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Aion producer talks stun removal, Dredgion tweaks
The fourth and final interview in the Ask Kinslon series is hot off the presses, wherein Aion producer Chris 'Kinslon' Hager answers a few questions posed by NCSoft's Daeva of Journalism, a.k.a. Aquilanius. For the lengthy encore, Hager touches on user interface improvements, instance changes, and new skills as they relate to the upcoming 1.9 patch. "So to clarify, all classes will get the stun removing skill at level 40. The duration when this skill is used is seven seconds. It has a one-minute cool-down. I can almost see the Assassin's minds running now with new strategies to combat this. I am honestly very excited to see what the new strategies that this will generate combat. Our players are smart and adaptive, and I have no doubt we'll see some cool combat tactics come out of this," Hager says. The interview goes on to list some interesting tweaks to the high-level Dredgion instance, as well as movable hotbars and other long overdue UI tweaks. Check it out at the official site.
Aion producer talks casual leveling
Aion's weekly Ask Kinslon interview column is back after a short hiatus. Aquilanius, NCSoft's Daeva of Journalism, has a few questions for producer Chris 'Kinslon' Hager, focused on the Energy of Repose and Energy of Salvation mechanics coming with the 1.9 patch next month. The new systems appear to be designed to ease the leveling process, which has been a frequent complaint of Aion customers since the title launched last fall. "Energy of Salvation is for players who are leveling more slowly than other players of the same level. You can gain Energy of Salvation starting at level 15. It is intended for casual players, or players that really enjoy exploring and pursuing interests in game that don't drive directly toward leveling as fast as possible. It's also meant for people who get distracted by shiny things instead of leveling," Hager says. Check out the full interview over at the official Aion web site.
Aion 1.9 lands next month
The official Aion website has been updated with interview number two from the ongoing Ask Kinslon series. Aion producer Chris 'Kinslon' Hager has plenty to say about the upcoming Armsfusion and Mist Item Rental System, most of which was already known due to the 1.9 Korean patch that has been dissected, vivisected, and otherwise analyzed to death by U.S. players starved for a reason to continue their subscriptions over the last couple of months. "The Mist Rental weapons are all 14 day weapons and are available every 5 levels so players can use them at a wide range of levels. Also, they are great for players who want to rent a good weapon to power through a weekend or instance instead of completing several daily quests to get the higher stat weapons or paying potentially a lot more for a weapon they would shortly outgrow," Hager said. While that's all well and good, the real news from this interview was that 1.9 is finally coming to America in May, though NCSoft declined to give a firm date. Stay tuned to Massively for more.
Aion producer talks 1.9, anti-stun mechanics
The Aion official site features a brief interview with producer Chris 'Kinslon' Hager regarding the forthcoming 1.9 game update. Though NCSoft remains as coy as ever regarding a release date for the elusive patch, Hager manages to drop a few hints about what's coming. Perhaps most interesting (or alarming, if you're one of the eleventy billion assassins stealthing about) are the anti-stun mechanics being introduced. "If your character becomes stunned in combat, Remove Shock becomes available as a chain skill that you can use to remove the stun and increase your character's resistance to stun, knock back, and similar conditions for seven seconds. At later levels, class-specific skills that you can also learn will act as chain skills that let you go on the offensive in addition to the basic abilities of Remove Shock," Hager says. He also mentions rewards for the much-anticipated daily quests. "The quest givers will offer are a wide range of rewards, from XP and Kinah to mist (time-limited) weapons, armor, and even some new titles," he says. Check out the full interview as well as our previous 1.9 coverage.
Aion 1.9 patch highlights with producer Chris Hager
Yesterday NCsoft teased some of the upcoming features in Aion patch 1.9, making daevas the world over drool their sparkling, celestial spit. However, while everyone was busy drooling, we met up with Aion's producer, Chris Hager, for a more extensive look into the patch notes. Patch 1.9 has a bunch of things going for it -- from the introduction of a new "rent-a-item" system, to daily quests, to looking for group interface enhancements and more. As we said yesterday, there's over 26 pages of patch notes which will be appearing on the Aion main website -- that's a huge number of fixes and changes. While we can't cover them all in this document, we aim to hit the highlights of the patch that just hit the Korean test server. Now extend your wings and fly with us to the land after the break!
NCsoft names new producer for Aion
NCsoft announced this evening that they have named a new producer for Aion. Chris "Kinslon" Hager left his Associate Producer position to make the step up to Aion Producer. Kinslon has been with NCsoft since the fall of 2005, working on Guild Wars and Lineage II as well as Aion. Andrew "Tamat" Beegle welcomes Kinslon: "We're all very excited to follow our new Producer forward. His intricate knowledge of Aion and deep history with the game and NCsoft are invaluable as we move forward. Needless to say, there is plenty to be excited about that we have yet to announce." The team at Aion has spoken very often about changes and new content coming in 2010, and this is presumably the first of many to come. Along with the rest of the Community team, as well as the fans, we wish Kinslon the best of luck in his new position.
Aion interview explores aerial combat
One of Aion's most touted features is its aerial combat, with the game's own website challenging us to abandon our limited two-dimensional thinking to make way for the future. We're not alone in wanting to know more about these flight mechanics, and when asked about them in a recent interview at Ten Ton Hammer, Associate Producer Chris Hager was able to dish out a few details. In Aion, flight time and flight speed are statistics that can be increased through gear or buffs, so players will need to choose how much they want to beef up their flight, as opposed to their other combat stats. The reason that flight statistics should be looked into comes down to the movement and positioning in the game:Aion's combat is fast paced and movement / positioning are very key. How you move effects your stats in positive and negative ways. In addition to this you will possess skills that will throw your enemy in all directions.This will certainly give an advantage to skilled players that can deftly maneuver their character, and the clumsier ones will end up harming their own stats. At the same time, aerial combat combined with knockbacks or throws sounds pretty disorienting, and it could get tiresome chasing bouncing targets (or worse, being that bouncing target) through the air. We'll have to see how it all pans out. Check out the full interview for the flight details, as well as some discussion on Aion's system specs and archetypes.
