Hellrose

First of the OB information. There isn't that much out yet but.. that will change real soon.
I combined Q&A sessions held by TIG and GameChosun into one article and took out the dupes.

Because the GameChosun session was especially long with a lot of questions answered in typical PR fashion, I left some of those questions out. Most of those were class balancing questions that were met with 'yes we know the issues, yes we made adjustments'.

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Source: Thisisgame, Gamechosun,
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On the afternoon of October 23rd, in the R&D center of Seoul's Samsung District, NCsoft held a press conference for the launching of Aion. Aion will mark NCsoft's first self-developed title launch in five years, since the launch of Lineage 2; the game's open beta service will begin on November 11th.

The press conference took the form of a Q&A session between press members and three Aion production team leads -- Producer Yong-Chan Ji, Technical Director Maro Shim, and Art Director Hyung-Joon Kim.

The following is a summary of the Q&A that took place.


From left to right, Hyung-Joon Kim, Yong-Chan Ji, Maro Shim

Q: Is the open beta date later than scheduled?
A: I think that depends on where you set the bar. It's definitely later than we had planned last year or before that, but the plan was always to have a November Open Beta release throughout the year so I don't think we're late in that sense. Generally we stuck to the plan this year.

Q: What would you say is Aion's key attraction for players?
A: There are many of course, but I think Aion's RvR system is unique in that it can be enjoyed by both PvP and PvE players.

Q: A giant boss monster makes its appearance at the end of the promotional trailer. Can we expect any gameplay similar to Shadow of the Colossus?
A: That part of the content may end up being a spoiler for our players so I won't reveal too much just yet. I can say however that the boss is still in production, and it will feature gameplay elements quite different from Shadow of the Colossus. We're looking forward to its release.


The giant boss monster featured in the trailer.

Q: The abyss sieges in CBT3 were extremely laggy. Has this been improved?
A: We're still in the process of tuning that area. By the time open beta starts we're confident that players will be satisfied with the results.

Q: How many players are you expecting to hold per server?
A: We're estimating our servers to hold about 5000 players per server. We'll have at least 10 ready to go for open beta.

Q: Roughly how many hours of content can we expect in the open beta client?
A: That would be tough to estimate because it would differ very much from player to player. What is for certain is that we definitely benchmarked our content against the amount of content that western MMO games generally have at launch, rather than our past games such as Lineage or Lineage2.

Q: Could you talk a little bit about the art direction of Aion?
A: We always held the highest standard while creating Aion, so the word that came up a lot was 'luxurious'. To achieve that feel we used a lot of deeper shades and tried to add dynamism to our weapons and armour. Weapons and armour that grow and shrink depending on the situation are examples of that.


Apparently chain-swords aren't entirely new; they existed in the CBT3 client of the game.

Q: NCsoft is now considered one of the experts on the Crytek engine. What could you tell us about your experience working with it, the strengths and weaknesses?
A: The CryEngine allows for amazingly high quality terrain textures. The lighting rendering technology is also quite astounding, so a lot of those base elements were taken care of. But it's still an older engine compared to some others, and since it's not an engine made for MMORPGs we did have some difficulties in creating large open areas.

Q: One of WoW's strengths is the users' abilities to create add-ons. Will this be supported in Aion?
A: Until this point all our effort was put into creating a strong base interface. We're still looking at implementing a similar add-on system but we haven't come to a decision yet. We'll be making that decision as the game develops further.

Q: Is there a specific player base Aion is targeting?
A: We aimed to create an MMO enjoyable by MMO veterans and new players alike. We hope too see all kinds of players enjoy our game.


An image from a dungeon available in open beta.

Q: Open beta will no doubt attract the bot users as well. Is there a plan of action for this?
A: We separate bots into two categories. Bots that use mouse clicks and sit on top of the client can really only be dealt with at the service level and is hard to prevent at a technical level. We are doing our best to make sure we protect players from the other kind of bots by using sophisticated algorithms and other such solutions. A lot of the lessons and implementations we gained while servicing Lineage and Lineage2 will also be applied to Aion.

Q: Aion is attracting a lot of interest over-seas as well as here. Are there any systems or design decisions that target that audience?
A: I don't think creating systems that target any specific cultural audience would guarantee our success there. Instead we've been focusing on the diversity of our content as well as their level of completion. As a side, I'm a big fan of a lot of foreign games and I'm subscribed to a few of the major titles. We're fairly sensitive global trends in the genre and we always keep them in mind in our development process.

Q: How often will we see updates once open beta begins?
A: We don't have specific dates on large updates just yet, but we will go right to work on one immediately after open beta. Once the game is settled at a satisfactory level of content and stability we will look at releasing major expansions every 6 months to 1 year, similar to popular foreign MMO games.

Q: What would you say was your most influential game while developing Aion?
A: It's hard because there were so many, but if I had to name one it would be Everquest.

Q: What's the story behind the new wings seen in the trailer?
A: The wings themselves have greater capabilities. They will be used at high levels or in the abyss.

Q: Will there be mounts?
A: None in the plans at the moment. However there will be a number of transportation devices.

Q: Will we see the 12 Empyrean Lords in-game?
A: The Empyreans will be revealed in increments within the game. We will start with one and go from there.

Q: There isn't a noticeable difference between the two races. Even their appearances are similar.
A: I understand this is an issue for a lot of players that are looking for ultimate diversity, but even by looking at WoW's move with the Blood Elves it's obvious to us what happens when one race is seen as the 'monster' creature while the other is seen as 'human'. The feel might be similar for the two races but the options are there to allow for some dramatic differences as well. At this point I believe it's for the players to decide for themselves how unique they want to appear.

Q: Are there any new game content implemented in Open Beta?
A: We've added higher mastery content for trade skills, for players that enjoy crafting.

Q: Any instanced dungeons?
A: The dungeon that appears in the trailer is a kind of instanced dungeon. It's not elaborate but the content has been designed for single parties.

Although the event was held after a lot of anticipation, in effect most of the information was presented beforehand through a press release without details on updated content. It was clear however that the team is in the midst of preparing for a smooth open beta. We will soon see if Aion lives up to the expectations of the industry as well as the players.

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Guides & Translations Compiled

HunterX

Thx Hellrose

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Anuxinamoon

Wow thanks HellRose!

Yay!

Omg I cant wait to hear more about this fight!

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AnimePwns

Thanks
12345

Timon

Damn, I wish they someone asked them about balancing the chars. since CBT3(especially SM :P)

yohanfigums

So is the beta opening in Korea on Nov 11?

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sig by xanoth

Intaki

A other great translation Hellrose!
Thanks for you taking you time to translate stuff for us.

Yas

Q: One of WoW's strengths is the users' abilities to create add-ons. Will this be supported in Aion?
A: Until this point all our effort was put into creating a strong base interface. We're still looking at implementing a similar add-on system but we haven't come to a decision yet. We'll be making that decision as the game develops further.

I'm most likely the only one, but I really hope they don't go similar to WoW. Rather have a game which requires skill than have add-ons that do all the work for you (ie WoW). Just should have UI skinning, but that's just my opinion hehe.

Anyway thanks from the great translation o/

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Get to the damn IRC NAO!

Vissarion

hmm great :P

bring pets and mounts to the game ^^


btw,
thx hellrose.

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Empfy

thx again hellrose

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Life is unfair, dont change it, takes the fun out of it

Keeva

Awesome, thank you Hellrose.

Riku

yuk, no pets nor mounts...mounts are not needed and I only want to see the SM as the only pet user. Pets and mounts just muck up mmo games >_< IMO of course.

ArcRaven

i hope they dont charge for expensions like WoW does, they will probably be free like L2.

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RavenWolf
My Work

Akira

Can't wait to try this game out. Thanks again Hellrose.

Haubix

Thank you Hellrose! As always a joy to read

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