Filed under: Aion

Aion's spam filter is bigger, stronger, faster

by Kyle Horner Oct 17th 2009 at 6:00PM

Gold seller spam got you down; keeping you from purchasing Aion? Fret not, fair... uh, would be Aionites, because NCsoft is working towards fixing the solution through improvements and good will. We already know that essential 24/7 GM support is on its way, so the news that the recent 10.5.0.10 added an improved chat spam filter is delicious, vengeful frosting on our Crytek-powered cake.

By our observations, spam has been reduced to the occasional whisper or channel message from a character with an odd umlaut or whatnot in their name. Hopefully the update continues to hold water, and the gold sellers simply recede into the darkness from whence they came. Should the spammers ever return in force, we hope that NCsoft is ready to sweep an otherworldly banhammer of justice across their maw in a manner most pleasing to all of us in the community.

One Shots: Do not taunt happy fun box

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 17th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Aion, One Shots

We're not entirely certain where this particular mob features in Aion, but the story that came with today's Aion One Shots was so strange, we couldn't resist putting it out here. We just wish we'd have found out what the mob dropped. Quinn R. who plays on the Kaisinel server sent this fun report to us. He explains: here's a screen grab of the entire (along with some other random people) "Gigantic Box" legion (which I'm a leader of) killing the mob [named] Gigantic Box! First a little back story about the mob: Gigantic Box has tons of health and a regen ability so it takes forever to kill. Along with [the box] having a gigantic (pun intended) amount of health you also only hit 1's on it.

Have you found a strange and unusual mob in your favorite game that's taken forever to kill? Whatever your reason, we want to hear from you! Send in those screenshots of MMOness to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick explanation of what we're seeing in the picture. We'll post it out here and tell the world of your adventure.

Gallery: One Shots

NCsoft extends a thank you to Aion players for their patience

by Seraphina Brennan Oct 16th 2009 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Events, in-game, News items

Remember those server queues? Yeah you do. How could you forget the glorious two-hour-plus waits to get in to play NCsoft's Aion?

Well, those times are in the past now. The Aion servers have settled down, leading to most people being able to log in immediately, even during peak hours. Queues have all but vanished, and the game is settling in for its long haul.

However, NCsoft did want to give the Aion devoted a little gift for putting up with all of the hassle. While it may not entirely make up for the time spent waiting in line, it will certainly help speed your progression -- Lodas Amulets.

These amulets, when used, will provide 20% bonus experience from monster kills for one hour. Every character has been given five of these unique items, meaning that pre-order customers will now have 10 of them, as they have already received five from their pre-order. Enjoy the weekend of adventuring!

Aion 24/7 GM support 'coming very soon'

by Kyle Horner Oct 14th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Aion has a lot of great qualities, although one of the biggest issues in-game towers above pretty much any others: 24/7 in-game GM support. Whether it's gold spammers, bugs or some issue that goes above and beyond asking for help in guild chat -- constant GM support is essential for happy customers.

So you'll be happy to know it's coming very soon! At least, according to recent Twitter activities by the community team. As the weeks continue to churn for this newly hatched (at least in the west) MMO, having a quality support team is going to make or break many potential players' opinions when their hesitant friends ask, Aion"Should I pick up Aion?" Thus, this is good news. Not as good as it actually happening, but very close!

[via TTH]

One Shots: Good catch

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 10th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Aion, One Shots

While it's all very well and good to have nice graphics, one of the things we've noticed about the games that seem to do best is that they don't take themselves too seriously. Pop-culture references, silly asides, or just things that make us laugh serve to endear games to us. Today, we have a fairly silly thing that Seagull of the Ariel server in Aion noticed while getting some game time in. We'll let him explain: Idle animations in [Aion] are great. I was standing in a pool of water, and my avatar attempted to catch nearby fish with his bare hands. After succeeding, the fish is playfully thrown back into the water. (Insert token mining for fish joke here.)

If you've run across something strange or funny while you're out adventuring, we'd love to learn about it. Just send a screenshot of it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. Please try to make sure your images are at least 1024px wide and have as few UI elements as is possible. We'll post them out here and give you the credit for pointing that amusing bit out to us!

Gallery: One Shots

Aion players ding 50, reduce your ego

by Kyle Horner Oct 8th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Every time an MMO launches, we're witness to a bevy of firsts. Aion has already has a few, like its first State of the Game address and first fortress defeat. Today, however, we're here to inform you that two hearty players -- Almisaela and Drno -- have reached the level 50 milestone in Aion.

We'd like to offer our congratulations to both players, who're no doubt in the middle of a three-day sleep marathon in an effort to regain their much deserved sanity. It's never not impressive when people hit these numbers so fast, and frankly makes us second guess our ability to play these games. Then again, we've got that constantly nagging voice in the back of our heads telling us we should be writing more and playing less.

Exclusive interview with Aion Producer Brian Knox

by Brooke Pilley Oct 8th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Interviews, New titles

We submitted a few questions to NCsoft back when players were taking their first baby steps into the strange and lush world of Atreia. Things have obviously been a bit hectic these past couple weeks but Aion Producer Brian Knox took some time out today to answer them for us. Thanks Brian!

We've heard a lot about "westernizing" or "culturalizing" Aion for North American and European audiences. Can you please explain the full breadth of this term? Are we talking about language translation, story rewrites, and lowered experience curves here?

Westernizing Aion is about making the game culturally relevant to our market. This includes going above and beyond basic translation and delving into the story behind the text and making sure that it is presented in a way our players will understand. For us it isn't so much about changing things with Aion but shining the spotlight on the area that is most appealing to our audience. Aion is a huge game with a ton choices and features for users all over the world to enjoy; making sure we point those parts out is a huge part of the culturalization

Big improvements in Aion 1.5.1 patch

by Brooke Pilley Oct 7th 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Patches

The folks over at AionSource were kind enough to translate the latest Aion patch notes being tested in Korea. ~~There's no word yet on when western players will see these changes~~, but the notes are still worth reading because there are some big improvements. Three items stood out to us especially.

Based on the table shown in the notes, quest experience is being increased; to the tune of almost 500% on average (if our calculations are correct). The craziest example is a level 44 quest going from 13,300 to 703,820 experience (53 times as much).

Extracting aether now has a chance to debuff you with "Aether Venom." This debuff reduces your chance to successfully extract a gatherable down to 0. Players can remove this effect with a "Word of Purification" ability. Each character has this ability but to successfully use it, one must properly type in a captcha. This seems like an obvious attempt to prevent bots from gathering up all the game's resources.

Finally, Spiritmaster pets can now fly. We're not quite sure how this issue ever made it into the game at launch (design oversight or complication?), but 1.5.1 aims to finally remedy it so Spiritmasters aren't totally gimped in aerial PvP. Be sure to check out the full notes here.

[Update: These notes are for the Korean test server, so they're not final notes for the Western version.]

Addressing gold spam in Aion

by Brooke Pilley Oct 7th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

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 to offer free server transfers soon

by Rubi Bayer Oct 6th 2009 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Game mechanics, News items

Sunday we told you about the open letter to the Aion community from NCsoft West executive producer Lance Stites. Stites addressed the ongoing problem of seemingly endless queues for players trying to access the more popular servers. This has been a frustrating issue for everyone involved, with the crew at NCSoft West "engaged in multiple discussions each day" on the topic and players queueing for hours a day, attempting to play.

Unfortunately, rolling out new servers hasn't done the trick so far, as the problem does not stem from too few servers. Players continue to flock to the popular servers, leaving other servers nearly empty. "Sure, you rarely had to queue, but once you got into the game large areas of the world were devoid of fellow players. It's a hard balance to strike, and we need our servers full to ensure players experience Aion at its best," says Ryan James, PR director for NCsoft West.

Aion gets its first State of the Game address

by Brooke Pilley Oct 4th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

It's been a little over two weeks since Aion launched and NC West Executive Producer Lance Stites just released its first State of the Game address. These kinds of announcements have become more and more frequent as new MMOs launch and they usually cover the main successes and issues within a given period. This address is no different.

Lance proudly declares Aion's "fun and polished" launch and goes on to talk about the incredible demand they've experienced. Perhaps the demand was too high because the main issue he covers in this letter revolves around the server queues players have been sitting in since launch. NC West ran the usual prelaunch calculations and even added a 25% buffer to determine the game's initial server caps but that just wasn't enough.

It doesn't help that players have been playing long and hard either. "For example, we're seeing timeframes where 60 percent or more of our players are playing at any given time. This is a significant event by any MMO standard," Stites says. To address this problem, the studio is working on offering one-time free server transfers in the near future. Check out his full letter on the official site.

One Shots: Awaiting ascension

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 3rd 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Aion, One Shots

According to the Xfire charts and the sales numbers, Aion is doing very well for NCsoft. With visuals like this one, sent in to us by regular contributor Johanis, we're absolutely not surprised at all. Aion players seem to really love the detail (wings) and solid writing, coupled with the familiar game-play of favorites such as World of Warcraft. Here's what Johanis had to say about this particular image he sent in. Here is Metros, my newly created Templar in Aion who is about to ascend and get his wings. His mother would be so proud.

One Shots lives on your screenshots, so we'd love it if you'd take a moment this weekend to snap a screenshot from your favorite game for us. It can be of just about anything. Please try to remove as many UI elements as are possible and make sure your image is at least 1024px wide. Add your name, the name of the game, and a quick description and email it to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com. Yours could be one of the next ones featured here!

Gallery: One Shots

Exclusive Aion designer interview at AionSource

by Eliot Lefebvre Oct 3rd 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Aion, Interviews, MMO industry

Aion has certainly made quite an impact at launch, with impressive subscriber numbers, a broad spectrum of starting content, and - of course - a groundswell of fan support for the game. AionSource, the Curse network site devoted to Aion, has recently obtained an exclusive interview with the game's lead designer, Yongchan Lee, in which community-submitted questsions are put forth to Mr. Lee to get a sense of where the game is going to be heading over the next few months.

For fans of the game, there are certainly some interesting questions here, ranging from strict interface concerns (such as the addition of a dual-targeting system) to specific mentions of class balance (Spiritmaster pet issues are brought up more than once) and individual character customization. The answers are brief, as designer interviews tend to be, but Mr. Lee took the time to insert a fair bit of information in each response, and even a bit of humor regarding the issue of allowing swimming.

Enjoy the peek inside the near future of one of the more popular new MMO launches around. And if you're one of the many fans who can't get enough information about the game, keep your eyes open for our own NCSoft interview, coming in the not-very-distant future.

Aion and Fallen Earth dominate Steam/D2D charts

by Brooke Pilley Oct 2nd 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Aion, Fallen Earth, News items, Champions Online

Aion. Champions Online. Fallen Earth. Three MMOs intended for three different audiences and yet they all have one thing in common: September gaming sales chart domination! The latest numbers on Steam and Direct2Drive show a bit of a re-shuffling compared to the last time we checked in.

Steam (9/20 - 9/26)

1st - Aion Collector's Edition
2nd - Aion Standard Edition
3rd - Fallen Earth

Direct2Drive (9/20 - 9/26)

1st - Aion Collector's Edition
2nd - Aion Standard Edition
3rd - Fallen Earth
8th - Champions Online

Champions Online was launched a few weeks before both FE and Aion, so we believe that might have something to do with their now lagging sales (according to these charts). Be sure to check out our one-month checkup on CO. Both Aion and FE appear to be doing quite well for themselves since release. Considering the lack of marketing behind FE and its more design, we're happy to see it up ranking so high. Actually, it makes us warm and fuzzy to see any MMO selling well, so kudos to all!

Aion patches, denies whispers

by Seraphina Brennan Oct 1st 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, Aion, Culture, MMO industry, Patches, News items

In an attempt to shut up some of those annoying gold spammers, Aion has placed a temporary restriction on whispering in today's patch. Anyone below level 5 will find themselves unable to whisper their friends until they reach the magical level, when they can once again make use of the function. In practice, this makes whispering very much like the general channel, which is also restricted to only those characters above level 5.

This is only a temporary restriction while the Aion team works out a solution to keeping the gold spammers off of their channels once and for all. However, in the meantime, looks like we're going to have to suffer a bit.

Today's patch also fixed a few things for the French and German language version of the game -- mostly localization issues, along with spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Pretty basic things, and nothing to write home about. If you're interested in the breakdown, check out the patch notes on Aion's PowerWiki.

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