A timer of 30 minutes will be implemented to prevent these shops from being abused as a means to prevent disconnection and alleviate queues.

The servers will be down for about an hour today at 14:00 BST / 6:00AM PST. This change may not be the best one for the future of personal shops but right now it’s definitely required and welcomed. It will probably make the auction house more popular as means for selling your items, although you must admit rarely anyone was selling anything of real value so far. Most important is the fact this will increase FPS is quest hubs and cities, as well as reduce queue times which we all unfortunately experienced.

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Private Stores Nerfed

• Details on Aion Launch Version: GameGuard Out
• Personal Stores… I Hate You!
• Newsflash: Patch 1.5, Aion Podcast, Blogs
• Spiritmaster Pets Learned to Fly
• Aion Collectors Edition Selling Fast

Now, I’m sure I am being unreasonable.  Now that Aion is live, I wonder how much more difficult this is going to be.  I have walked my character past people hiding behind buildings, behind trees, up in the mountains, out in the open, in front of obelisks, in the middle of towns, and pretty much everywhere in Pandemonium…nearly all of them have at least one item for 9,000,000,000 + Kinah.  Typically it’s a grey item; piece of animal fur or a fang etc etc.  Some Personal Stores even have their display as “AFK to avoid disconnect. 2hr wait=fail!”

 Hmm.. “2 Hr wait = fail”  I couldn’t agree more.  How about, “ability to make you wait 2hrs while I sleep tonight = fail” I think that’s a bit more like it.  Or how about this one; “Afk, mom making me take a bath. No disconnect”.  No kidding! There are so many things I could say regarding this statement.  I even thought of holding a Caption Contest… post a Screen Shot of one, and ask readers to tell me something about the user.

 Negate the abusive nature of the Personal Stores, at least you can get good items for a decent price.  Erm, what was that?  I took it upon myself and polled at least 115 people I ran into.  Excuse me, if I can just ask you, have you bought anything from a personal store, Yes or No?   No really, I made a macro.  All I asked for was “yes” or “no”.  The answers this author got were near foreseeable. Thus far, so summarize, the results are at 9 yes’s, and 106 no’s.  7.8%.

 I like math. 

 Assuming the ration is somewhat consistent.  Given NCSoft reported a little over 400K pre-select and CE users, and assume they are all online at some point in time, and then there are ~ 31,305 users who are supporting the Personal Stores.  So it’s safe to say, given the sheer volume of the stores, there are, at a minimum, no less than a 1:1 ratio of sellers to buyers.  31,305 people for every 2 hrs that 1 player has to sit and wait, you are looking approximately 62,608…well, you get the picture.  Sure there is a value of exponent ascending value to establish the first wait time, and subsequent addition would simply prolong a moving targeted range.

 Ann E. Way,

Is 7.8% of the population sufficient warrant to keep the personal stores as is?

Tell ya what.  Do a search for Aion Personal stores (enter derogatory comment here).  Me? I learned my lesson.  Until NCSoft removes or changes personal stores,…

 ….never log out, or if you want to play, foresee your future time, and log in min, 2 hrs early, then go eat a PoP-Tart or something.  I will be found outside, washing my car, at work, sleeping, eating dinner or lunch, at the park, on a motorcycle, hanging out with friends, etc etc… all the while, my toon it happily waving at people to come buy my 4 million dollar Lesser Healing Potion.

~ Thirteen

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Personal Stores… I Hate You!

• Licensing Issues in EU
• A Plethora of Options
• Super Serious Review of Aion Beta
• Private Stores Nerfed
• Updated Aion Beta Review & Abyss

As many of you noticed GameGuard caused more than a few problems during the open beta for countless players. It was mentioned awhile ago GG will be either improved or removed before launch, and it looks like NCsoft decided on the latter. It’s definitely one of the best news we’ve seen in awhile, and there was plenty of good ones.

I must admit I never thought it will come to this, but it’s good to see NCsoft care. Looks like they’re fighting for as many players as possible and I wouldn’t expect anything less. Let’s just hope they can come up with a better alternative before things get out of hand.

Here’s the rest of the news:

• Aion now features all three languages French, German and English. To select your language simply right click on Aion within your launcher and go to Properties->Language Options. Please select which languages you wish to download and which you wish Aion to display.
• The level cap is now level 50 (previously 45).
• Players will be able to reserve 2 character names during Preselection and create 8 characters in total once Head Start begins and beyond.
• Channels will be set to 10 instances for the beginning 2 zones of each faction. Please note that these will be lowered as characters progress and spread throughout Atreia.

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Details on Aion Launch Version: GameGuard Out

• Newsflash: Patch 1.5, Aion Podcast, Blogs
• Open Beta, Preselect & Headstart Info
• Closed Beta Event 4 Info
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Personal Stores… I Hate You!

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any official word about it, the only proof is the video posted on Youtube. I’m afraid I can’t understand much on the korean site linked to. Howewer, it doesn’t appear to be a fluke so many of you us who scratched the class for their lack of combat abilities in the air, this is exactly the reason to reconsider.

(source: longasc)

Edit: confirmation can be found in these translated patch 1.6 notes, along with some other changes.

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Spiritmaster Pets Learned to Fly

• Newsflash: Patch 1.5, Aion Podcast, Blogs
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Open Beta, Preselect & Headstart Info
• Personal Stores… I Hate You!

Open Beta

• Features patch 1.5
• 6-13th September
• Numerous western enhancements (new character creation features), as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and more
• Level cap stays at 30

Pre-selection will allow you to create your character and reserve a name prior to the headstart and will be available on 18th September, while Aion’s Headstart will begin September 20.

The open beta client is now also available for download from Fileplanet and later this week GamersHell. You can also download the full open beta client or upgrade your closed beta client by downloading these torrents.

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Open Beta, Preselect & Headstart Info

• Open Beta Patch Notes
• Details on Aion Launch Version: GameGuard Out
• Closed Beta Event 6 Info
• Open Beta Troubles
• Closed Beta Event 5 Info

Patch 1.5

Over at aionsource, someone was kind enough to translate the patch 1.5 notes and reveal several interesting new features and changes.

• Lots of instances have their reentry times changed.
• Cast speed bonus added to some unique items, now no longer exclusive on the super-rare hero weapons.
• Can master two crafts.
• Toggle helmet show/hide in preview item.
• Number of Chat Tabs available increased from 6 to 7, also added separate language chat channels (English, Jibberish)
• Rifts show level limits
• Added a key option to select nearest dead body
• Game now highlights skills, recipes, stigmas, and emotes you’ve already obtained in Red.
• You are now notified if your arrow or power shards fall below 100 amount.
• New costume obtainable in Theobomos and Brusthonin (image on the right).

The fact that we can now master two professions is definitely positive news. In addition there’s a few class changes as well, you can read the full patch notes here.

“The Abyss” podcast

Abysspodcast.com is, what you might already have guessed, an Aion podcast. It’s well done and entertaining, so be sure to follow them to keep up with the news.

Blogs

In addition to Aionic Thoughts which is quite impressive, there’s several new blogs and more popping up all the time.  I added a few to the links section recently and thought I’d give them some extra exposure here — they certainly deserve it.

• Adventurous Crafter
• Aionic Thoughts
• Impetusium
• Sin Healing
• Quirky Quiescence
• Weekly Ranger

There’s more news and info to be found on each of these sites and I highly recommend checking them all out. It’s great to see the community constantly growing, and what better way than to write down your thoughts about our favorite game. If I missed any blogs be sure to let me know.

GameGuard

I already talked about the GameGuard software and what a failure it is, and fortunately NCsoft is aware of it as well:

Your feelings on GameGuard are justified and known to the North American and European teams. As it stands now GameGuard does provide a certain level of protection. If and when we find a better hack/cheat/bot prevention system we will use it. GameGuard will be improved or removed before launch.
(aionsource)

Here’s hoping they will either improve it or get rid of it.

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Newsflash: Patch 1.5, Aion Podcast, Blogs

• Details on Aion Launch Version: GameGuard Out
• Spiritmaster Pets Learned to Fly
• Personal Stores… I Hate You!
• CBW5 Screenshots, Combat Video & CryEngine
• Closed Beta Event 4 Info

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
• Aion FAQ
• Stigma System Overview

The focus of this beta weekend are levels 1 – 25 for both Elyos and Asmodian, and the long-awaited access to the Abyss.

Starting time: 17th of July (noon PST, 8 PM BST, 9 PM CEST)
Ending time: 20th of July (July 19th 11.59 PM PST, July 20th 8 AM BST/9 AM CEST)

To clarify a bit, PST is the time on the US west coast, BST is what to look at if you’re in London and CEST is for those of you in Central Europe.

The following is a list of updates for this closed beta:

• Increased server stability
• Various UI fixes
• Various NPC load failure fixes
• Various NPC grammatical fixes
• Various Glossary term grammatical fixes
• New NPC Dialogue/Quest text for Sanctum and Pandaemonium
• GameGuard update

Now it appears it’ll take awhile for this site to get accepted in the official Fansite Programme so I won’t be giving out any beta keys, but I’m hoping someone out there will notice me eventually . Until then, keep an eye out on other sites or preorder Aion if you want in. I probably won’t have time to level up and try Abyss for myself, but nevertheless I’ll be seeing you!

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Closed Beta Event 4 Info

• Closed Beta Event 5 Info
• Patch 1.5.0.8
• Closed Beta Event 6 Info
• Open Beta Troubles
• Open Beta Patch Notes

Here are the bonuses in the collectors edition:

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Aion Collectors Edition Selling Fast

• Aion Preorders
• Aion Tutorial Vids
• Flying FAQ
• Aion Character Customization
• Closed Beta Event 5 Info