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Eye on the Aion community
See what they did there? Aion Community Manager Sebastian "Ayase" Streiffert admits it's a "shameless pun", but it's still fun. Eye on Community is a chance for you to share questions, accomplishments, and information about what's going on with Aion fans. As with any game launch, NCSoft has had issues to deal with since the game went live just under a month ago, and to give them due credit they seem to be handling the big issues fairly well. With some of the larger issues on their way to being solved, it looks like NCSoft is hoping to interact with the players a bit more. Hopefully this is a step toward being in tune with the Aion fans to keep the game moving in a direction that everyone is happy with. Well, as happy as a group of thousands of people can all be at once, anyway.Eye on Community begins with a question about community in EU Aion and the Legion system, so enjoy the read while we watch to see where NCSoft goes with this new feature.
Addressing gold spam in Aion
After playing Aion for any length of time, one might think the 'Looking for Group' channel is actually a 'Looking for Gold" channel. Don't worry, it's a common mistake. Since a few days after launch, players have been bombarded with gold spam in the game's various chat channels from general to group to trade and even to personal tell (whisper). Notably absent from Lance Stites' first State of the Game address last week, English Community Representative Ayase just put out an announcement about gold spam and NCsoft's efforts to eliminate it from Aion.According to Ayase, game masters are working around the clock to identify and ban gold spammers. Players can also block spammers on an individual basis, which does work but is only a bandaid solution. It doesn't seem like NCsoft has this problem under control just yet, which isn't necessarily a testament to poor effort but to persistent and pesky spammers. The developers are working on new tools and processes to ban the spammers more effectively, but until then our chat channels will likely be flooded with spam. You see, the economy is a strong gameplay element in Aion, and where there's a buck to be made, weasels and sharks will prey.
Aion's first fortress falls to the Origine legion
So for those of you who have been counting the days, Aion has been out for about a week in the North American / Europe regions. And, in this short, short, week, we've already got a legion who has gotten into the Abyss and accomplished one of the main objectives -- capturing a fortress.Origine, a legion making its home on the [FRA] Suthran server in Europe, has taken a level 25 raid to a level 35 objective and has laid claim to the fortress. The entire siege took over 1 hour and 15 minutes from the door of the fortress to the downing of the boss inside. Control of the fortress gives Origine access to a special dungeon, which the legion has already cleared as well.Sebastian "Ayase" Streiffert, the community manager of Aion, managed to catch up with Gwarf, Origine's leader, for a short interview regarding the event. You can check out Ayase's full interview over at Aion's main site. If you're interested in seeing the siege for yourself, you can see Origine's stream of the event at their website.
Breaking: North American Aion servers to be located on east coast
One of our keen-eyed readers tipped us off as to a forum post by Ayase, aka Sebastian Streiffert, Aion's community manager, which confirmed an original email stating that North American servers will be located on the east coast. Forum-goers whipped themselves up into a frenzy quite quickly over this news, especially those residing in the Oceanic region.Gamers from Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore are often faced with crippling latency issues when playing on servers located stateside. This is usually mitigated by having some west coast servers or actual dedicated Oceanic servers. Since Aion has such a focus on PvP(vE) where lightning fast reflexes and speedy server responsiveness matter especially, you can kind of understand their concerns. Ayase's response after the cut confirms this news and tries to assuage their fears.
CM Ayase reveals Aion CBT2 and future beta plans
With only two days to go before the next leg of the Aion beta (aka CBT2), CM Ayase has posted more information on this weekend's event but also gone into a little more detail (much of which we already knew) about the on-going beta. However he also mentions what amount to the briefest of build notes letting us know about changes such as sever queues, NPCs fixes and 'culturalized content' (I chose to read that as 'lore') specifically for Asmodians. Ayase also reveals the subject matter of CBT3 which will focus on leveling an Asmodian from 1-20 while CBT4 will allow players to pick a side and level their avatar to 25. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the post is not what we're getting now but what is promised on the horizon including localized voice overs for cut scenes, localized tutorial video, in game pre-rendered movies (of which we saw a little in the first beta event) and more culturalized content for Asmodians and the Elyos. I'm excited already.
Aion's European community team makes the leap across the pond
Going along with the continuous restructuring of NCsoft West, the European Aion community team has recently been invited to take the long swim across the Atlantic Ocean and join US community manager Liv in Seattle, forming a unified Aion community team.Sebastian "Ayase" Streiffert, the United Kingdom community manager, and Martin "Amboss" Rabl, the German community manager will be flying to the United States, while Loic "Atreid" Claveau, the French community manager, has declined the position in favor of moving to the marketing department in Brighton.Ayase, Amboss, and Atreid have all written blog posts reflecting on their individual decisions, and they can be read over at the Aion Europe community site. Amboss's and Atreid's posts have been written in their native languages, but it's nothing that a web translator can't handle. (And by handle I mean rip to shreds, but at least give you the general idea.)Welcome to the United States, Ayase and Amboss!
