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The other group of questions went directly to Black Velvet and had to do primarily with customer relations and support. That's her area and we hope to hear her insights in the next week or so on these questions.
The most surprising part of the interview is probably that the EU and NA versions of Aion are expected to diverge in order to serve different markets. While I'm sure that some of you will be disappointed that not everything can be answered exactly (like the 3.0 release date), it was very nice to hear more information than we've gotten so far and I look forward to seeing Gameforge move forward with their plans for the future.
Question: We really haven't been introduced to the team behind EU Aion outside of Black Velvet, so can you say a bit about yourself and what's involved with bringing us EU Aion?
Answer:
My name is Volker Boenigk, and as the Executive Product Director of AION Europe, I am responsible for the entirety of the AION product here at Gameforge. Coincidentally, I used to work at NCsoft in the past, taking care of the European Customer Support for Guild Wars. So working on AION now is a bit like returning “home” after some years. Also I play a Gladiator on the German server "Balder", who is not yet quite as high level as I would like him to be.
I am also in charge of the AION team at Gameforge, which currently consists of a core team of about 25 dedicated people, working in areas such as Community Management, Support, Development, System Administration, Game Design, Marketing, etc. In addition to this core team, AION gets supported by multiple departments and people throughout the Gameforge and Frogster organization. A product such as AION is a huge endeavour, that asks for the appropriate resources to be handled appropriately. Not only is the technical AION infrastructure something vastly complex that needs a lot of care, but from planning the future to building a website to designing a marketing campaign and thinking about endgame PvP-balancing, there is a huge list (and I assure you, there are multiple huge lists here) of things that need to be done in order to maintain a service such as AION Free-to-play.
Question: What is involved in localizing EU Aion and why hasn't 3.0 been announced for Gameforge when it has for NA Aion? What sort of time frame is the announcement going to come in?
Answer:
The major difference of the EU AION service compared to any other of the international AION services is that we have to cater to multiple languages. While any other territory “merely” has to localize the game content from Korean into one language, we have to effectively localize into three languages at the moment. This is a process that can be partially parallelized, but the complexity of any localization project increases dramatically as you add more language versions that need to be in synch with each other. This, in combination with certain technical requirements means that all the languages we service will need to be translated and localized, before we can and want to release them.
As this is the first time that Gameforge localizes an AION update of the magnitude of 3.0 (which has a lot of content to be localized, let me tell you), we do not yet want to make any announcement for a specific 3.0 date. Unexpected problems can always happen, and we do not want to get into the situation, where we are not able to keep a date that we have communicated to the players.
As we move forward with the localization, the uncertainty will subside, and we will be able to more closely pinpoint a date for the release of 3.0 in Europe. The only thing I can tell you with some certainty is, that we will not be able to make a specific announcement this month. We are currently preparing to show AION 3.0 during the RPC convention in Germany in early May, and hopefully by this time or shortly after, we may be able to communicate a more concrete timeframe for 3.0.
Question: The launch was somewhat shaky for EU Aion. What types of steps are being taken to handle the aftermath of the launch?
Answer:
Transferring a full and running service from a Pay-to-Play to a Free-to-Play model is already a huge task. Combining this with also transferring all of the services, systems, data and hardware results in an even more complex and challenging endeavour. It was to be expected that we would encounter some issues along the way, and would also have to deal with some problems after launch. Issues such as the stability of the website, which was not able to cope with the huge interest after going live, were resolved in the days and weeks after launch, alongside many other issues that had an impact on the players.
The EU AION team is heavily focused on resolving all the remaining challenges that have a negative impact on the player experience. We are working full steam in order to get all these things resolved, so that we can use our combined effort to create new and exciting features and services for EU players.
Question: Have you been looking at selling additional items in the cash shop and if so then what sort of items can we expect in the future? Some players are concerned that they won't be able to play without having Felicitous socketing supplements in the cash shop once 3.0 hits due to the randomness of socketing.
Answer:
Absolutely. With the switch to a Free-to-Play model, the item shop, and what’s being sold in it, is of course a very relevant topic, as the revenue generated ensures that the EU AION service can be maintained and improved upon in the future. We have only just now added a couple of new items to the shop, including a new miol, costume and emotes. These are also the sort of items you can expect to be added to the shop in the near future. As AION and its playerbase expands, we will of course look into adding more and other options to the shop that players ask for.
Our general philosophy for the AION item shop is that we do not want to offer any items, that offer a unfair, direct and immediate advantage for Paying players over Non-Paying players. This leaves of course some room for interpretation as to what is actually an advantage and what isn’t. Some players may argue that an XP bonus item is already an advantage, while others would happily want to see things as dangerous as high-level weaponry in the shop.
In terms of the Felicitous Socketing Items, which have been offered by NCsoft in the past, we have not yet made any decision as then if and when these may be available in the shop. Also here, we will listen closely to what the community thinks and would like to see in the shop to help our Game Experience Designers and Monetization Specialist make the right choices in the future.
Question: There are differences between NA Aion and EU Aion implementations such as the increased damage modifier for EU Aion and having to type in a code for aether gathering. Are these differences going to be equalized between NA and EU Aion or will they remain?
Answer:
We are looking at all the features of AION independently from the NA service. So we will review the current topics that the community raises as concerns, but the decision whether or not to keep, remove or change anything in the game will be made independently from the NA service. In so far, there are no plans to make the EU service a copy of the NA service. As long as the service and servers are separate, you will be seeing differences now and in the future.
Question: Many players really like the return of rifting without the home debuff. What are the current plans for rifting in EU Aion for the future?
Answer:
Rifting, and the home defense buffs are a very challenging subject to deal with. For every player that enjoys the game without the defense buff, there is at least one player who would potentially leave the game because he gets ganked in an early zone in the game. As with any PvP system that allows players to “force” PvP upon one another without any way of opting out, the Rifting system splits the player base. Also within the AION team, there are various sentiments regarding this feature and the use of the Home defense buff.
We are currently in discussions with NCsoft, to see how this system can be improved to ideally cater to all players. Both PvPers and PvEers, without having any negative impact on either group. Currently there are no plans that can be communicated, but you can rest assured that we are looking at this topic closely and from various angles, and that the feedback you give on the forums is always taken into account.
Question: EU Aion players lost the ability to character search online when the switch to Gameforge happened. Is there a timeline for this feature to be re-implemented or is it gone forever?
Answer:
The “My AION” section that players knew and loved (and that includes us in the EU AION team) was unfortunately not available for us to deploy at the launch. However, you can rest assured that this feature is anything but forgotten. We are dedicated to bring this feature back (and hopefully even improving upon it in the future with new features). However, most of our efforts and resources currently go into ensuring a stable and well-performing service as well as taking care of any issues that block players from enjoying AION as it was intended.
Question: What is the plan for dealing with spammers, botters, and hackers in the game in a more efficient manner?
Answer:
These issues are very much one of the most important topics we are dealing with at the moment. We will be tackling these malicious users both on a technical front, as well as a personnel front. You can expect to see improvements to account security in the future to reduce the problems with compromised accounts. As a first steps, as you may be aware, we have temporarily deactivated the PIN-reset option on the aionfreetoplay.com-website, as it was one of the more problematic features. In terms of both, spammers and botters, we are currently changing some of our Customer Support processes, so that not only will reports be handled much quicker than they are now, but in so far as that we will also get to the point, where we can have more resources dedicated to scouting and cleaning the servers in real-time. Additionally we are currently working with NCsoft to implement a technical anti-cheating solution that will help stop the use of any sort of software that interferes with regular players.
Question: When or will character transfers be opened up?
Answer:
There are currently no plans to activate character transfer between EU servers. But, there are also no plans to not open it up.
Question: When 3.0 is implemented will we get the jukebox? Several players would really like the jukebox feature, but it appears to be tied to 24hz, which is a Korean company.
Answer:
"24hz" is a project of NCsoft and is tied very deeply into the company. If you ever get the chance to visit the NCsoft Headquarters in Korea, you will be able to listen to 24hz in the elevators for example, where they will also display the current charts on embedded screens. Currently, there are no plans to offer this feature also in the EU service of AION. As you may be aware, the music licensing business is a very though one. So while technically it may be possible to implement this feature on the non-Korean AION services, the licensing of music and content would be a venerable nightmare. However, if it turns out that there is a relevant interest in this feature from EU players, it is something that could be looked into in the future.
Question: The Aion Club doesn't seem very advantageous. Are there plans to potentially change it so that it's a better deal? It's currently a better deal to pay 25 euros for 400 coins ( 4 gold packs ) than to pay for the aion club 3 months for 25 euros (3 gold packs +45 coins).
Answer:
Yes there is. The general idea behind the AION club is not to simply be a discounted item bundle that players would turn to for a great deal on the in game shop. The AION club was conceived and designed to offer something for the fans. The sort of fan that would pick up a collector’s edition in a shop, flip through an artbook for hours, buy the t-shirt, the coffee-mug and the themed inflatable hug-pillow. Something for the players for whom AION is more than just a game. We designed the AION club to, and will be doing so in the future, provide an additional value to these players.
We are currently preparing a change to the AION club that will increase the value and exclusivity for all club members immediately and retroactively. However, this will be an ongoing process. The AION club is really the place where we want to be in contact with and reward our most loyal fans and players. We will be constantly looking on how to improve the offers in the AION club. So you can expect a lot more and different exclusive things becoming part of the AION club, as we move higher up in the AION version numbers.
Question: There is an imbalance between Asmo and Elyos on Nexus. Is there a general strategy for fixing imbalances like this and if so then can you give us any general information on it?
Answer:
We have certain tools and options provided from the developers that allow us to tackle this sort of issue. Among them things such as you already know, like blocking the creation of characters for one faction, the introduction of XP bonuses, and more. We are very much aware, that AION as a PvP-focused (end)game stays and falls with the faction balance. As we are currently still in the early phases after launch, especially for the new servers, we are very careful about when and how we start to interfere with the player faction dynamic. The new servers are only just now getting to a phase in their life cycle, where the distribution becomes some sort of stable. In the AION team, we have two Game Experience Designers monitoring the current situation across servers (among other things they do) and who will be taking the necessary steps in the coming weeks and months to ensure a healthy faction balance.
Question: What's your favorite thing from the 3.0 patch?
Answer:
Most of the players will probably be looking forward to the exciting Housing-System, the new areas and PvP opportunities as well as the new equipment and story quests that will be introduced with 3.0. While I am also excited about these features, if I had to pick one particular bit from the 3.0 Update it would need to be the dynamic weather we will be able to see in certain parts of the game. As a long-time MMORPG player, spending years of my life’s time in a virtual world, the addition of snow that actually settles on the ground, then thaws again, the idea of seasons changing ist just something that adds a whole new layer of believability to Atreia. Where AION previously already had characters take shelter under big leaves during rain, this new system just pushes our understanding of a virtual world even further.
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