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Aion 1.9 patch details teased while videos of 2.0 dance in our heads
Thanks to one crazy community manager that likes to tease information, we've gotten a sneak peek at the upcoming patch information for Aion -- patch 1.9. The patch is hosting a wealth of enhancements and updates to the game that includes a new looking for group system, quest updates, a brand new daily quest system, changes to the endgame dungeon Dredgion, a decrease in transportation and soul healing prices, increased experience gain, a two-handed weapon merge system, and much more. The whole thing actually totals over 26 pages of patch notes which NCsoft West are still translating for Western audiences. Tomorrow, however, we've got a special look into some of the deeper mechanics of the patch, so be sure to come back and visit us at 11 AM Eastern time for all of the gritty details (as we need to be all hush hush until then.) But, for now, enjoy some beautiful concept art in the gallery below (in the form of desktop wallpapers) and a video of Aion's "update 2.0" patch stored after the break. %Gallery-87201%
Aion introduces XP bonus weekends to smooth the curve
Some will say it's unnecessary. Some will say it's coming too late. And others? Others will jump up and down in joy. What could possibly be so divisive? Oh, well, that's Aion's new bonus experience weekends! According to community manager Tamat, Aion is introducing these brand new experience gaining opportunities to help smooth the leveling curve between levels one and 35. As long as you log on during one of these weekends and are between those levels, everything you do will garner you double experience. Crafting? Yep. Gathering? Yep. Killing? Yep, it's all there. Now Tamat does go on to say that this is a temporary measure before they do something more permanent about the leveling curve, but it's a good start to address what is an issue to many people. Especially when, as we've said before, only 2% of the entire population is between the levels of 46-50 and Aion's endgame doesn't function well without people. Hard to PvP with no one there.
Aion reports nearly 1 million copies sold in North America and Europe
Aion hit the ground running earlier this year, easily breaking the 400,000 mark for pre-orders, and they're continuing the trend. The first month post launch was occasionally rocky, but the good seems to easily outweigh the bad in the eyes of fans: NCsoft announced today that they have sold nearly one million copies of Aion: The Tower of Eternity in North America and Europe. North America accounted for over 500,000 of those copies, and European sales stand at around 470,000, allowing Aion to make up an extremely respectable 52 percent of NCsoft's total sales last quarter. Aion has their player base to thank for the sales, but their timing certainly didn't hurt. They enjoyed a launch time relatively free of competition -- the MMO market wasn't exactly glutted with new high-fantasy PvPvE titles in 2009. Aion officially launched September 22nd in North America, and September 25th in Europe.
Why You Should Be Playing Aion: Chain combat
"Why you should be playing ..." is a freeform column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play. I didn't give Aion the world's most glowing set of remarks last time I visited it, so I thought I should at least stop by and spend some time on a part of the game that I do actually like -- chain attacks. Chain attacks do many things to help Aion's combat move smoothly and efficiently. They clean up the UI, they offer flexible choices, they keep the combat looking fluid, and they're a lot of fun to pull off.
The Aion server queue survival guide
So you pre-ordered Aion and you're super excited to jump into the game during the headstart release that's going on right now. You've set aside a whole block of time for your game play, you have your snacks at your side and your DVR ready to play some great entertainment while you grind your night away. You type in your username and password, accept the EULA, select the server that you made your character on during the pre-selection annnndd........you get slapped in the face with a 2 hour wait time.Don't worry, we've been there. Trust us on that. But here at Massively, we're not going to let you down in your moment of need. We've compiled a great list of fun things to do while you wait for that server queue to drop. Follow along after the break, and we'll be happy to show you the golden road to boredom elimination.
Aion open beta hits some hiccups, but patches are on the way
First Champions, and now Aion. It seems that no game can find that smooth stride regarding their beta testing these days, but thankfully that's what beta testing is for -- squashing bugs. (No matter how much marketing we seem to lump atop these tests these days.)The Aion development team has heard the community's call regarding the lag, authentication server, gameguard anti-cheating program, forum authentication script, and beta key release schedule. They understand that the problems with the lag experienced by North American users, as well as the login server not working, is frustrating. However, they are devoting resources to finding out the cause and will be patching the game ASAP.
The Daily Grind: Does a game need PvP to be successful?
Player vs. Player combat seems to be a love it or hate it scenario. Players either engage in the behavior with an extreme liking, wondering when their blades will get to silence a screaming newbie or go up against the best of the best in battlegrounds, or players hate the activity with a passion to the point where they'll avoid it as much as possible.In any case, this feature certainly has become a staple of MMOs, even going so far to have a couple games, like Darkfall, EVE Online, and Aion: The Tower of Eternity, making it one of their core focuses. So this leads to today's question: Do you think a game needs to include some form of PvP to be successful? Or can a game go with a purely player vs. environment or cooperative approach and still succeed?Drop your thoughts into the comment box below and sound off.
