A very welcome addition to our North American server family cleared all testing phases and evaluation procedures just moments ago. Our East Coast servers have been some of the more popular ones to date and [East]Meslamtaeda intends to hold the torch high and provide even more options to current and future East Coast players alike.
The name 'Meslamtaeda' comes from one of the feared Dragon Lords, one that has many times been called the 'Lord of Death and Fear'.
As we draw closer to tomorrow I wanted to give everyone a brief update on the progress of our live version. We are excited to announce that we will be serving out the final update for you to patch within the next few hours. You will be able to use this version for both our Preselection and our Head Start. We are very excited with our final product and think that you will be as well!
Below are the release notes for the patch you will see later today:
- Aion now features all three languages French, German and English. To select your language simply right click on Aion within your launcher and go to Properties->Language Options. Please select which languages you wish to download and which you wish Aion to display.
- After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we're focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.
- The level cap is now level 50 (previously 45).
- Players will be able to reserve 2 character names during Preselection and create 8 characters in total once Head Start begins and beyond.
- Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.
As we draw closer to tomorrow I wanted to give everyone a brief update on the progress of our live version. We are excited to announce that we will be serving out the final update for you to patch within the next few hours. You will be able to use this version for both our Preselection and our Head Start. We are very excited with our final product and think that you will be as well!
Below are the release notes for the patch you will see later today:
- Aion now features all three languages French, German and English. To select your language simply right click on Aion within your launcher and go to Properties->Language Options. Please select which languages you wish to download and which you wish Aion to display.
- After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we're focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.
- The level cap is now level 50 (previously 45).
- Players will be able to reserve 2 character names during Preselection and create 8 characters in total once Head Start begins and beyond.
- Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.
As we draw closer to tomorrow I wanted to give everyone a brief update on the progress of our live version. We are excited to announce that we will be serving out the final update for you to patch within the next few hours. You will be able to use this version for both our Preselection and our Head Start. We are very excited with our final product and think that you will be as well!
Below are the release notes for the patch you will see later today:
- Aion now features all three languages French, German and English. To select your language simply right click on Aion within your launcher and go to Properties->Language Options. Please select which languages you wish to download and which you wish Aion to display.
- After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we're focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.
- The level cap is now level 50 (previously 45).
- Players will be able to reserve 2 character names during Preselection and create 8 characters in total once Head Start begins and beyond.
- Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.
This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the game since its Korean release late last year, or those of you who frequent AionSource -- the leading English-speaking Aion fansite in the world -- but Aion has broken records for preorders, and now looks to be the biggest MMO release in North America and Europe of 2009.
With more than 400,000 preorders so far, the game kicks off its headstart for all of those eager players with tomorrow's server pre-selection, and then opening up the game itself on September 20th -- just 3 short days from now -- for a 2-day headstart. Are you as excited as we are for the release of this game? Check out the press release below, or head over to AionSource and AionArmory to get acquainted with the game in preparation for release!
It's official - Aion is the biggest MMO launch of the year and is one of the must-have games this holiday season. NCsoft today revealed the latest preorder figures for its newest massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Aion, which is nearing 400,000 preorders and outpacing other major MMO launches this year.
Already topping preorder sales charts, securing accolades from major media outlets, garnering event awards, including gamescom 2009's "Best Online Game" and PAX's "Best MMO" by Inside Gaming, and receiving rave reviews from players in the game?s beta testing, Aion has steadily built its reputation as the biggest MMO release in recent years. And unlike many Eastern MMO imports, Aion has been uniquely designed to appeal to Western audiences. Along with a completely rewritten storyline spanning more than two-million words, players will experience enhanced character customization with a host of Western styles, new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing.
As a bonus to the nearly 400,000 players who have preordered their copy of Aion, they will be treated to server Pre-Selection (beginning tomorrow September 18) and a two-day Headstart period (beginning September 20) allowing them to get a jump start on their exploration and progression prior to the official launch on September 22. Players can still participate in Aion?s Pre-Selection and Headstart programs by preordering the game through several participating online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including the NCsoft Store, Amazon, Best Buy, EB Games Canada, Fry's Electronics, GameStop, Steam and Target.
Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online experience where flight offers much more than just a way to explore the landscape ? it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict. Using one of the most flexible and in-depth character customization systems ever featured in an MMO, players will be able to create genuinely distinct characters and explore a visually stunning world of ethereal beauty brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies, and ancient secrets.
Congratulations, Aion team! There are very, very bright days ahead of all of us. :)
The release of Aion marks the beginning of a long anticipated story--your own. We are introducing a wide array of new functions in our website to provide more player-focused information for Aion.
Have you ever been dying to show off some of your character's new equipment to a friend quickly and easily? We have gone to great lengths to make this as easy as it should be. Aiononline.com will soon be updated with a quick character search function and detailed character pages that will allow you and others to view your characters with all their accoutrements directly in a browser. You will also be able to view server statistics and Abyss Rankings in order to follow your own and your friends' progress through the game--or to find out what numbers you need to beat to reach the top!
Aion's official forums will let you socialize with fellow gamers. They will supplement the forums of our fansites to make an excellent medium through which you can get to know other players from the servers you play on.
We will also continue to update and improve the PowerWiki, which will go through numerous changes as we transition to the new website. Its layout will be updated, a lot of new content will be added, and the search function will be improved beyond the previous one.
Aiononline.com is suiting up - and you're invited.
The key to launching an MMORPG of Aion's magnitude is communication. We been keeping everyone following the game aware of what our plans are and listened to your feedback, creating a dialog with you. We've also kept an eye on the various Aion communities, talked to Aion community members, and compared what they have said and requested with our beta test data. Based on all this input, we have decided to launch Aion with an Oceanic server set to GMT+10.
Our Oceanic communities have already masterfully executed unofficial polls indicating their server desires. To honor these community efforts, the North American server Nezekan will be adjusted to an Oceanic time zone and event schedule immediately. The server will however not be labeled as an Oceanic server right away, but we plan on changing that in a patch within the first two weeks after launch. We are doing everything we can until then to let everyone know about the plans for Nezekan's future time zone schedule to allow players to make informed decisions.
We experienced some frustrating technical difficulties with the surveys we launched early this week meant to help roleplayers and language-specific communities choose their unofficial game servers. Many Aion communities saw a need to coordinate their members and were much quicker than we were to organize surveys. We have decided to honor their hard work by permanently taking our own survey down, since we have no desire to interfere with what our great communities accomplish or cause confusion. We will continue to work with the fansites in our Fansite Program to promote their community survey results.
