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Aion Tower Exclusive PAX Interview with Brian Knox Exclusive PAX Interview with Brian Knox Sep 15, 2009 at 8:05 AM - - 1 Comment PAX brought the world gaming news and widespread illness. But now that our network associates have recovered, we've transcribed the exclusive interview they conducted at PAX last week. They sat down with producer Brian Knox and delved into all the Abyss info you could ever want. Give it a read and let us know what you think. Topics: Interview, Site news Related Games: Aion (PC) Details on Preselection Details on Preselection Sep 14, 2009 at 3:48 PM - - 0 Comments We're 8 days from the official launch of Aion and 4 days away from the opening of Preselection. NCsoft has posted more information about the Preselection Process. Basically, at noon PST on Friday, players will be able to get onto Aion to create and name a character and choose a server in preparation for the Head Start program. What do you need to do to be eligible for this program? Just preorder, if you're not one of the 300,000 who already has. Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC)

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Aion More Details on Preselection Aion's release is right around the corner, and our anticipation is running high! The beards and hairstyles of the character creator are groomed and lined up, jostling against each other in eagerness to be picked for your characters in this coming weekend's Preselection and Head Start Programs. Preselection is a benefit available to anyone who preordered Aion. If you are not sure whether or not you are eligible, simply log in to your NCsoft Master Account to verify that your game account is listed and your account type is not designated as "Beta". Starting 20:00 p.m. BST (more) on September 18, 2009, eligible players will be able to start their game clients and log in to create a total of two characters ahead of everyone else. You can name and create these two characters through the standard character creator and be ready to play with these characters right when the game Head Start Program begins (but not beforehand). Preselection will end 17:00 p.m. BST on September 20, 2009 (more). Don't miss this great opportunity to claim your character's name before anyone else does. It isn't too late to preorder, even if you have been holding out. GamerZines Features Aion GamerZines has a proud history of putting together content-packed and interesting Aion-articles. Gamerzines has taken this a step further by dedicating one of its magazines to exploring Aion. This downloadable PCGZine issue includes hands-on insights and insider tips from one of our own: Associate Producer Lani "Liv" Blazier.

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Aion Tower Exclusive PAX Interview with Brian Knox Exclusive PAX Interview with Brian Knox Sep 14, 2009 at 9:56 PM - - 0 Comments Marissa "TrinityDivine" Monera and James "Ixon" Bishop from the greater IGN Vault and Portal Network were in attendance at PAX 2009. Since none of the direct Aion Tower staff could make it, they hit up NCsoft on our behalf to talk Aion. They got a chance to sit down with Aion producer Brian Knox and dig into information surrounding the Abyss and PvP in Aion. This interview is transcribed from an audio recording, so please pardon any mistakes in translation, as there was a lot of background noise at PAX. Aion Tower: How does a player begin their journey into the Abyss? Brian Knox: So the players can enter the Abyss at Level 25. And there will be a series of quests that they must go through. So it'll kind of introduce them to the Abyss and they'll learn about the different features and kind of just see what makes the Abyss tick. Once they do that, they'll have access to the Abyss, but they're still kind of thrown into the fire a little bit. It's still a dangerous place, so we have some kinds of things to kind of show off and introduce the players [to everything]. We have an instance at level 25 which is PvE only, and shows you how to take down a fortress and, you know, little trial things to keep you safe. You have a home base and you keep going a little further away from it every time. So it gradually introduces you to the Abyss. AT: Is there anything a player needs to do to prepare for the Abyss? BK: They gotta change their mindset. Because once you get in the Abyss it's this fear of attacks all around you. It can come from NPCs, it can come from other players, and it can come from above or below because of flight. So you kind of have to change the way you think and it really makes your brain use a different part you haven't used before. I think that mental preparation is the most important thing. AT: We understand the Abyss has different sections, can you describe them and are they level restricted? BK: It's not level restricted, so because there's nine different fortresses, if you own a specific area, then you can teleport there a little bit easier. You can always make your way there physically by flying or running, etcetera, so there's no level restriction. The lower level is, you know, the lower level. The middle level is actually kind of like the core, it's the hardest level. And then the upper level is kind of like mid. So you'll work your way all the way up and then back in. AT: What changes has Patch 1.5 brought to the Abyss? BK: So one of the things about the Abyss that we figured out was that there were a lot more players than Balauar, so we've kind of beefed up the Baluar, which is the NPC controlled faction, a little bit. [We have made] them a little bit more challenging because they were just getting their asses handed to them most of the time. So they're beefed up a little bit more, we've had instances added to the fortresses so once you own a fortress you have access to a dungeon on your side, so it's more incentive to own these fortresses. There's just more rewards, more items for this point, more balance for PvP and a lot more PvE. Just a lot more refinement of the Abyss. And then the other big thing we added was called the Dredgion. It's the ship that comes into the zone and drops off enemies and now we've added a way to infiltrate it. And when you infiltrate it, you go inside of an instance, and it's six of your side, six of the other side, plus the Baluar. And it's all a point system so you get points for killing the Baluar, points for killing other players, all with the end goal of winning the instance. AT: There has been talk in the community about the despawning of pets in the Abyss for spiritmasters, and players are concerned with losing too many buffs and positive effects when they travel to different areas of the Abyss. Is this problem being addressed? BK: Spiritmasters are definitely being addressed. Our biggest problem on spiritmasters is "why don't the pets fly?" And this kind of goes into that whole thing as far as following. We're looking into ways that technically A) we can have them fly, and B) keep their buffs. They're kind of a low cost in terms of MP to use, but keeping up buffs and all that is kind of a pain so we're definitely evaluating it. Luckily we've had these updates and everything's gotten a lot better with balance, but as an MMO, it's going to be an ongoing thing to address anyway. And spiritmasters are a very vocal community. AT: Are there any plans of adding PvP rewards other than gear? BK: We have titles, which as you go up in rank you'll earn titles which earn skills. And some of the skills are really cool. One turns you into a raid boss at the very end, which the top ranked player gets that skill. There are also consumables which you can get and then like I said the instance access now in 1.5 when you capture a fortress. It's a tangent, but it's definitely a PvP reward to hold and own a fortress. AT: Are there any plans to make the PvPvE mechanic more innovative and prominent than the current version? BK: I think I touched on that a little bit in terms of making the Baluar a little bit stronger, adding more incentive to fortresses and even the Dredgion instance where it's kind of like everybody all at once is going at it for a point system. AT: Are there any plans to incorporate any siege vehicles as Abyss battles evolve in the future? BK: Anything's possible, but there are no plans yet. We have siege weapons, but not vehicles. AT: Can players who are not into PvP avoid the Abyss entirely? BK: Yes. We've added a bunch of PvE instances as well as we have two complete zones that are PvE only in which a player can gather, collect, hunt, quest and do all that kind of thing. But it's still a risk reward thing. So the more you risk, the higher the reward. AT: So in your opinion, what's the best, current reward given in the Abyss? BK: I think it's that skill [I mentioned]. If you're the top ranked player, and you get to turn into a raid boss for twenty minutes and kind of kill forty people at a time, that's kind of cool. AT: Is there anything else you want to talk about as far as the game in general? BK: Because it's kind of a new feature and because it's something that we're still defining, I think that the Dredgion instance is the point where we really think we've hit our stride with the PvPvE. And we think we're going to keep developing on that and you'll see more and more content with the PvPvE now that we've balanced it out and kind of seen where we want to go with it. I think you'll see a lot more to come with it. AT: Thank you so much for your time, Brian. BK: Thank you so much. Topics: Interview, Preview Related Games: Aion (PC) GamerZines Features Aion GamerZines Features Aion Sep 14, 2009 at 5:13 PM - - 0 Comments GamerZines has a proud history of putting together content-packed and interesting Aion-articles. Gamerzines has taken this a step further by dedicating one of its magazines to exploring Aion. This downloadable PCGZine issue includes hands-on insights and insider tips from one of our own: Associate Producer Lani "Liv" Blazier. Topics: Editorial Related Games: Aion (PC) Details on Preselection Details on Preselection Sep 14, 2009 at 3:48 PM - - 0 Comments We're 8 days from the official launch of Aion and 4 days away from the opening of . NCsoft has posted more information about the Preselection Process. Basically, at noon PST on Friday, players will be able to get onto Aion to create and name a character and choose a server in preparation for the Head Start program. What do you need to do to be eligible for this program? Just preorder, if you're not one of the 300,000 who already has. Topics: Official news Related Games: Aion (PC)

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