Apparently, NCsoft decided to give distribution rights in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to a company called “Innova Group”, which is a distributor of localized Russian version. In addition, an IP block will be enforced, meaning the players from these countries will not be able to play on European servers, but rather Russian. Furthermore, Croatia and Turkey will be joining those countries and will be blocked from accessing EU servers as well, which clearly made a “few” players quite upset.

Being from Croatia myself, I fail to see any logic behind this decision. I included a map so you can fail to see it too.

Now I’m not sure about Turkey, but Russian language is definitely not a popular one in my country and I have no intention of learning it just to be able to play Aion, nor would I ever want to play with any russian people and I’m not alone. Due to the IP block, we obviously won’t be able to choose where to play, and forcing players in any of the above countries to play on localized russian servers has got to be the most ridiculous move I’ve ever seen in history of gaming.

The official response to this is yet to be seen.

–

Edit:

Response (GM Ricardo) 08/20/2009 10:23 AM
Hello there,

Thank you again for your interest in Aion.

Croatia will be included in the EU servers.

Unfortunately, we do not have any further information about the game’s release in Lithuania at this point.
As a result, Lithuanian users will not be able to use any acquired serial codes to create an Aion game account (whether it’s American or European).

Should this situation change we’ll make an announcement on our official website.

Thankfully one part is resolved, Croatian users will indeed be able to play on EU servers, however Lithuanian players will not be able to play anywhere or will be limited to Russian servers. Definitely a bad move by NCsoft.

Another edit:

All of the aforementioned countries will be able to play on EU servers, thankfully.

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Licensing Issues in EU

• How To Get AionArmory Tooltips On Your Site
• Movement Bonuses and Penalties
• Closed Beta Event 6 Info
• Aion Overview
• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?

I only played for about ten hours total this time: I’m either getting older and can’t handle 16 hours/day anymore, or the more likely scenario, it’s beta and I’ll rather wait for the game to come out to try it. Only got a Gladiator to level 13 which ain’t much of an accomplishment, but I will be posting my thoughts about the latest beta soon nevertheless.

CryEngine

There’s an article over at some Swedish site talking about the CryEngine. The article is in english, but you can translate the rest of the site here. It’s a short interview ansswering a few interesting questions about Aion’s engine, how NCsoft modified and customized it and why the hell Aion looks so good.

Advanced Combat Video

CBW 5 Screenshots

Courtesy of Longasc again, we got 140 new screenshots in out Beta Weekend Screenshots gallery. There’s plenty of interesting areas and scenery, as well as pics from the Abyss. If you didn’t get first hand experience, check out the gallery.

He also posted several impressions about PvP on twitter:

• Enemy player levels are never shown, they are always level ??
• 5 lvl higher players can still be hit with attacks and spells reliably,the only major problem is they resist CC effects better
• Tanks are cool in PvP,their “pull” spell is like the DK grip. Either your group lets you die or they must engage in close combat
• Clerics are hard to kill 1v1, but they do not have as good CC as other classes. So they cannot stop you running
• Sorcerer sleep only lasts some 4-5 seconds in PvP, and breaks on damage
• Class synergies encourage PvE and PvP grouping, 2-4 people are ideal for ideal for PvP, 2 for PvE abyss point farming
• XP/Abyss points, well everything, is divided exactly by the number of people in group. Damaging mobs/player targets of others
• Damaging players/mobs tagged/killed by other players gives a % of points,too, looting rights apparently are based on % damage done
• No castle sieges yet, mostly small gank squads flying around. But the size of the Abyss makes it easy to run away
• The lowbie rift ganking (level 50s going to level 25 Eltnen areas e.g.) is adressed in later patches, but still quite unresolved
• The “PvE zones” become very huge later on, and rifts only allow a certain number of players through. e.g. 25 players, max level 30

I gotta get this guy to write some posts for us, he knows a hell of a lot more about Aion than I do.

Got more CBW5 news? Send it!

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CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine

• Closed Beta Weekend Screenshots
• Unique Items Preview
• Beginner’s Guide to Skills and Chains
• Stigma System Overview
• Aion FAQ

When you’re not fighting, your gear will look dormant, dark, normal. When you engage in combat, massive red flares of energy will spark to life, sinister looking eyes will open and search for your enemies, the armor itself will augment and grow to cover more and protect.

Now I don’t know about you, but despite my initial thoughts of playing Elyos, I think I’ll be joining Asmodian very soon — the items look simply badass. If you want something to look forward to, browse through the galleries below and drool!

Asmodian Armor Sets

 

Elyos Armor Sets

 

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Asmodian & Elyos Armor Sets Preview

• How To Get AionArmory Tooltips On Your Site
• Aion Overview
• Licensing Issues in EU
• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine

As he pointed out, these screenshots show “some realistic gameplay screenshots and not only sugarcoated sceneries”, which I’m sure many of you will love to see. They show monsters, quests, flight, several notable locations, fights, raids… You can check out the entire gallery right here!

There are unfortunately no Abyss pics but once I find them I’ll be sure to add.

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Closed Beta Weekend Screenshots

• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Aion Overview
• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?
• How To Get AionArmory Tooltips On Your Site
• Aion vs. Warhammer

nProtect GameGuard is an anti-cheating software, developed by INCA Internet Corporation from Korea. Never heard of it? Neither did I, and a whole bunch of other people for that matter. Gameguard’s goal is to protect us from trojans, keyloggers, malware and similar unwanted software, as well as protect certain games (including Aion, obviously) from people who use bots or any other kind of automation software or cheats. On paper I’m sure it sounds like a great little tool, but after a little research, you might even think twice about installing Aion Online on your PC.

According to this wikipedia page (and confirmed from many other sources), GameGuard actually does the following:

GameGuard hides the game application process, monitors the entire memory range, terminates applications defined by the game vendor and INCA Internet to be cheats (QIP for example), blocks certain calls to DirectX functions and Windows APIs, and auto-updates itself to change as new threats surface.

If this doesn’t make much sense to you or if you’re still not concerned, I’ll try to explain it further. First of all, this software installs a device driver, which can not be fully uninstalled even if you remove the game from your system. Second, sometimes the software keeps running after you exit Aion, and still injects code into various system processes (including antiviruses), which means even IF it doesn’t do anything, it still uses some system resources.

Furthermore it blocks certain applications from running, some of which are completely legitimate, like Deamon Tools, NetLimiter, Razer mouse drivers, Core Media Player, and best of all: Google Chrome! Now to be honest I really don’t know much about programming or cheating, but how on earth can a browser be used to cheat in MMORPG games?

The biggest concern though is the fact GameGuard monitors the entire memory range, meaning if some Korean dude decides to read your MSN chat logs, see what websites you visit or find out what you bought from ebay last week, he can do it. I may be wrong, but from what I read it’s entirely doable.

GameGuard is not only used in Aion, but also in a large number of other games: The Chronicles of Spellborn, Ragnarok Online, Counter Strike Online (a remake targeted at Asia market), Gunbound, Lineage II, Silkroad Online to name a few. You might notice most of those are in fact Korean games or developers.

Worst of all, botting is still a very real and common issue in most of these games, including Aion. I’ve read threads stating it’s a huge issue on Korean Aion servers at the moment, despite the GameGuard. It can clearly be bypassed by someone who knows what he’s doing, and according to the wiki page linked above, people bypass it within hours of GameGuard’s update.

So what’s the point in using it: is it really to protect us gamers from cheaters and farmers? GameGuard doesn’t appear to be doing much good, but rather causes headaches to legit players who often have issues with the app; for example, it shuts down some needed Windows processes only because they are often targeted by computer viruses. It should be fairly obvious that you can not stop cheaters no matter what, and installing a software which looks and even works like spyware without users permission is not really going to help (note: it’s usually mentioned in the EULA you have to accept before playing but who the heck reads that really).

Now to be fair, I know for a fact Blizzard uses a similar tool for World of Warcraft. It’s been discussed over and over, and even though I don’t like it I tend to put a bit more faith in Blizzard than NCsoft or some shady Korean firm. Punkbuster is another popular anti-cheating software which I’m sure you heard about, and also works in a similar way.

Imagine for a moment if such software expanded to more than just games: imagine if it scanned your PC for cracked applications or checked if you downloaded any illegal music, or perhaps see what kind of porn you’re into. Internet users are exposed to all kinds of privacy issues these days, and I for one would like to keep my porn to myself!

Perhaps sometime in a distant future, we’ll have our own Terms of Use and EULA’s, and game developers will have to agree to it before they sell us their spyware-infested games. You shall not install spyware on my machine. You shall not be able to scan my hard drive and read my files. You shall never get my collection of Monica Bellucci pics. But, that’s too much info for this post. Until then, the decision is simple: either live with it or play singleplayer.

Disclaimer: this rant is not aimed against NCsoft, Aion or really anyone else, but rather the gaming industry and their often ethically questionable decisions. I don’t really have a collection of Monica’s pics. I’ll play Aion despite GameGuard. I hate cheaters as much as the next guy, perhaps even a bit more.

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Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?

• Aion vs. Warhammer
• Aion Overview
• Asmodian & Elyos Armor Sets Preview
• Licensing Issues in EU
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine

One of the blogs I frequently visit just published a post comparing Aion vs. Warhammer Online. Regardless of whether you like such comparisons or not, there are some similarities between these two games, most important probably being their focus on PvP.

Keen however compared more generic features of both games which is probably why it got my attention. Graphics, landscape, game performance (especially in larger PvP battles), the impact of crowd control in PvP and more. It appears he does prefer Aion so far, but as he points out it’s hard to give definitive answers since he didn’t see the entire game yet.

Whatever the case, I just hope Aion — especially at endgame — won’t turn into a pointless and dare I say boring and repetitive game as Warhammer did. Only time will tell.

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Aion vs. Warhammer

• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Closed Beta Weekend Screenshots
• Licensing Issues in EU
• Aion Overview

All you have to do is, believe it or not, add the following code somewhere before the </head> tag in your site’s source code:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.aionarmory.com/js/extooltips.js”></script>

If you’re using Wordpress, you can simply add the code by logging into your admin panel, click the Appearance link, then Editor, and select header.php from the list on the right side. Make sure you add the code before the ending head tag! Save the file and you’re done.

For Blogger.com users, go to your blogs Layout page, click the Edit HTML link and add the code (again, before </head> tag!). Save the template and you’re done.

There’s even more things you can do with this script, like showing an icon next to the link. You can read more about the advanced options here.

Sword of Chaos

It’s dead easy and your users will appreciate not having to open new windows all the time. Note however that these tooltips will not show in your RSS feeds! If you need any help getting this to work properly, feel free to ask!

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How To Get AionArmory Tooltips On Your Site

• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?
• Aion vs. Warhammer
• Licensing Issues in EU
• Asmodian & Elyos Armor Sets Preview
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is a visually stunning massively multiplayer online role-playing game featuring cutting-edge imagery, breath-taking environments, and a unique world of fantasy. You play a pivotal role in the fate of Atreia, where flying takes on a completely new role and the enemy is not only the other player faction, but a deadly ancient evil as well.

Here are some distinctive aspects of Aion:

• The World: Aion is set in a unique land where players explore the inside of a shattered world, separated into two halves with the Abyss between them.
• Aerial Combat: No longer limited to two-dimensional combat on the ground, players in Aion can fly. Now think of online combat on a massive scale where attacks can come in any direction.
• PvPvE: Players will be able to engage in intense raids and other encounters with computer opponents, not to mention the opposing player faction.
• Classes: Players have a choice of four classes to start with, and can then move on to two more specialized classes once they attain a certain level of capability.
• Character Customization: You can customize your character in a multitude of ways with a thorough character creation and crafting system, as well as detailed item customization options.

We’re going to post a lot of news, info and guides about Aion here so browse around to find out more about the game.

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Aion Overview

• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Aion vs. Warhammer
• Gameguard – To Protect or to Spy?
• Licensing Issues in EU
• Asmodian & Elyos Armor Sets Preview