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Release date announced for Aion 2.0: Assault on Balaurea
Aion's Assault on Balaurea has been a long time coming. We chatted with Lead Producer Chris "Kinslon" Hager back in May, and fans have been scouring the patch notes, but one big question has remained unanswered: When? We got our answer today. NCsoft has announced a September 7th release date for the free digital version of Assault on Balaurea. Boxed copies of the full game containing codes for exclusive in-game pets -- which carry some benefits for their owners -- are also available. Players can purchase those in North America on September 7th and in Europe on September 10th. Check out the Aion site for more details.
Aion producer addresses legion renaming
NCsoft producer Chris "Kinslon" Hager checks in to answer questions on the upcoming Aion server merges via this week's Eye on Community featurette. While NCSoft has explained both name change and item transfer policies in detail, it hadn't yet touched on how the server blending will affect legion names (legion being Aion's equivalent of a traditional MMORPG guild). "Because we have fewer legions than characters, we're able to be more hands-on with legion name collisions. Our customer service team is going through active and inactive legion names, and we will be changing names based on specific criteria (legion size, contribution points, and so on). Similar to how we are handling name changes, if your legion's name is changed, we will be adding a two-letter designation derived from the name of your original server to the end of the legion name and giving your brigade general a legion name change coupon. You'll notice changes to legion names over the next couple of days leading up to the merge," Hager explains. You can read the full feature on the official Aion website.
Exclusive Aion lead producer interview
Aion fans have been on a roller coaster ride of late, what with the recent announcement of the launch date for the highly anticipated 1.9 patch, as well as teasers regarding 2.0 potentially coming to America in the Fall. Tempering the good news was the announcement of pending server mergers, which are rarely regarded as a good thing in the player community. In light of all the goings on, we were able to sit down with NCsoft's Chris Hager, Lead Producer for the western version of Aion, for some frank questions about the game, the company behind it, and the future. Fly past the cut for the full interview.
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.
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.
