Renewed speculation about
Aion's North American release date began swirling when a couple online retailers listed it at September 1, 2009. We have now come across
some interesting information in the July issue of
Beckett Massive Online Gamer that suggests
NCsoft may indeed meet the target. The magazine lists these key dates:
- June 19-21: Asmodian closed beta capped at level 10
- July 3-5: Asmodian level cap increases
- July 17-19: Abyss only with unrestricted flight and hopefully a lot of PvP
- August 14-17: First open beta
- August 19-23: Second open beta
The dates are listed as "
accurate as of press time" and may be subject to change, but we can confirm the
Asmodian beta will commence this weekend and that it
will be capped at level 10. You can definitely be sure of one thing: Massively will be there to cover each and every
Aion beta event from now until release.
[
Via: Keen and Graev]
Jun 16th 2009 at 10:00AM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Claw said on 10:45AM 6-16-2009
Aion looks very nice but there are too many nice looking MMOs coming out in September (why all in September anyway???). Fingers crossed I'll get into the beta for this and be convinced, because I've not seen anything really special from this one yet. Flying? Meh... need more.
Also, NCsoft is a terrible company. Game already has milage to catch up on there.
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TheKilled1 said on 10:46AM 6-16-2009
I can't wait for the unrestricted flight in the Abyss, that should be a hell of a lot of fun. Although i must say, i'm looking forward to the first 10 lvls of the Asmodian side coming up this weekend. I'm just glad i got to gamestop when i did, my brother and i got the last couple of the preorder serial code cards the store had lol.
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Knyle2 said on 10:48AM 6-16-2009
This Game is Scheduled to Remain Garbage for the Entire Summer. The Fact that they are already getting People to invest time and money into a pre-destined to fail mmo that ppl could have been playing 3 years ago is the most hilarious and depressing thing that I can think of.
Because of this game, Im reminded on a daily basis that my fellow Americans are just as gullible and "easily-sold-to" as the world thinks we are.
I will resign myself to the notion that It is mainly the underexposed midwesterners.
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Weile said on 11:00AM 6-16-2009
Your random capitalization of words makes me laugh by the way.
And, have you even played the beta? No, I highly doubt it. Most people that bash mmo's havent even tried it. They just assume, 'HEY IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING I DONT LIKE SO NO ONE WILL, WAHHH'.
CindyL said on 11:04AM 6-16-2009
That's an impressive opinion of your own right there especially since it's misguided. The majority of your people aren't sold at all, try to keep up.
How was this game playable to the public 3 years ago? I've been following the game for that long and am confused by this claim. Explain yourself.
britneyfears said on 10:18PM 8-13-2009
yeah it seems a lot of the haters are from wow, which makes no sense because you should be happy..I've been looking for a decent mmo to replace wow for a long time...and this coming from one of the ppl obsessed with wow for "years" The game now is retarded..the characters are retarded they need to update the trolls and ugly orc chicks or do something...but they only accomidate to raiders or the arena..anyways getting back on track- a lot of the new mmo's have awsome graphics in their trailers and scenery but when you get "in-game" its not even close to the same...the characters run all weird (aoc/warhammer)or you sit there for 5hours trying to figure out where to find a quest(lineage/rom)this game is effin awesome, so gtfo with your hate posts..your probably a wow player who hates wow and wants something different but mommy wont pay for aion so you make yourself feel better by hating on it.
Poxus said on 11:05AM 6-16-2009
I MIGHT try the open beta...but the Guild Wars type of instancing doesn't appeal to me...but I'll see in OB
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CindyL said on 11:24AM 6-16-2009
What instancing? It's not even remotely like Guild Wars.
The newbie areas have CHANNELS like Age of Conan, after level 25 or so those are gone. They are there to control the population at early levels and it's nothing that you'd even notice if you didn't know.
Poxus said on 11:55AM 6-16-2009
I read that the whole game is instanced like Guild Wars.
If it is just the starter areas, that makes the game more appealing..but like I said...I'll see in OB
Celestian said on 1:12PM 6-16-2009
The game doesn't instance like GW, not remotely. If a "zone" is over populated it will clone it and folks will zone into that one.
starzzareblind said on 11:19AM 6-16-2009
Can't wait to play the game.
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Brian! said on 11:43AM 6-16-2009
Honestly, I am a little confused on the extensive beta on this game. According to the Wiki, the game was released in November 2008 in Korea then again this last April in China.
So, other than localizing the text, what is so different that it requires a beta? The actual gameplay and server architecture seems to have a number of months of "live" testing.
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THAC0 said on 11:56AM 6-16-2009
me too, i don't get it. Are the testers just testing the quest text for translation and perhaps the leveling curve?
myr said on 12:48PM 6-16-2009
Mostly stress-testing the north american server setup. I imagine their hardware is probably a little different from that in Korea/China.
Thachsanh said on 12:53PM 6-16-2009
They are waiting for the new updated contents in patch 1.2 and 1.3. If they release in the US the same version they released in China, the game will fail horribly mostly due to lack of contents (missing quests, lack of high level contents...)
Evi said on 1:02PM 6-16-2009
I share your confusion. I understand a full game translation will take a while, but this seems excessive.
detour said on 2:15PM 6-16-2009
Because there is no pleasing people. AoC, WAR, et al launched without enough beta time and everyone says, "They should have extended beta... Its not polished enough... Release it when its ready... I'm paying to beta test... etc". Aion has a long beta and now everyone is saying "oh they should just release already"
Skindog said on 10:43AM 6-25-2009
I played the "Chinese closed beta" with an English translation hack....I leveled two toons to lvl 12. (Warrior / Priest)
The game is really sweet; the graphics are amazing....and the game is NOT a system resource hog.
I read an interview with Aion's lead North America rep detailing the release here. The reason for the extensive beta testing here is due to the game's text / lore being completely re-written to accommodate our culture. I for one am glad they are not merely translating the game.
Hopefully they will incorporate "pop culture" like WoW does...
Anyways, take it from someone who has played the game...it Rocks!!!
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j_mc_17 said on 10:50PM 7-06-2009
I have played Aion Beta up to level 20
I have also played world of warcraft up to level 80 and 60
Now.... If Aion has expansions which it surly will, Good dungeons which it surley will, Huge raids which it better have.... and for goodness sakes if it could allow you to swim like in WoW... if it had all that it is deffinatley about 2 times better than WoW in my oppinion...
High level content is extreamly important as well.. no way to tell thus far
If it had mediocer raids and does not let you swin, it is still better than WoW but such a disapiontment to sheer potential ill take it as a personal grudge
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Olympic said on 9:33PM 8-03-2009
Dang... the bashers on this game are seriously wasting there time. I didn't know about this game at first, but my friend was following this game for over 6 months and i met someone in the Beta who was following it for 2 and he's filling me in on everything. This game seems, looks, and plays great.
I played WoW. And i can almost garuntee most of the haters on this are from WoW. I level capped in WoW every exspansion, i got to 60 lvl cap, 70 lvl cap, and 80 lvl cap. The game had nothing entertaining about it as i lvled, which this one does (in my opinion), and as soon as you got to the level cap... well the game just seemed boring, plus the game seems more fast paced and user friendly.
So all you bashers on this game, quit hating, go try the Beta for yourself with an open mind, instead of thinking, "man this game is gonna suck, because it doesn't have the reputation of WoW." Otherwise you probably won't give this game a chance from the beginning. I've already made up my mind and cancled my WoW subscription and pre-ordered this game... This MMO is gonna be the real deal, so get a head start on it.
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