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Aion Tower Official List of North American Launch Servers Official List of North American Launch Servers Sep 10, 2009 at 10:24 AM - - 1 Comment For your planning pleasure, NCsoft and the Aion team have announced the twelve servers available at launch in North America: West Coast Siel Israphel Nezekan Triniel Vaizel Zikel East Coast Ariel Azphel Kaisinel Lumiel Marchutan Yustiel Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Another Aion Review Another Aion Review Sep 08, 2009 at 5:42 PM - - 0 Comments Czzarre over on the VN Boards posted his review of Aion for everyone to read while the servers are having issues: This article is about what to expect from Aion...a bit more than what you get from FAQs or boards, it is an in depth look at my experience playing this game. I do not declare myself some MMO guru or expert…most players have played numerous MMOs and are quite able to distinguish what’s good from bad. My viewpoint will be straightforward and as unbiased as possible …addressing why the highs aren’t so high, nor the lows so disastrous. Check out the entire article over on the Burial Grounds. Topics: Editorial Related Games: Aion (PC) More Open Beta Keys Available! More Open Beta Keys Available! Sep 08, 2009 at 5:12 PM - - 0 Comments More than a few people were miffed when they found out that "open beta" didn't exactly mean open to everyone. NCSoft has rectified the issue by making a ton more keys available on Fileplanet, and you do NOT have to be a subscriber. European players can pickup additional keys from a few sites detailed on NCSoft's website starting tomorrow. If you are interested in helping test the game, and maybe even trying it before it releases, now is your chance! Topics: Official news, Preview Related Games: Aion (PC) Aion Open Beta Updates Aion Open Beta Updates Sep 08, 2009 at 5:07 PM - - 0 Comments This official update was posted just a few minutes ago on the Aion site: The Aion Team extends a huge thank you for the overwhelming response we have received throughout the beginning of our ongoing open beta testing. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but have managed to resolve many of them with your persistent help, reports, and sincere desire for the game to run as it should. The main topic of discussion over the past few days has been lag, in particular on the North American servers. We believe we have resolved the issue, but we will aggressively work to continue to improve and prevent similar issues. Over the next couple of days, we will do more in-depth troubleshooting to flush out the issue. It is very important to us that the game plays as intended for everyone, and we won't rest before we reach that goal. The second issue we are addressing is the authentication server, which from a player point of view, is the login process. We are investigating the issues with its behavior during today and this evening to search for errors in our setups and to try a few different ideas we have that will allow us to understand the player reports and improve its behavior. We will let you know ahead of time if this will impact service in anyway. The next issue is GameGuard. We are aware that a couple of new errors have popped up since our closed beta tests. We are working on a patch that will address a couple of them. Feedback is essential as we troubleshoot these errors, as the data you give us helps us narrow problem factors down and reach solutions quicker. To give you additional information and suggested fixes that might help your GameGuard-related situation before you need to call upon a customer services representative, we have added a GameGuard information page on www.aiononline.com. The beta forums have been a quieter than normal, in part due to irregularities with our forum authentication script. Certain upgrades that needed to be made for open beta apparently weren't completed in time, preventing both new and old accounts from logging in. The fix is now implemented. If you were able to log in prior to this update, but notice that you are suddenly unable to, make sure to update your Aion account password following these instructions. Your password update may take as long as 30 minutes before it is effective. The final noteworthy topic relates to beta keys. Many of you have wondered why we have been so restrictive in distributing them. We know many of you have guildmates or friends who would love to give the game a try before making a further commitment. To ensure that we had time to set our servers up properly and get rid of initial connectivity issues, we throttled the key giveaways and so that we could ramp the distribution up slowly but securely. We are now at a stage where we are confident enough to open this final beta phase up to a much broader audience by giving away North American open beta keys to everyone! FilePlanet is hosting this giveaway, and you will not need to be a paying subscriber in order to get your hands on one of the keys. FilePlanet also have a number of European keys to give away, so get them while they last! Many more European websites in different languages will also be offering European keys. Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued help in the open beta test. With your help, we will flush out any remaining issues before the upcoming release of Aion! Read the entire post again over on the NC Soft website. Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Aion Impressions of a VN Board Admin Aion Impressions of a VN Board Admin Sep 07, 2009 at 8:38 PM - - 1 Comment As typical of a new MMO, Mithan, VN Board Administrator, is there playing and beta testing for the good of mankind and the citizens of our forums. Perhaps a bit earlier than expected, he has already posted his open beta impressions of Aion, Tower of Eternity. I must also make the confession that I am a huge fan of WoW, AC1 and UO. Games like WARhammer, SWG, EQ1, EQ2, LoTRO and a half dozen others, have always been either mediocre, didn't get me, or a down right pile of turd. As for WoW, I love the game, but I will be first in line to point out its flaws, but that doesn't stop me from acknowledging the fact I have more hours logged in it and had more fun than other MMO to date. Who cares though. So, here I am 2 days after beta started and level 10 and I find myself writing an "impressions" thread. Is this indictive of the entire game? No, I firmly believe one must play any MMO at LEAST 100+ hours before you are in a situation to review it, however that doesn't bar me from giving "first impressions". Head on over to the VN Boards to see the complete post. Topics: Preview, Editorial Related Games: Aion (PC) Cannot Connect to Authentication Server Fix Cannot Connect to Authentication Server Fix Sep 07, 2009 at 5:25 PM - - 4 Comments If you are getting the error "Cannot connect to Authentication server" when starting up the game and logging in, the follow tip from Ayase might help: Please delete the addcache.xml file that is in the root of the game folder. Next, try the following to force the game to connect to a specific auth server: Open the NCsoft Launcher Right-click Aion under “INSTALLED” Choose Properties In the box labeled, “Extra Command Line Parameters (Advanced)” add the following: -ip:206.127.153.247 -port:2106 -cc:1 This IP is the current NA Auth. This IP will change in the future, so please remember these changes. The current EU Auth is 206.127.147.26 - if you have an EU account. Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Open Beta Off to a Rough Start Open Beta Off to a Rough Start Sep 07, 2009 at 11:19 AM - - 0 Comments The open beta for the North American localization of Aion, The Tower of Eternity, began a little over 24 hours ago. Two main problems, other than Gameguard, seem to be popping up on forums: (1) game-crippling lag and disconnects and (2) unable to create an account on the official forums to complain about game-crippling lag and disconnects. Aion_Ayase tweeted the following updates on these two issues less than an hour ago: Good morning everyone (it's morning here!) - I'm back and have a good feeling about the progress of our network hunting. Let's see here. I've gotten word that we have an authorization glitch in the forum software, which is why some of you can't create accounts. Will be fixed! Be sure to return for updates as they happen! Update 11:50 AM PST: The following message has been seen on all realms: Future announcements will be made to fix lag reports. Update 12:20 PM PST:All North American (NA) worlds will be brought down for maintenance at approximately 12.30 p.m. PDT (2.30 p.m. CDT, 8.30 p.m. BST). This is one of the stages in our insistent work of sorting out the latency problems many have been experiencing. We will be using this maintenance to apply a number of tweaks and updates to our game servers. We do not have an estimated length for the maintenance, but will do our best to get the game back up and running as quickly as possible. Update 12:30 PM PST: The broadcasted message in-game stated that maintenance would last approximately 1 hour. Update 1:00 PM PST: The official forums are struggling to keep up with the traffic while the servers are down. Ayase posted the following update, "If you wonder why our forums just took a deep dive and have yet to report back, that's because of game maintenance. They'll get better soon." Update 1:30 PM PST: Maintenance is progressing well. Stay tuned for information on servers going up. Update 1:45 PM PST: Our North American #Aion servers are now back online. Maintenance is over. Update 2:10 PM PST: Our system operators are looking more into the latency issues, as our maintenance did not have the desired effect. Update 3:35 PM PST: The fixes imposed did at first not seem to have any effect at all, but as the minutes passed reports changed and turned into pre-dominantly positive reports indicating that the situation had improved vastly. At the same time, a lesser amount of reports indicated the opposite. Some were able to improve their client latency by simply restarting the client. Try this if you haven't already! Overall we are happy with the improvements and feel that the maintenance led to better playability for many of you. That said, it did not help everyone and we still have a lot to improve. Our live operations team is hard at work investigating the situation and server traffic, but I wanted to bring you this tiny update to grant you a little bit of an overview of how the maintenance affected the broader audience. Update 10:00 PM PST: We've made some network changes again - if you lagged before, have a look to see if it's better now! Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) NCSoft Responds to Open Beta Issues NCSoft Responds to Open Beta Issues Sep 07, 2009 at 11:00 AM - - 0 Comments Ayase, NCSoft Community Manager for Aion, posted the following message this morning a few minutes ago: Good morning everyone, I hope many of you have had the chance to get into the game to experience and enjoy all the new things we have added since the end of closed beta. Our ambition is to shape Aion into a thoroughly polished product and with top notch service by launch, and this phase of open beta is an excellent time for us to analyze the situation, take in feedback and ultimately make that happen. The night did not pass quite as smoothly as we had wished for, and we have been experiencing latency abnormalities - primarily on our North American servers. As I've been communicating in our various discussion threads here on the beta forums, your data and continued reports have been invaluable for us in our work to pinpoint the causes. Our Production team, Executive Producer, Live Operations team, Customer Services and of course Community team are all working together to make sure that we get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. My part in this has so far been to forward tendencies and to verify patterns. We are having a constant dialogue between the teams working on Aion, and even if theories sometimes prove to be wrong, we are now closer to a solution than we have ever been before. We do realize how game-breaking it is when performance isn't on the level it should be. It has also been brought to my attention that some of you are experiencing GameGuard issues or other annoying bugs that are new to surface of earth. Rest assured that we are taking these in and investigating what we can do to have them sorted. The best idea, since these problems might be diverse and vary greatly in their nature, is to work together with our Tech Support in order to find out what is causing your particular issue. Our team is using Twitter (@aion_ayase, @aion_xaen, @aion_amboss, @aion_liv) and I urge you all to have a look, even if you decide to use it only as an RSS feed. It's an invaluable channel for communication and allows us to post tiny snippets of information that might not suit pompous announcements. What I want you to take away from this post is that our objective is crystal clear: We want you to enjoy the game as it should be enjoyed, and we are working very hard to get to a point where this is possible for each one of you. Thank you for your continued reports and for your patience, guys. If you have beta access, you can follow the original thread over on the beta forums. For everyone else, you can always get your latest Aion news from IGN's Aion Tower! Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Three New Screenshots from Open Beta of Sanctum Three New Screenshots from Open Beta of Sanctum Sep 06, 2009 at 7:22 PM - - 0 Comments Itching to play open beta but haven't gotten a chance to login for whatever reason? Check out these three shots of the Elyos capitol city of Sanctum, fresh from open beta. You can always view the latest photos over in the Aion Tower screenshot gallery! Topics: Media Related Games: Aion (PC) Open Beta is Almost Here Open Beta is Almost Here Sep 05, 2009 at 11:52 PM - - 0 Comments Just a heads up, Open Beta starts in roughly 9 hours at 9am Pacific Time. Make sure you have your client downloaded and have been dreaming of wings. Full release is just around the corner. Topics: General Related Games: Aion (PC) Letter From Aion's Producer Brian Knox Letter From Aion's Producer Brian Knox Sep 04, 2009 at 8:08 AM - - 0 Comments NCSoft's Brian Knox recently wrote an awesome letter and showed us the epicness that is patch 1.5! A big thanks to Brain, the NCSoft translation team and all of NCSoft (both East and West) for their dedication and community support! We here at Aion Tower <3 you all! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello! Welcome to the Open Beta Test for Aion in both Europe and North America. Below you will find a list of the major changes and additions to Aion since you last participated in our Closed Beta Test. We have done our best to provide a comprehensive list of changes. The Open Beta brings the game content up to the 1.5 patch that is available in Korea; the same updates that were made to the Korean live servers are being implemented here, as well. While there may be some differences when comparing the official NA/EU notes to fan site translations of Korea's official notes, the game content is the same. Not only does Open Beta bring a number of game improvements and additions, you'll also notice that we had a major terminology overhaul to complete our effort of Westernizing the game. Many skills and items have changed since the Closed Beta Test and should be a welcome surprise as you explore the world. While we feel the Open Beta version will provide a complete experience, we wanted to note that this is not our final update before launch. Our launch version is in internal testing, and it will continue to flesh out the 1.5 update with the help of your feedback and experiences in Open Beta. Please remember this is an Open Beta Test, and while our goal is to provide you with a flawless Aion experience, there are behind-the-scenes infrastructure tests happening to prepare for launch. One very important area that will affect everyone is that we will be balancing races as folks rush to log into the servers. As a result, you may get a "This race cannot be created" message because that server is starting to become unbalanced. It's important to us that we try and keep a balance of the races during the Open Beta of Aion. If you come across this message, please feel free to try another server or wait until the server balance has tipped back. Another hot topic has been our Web site and whether we will be bringing over some of the services that Korea has provided to their community. The short answer is yes! Just like the PowerWiki, we will be bringing some of these services to our own site. We hope to begin rolling them out in the coming weeks. Overall, we are very excited for Open Beta - it is a culmination of a lot of effort and the feedback of our community. For example, one of the most requested features during Closed Beta testing was a suggestion to use the left mouse button to change the camera. We also added more content both in the persistent game world and in instanced dungeons. You'll see this change and many others were added in this game update, including: 1. New Areas: Theobomos (Elysea) and Brusthonin (Asmodae) 2. New Instances! 3. Over 40 new default faces have been added to character creation. 4. Increased PvPvE rewards 5. UI changes (click-to-move has been disabled by default) 6. New items! 7. New skills + increased balance 8. Tons of new quests. 9. Advanced Stigma Stone System 10. Chat Channels -Class -Region -Looking For Group -Languages Find a full list of patch notes here. With this update there is a lot of great content and a very fun world to explore, and we hope that during Open Beta you will experience the magic that is Aion. Open Beta starts 9 a.m. PDT (5 p.m. BST, 6 p.m. CEST) on Sunday, September 6th. Brian Knox Producer, Aion Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Aion Gets a Custom Keyboard and Mousepad Aion Gets a Custom Keyboard and Mousepad Sep 03, 2009 at 12:54 PM - - 0 Comments SteelSeries, known for their custom computer accessories, has created a new pairing of Aion themed computer bits. This keyboard and mousepad team are sure the show off your love for NCsoft's upcoming game and keep things organized in the control department. You can find info on the keyboard and mousepad on their official site. Topics: General Related Games: Aion (PC) Aion Password Change Needed‏, Again Aion Password Change Needed‏, Again Sep 02, 2009 at 5:27 PM - - 0 Comments Everyone involved in previous closed betas should have received an email requiring you to change your password, again. Aion gamer, In preparation for the launch of Aion, we have improved the system that handles passwords. Due to this change, you need to reset your password to access the Aion open beta. Resetting your password is simple: Log in to your NCsoft Master Account Click Game Accounts. Select your Aion game account. Click Change Password link in the Actions section, and follow directions. If desired, you can use the same password as before. Once you reset your password, you will be able to log in to the open beta on September 6, 2009. See you in Atreia! If you login to the NCSoft Account Management site and click on your registration for Aion, it will display in large green letters the message "You are ready" or proceed to allow you to reset your password. Check now! Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC) Metropolis, Then...Atreia? Metropolis, Then...Atreia? Sep 02, 2009 at 10:44 AM - - 0 Comments According to Kotaku and confirmed on GameStop, yet another bonus is on the way for preordering Aion. If you put money down on the game, you can now get a limited edition comic published by DC Comics / Wildstorm that tells a tale based on the game world. Does this mean we'll see Aion popping up in DC Universe Online? Probably not, but still an interesting addition to the game world. Topics: General Related Games: Aion (PC) FilePlanet Has Open Beta Keys For You FilePlanet Has Open Beta Keys For You Sep 01, 2009 at 3:21 PM - - 0 Comments FilePlanet subscribers rejoice! You can now preload your open beta client and get your open beta key. If you're not a subscriber, there's no better time to join. They seem to have a new beta event every week. Anyway, open beta opens up on September 6 and runs through September 13. Now that September has hit, this game really will be here before we know it. Topics: General Related Games: Aion (PC) Poll results: Do you prefer Aion for a monthly fee or free play with paid microtransactions? Poll results: Do you prefer Aion for a monthly fee or free play with paid microtransactions? Sep 01, 2009 at 1:12 PM - - 0 Comments Last week's poll question was Do you prefer Aion for a monthly fee or free play with paid microtransactions? The interview we did at Gamescom kind of defeated the point of the poll: Christian Heimbach announced there will definitely not be a game model with microtransactions (items sold in-game). Still, almost 1/3rd of the votes preferred a game model of free play with microtransactions. I'm afraid you guys will have to live with a monthly fee instead :) The new poll question is Will you participate in the Aion Open Beta? If you have a suggestion for a poll question for next week, contact us! Topics: Poll results Related Games: Aion (PC) Submit your questions for our PAX '09 interview! Submit your questions for our PAX '09 interview! Sep 01, 2009 at 10:26 AM - - 0 Comments PAX '09 is starting at the end of the week and of course we'll be there! We have an interview set up with the Aion developers and decided that this would be a great chance for you to participate. If you have any questions for the Aion team, you can submit them in this topic at the IGN forums. In addition to gaining your moment of fame when we ask the developers your question, we're also awarding one Aion t-shirt to a randomly selected question from the topic at the forums. So head on over to the forums and submit your questions! Topics: Editorial Related Games: Aion (PC) Sprawl's Scrawl #115: Aion, the Tower of Eternity Sprawl's Scrawl #115: Aion, the Tower of Eternity Aug 30, 2009 at 11:04 AM - - 1 Comment When we last left off with our hero, the level 17 Assassin named Sprawl was on a race towards the Abyss. Be sure to read the second part of this two-part Sprawl's Scrawl feature where we take a look at the final days of Aion closed beta. Take a sneak peak at the Abyss and what you should expect in the ways of PvP come release. If you are new to the IGN Vault exclusive column Sprawl's Scrawl, Sprawl is the longest running Vault columnist spanning multiple games and over a half of a decade of coverage. Issues #114 and #115 takes a look at the closed beta of Aion, the Tower of Eternity. Be sure not to miss this WoW Vault and Aion Tower joint-feature. Topics: Editorial, General, Preview, Site news Related Games: Aion (PC) Sprawl's Scrawl #115: Aion, the Tower of Eternity, Part 2 Sprawl's Scrawl #115: Aion, the Tower of Eternity, Part 2 Aug 29, 2009 at 7:38 PM - - 0 Comments When we last left off with our hero, the level 17 Assassin named Sprawl was on a race towards the Abyss. Be sure to read the first part of this two part closed beta feature over on the Sprawl's Scrawl homepage. I struggled a lot with connection issues, which delayed my ascension to level 25, but by CB5 weekend, I had ironed out the issues and pushed forth. Here is a review of that adventure all the way until the end of the closed beta. Connection Issues: As mentioned previously, NCSoft struggled with numerous connection issues throughout closed beta. Many players weren't experiencing any issues at all, which only made the problem that much harder to track down. The issues became more pronounced around closed beta 4, which prompted many players to believe that some interim patch broke the game. Actually, this was not the case. NCSoft suffered from outbound routing issues, which only affected a small subset of players. When you have a hundred thousand beta testers though, a small subset can still be quite vocal. My particular problem had to do with routing issues out of Los Angeles. I was able to get around it due to a service provided by Gamepath, which basically is proxy service geared towards lowering ping times. They have servers located in Data Centers and Colocation Facilities like Castle Access around the country, which allowed me to route through Texas, where the problem did not exist. While one might argue it isn't fair to blame NCSoft for issues outside of their network, NCSoft has peering arrangements with the various providers and are the only ones that can open a ticket to address these issues. Hopefully by Open Beta, these problems will be ironed out. Until then, I have Gamepath. Nonetheless, paying an additional $6 a month on top of monthly subscription fees to play a game isn't something everyone is willing to do, especially for an extended period of time. Leveling the Grind: A lot of beta testers have complained how at some point in leveling they had to grind to get to the next level. This is pretty true in Aion as of closed beta, however, the developers promise to address this in patch 1.5, which will be available for testing in open beta. Even in version 1.0 of the game, "the grind" really isn't bad. Provided you kill stuff while you are questing, you typically have more than enough experience points to progress. However, if you absolutely hate hunting enemies for experience points, and would prefer a more quest-driven type of grind, well they promise it is coming. I personally prefer things remain how they are: a balance between questing and hunting. PvP: For those that haven't played the game, it is like many of the more recent MMOs where you have various maps that string together to create the entire world. Some games are better than others at making the transition seamless, but Aion seems to keep each map pretty distinct. Don't be confused though, each map is pretty large covering ten or more levels of game play. At level 20, the rifts start opening in your zone between Elyos and Asmodian territories. This only happens on select maps. There are two maps per level range, one is pure PvE and the other has these rifts. Rifts are really cool. You can be out hunting or questing, and then stumble upon a rift. There are even Infiltration quests to seek out rifts and complete objectives in enemy territory. Here is what I know about rifts: When you enter/login to an area that has an open rift, you will get a yellow "global" message on the screen. Rifts open every 2 hours. Rifts spawn at 6-10 different static spawn spots. Rifts open between areas of similar difficulty. If you look up in the sky, there is a huge swirl that shows a rift is in the area. The rifts going to Elyos drops in a different spot than the rifts that goes to Asmodia. Rifts have usage limits (anywhere between 20 and 60 people before it despawns), normally based on how hard the mobs are in the area. When you enter a rift, bring friends, and always bring a few Kisks (portable lifestones or binding points). Hide them well as the enemy can easily destroy them! The Kisks we were using could bind 5 people per Kisk, and resurrect up to approximately 20 times before they were destroyed. Of course the enemy can always lob a few spells at your Kisk to destroy it, so your best bet is to not fight anywhere near it! At level 25, you get a quest to become "attunded" to the Abyss. It walks you through the basics, shows you the entrance portal above Morheim, and once inside, teaches you about fortresses and sieges. The Abyss is an open warfare PvP captureable zone, but has full PvE content to take you from 25-50 while PvP is going on all around you. The captureable fortresses seem to be higher level content (40+), so the best we could do is fly over them. On one occasion, I flew a little too close... By level 25, you get the choice of leveling through PvE content on maps with no rifts; PvE content on maps with rifts for occasional PvP; and PvE content in the Abyss, where PvP is predominant and happening all around. In the Abyss, you also earn Abyss points for both PvE and PvP kills. These can be used to either rank up in PvP, and/or purchase gear and items for either PvE or PvP. You really have a fair share of options. I was able to participate in PvP as much or as little as I wanted between jumping between the various maps and Abyss. End of Closed Beta: If you've ever participated in a beta test before, then you know that the developers love to do events at the end of beta. Typically this is your chance to participate in some epic event that redefines or destroys the world, since tomorrow, the servers will be reset and all the characters will be wiped. In isn't unheard of to get overpowered items, free experience points, and perhaps even see content that hasn't been put into the game yet. For Aion's End of Closed Beta event, the developers opted for the usual live event, where a developer participates in the event with the players. Randomly throughout the last weekend of closed beta, players would get a popup message in the form of a survey that basically told you that something fishy was happening at Moriheim. It didn't take long for hundreds of players to flood the city, bringing with them a host of lag. Level 40+ creatures were swarming the gates and murdering players by the dozens. The level cap for closed beta was level 30, so no one stood a chance, until our hero Aion, a level 50 Gladiator, appeared to save the day. Just as he revealed himself among the masses, a great dragon descended from the sky raining even more death upon the citizens and players. However, with Aion present, we couldn't lose. He tanked, we spanked, and there was absolutely no reward given at the end. Players walked away feeling let down, and the forums were full of unsatisfied people. All in all it seemed a very lackluster end of beta event. Topics: Editorial, General, Preview Related Games: Aion (PC) More Fun with Localization More Fun with Localization Aug 28, 2009 at 3:10 PM - - 0 Comments WarCry has put up an intriguing article about the localization efforts of bringing Aion to the west, with eleven members of the Aion team. It's a rather fascinating look at the differences between simple translation, and actual localization. The team had a huge task, and from early reports of the game in the West, it seems like they may have been quite successful. Give the interview a read, as it's full of interesting insight. Topics: General Related Games: Aion (PC)

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