Greetings Aion Players,

It has been a very busy year for us here at NCsoft West and our executive producer would like to take the time to address our communities today. Lance Stites is the head of NCsoft West’s Game Production Studio in Seattle, overlooking many game franchises; including Aion, Lineage and Exteel.

In order to keep you updated on what is happening with our games, Lance would like to provide some insight into recent events and a scope of what is on the horizon for our studio as a whole. Please read on to gain a piece of unparalleled insight into NCsoft West’s current operations.

Greetings and salutations,It’s been just over three months since I’ve settled into the Seattle office, and I must say it’s been an incredibly busy 100 days. The restructuring has resulted in the staffing of the NCsoft West Game Production Studio, which, as previously mentioned is tasked with supporting the Lineage and Aion franchises, as well as Exteel. At this point I’d like to pause and address the wider audience of all of the products supported by our NCsoft West Game Production Studio—Lineage, Exteel, Lineage II, and Aion.

Our major release with Lineage II on the North American 5 year anniversary was a big accomplishment on April 28. This was Producer Sam Han’s first launch at the helm of this project. His many years as Associate Producer and Customer Service experience with the project served him well. Sam and team are currently in planning stages for the upcoming months. Recent additions to the team include Assistant Producer Marissa McWaters and Community Manager Lauren Duncan.

With Lineage and Exteel, we welcome a new face via our European and Korean office. Hyunah Chun will be taking the lead of both projects as Producer. Hyunah will be in transition mode while she relocates to the Seattle office from the European office. We’ll continue working with the existing Lineage team to deploy weekly maintenance, events and also work to deliver our next big update. We are also working to update Exteel with the latest content from Korea. While we are making every effort to deliver timely updates, our resources are being stretched supporting existing and upcoming projects.

Of course, all eyes are currently on our next big release: Aion. We have some staff announcements of the team that will lead this project through launch. Brian Knox has been functioning as the project’s Producer for the past few months and is doing a fantastic job. He’s wrangling all the production elements and working with the various teams to ensure a top quality product and service. Supporting him in this role is Chris Hager, recently transiting from the Lineage II team. Chris is ensuring Quality Assurance support, age ratings submissions, beta tests, coordination with IT teams for server and software deployments, and host of other support issues. Adding to this leadership is Lani Blazier, whom I am happy to report has transitioned from Community Manager to Associate Producer. Lani will continue to support the community effort, but from the production standpoint and will provide guidance to our other Community Managers, Martin Rabl and Sebastian Streiffert. We’re interviewing for the French Community Manager position—I’m personally well aware of the enthusiastic French gamer community, having witnessed the Festival du Jeu in Paris of last year, so I do consider this a priority addition to the team.

I know that many fans are extremely anxious, impatient even, awaiting the release of Aion. I can assure you the team is fully engaged in the release of this product. We’ve got an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content. Our Localization Manager has vendors in place, keeping pace with the French and German translation. We’re actively recruiting an additional native German speaking localization Project Manager and have added QA Testers (native French and German speaking) to the Seattle office. We’ve got Voice Over recordings underway (of course for all three languages) and our PR and Marketing teams are releasing the hounds—you’ve likely seen the articles on class descriptions hit the internet. We also have tutorial videos in production, this should provide a great Aion first experience—both to novice and experience MMO players. We’ve shared details of our Collector’s Edition recently, our first public access beta event was very well received, and we’ll continue these events through our launch. We’ll have a flood of information in the upcoming days and invite you all to share the experience as Aion takes flight in North America and Europe this fall.

Faith and arms,

Lance Stites
Executive Producer, Game Production Studio
NCsoft West

The next Aion closed beta event is coming your way on July 2-6, 2009. Enjoy a long weekend of fun in Atreia as testing concentrates on first 20 levels of the Elyos and Asmodians (yep, that’s right, Elyos AND Asmodians). Choose your side and tell us all about your escapades in Elysea and Asmodae in this exciting event.

We thank all of our players in our first two closed beta events. Your feedback has been invaluable!

For this event, participants must have a full-access beta key or have received an invitation for the third closed beta event specifically. (Single event keys for the first two beta events are no longer valid.)

There’s more than one way to join in the fun:

• FilePlanet is giving away keys to the third closed beta event on Monday, June 29. These keys are limited to North America only; please visit FilePlanet for more details.

• Players who have pre-ordered Aion have access to all beta events. You can pre-order online at NCsoft.com or through participating retailers, including GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, and EB Games Canada.

• Keep an eye on the Aion team Twitters (@aion_ayase, @aion_amboss, @aion_liv, and @aion_xaen) and Aion Facebook page for your chance to score an invite.

Updated notes for the latest game changes and additions are coming soon.

The third closed beta event starts on July 2 (12:00 PM PT, 9:00 PM CEST, 8:00 PM BST) and we look forward to seeing you there!

The second Aion closed beta event kicks off this weekend Friday, June 19th (12:00 PM PT, 9:00 PM CEST, 8:00 PM BST) and ends Monday, June 22nd (12:00 PM PT, 9:00 PM CEST, 8:00 PM BST).

For this event, enthusiastic testers will focus on the beginning player experience for the Asmodians as well as testing server stability and live launch simulation. Take the time to read the story of your quests, pay close attention to the words of the NPCs sharing their knowledge with you, and explore the first ten levels in the shadowy world of Asmodae during this weekend’s exciting beta event.

If you’re a part of this weekend’s closed beta event, drop by the official beta forums beginning on June 18 to share your reports and experiences.

Thanks to the diligence and reporting from the first closed beta event, this weekend’s event also features several updates and changes in the game content:

- Updated with culturalized content for Asmodian levels 1-10
- Updated UI at login screen
- Localization fixes for various in game maps
- Fixed various NPC messages
- Initial zone channels increased from 4 to 10
- Server queue added

Coming Soon!

- Localized voice overs for cut scenes
- Localized tutorial videos
- In game pre-rendered movies
- More culturalized content for Asmodae
- Culturalized content for Elyos
- Community Events

Participants in the closed beta events will also be excited to hear that the NDA has been lifted. Chat, blog, post, and tweet about your experiences in Aion!

Wondering about even more upcoming beta events? Check out the current closed beta schedule below and plan now for your fun-filled summer in Atreia.

Upcoming Closed Beta Events

Closed Beta Event #3 - July 2-July 6
Focus: Asmodian levels 1-20

Closed Beta Event #4 - July 17-July 20
Focus: Elyos and Asmodian levels 1-25

Closed Beta Event #5 - July 31-August 3
Focus: TBD

Closed Beta Event #6 - August 14-August 17
Focus: TBD

As always, stay tuned to the official web site and the Aion team Twitters (@aion_ayase, @aion_amboss, @aion_liv, and @aion_xaen) for more news and your chance to be a part of the closed beta.

It’s almost time to spread your wings and take to the skies! Get an early start to your adventures in Atreia by pre-ordering Aion, now available at participating retailers, including GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy and EB Canada.

Pre-order Aion to receive:

- Guaranteed entry to all scheduled beta events
- Early access to the servers at launch
- Special game benefits including character and server pre-selection privileges
- Exclusive in-game digital items

Your character will enter the world of Aion in style with an exclusive Black Cloud Hat and Lodas’ Amulet, as well as one of five different Ancient Rings of Power.

In addition to these extraordinary in-game items and early access, North America pre-order participants also have a chance to win an Alienware Area-51® m15x gaming notebook and other fantastic prizes! In order to qualify to win, players must pre-order and participate in Aion beta events. Visit the official pre-order page for more information and contest terms and conditions.

The first closed beta event for Aion took flight from June 5-7, 2009. Thousands of players logged in and pounded on the server, NPCs, and quests to give the game its first big test of server stability and infrastructure - and Aion ran smoothly all weekend long.

Legions of eager testers created characters to venture into the lands of the Elyos for the first time. A number of players were in high spirits and provided fantastic feedback on their initial encounter with the world of Atreia.

“The game itself…I am in love with it.”

“It’s the best first day of a closed beta I’ve seen.”

“Looks really impressive. Looks like we could spend a weekend on character creation alone.”

Ten Ton Hammer also shared their favorite impressions of Aion, providing an in-depth look at the first closed beta event.

“Aion could quite possible be the first Korean MMO to make a major impact on the North American market.”

Thank you to all participants for sharing your view! The Aion quality assurance and customer service teams are busy catching up on all of the comments, reports, and constructive feedback from this first event to provide an even better experience for upcoming beta events and beyond.

Stay tuned to the official Aion web site and Twitter for announcements on the next closed beta event (June 19, 2009), including the focus of testing and your chance to be a part of it!

I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend playing Aion, and the developers are so confident they’ve got a winner that they’ve allowed beta testers to share their thoughts and impressions… and screenshots! An MMO can’t be judged in one weekend, but here are a few of my first thoughts on this baby:

The Good

Beautiful graphics.The screenshots don’t do this world justice at all. It’s true epic fantasy. And the graphics aren’t just lovely, they’re functional. With dozens, even hundreds of finely rendered characters cramming the newb area, with shining weapons and elaborate animations whacking bipedal rats, I experienced zero lag. No stuttering, no rubber banding, no casting delays, not a single problem.

My machine is Dell with a dual core (1.86 Ghz) running XP with two GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS. It’s two years old, and loaded up with every MMO in existence, half a dozen RPGs, and a crapload of my secret vice, puzzle adventures. Oh, and while I was playing Aion, I had my email and IM running, as well as an image editing program open to crop screenshots on the fly.

Animations.Speaking of beautiful, someone had fun with these, and the fun is contagious. My warrior was a little too “Asian schoolgirl” for my blood, but these look like they were done with motion capture technology. I’m going to say hands down, best jump animation (or really the best landing from a jump animation) in an MMO, ever. I also wonder where the heck my character keeps her pom poms when the /cheer isn’t in effect.

A great, intuitive interface.I was asked to post no pictures of the interface, but I don’t know why. It’s in better shape than the interface of a number of launched MMOs. In the quest journal, every noun is highlighted, and clicking gives you more information, waypoint marking options, and more. I did no research, checked no beta boards, nothing, and I figured out everything I needed to know about upgrading my armor, collecting crafting ingredients, looting, and special attacks in less than five minutes. I’m usually not that competent.

Lots of “cool” factor.At level one, I have nifty looking gear, awesome animations, special effects, and personality. My only concern here is how on earth can I get more cool looking as I grow in power?

The Bad

No bug reporting.Wha? Excuse me? Big beta weekend, heap big deal, but finishing the bug report tool wasn’t a priority? Sorry, but I don’t report bugs via a forum, and in 2009 I definitely don’t read multiple pages of a thread with no visible dev involvement to see if it’s been reported. This screams “we don’t care about what you say,” to me.

Backstory? What backstory?They must be assuming that all of us have read every released word online, or the wiki entry, because there was zero effort at explaining anything story-wise to my character at level one. Or two. I’d been playing for hours before the game informed me that I’d lost my memory at some point in the past.

Same old MMO starter levels.Despite being awesome looking, despite lots of nifty innovations in gear and strategy, and despite a number of indicators that (to the experienced eye) suggest that a really solid PVP team built this thing, the first five levels are exactly like every game you ever played. The early quests are by and large mediocre, with the added benefit of all of the NPCs insulting you.

The insulting a level one character is very Asian, in my experience - those on the bottom level of society, the newbs if you will, are not entitled to respect up front. You have to prove yourself. And indeed, the NPCs grow more courteous as you level, which tells me it’s an intentional element of the storytelling. I still wonder how willing a Western audience will be to tolerate this. The very first thing I got upon logging in was accused of sleeping on the job, and ten minutes later I was told I had no honor. Quite a cold shower after years of being the hero come to save us all.

The Unknown

I have yet to try flying or PVP - possibly the major attractions for this particular title.

The Full Metal Awesome

Okay, so, there’s this quest, and when you complete it, you get a glimpse of the world you’ve forgotten, and I cannot describe it to you. I can’t describe it because it will ruin the wow factor for you when you get to it, and I couldn’t possibly do it justice. It’s just a cut scene, but it is the most awesome thing in the universe. My jaw dropped. First of all, it’s visually stunning. Second, I have never before seen a cut scene that made me want to play this game for the next year just to do the things the scene implied I could eventually do.

In fact, the completion of this quest marked a real turning point. I started getting quests that were much more interesting and engaging, and I found it very difficult to stop playing.

The Short Version

Despite a tedious beginning, story wise, this title has a lot of potential. The tremendous stability, the outstanding visuals, the wonderful little interface innovations, and the now-intriguing plotline have me psyched for more.

《永恒之塔》在欧服的BETA测试即将开始，NCSoft特别邀请了在《魔兽世界》创下了无数功绩的妖孽公会Ensidia进行推广。只要你在相关新闻后面回帖“I want to play the Aion EU beta”（我想参加《永恒之塔》的欧服BETA测试），就有机会获得账号一枚，限量50。

　在欧美游戏市场，那些号称“WOW杀手”的MMO全部死得很惨，所以NCSoft的借花献佛实为明智之举。拒绝高调的口号，让另一个领域的王者为我们的产品宣传，很有绵里藏针的效果。

　　至于Ensidia为什么愿意帮忙，其实主页下面的介绍写得很清楚：Ensidia.com is an online community for MMO Gamers from around the world.（Ensidia.com是属于全世界MMO玩家的在线社区）——人家胃口大着呢……

　　截稿之时回帖已达658之多，99%都是“I want to play the Aion EU beta”，蔚为壮观……

　　当然，不愿意“保持队形”的也有，比如这句：I don’t want to play the Aion EU beta…

When NCsoft showed me a demo of their soon-to-launch, massively multiplayer fantasy game, Aion, at the E3 show, I saw a lot of reworked themes common to this fairly mature genre: A pair of at-odds races, each vying to wipe the other from their common home planet; user interface elements familiar to anyone who’s played any of NCsoft’s titles; and a persistent world that’s as dangerous as it is beautiful.

But what I didn’t expect was a discussion about the game’s launch in Asia, which happened some months ago, and how rapidly the game has caught on and expanded in China.

The game’s International Development Manager (international, that is, for South Korea-based NCsoft), Yong Taek Bae, explained that the game’s initial launch broke all kinds of records. On Aion’s Korean launch day, beginning at 6am local time, when the company switched on servers and began allowing paying customers to join the game, 11,000 players signed on each hour. By noon, the company had to turn on four additional servers — in addition to the 21 running at launch–to accommodate the crowd. Each server is capable of supporting 7000 simultaneous players.

But that was nothing compared to China, where the local company operating the service had to double the volume of servers after launch; They’re currently running around 70 servers continuously to handle the constant, heavy demand.

So the big question in my mind is, could Aion pose a significant challenge to the 800 lb. gorilla that is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft? If the draw in Asia is any indication, it’s certainly possible. One big question remains: Can the company  appropriately and accurately “re-culturize” the game — not just translate the text from Korean to English, but modify the storyline to accommodate English euphemisms, and American cultural references and themes. NCsoft says it’s hired a team of seasoned fantasy and sci-fi writers to do just that. It remains to be seen whether six months of tweaking and balancing gameplay based on player feedback, and good writing, will be able to help the game overcome the out-of-the-gate second class status afforded to any new, non-Blizzard MMO.

MMORPG.com is giving away 5,000 Aion closed beta keys. The first Aion beta event is this weekend. It begins Friday, June 5, 2009 at noon PT and ends at midnight PT on Sunday, June 7, 2009.

Click on the link that corresponds with your territory and get your key. Don’t miss out!

Aion Beta Event Key Giveaway! (NORTH AMERICA)

Aion Beta Event Key Giveaway! (EUROPE)