What's really in your stocking.

Double XP weekends will run from 8pm CST Friday to 8am CST Monday

Originally Posted by Tamat The first double experience weekend will begin in North America on Friday evening at 8pm CST. After careful review of the feedback and a closer look at the player character data, we’re pleased to inform you that we’ve lifted the previously announced double experience level restriction of 1-35. This will allow everyone to enjoy the double experience weekend starting tonight and continuing until Monday morning at 8am CST. We appreciate all of your passionate feedback related to the double experience weekend as well as other hot topics that you’ve been involved in over the last week. It’s been valuable in the decision process, but ultimately this decision boils down to what’s best for the game. Enjoy the double experience, the Solorius Festival and everything else that Aion has to offer.

Original Release Thread

Original Release Thread

Originally Posted by Tamat Hey everyone, This trailer is being shown at this year’s G-star event and is a glimpse at the future of Aion. As you can tell from the movie, the development team is hard at work on evolving and growing the Aion experience in some very unique and innovative ways. Needless to say, we’re very excited about Aion’s future and look forward to providing you with further updates when they’re available. While we’re not yet confirming specifics around what was shown in the Aion vision trailer, we’re very excited about what the future holds for Aion and are committed to evolving the game’s experience in the months and years ahead.

Originally Posted by Ayase Quote: Originally Posted by Somar Well, none of the things in the trailer have any rooting within reality. There's no ETA on any of it. For all we know, it was all pre-rendered. If it was all pre-rendered we would've left the "REPLACE ME" textures out and optimized resolutions/framerates. That said you're still correct -- there's no ETA. The question in this week's Eye on Community will actually be in regards to the trailer and clearly state our stance on implementation, ETA, etc. directly on our website rather than having it scattered in replies on various forums.

Originally Posted by AionOnline "Does the Aion Vision Trailer show content of an upcoming expansion? If so, when will it be released?" This question is one we've been asked a lot this week, and we’re not yet ready to answer it in much detail. The Aion vision trailer released at G-Star gave a glimpse at what we have in store for the future of Aion. As you can tell from the trailer, the development team is hard at work on evolving the Aion experience in unique and innovative ways. Some of the features highlighted in the trailer are further along in the development process than others. Because of this, we aren't ready to share or speculate on timeframes. Even though we're not ready to confirm specifics on features shown in the Aion vision trailer, we're very excited about what the future holds for Aion and are committed to developing the game's experience. We will provide you with further updates when they're available.

Here we see the new graphics and lighting being highlighted. We can only assume that this is DirectX 10 at work. This is a significant upgrade to an already gorgeous game and while it wasn't necessary, it is very welcome!



This city appears to be build on the walls of a canyon that overlooks a new zone with a lush jungle setting. By the construction I'd assume this an Elyos zone as the protruding buildings are reminiscent of Sanctum's towers and style.



Here a giant creature bursts through a cave wall surprising a party of adventurers. The creature bursting in appears to be a cinematic at first guess, but the actions of the characters leave me to wonder. The characters appear very controlled even while the creature appears very cinematic. Has Aion incorporated cinematic and gameplay together (as some Final Fantasy games do) for a more engaging game experience?



Not only did the dev team show us that swimming is coming (collective sigh of relief from the community) but they've also incorporated entire area underwater, which begs one to ask "Can Daeva breathe underwater?" Perhaps you use the essence of aether, much like you would to fly, to keep your lungs stabilized while under water thus draining your flight timer. Will there then be underwater PvP? If so, do the shark sword and shell shield give you an advantage? (kidding.)





Ah, one of my favorite parts of the video that struck me almost emotionally. Dynamic weather. The main question this brings to mind is "Will there be seasons in Aion?" If so, how often will they change? This seems like such a large amount of work for something that players will only see 4 times a year. Will it be based on the game calendar or RL months? Many questions come to mind, but one thing is certain. The new weather effects are gorgeous!



Another feature that's been on people's minds since development is player housing. Here we get our first glance at it with a group of Shugo working their tails off to complete this little abode. We can see that different textures are available to make your place unique including the walls, the roof, and also large ornaments for above the house like a leaf and a lollipop.



This is one thing that slightly disappointed me. Now, remember that this is all speculation, but it appears that Aion has adopted the "instanced housing" idea that Lord of the Rings and some other games have adopted. In this image you can see fences without homes in a pre-designed area. I hope that there are several different zones for player housing instead of just Area A, Area B, Area C, with exactly the same visual look. Instanced townships -look- nice, but have little to no individuality from what everyone else in the game has.



Are these a couple of different kinds of player houses or are these specialty buildings?



Here we can see what appears to be a merchant tent, a small temple, and another intricate building that does not appear to be a player house. Is it safe to assume that player cities will share the same conveniences as world cities including vendors, trainers, and a broker?



As the camera pans up, we get a glimpse of housing in the sky. The two smaller structures are indeed player structures but what about the large structure on the left? Could this be a legion hall or a city hall? If it is a legion hall and there is only one, it leads one to believe that each legion is in control of it's own town. If that is the case, do non-legion players get to have housing?



The interior of one of the sky houses. In the video we see that placement of at least the furniture is up to the player. We did not see if everything was customizable such as the fireplace, rub, and smaller tables.



Here we catch a glimpse of the new mount system. Not only are there multiple individual mounts, but it appears that at least some of them are able to carry two characters. The obvious questions are how does one get a mount and where can they use them? One of those questions is slightly answered later in the video. How many varieties are there? We see at least 5 in the video.



This is where our first new class speculation comes from. Here we see a character in a steepled hat with a staff. He appears to be wearing cloth or leather armor at this glance, yet he wields a two handed staff as a Chanter would. Watching him break in (literally) a new mount. Could this be a Tamer or Beastmaster class? If there are indeed new classes, are they still a branch-off of the core starting classes?



This is one of the new weapons shown. It begins as a staff but converts itself into a whip! Pretty cool. Could this be the weapon of choice for the speculated Tamer class? Makes sense for a lion at least.



The second new weapon shown is a crossbow for this ranger. How it compares to the bow is the mystery here. Is it an actual equipable weapon or merely part of an attack animation? It appears to be it's own just from the fact that the character puts her bow away instead of it disappearing for the crossbow.



We've heard whispers that a new and more dynamic combat system will be finding it's way into Aion. Here we see what appears to be a Chanter swinging her staff fluidly, taking down multiple beasties at once, which begs the question, when did Chanters get AoE attacks? Is it a new part of the dynamic combat that anything in your path gets hit? If that's the case do certain classes just have wider attack paths than others to make them more viable in AoE combat?



This move earned a lot of buzz among Templars. Here we see the Templar morph his shield into an overly large gauntlet which extends across the area grabbing an unsuspecting Ranger by the skull and dragging her to him for a well-deserved beating. Very cool.



This is footage of the second speculated class. His armor appears similar to that of the "Tamer" class we saw earlier but something is missing. This guy is using his bare hands to beat the snot out of the Tursin scout instead of a staff. Following the initial pummel, we see the "Monk" toss the Tursin across the ground and slam his energized fist down, attacking his foe with a powerful shockwave. These moves are unlike that of any class already in the game, so unless unarmed combat was added to one of them, this is new. Could the "Tamer" and "Monk" be the two branch choices for a new starter class?



Here we see a Gladiator or Templar with a greatsword performing a pretty devastating move. It has the style of what would be considered a "finisher." He rears back, charges up, and assaults his opponent with a vicious strike that tears the soul right out of her.



Well, we saw the cute and cuddly mounts. This one wants to use your face as a chew toy and appears very capable of it. This is proof that mounted combat exists (with at least some mounts). On his back we see a very familiar armor set. Now, maybe this is just a new set that all the devs like to wear, or this is a new set for the speculated "Tamer" and "Monk." Seeing this brings about the question of whether all players can use their mounts for combat or if it is a special ability of the Tamer. If it is a special ability, you have to wonder how viable he will be in the Abyss.



Looks like Assassins get a fun little ability as well. Here we see an Assassin leaping into the air and tearing this Spirit Master (probably) out of the air and whipping her to the ground before dropping down blades-first onto her. This would help solve the Assassin's issue of keeping their fights on the ground instead of taking to the air.



While this scene appears to be a cinematic, it's cool nonetheless. These massive airships float their way towards battle. It is safe to assume that these are not player controlled, though it would be very cool to have a legion airship.



A colossus rises from his resting place, summoned by an unknown class. This is probably another cinematic (unless this new class is named "OP").



This may or may not be part of the same cinematic as above. Even this cinematic gives great hints as to how a city siege will work. If you are attacking, perhaps you summon a colossus to lay waste to the village and much like capturing a fort, the enemy will have to defeat your "guardian" to win. Aether cannons line the ground as defense, delivering devastating attacks to the colossus as Elyos rain in from above dropping in from airships. If NCsoft can get this mechanic to work half as cool as the cinematic depicts it, it should be a very awesome addition to the game.