Tag Archives: news

End of an Era

It was announced yesterday that Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk have retired from the video game business and Bioware. Both Muzyka and Zeschuk wrote about their own reasons for leaving and the future endeavors they plan on pursuing. The two of them were called the heart and the vision of Bioware and its […]

Aion 3.5 goes live in October 2012

tiamat-fight-21

NCSoft announced today that the next Aion 3.5 update will be released in North America in October. For the first time NCSoft team localized the patch in less then a three months. In our Aion 3.5 video presentation from Gamescom 2012 you can find lots of information about what is new and exciting in that patch. The official announcement you can read below:
 

Celebrate Aion: Ascension’s Third Anniversary with Aion 3.5, the Most Exciting Content Lineup for Aion Players Anywhere


Seattle, WA – September 17, 2012 – NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), kicked off the celebration of Aion: Ascension’s third anniversary today with themed missions, events and challenges all culminating in a fight with the mighty Dragon Lord, Tiamat, as part of the content coming the latest free update to the game, slated to arrive this October. Packed with new features and challenging content, Aion 3.5 provides players with the opportunity complete the current chapter of lore that has been three years in the making.

Starting this week, players of NCsoft’s Aion: Ascension will be able to participate in a variety of new thematic missions celebrating Aion’s third anniversary such as Shine On! Daeva’s candles where players can collect the Aether Flames to light the magical candle atop the giant Aion third anniversary cake.   Other features that players can look forward to with the release of Aion 3.5 include:

  • Tiamat Stronghold: The most challenging content in Aion: Ascension to date, Tiamat’s Stronghold is only available to those Daevas who have truly earned it. Tiamat’s defeat is the final chapter in the game-spanning Dragon Lords’ saga.
  • Dimensional Vortexes: New dimensions with valuable objectives, these vortexes offer players a new way to raid and PvP
  • Daeva for Daeva’s Day: Daeva’s Day is the celebration for existing Daevas, but also a day of hope for humans who have not ascended.  On this day, many humans leave their normal lives to seek out adventure in hopes of being recognized by Aion and ascending to immortality.  New and existing players alike receive special gifts on this day!
  • Fast Track Server: Those who are new to Aion: Ascension can now easily catch up to their friends thanks to the Fast Track server which will allow players to level up twice as fast, before making the switch to a regular server to tackle the challenging end game content.
  • And More: Players can look forward to new housing options and community features, a higher legion level cap with new legion quests, new mounts, new arenas a special mystery surprise only for Aion: Ascension fans at the end of the celebration.

Aion’s third anniversary in-game events will begin September 19 and continue through October with the launch of Aion 3.5. Thanks to Aion: Ascension’s Truly Free business model, which allows players to enjoy the entirety of the game completely for free, all of this content will be available to anyone who downloads the game from NCsoft. More information about Aion can be found at http://na.aiononline.com/

Interview with Aion EU Executive Product Director

We had the honor of sitting down with Mr. Volker Boenigk, Team Aion EU Executive Product Director, during Gamescom 2012. This was a very special interview for us because we met the person that is among the most responsible people for operation of Aion in Europe. Just a few days before that Aion 3.0 launched in Europe (being several months late to its United States counterpart) and developers from Korea were just a few feet from us talking about Aion 3.5 and even Aion 4.0. We asked the European Aion community to give us their questions to ask them directly to the people running the game. We felt it was important to make that direct connection between the players and Gameforge and make their concerns heard. Aion Europen forums are known for their tough stance on how the game is run and I wanted to present those issues in a personal, one on one, interview. Who better to talk to than Mr. Volker?
  
Here’s a list of things discussed in Part 1 one of the interview

  • Aion 3.0 launch
  • Why did it take so long to launch Aion 3.0 in Europe?
  • Details about the process of releasing big patches
  • Do you believe that European market is treated as second grade market?
  • Size of Gameforge Aion team
  • Server merges/transfers?

  

  
Part 2 of the interview discussed these key points:

  • Plans to deal with gold sellers and hacker
  • What’s the timetable for 3.5 being released?
  • Pay 2 Win. What is Gameforge’s stance on P2W items in the shop?
  • Veteran rewards Phase 2, Events and future content

  

  

I would also like to take this opportunity to express my personal views on the interview and Mr. Volker. I initially did not know what to expect going into this interview. I told the PR people that I will be asking tough questions provided to me by the Aion EU community. I was not faced with any hostility, nor evasive behavior. Just an hour earlier I had an interview with people from Star Wars: The Old Republic and after that experience (which was full of evasive behavior and “politics”) spending time with Gameforge staff was very pleasant. The high point was sitting down with Mr. Volker and chatting about the operation of Aion in Europe. He seemed very open and sincere in his answers and there was not a single “hard” question he did not want to face and answer. The conclusion of the whole experience would be this; Mr. Volker and his team want to run Aion in Europe the best they can. They had a lot of problems with adapting to how the game runs and is localized, but after conquering the initial learning curve they hope to do things much quicker in the future. To the careful listener you will see that they really want Aion in Europe to succeed and they will do the best they can to keep running the game in Europe. If you have any questions about my time spent in Gameforge booth feel free to ask in the comments section bellow or discuss on the Aion EU forum.

RaiderZ

I know, this is not Aion related. Still, I thought I should share this with the Aion community. It is this new MMORPG game coming from Korea called RaiderZ. We visited Gameforge’s booth at Gamescom 2012 primarily for Aion news, but we were also curious about RaiderZ. You see, they have these big bosses scattered around the world that drop special loot and I wanted to find out more about the game. If you are like me you can watch the video presentation of the game bellow where we found out about the following:

  • Game’s background story detailed
  • Gamescom Raiderz game trailer
  • Character creation and customization (cool tattoo system)
  • Raiderz fighting styles (character classes that you can mix and match)
  • Combat is skill based (dodge, aim and positioning play a huge role)
  • Crafting is done by NPCs and you bring them the mats
  • Musical instruments that you can play
  • Feasting system – you can create food that will buff the party
  • Mounts that allow fighting at later levels
  • Transformation system – You can transform into some of the creatures found in the world (including getting their skills and transforming into bosses)
  • Mount Eda – open PvP, two faction, area with bosses and quest chains

Aion 3.5 presentation video and 4.0 reveals!

During our visit to GamesCom 2012 in Cologne, Germany, we were treated to a full presentation and session with the Korean developers, courtesy of Gameforge. We were shown loads of footage from Aion 3.5 including lots of information about what is new and exciting in that patch. Being insatiable for new Aion information we had to ask about Aion 4.0, although Aion 3.5 was just now launched in Korea. To our surprise we got not only an answer but two major reveals. You can watch all this in our video of the presentation or read the recap bellow:

Aion 3.5

  • Two new end-game dungeons finishing the story arc started in 3.0
  • The first dungeon is versus Tiamat’s generals and lets you get gear which will enable you to face Tiamat herself
  • The second dungeon is the fight versus dragon lady Tiamat and for one month since launch in Korea less than 10% of players succeeded in defeating the event
  • You will get mythic weapons from Tiamat (only mythic grade items in game).
  • New kind of rifts in the game with attacker/defender system and quests available
  • Two new arenas with high replay value
  • The first arena will give you the key to enter the second arena

Aion 4.0

  • Three new classes
  • One class will wield a gun
  • One class will wield a musical instrument
  • Third class is still being kept secret
  • 4.0 will concentrate on PvP and RvR content