Be careful, this will be one of the most perilous journeys—the cliffs are swarming with Eyvindir pirates, who don’t take to people invading their private space lightly. Also beware of the Fang Karnifs, aggressive cat-like beasts that like to pick off stragglers or unsuspecting Asmodians.

Skuld will read your future and imprint it on yet another card. Now you must deliver all three cards back to Munin, which should be an easy run on the path all way north, back to the Ishalgen Prison Camp. Munin is pleased you’ve gathered the cards from his disciples, and his motives in helping you aren’t entirely clear, but evidently he intends to change the future he sees, and the only way to do so is through you—but first he must reveal your own future.

As he reads the cards, he begins to weave patterns in the Aether, and suddenly you are transported to an outer-worldly realm, wearing a full set of Asmodian armor; the sky is a mix of dark, blood-like colors, and scattered about are several giant, swirling vortices--Portals. This is the Abyss, the nether region nestled between the two shattered halves of Atreia, and you’re standing on one of the many small, floating rocky islands that dot the Abyss. You see a line of wounded Asmodian soldiers before you, but the apparent leader—Archon Legionary Hagen—beckons you forward.

The Asmodians are in a desperate struggle to attain the floating island of Narsass, but the Elyos Legatus known as Hellion is successfully standing in their way. You must fly to Narsass and defeat Hellion personally—that is your destiny. Immediately you spread your wings and spring off the island, passing groups of Asmodians and Elyos engaged in aerial combat, before you reach the foreboding Narsass.

After defeating several Elyos soldiers, you come up against Hellion himself, and the battle does not go well. You are soundly defeated after a blinding assault. Suddenly, you seem to recover, but you’re back in your old armor again, and the form of Munin appears nearby. “The future is not fixed,” he says, and he reveals that trying to change the future is why he was imprisoned in the first place. You agree to mutually help each other—Munin claims he will need help in the future, and in return he will help save your life down the line—but first you must become a Daeva and pick a class.

Once your specialized class has been chosen, you then teleport to Pandaemonium, the Asmodian capital, where you will need to talk to friendly Heimdall of the City Guard (he’s not hard to find). The formal Ascension ceremony takes place in the Great Temple of Pandaemonium and is overseen by the high priest, Balder. There is a great ceremony—some of the Asmodians will mock you, others will be more encouraging—where the elders recognize you as a Daeva, newly Ascended, ready to prove that the Asmodians hold the true power in Atreia. The ceremony ends with the granting of your new wings, which you can now use to fly and customize as you wish.

Now this is truly the time to take a hold of your destiny.

Where to get your aion wings?

2009-08-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

Note: I have not confirmed the cost on the level 30 or 40 wings for the NA version of Aion. The image linked is from the NA beta.

Your first set of aion wings come at level 9 through a campaign quest called: Ascension.

Your level 30 aion wings are typically purchased from a vendor for roughly 775k kinah(game currency). The vendor can be found in Sanctum for the Elyos and Pandaemonium for the Asmodians.

If you have bought the CE of Aion you get a better set of level 30 wings for free! It has not been stated whether you will get the aion wings for every character you’ve created or not. It has also not been stated where you get the CE wings from, be it mail or they come on your character in your cube.

The level 40 aion wings are purchased from the SAME vendor as the level 30 ones for about 9.6M kinah.

The level 50 aion wings are a quest reward, see the following:
Asmodian quest at level 50: Secret of the Pollution: grants access to dungeon in Brusthonin: Ardma fort. Also rewards level 50 wings.

Elyos quest at level 50: Secret Experiment of Theobomos: grants access to dungeon in Theobomos: Secret Laboratory. Also rewards level 50 wings.

Aion Rift System

2009-08-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Aion Rift is the port between Elyos and Asmodians, the Rift randomly appears in the maps(>Level 20). Through the Aion Rift, Elyos or Asmodians can enter in the land of oppoisite faction, its the only way to pvp except Abyss, of course you can only use it to collect materials, do quests or go to common instances.

Some rules about the Aion Rift:

- 1. Appear randomly, but in a certain area
- 2. The number of Rifts that appear in the same time is 2~6
- 3. Time Limit, Number of Players Limit and Level Limit
- 4. The Rift has entrance and exit, but its a unidirectional path
- 5. There is a system announcement for all players in the map when a Rift appears
- 6. There are 14 Rift Points in a map, 7 for aggression (changeless) and 7 for defence (kinda variable)

Elyos Faction Rift Points Distribution:

Rift Entrance - Eltnen (Lv20~40)

Rift Exit - Morheim (Lv20~40)

Point Number Limit Level Limit Time Limit
A 12 Rift Exit - Beluslan (Lv30~50)

Point Number Limit Level Limit Time Limit
A 24 Asmodians Faction Rift Points Distribution:

Rift Entrance - Morheim (Lv20~40)

Rift Exit - Eltnen (Lv20~40)

Point Number Limit Level Limit Time Limit
A 12
Rift Exit - Interdiktah (Lv30~50)

Point Number Limit Level Limit Time Limit
A 24 here.

G4TV Exclusive Aion Intro Cinematic

2009-08-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

Summary: Ncsoft cracks the planet of Atreia in half in this exclusive and beautiful Aion cinematic intro to the winged MMORPG, Aion. Check out the video below to explore the mysterious storyline hide in AION.

KeyWord: G4TV, aion, intro, cinematic, crack, planet, Atreia

Ncsoft cracks the planet of Atreia in half in this exclusive and beautiful aion cinematic intro to the winged MMORPG, Aion. Check out the video below to explore the mysterious storyline hide in AION.
Click here.

Aion Patch 1.5 Trailer Released (New Armor!)

2009-08-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

AionSource.com has posted a recent Aion Trailer for the official aion patch 1.5 - which is what Aion will release with in September! The video highlights instances including Dark Poeta, Infiltrating the Dreadgion and the Shugo Flying Pirate Ship! The video also highlights some of the new Aion Gear and will give you an eyeful of what's in store when this game releases!

To discuss this video and other important topics regarding Aion head over to AionSource.com and prepare - Aion is coming!

Here's a look at the Aion 1.5 Patch Trailer here.

Also Check Some of Excellent Aion Fixes at below!

Aion Elyos and Asmodian origin videos

2009-08-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

With the Aion sixth and final Closed Beta Test for NCsoft's newest title, Aion, beginning later today. Things are starting to get really interesting. YouTube is a haven for all things video, especially when it comes to gaming and a look at those which aren't yet out. Well, a Hungarian fansite has uncovered the Aion Elyos and Asmodians origin videos and posted them on their Youtube channel. Both videos are short but packed with lore and done in a similar style to the Aion origins video we told you about last month.

Told from the perspective of a member of each race, the two videos narrate the first meeting of the Aion Elyos and the Asmodians after years of separation. The Elyos blundered through a rift and a simple misunderstanding, perceived differently by each side, led to the start of a bitter feud. The Elyos believed the Asmodians were corruptions and that both them and their land must be destroyed, while the Aion Asmodians feel it is their right to conquer the Elyos and their lush land simply because they believe they – and their Shedim Lords – were the ones who saved Atreia from complete destruction during the Cataclysm.

Juicy stuff, eh? Well check out the videos in their complete Korean glory after the jump (click on cc to get the English subtitles). Check the Aion Videos here.

Aion Closed Beta 6 Test Weekend

2009-08-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

After five successful aion closed beta events, Aion is announcing the sixth and final closed beta that will take place this weekend. The final beta will begin Friday, August 14th at noon PDT, and go through Monday August 17th.

The final closed beta test will conclude with several story driven in-game events which will also give players an insight into upcoming content changes when the game is released. The events will highlight the transition between the world of Atreia from patch 1.0 to 1.5. The level cap will remain at 30 to keep players within the same level range and playing together.

More details we be posted when Aion enters open beta, and AionSource.com will post the information as soon as it's available!

Here's the official announcement about the final Aion closed beta test dates:

Following five successful and productive beta events, we now have in front of us the pinnacle of closed beta mountain. We now cast our eyes toward the promising horizon, revealing the approaching open beta and the much-anticipated release of Aion.

This upcoming sixth and final closed beta event marks the end of an era. As such, we have decided to make the most out of it. We will not be raising the level limit from that of the previous event. The maximum level will be level 30 for Elyos and Asmodians alike, encouraging you to spend some time to catch up with your friends or explore the vast lands of Atreia.

We want to conclude closed beta testing on a high note, so we are arranging a series of story-driven in-game events, in part hinting at some of the much-anticipated content forthcoming in with our massive release day patch. Keep that F5 key handy, since more information on these live events is headed your way later this week!

Aion Closed beta 6 is primed to rocket onto the servers on Friday, August 14, 2009, noon PT (8 p.m. BST, 9 p.m. CEST). Our beta forums open their gates two hours earlier, and access to them will be ongoing throughout the weekend until Monday.

Keep in mind that you will need either an exclusive Aion closed beta 6 access key, a full-access key acquired through fansite program competitions, or have preordered the game in order to partake in the event. A limited number of closed beta 6 access keys will be given away by a few selected gaming web sites over the coming week, so keep those eagle eyes open if you are looking to grab one.

Look for more information on this upcoming sixth closed beta event shortly. Until then, fly safe!

The events in the game will showcase the transition the world of Atreia and the players will experience from 1.0 to 1.5. We are retaining the level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians at 30 in order to allow players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore the lands of Atreia together.

Aion's Gamescom Booth

2009-08-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

From Ayase's Realm. More on Aion Guides Blog.

There is much work involved in preparing for an event, especially for one of gamescom's impressive magnitude (August 19th-23rd). Our highly secured laboratory facilities, located in nuclear weapon proof bunkers deep under the snowy cascades of Antarctica, are running on full speed with theorization, experiments and live simulations in order to ensure a smooth ride at next week's premiere of gamescom in Cologne, Germany.

One of the stages in our long line of intricate procedures is a simulation given the alias 'gamescom Live Emulation' where 1:48 scale models are produced of each and every item expected to make a presence at the real exhibition show floor. While most parts for obvious reasons are confidential, we have been granted clearance to show you an early realistic miniature model of our Aion booth.

A few things are still to be added, including real PC hardware, keyboards and mice for the 32 Aion game stations where visitors will be able to try the game out. We also decided to have the paper monitors replaced by real monitors, after discovering that it's difficult to feed a video signal to cardboard. The seven slightly suspicious plastic humans will be substituted by real humans (by an impressive factor), amounting to incredible numbers that would bring great shame even to a shugo banking empire.

The stage, which constitutes our Aion booth's core, is sure to be a point of constant sizzling activity and swag giveaways. If you remember Games Convention in Leipzig 2008, you can probably imagine the dense crowds that form up. It's going to be loud, intense and incredibly cool. I will do my best to convey all this back to your monitors at home.

Going to gamescom are, among many others, Brian "Xaen" Knox (Producer), Lani "Liv" Blazier (Associate Producer), Martin "Amboss" Rabl (Community Manager) and I, Sebastian "Ayase" Streiffert (Community Manager). I am currently playing back German children's stories loudly from my cassette player during nighttime, to pick up the more sublime details of the language. I am also stocking up on succulent Currywurst during the days in order to adapt to the world renowned German cuisine.

We will remain vigilant and keep you posted on our progress with both the Aion booth and AION gamescom as we go, so stick around!

NCsoft: Aion Will be Second Only to WoW

2009-08-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

NCsoft: Aion Will be Second Only to WoW

Every MMO-maker wishes their game could cast its net as wide as WoW, but these days, most are content to eek out a modest living in the shadow of Blizzard’s behemoth. Over at NCSoft Aion , though, things are… well, they’re just like that. But, if WoW’s coming in at the head of the pack, NCSoft’s hoping its upcoming fantasy MMO Aion can at least be the neck.

"I believe the performance of Aion in the US and European markets will be very successful. ... We are guessing that Aion will be -- could be -- the second [most] successful MMO in the US market next to World of Warcraft,” NCSoft CFO Jaeho Lee said during a recent conference call.

When Aion and the recently deceased Tabula Rasa were mentioned in the same sentence together, however, Lee wasn’t so kind.

"Ok, um, it's very unfortunate to hear the name of Tabula Rasa at this conference call," he said. "And we all want to forget and erase that memory from our performance. We did a very poor job with Tabula Rasa, and we disappointed our retailers in US markets and also European markets.”

So, for those who’ve tried Aion, do you think it has a shot at taking off on our side of the pond? Or do you think NCSoft should drop its expectations down a notch or two?

General Discussion: AION = Winner?

2009-08-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Aion Guides Blog Got this interesting threat today from mmorpg..
Jabas talks the General Discussion: AION = Winner! Just go on reading...

My little thoughts about it:

- AION is a fresh tittle and is #3 in here, mmorpg.com, the #1 and #2 are a "holywood" titles and a very allready know mmo names. Ppl hype just because the names.

- U see a "war" between lovers and haters around foruns, thats a result of a great tittle.
- Its going to be lunch in NA/EU after 10 months realesed in Korea, 5 months after China, and still call a lot of interest.
- Will be a new experience of community, some from grinding type game and some from quest type game.
- Will have a lot of pvp gamers type.
- Will have a lot of pve gamers type (after 1.5, our realese)
. In the end, AION is a Hybrid... great for a lot of type of gamers, is allreay a winner :)

Just my opinion, ofc ^^

Join the discusstion here.

Aion website refresh includes game guides and wiki

2009-08-03T05:08:00.001-07:00

Ahead of Aion Closed Beta Test 4, which starts later today, NCsoft have revealed a new-look website for Aion: The Tower of Eternity which includes its own wiki and the electronic equivalent of a manual, explaining how to play the game. The site itself has been given an overhaul and now seems identical regardless of whether you prefer the US version or the European one. There are also feeds to Aion's Facebook and YouTube pages, as well as the collective Twitter feeds of the devs and regional CM's. All four are well worth following but more so if you've not yet pre-ordered the game or got yourself a beta key as they normally give quite a few away just before each new beta test event.

However, the big new addition to the site is the wiki. It's an excellent resource to anyone looking to figure out how the game works.and there's an especially detailed page explaining character creation, on top of this there are pages exploring the lore and the zones which have been made available to Elyos and Asmodian players. Indeed the addition of this new wiki is perfectly timed and means players new and slightly more experienced are going to be able to understand how the game works that much more easily. The wiki is still in beta, but that said, it's a wealth of official information about the game which is sure to be invaluable to players who are rolling a toon for the first time or finally exploring how the other faction lives. So, don't forget to check it out before today's fun and games begin at noon PST/8pm CET.

LG uses Aion to advertise new gaming monitor

2009-08-03T05:07:00.001-07:00

We've given Aion: The Tower of Eternity a lot of coverage over the last couple of months but you know a game is going to be big when it appears on TV. After all, just look at the star-studded World of Warcraft adverts which have been doing the rounds around the world for the last year. Now Korean electronics firm LG are using the game to advertise their latest widescreen gaming monitor, the W2363V, and if it doesn't make want to play even more, then it might make you want to buy the monitor.

The rather epic advert features in-game and CG footage and was released on NCsoft's official YouTube Channel last night. Touting the W2363V as the 'secret item' which will enable players to 'beat the game' (a bit of a misnomer for an MMO), the advert is suitably fantastical in feel and score. However there's no information on the monitor's release date or price, only that the advert will be shown worldwide.

Hit the jump to check out the video in all its HD glory and you might want to think about raiding your piggy bank too.

Aion Collector's Edition pre-orders top Steam weekly sales

2009-08-03T05:06:00.005-07:00

It's been a stellar week of digital pre-order sales for Aion, with the upcoming title taking top honors on Steam's weekly sales chart. Specifically, it was the Collector's Edition of the game that did so well. Keep in mind that this is not the same as the Limited Collector's Edition, which contains physical items like the Asmodian Daeva figurine that might be too difficult to distribute digitally with our current technology. It does however still contain a handful of in-game items that the regular edition doesn't. The pre-sale of both versions comes with guaranteed access to a couple of closed beta events, as well as an attribute boosting hat, an experience boosting talisman and a "special effects ring".

Interestingly, the pre-order for the regular edition didn't crack Steam's top 10. It seems that, just like with the Limited Collector Edition from brick-and-mortar stores, people are happy to pay just a little bit more for that extra something. Steam is selling the regular pre-order for US$49.99 and the collector's edition for US$59.99. The weekly sales chart is based on revenue, so Aion's asking price would have helped it beat popular budget-priced titles.

Aion finds its voice for CBT5 weekend

2009-08-03T05:06:00.003-07:00

This weekend sees the fifth iteration of Aion's Closed Beta Test and NCsoft has released a nice set of notes to go along with it. The big news is this CBT will see the introduction of the first sound files for English audio, including NPC greetings, farewells and narration during cut scenes. During character selection you'll also be able to sample the avatar voices for the first time. If you're curious to see what the NPC voices sound like AionSource have managed to track down some samples of the Shugo, Elyos and Asmodian sound files.

But that's not all; the long-awaited racial prologues will also be included. This is the first quest in the game, an opening cutscene which leads into the starter zones of Poeta or Ishalgen. To see them you just need to create a new character of either faction. For beginners, NCsoft are also including tutorial videos, new dialogue and quest text, various fixes and two new servers in both Europe and North America. Excited yet? Well don't forget, the fun begins on Friday at noon PST and 8PM CEST.

Update: NCsoft have posted some samples and outtakes of their own, as well as some interesting facts about the process of creating English language dialogue, on the official site.

Aion: Second Mage subclass: the Sorcerer

2009-08-03T05:06:00.001-07:00

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is attracting quite a lot of attention and, hot on the heels of the next phase in the beta, NCsoft has released a new and exciting batch of screenshots. This time focusing on the second Mage subclass -- the Sorcerer -- the fourteen screenies show new mobs and locations, as well as both Asmodian and Elyos' Sorcerers. As usual, the screenshots also come with a little bit more info about the class:

"The Sorcerer is a Daeva who follows the Star of Magic. They are able to freely wield the destructive power if the natural elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. A sorcerer is a scholar at heart, evident by the books and orbs they normally carry with them. However, these items can be dangerous weapons in their hands as they help to increase a Sorcerer's power."

Aion Mage subclass: the Sorcerer.

NCsoft release Korean trailer for Aion patch 1.5

2009-08-03T05:05:00.001-07:00

For us here in the west, the launch of Aion might still be on the horizon. However, having had the game for the better part of a year, gamers in Korea have already turned their attention to aion patch 1.5. Indeed this is something we should also be excited about as the localized version of Aion aimed at Europe and the US will include this newest content patch.

With this in mind, NCsoft over in Korea has revealed a trailer touting the new patch, catchily nicknamed The Shadow of the Balaur. According to translated patch notes from the official Korean site, aion patch 1.5 will include new instances that will see players visiting a twisted Balaur-infested version of the Elyos starter zone known as Dark Poeta. There's also a flying ship crewed by the adorable ferret-like Shugo and a new battleground. On top of that are plenty of minor changes including the ability to zoom in on the minimap, four new face presets, new armour sets and, my personal favourite, in-game clothing in the form of kimono and the imperial uniforms of China and Taiwan.

[via AionSource]
Tags: aion, aion-beta, aion-korea, aion-patch-1.5, aion-the-tower-of-eternity, aion-tower-of-eternity, aion-trailer, aion-video, balaur, ncsoft, ncsoft-korea, plaync, video