YouTube- Aion Vision Trailer (English)

From www.AionOnline.com

Good morning Daevas!

As you probably noticed, we've completed a server wide reboot without much notice on a day that we typically don't perform maintenance. It's only fair that we keep you in the loop and make sure you know what's going on. Over the last week we've been working on a list, we've been checking it twice, and today we found out who was naughty or nice. Ban Hammer Claus just came to town. When the servers come back online, nearly 16,000 accounts will have been removed from the game. If your account was banned, please read the following FAQ.


1. Why was I banned?

There could be many reasons your account was closed. If you did not receive notification of your violation via e-mail please create a support ticket and the violation will be explained to you. Please note that if your account was closed for the use of 3rd party software (botting) or participating in RMT (gold buying/selling) the evidence for the account closure was gathered over several weeks. It may be completely unrelated to what your character was doing right when your account was closed.

2. … but I wasn't botting, buying Kinah or spamming advertisements! I'm innocent!

Any action that modifies the client or automates the same way a bot does could potentially flag an account as a violator. We do not use one specific instance to "flag" an account for botting or RMT. We use many instances to strengthen our conclusions. Please understand that it is not what "you" have done on your account, but what the account has done. If your account is shared, purchased, borrowed, or power leveled, it could be the actions of anyone who's ever used the account.

3. I'm aware of all of the above, but I have never done any of it. Who do I contact?
To request a review, please create a support ticket.

We are taking a very hard stance on this issue and do have sophisticated processes and procedures in place that help us keep unwarranted banning to a minimum. If you believe you've been wrongfully banned, you can email us at support@ncsoft.com, and we will review your account. Our goal is to ensure our legitimate players are having the best game experience possible. Please note that you don't need to submit multiple tickets, as we will review a specific case only once. We obviously take these violations seriously, but also want to make sure that legitimate players aren’t banned unnecessarily.


We'd like to reiterate that we've been listening to your concerns. We've been constantly adding to our Customer Service and Game Surveillance Unit. As we continue to move forward, you'll see more and more of these efforts. Thanks for your patience everyone, and have fun playing Aion!

What we'd like to know is, what guides are you interested in seeing? We're looking for ideas for ourselves and the new Content Team, so let us have em!

Also, be sure to stick around Monday/Tuesday for the unveiling of the "Future of Aion" gameplay video that has been much hyped around the place. It's bound to be pretty awesome!

From Aion™ Online: The Official Aion Fantasy MMORPG Website

We are bringing the Aion servers down at 3:30 a.m. PST, November 18, 2009 (more) for scheduled maintenance and the implementation of the 1.5.1 game update.

The maintenance is estimated to take no longer than 4 hours.

Thank you for your patience!

1) We've been told that 24/7 customer support is on the way and the new filter has really cut down spam in chat channels, but we are still seeing goldsellers sitting for days and days in personal shops in major cities (where they cannot be autoreported) with nothing being done to them. Can you elaborate if/when we will see in-game GMs on all servers taking care of these advertisements and, hopefully, bots as well?

• Our CS team is always hard at work providing a lot of support to different areas of the game. Because of their increased efforts, many players have already seen the results you’re talking about from RMT spamming in chat. We are also fighting other forms of exploitation (hacks, bots, etc) and while they aren’t visible, GMs are actively fighting against bots, and gold sellers.

2) The community has been working to help NCsoft find a fix for the memory leaks and crashing during fortress raids. Have there been any advancements with this issue? Is there a fix on the way in the near future?

• We have been actively communicating with the development team on fixes for this memory leak and are especially grateful to the community for the data they’ve been able to submit. The dev team is working on solutions and we hope to have something to announce soon.

3) The most recent patch notes for 1.5.1 show that defending legions can now gain medals for successfully holding a fortress but many people feel this will not be enough incentive for fortress defense. Can you clarify if only the controlling legion gains medals for defense, or is it the entire race? How can one legion be expected to defend against an entire race?

• For the medals, once a fortress has been successfully defended, the Brigade General of the fortress will receive the medals via in game mail, and will be responsible for distributing accordingly. This allows the Brigade General the ability to award those who actively participated in defending the fortress, both inside and out of his/her own legion.

4) When the experience and rewards for some quests are increased, as stated in the patch notes for version 1.5.1, what retroactive compensation will be available to players who have already completed the quests that undergo this change? Will players receive "back-dated" experience and rewards?

• We understand that this will be a concern, however, at this time there aren’t any plans to retroactively reward experience and rewards. The main purpose for making these changes were to even out areas where leveling and rewards were short, so folks that have already passed this have gotten over this hurdle and wouldn’t see as great of a benefit as those who are experiencing it right now.

5) The patch notes say, "Slightly reduced the EXP penalty due to the difference in the levels of group members when in a Group or Force." There are a lot of concerns that leveling solo is better than leveling in a group. Is this going to make a significant difference or are more changes planned?

• Leveling in a group is always beneficial because you can tackle more difficult mobs together with less rest. This update reduces the penalty so players are rewarded even more for grouping up. As of now there are no announced plans for more significant changes to group xp.

6) "Characters under Level 5 can no longer use the Search function on the Find Buddy window." With the latest patches, this means that beginning characters can no longer whisper, mail, or search. Several current players are concerned that this will make the game unfriendly for new players. What are the recommended ways for new players to communicate with each other in order to make friends before level 10?

• There still a number of ways new players can chat, in the local channel and in groups. In the first zone, there are two main points where new players tend to gather, and those are where hunting groups generally form. Hitting these areas will help new players meet folks that are doing similar quests and in turn build friends that will be around long after level 10.

7) When can we expect to see patch 1.5.1 live on Western servers?

• 1.5.1 is currently in the testing stage in the West and we hope to deploy it to all live servers in November.

8) We've heard that there will be more patch notes next week for us- will these also be for the 1.5.1 patch?

• Yes, the patch notes we are posting are part 2 of 1.5.1 update and will be included in the patch.

From www.AionOnline.com

Last week in our community address for October we told you about a few changes we’ve been working on for an upcoming update. Today we’re happy to announce that the update is currently in testing and will be coming to the live servers in the near future. As promised, we are transparently giving you as much information as possible so to alleviate some of the concerns that you’ve expressed.

It gives us great pleasure to share with you the tentative patch notes for the Aion 1.5.1 patch.

Because this update is still in testing, we’re unable to release the official date these changes will go live. Additionally, remember that changes could occur due to issues we find in testing.

From www.Massively.com


Aion is easily one of the biggest MMOs of the year, so when a new North American community manager took over recently we decided it was the perfect time for an interview with the new team member, Andrew Beegle -- known as Tamat to community members.

We asked Tamat about new methods of community interaction, the hotly anticipated experience boost patch and even some personal questions about our new community manager. You can never really know enough about the person serving as the conduit to your main MMO -- at least that's what we tell them!
Massively: What steps will the team be making towards improving the channel between developer and player?


Andrew "Tamat" Beegle: While the Aion team already interacts with the community utilizing a number of tools (forums, event presence, official Web site, facebook and twitter), there are always ways to enhance and improve communication between a game development team and its players. In this regard, we've been making giant steps forward. We've started a weekly Eye on Community series where we answer questions that we receive from the community and highlight activities going on at Aion fansites. Another way we're working to enhance communication is with our monthly address to the community that speaks to the driving current concerns of the community. With those in mind, we're also working diligently to build the official website and forums to deliver exactly what players want.

These are examples of a few ways we plan to drive the overall communication. However, one of our secondary goals right now is making sure we communicate that we're receptive to the feedback that we've been receiving from the community.

But communication is not all about addressing serious issues. Stay tuned, as we have quite a few fun ideas planned that our players will want to look out for.


Can players expect the experience boost patch any time soon?

Tamat: Definitely. We've taken a good look at the current quest reward experience, and we should be increasing the amount of experience rewarded for a high percentage of the existing quests in our next update. Additionally, we've been reevaluating the experience rewards characters gain for individual kills. Ultimately, we want to make sure that each individual experience boost is in the best interest of the game, and as you can probably imagine, that takes time to properly evaluate.


What's your biggest priority coming into the position of North American community manager?

Tamat: The need to enhance the communication between the Aion team and the community. Thankfully, the entire NCsoft West team is committed to improving community relations, so there is a lot of opportunity to do just that.


How much control does the North American/European team have over the evolution of the game?

Tamat: The west plays a vital role in the overall success of Aion. All branches of the Aion team contribute ideas and information to each other for consideration. We evaluate each territory's individual needs and priorities, and then we plan accordingly.

That is a large and ambitious task with a game of this scope and size. Though it may not always seem immediately evident from the outside, we're in constant communication with the studio in Korea. Many of the changes implemented during the last year have been a direct result of that communication. That same influence has resulted in many of the future enhancements that we haven't announced yet.


Will we be getting the same patches as the Korean version of Aion, or will they be tweaked to be "localized?"

Tamat: Our goal is to keep updates as close together as possible in timing. Ideally we're shooting to keep these updates within a month apart of each other. Every update will contain similar content, changes, and features. However, there may be times that we pick and choose what we implement depending on what appeals to the Western market (North America and Europe). You can get a sense of how this will pan out by looking at the depth of Western customization and design we implemented in version of Aion currently available at retail in the west.


How has the team felt about Aion's reception since launch?

Tamat: Aion has been met with an overwhelming amount of praise overall. Our players love the game, the review scores have been cumulatively high, and despite the issues that exist in every new MMO, we had a solid launch-a fact that was recognized by both the press and the players.

With that said, we've been listening to the feedback that players have been sharing, and the team has been working relentlessly to address gameplay issues and abate nuisance issues that sap fun by putting in place changes that will be coming to the live servers sometime in the future.


What's your background on MMOs? What games have you played? What's your favorite?

Tamat: I'm a lifelong gamer, but I've been into MMOs since high school. It started with EverQuest, and that led to my first position in the industry at Warcry, which led to IGN, and ultimately my four-year stint at Allakhazam (now known as ZAM). During my time writing about MMOs, I had the opportunity to play nearly every MMO on the planet. It's funny looking back on it now. This all began many years ago as a hobby, but turned into my career.

Some of my all-time favorite MMOs include: EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Planetside, Lineage II, EverQuest II, Vanguard, World of Warcraft, and now Aion.


Have you been a fan of Aion before taking on this position?

Tamat: Absolutely. EverQuest was and is still to this day my favorite MMO. For whatever reason, the combination of difficulty and overall depth appealed to my inner masochist and gave me a sense of immersion that went beyond previous online experiences. Aion is enjoyable for me because it has a unique set of challenges that transcend the majority of post-World of Warcraft MMOs, while also being easy enough to play casually and feel a sense of achievement.

Aion has the perfect combination of hardcore and casual elements that put the game into its own category altogether. For now, I'm calling that category "Totally Awesome."


Thanks for your time!

Tamat: Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Aion.

From uk.AionOnline.com

We are in the process of extending our European Aion community team. We are looking for a few more dedicated, skilled, and community-oriented people to join us in our European office located in Brighton, United Kingdom. Any of these positions lets you get involved with Aion and work with one of the coolest gaming communities that there is. The community positions posted at the Jobs section of our NCsoft website include:

· Community Coordinator
· Community Coordinator (German)
· Community Coordinator (French)
· Community Manager (French)

All of the above positions are on-site and located in Brighton. For the quickest response, send your application to ukjobs@ncsoft.com. We’re look forward to hearing from you!

Also, word was just received that NCsoft will be reopening Collector's Edition sales! Check out the article below if you missed your chance to buy before!


From www.AionOnline.com

Due to an internal error that caused availability of the Aion Collector’s Edition Upgrade to end early, we're restoring the ability to upgrade between 12:01 a.m. PDT on Thursday, October 29, 2009 to 11:59 p.m. PDT on Friday, October 30, 2009 (more). Please keep in mind that this will be the last opportunity you will have to upgrade to the Aion Collector's Edition.

During the above listed 48-hour period, upgrades to the Aion Collector's Edition will cost $10.00 USD (£10.00 / €10.00) and will include the digital in-game items found in the physical Aion Limited Collector's Edition box.

Exclusive in-game items included:

- Black Cloud Wings (gives 40 seconds of additional flight time)
- Black Cloud Earring (gives an HP and an MP boost)
- Special character title (Settler of Aion) with stat boost
- Rich purple dye to tint 10 in-game items
- Two character emotes

Keep your eye on the NCsoft store this Thursday for your chance to upgrade to the Aion Collector's Edition!