Information and media from the recently announced Aion patch 1.9 is starting to pour in. Massively.com found this video from the big press conference that was held in Korea and it showcases not only the 1.9 changes, but beyond, into the Aion 2.0 content. There are improvements to the gliding across vast distances as well as new bosses. Graphics engine seems to be better as well.

European and North American office “super secret” meeting took place today and major v1.9 game improvements were announced.

• New skills for every class (including new skills specifically for countering stun attacks)
• Dozens of daily quests with different objectives and rewards
• New quests, increased quest rewards, and increased instance drop rates
• Dredgion enhancements
• Max item enchantment increased to +15
• An increase in experience gain (including a new experience bonus system: Energy of Salvation)
• Soul Healing, Soul Binding, and Flight Transportation cost decreases
• A mechanic that allows two two-handed weapons to be combined to create one more powerful two-handed weapon
• Looking for group (LFG) functionality improvements
• Numerous user interface improvements

In parallel, big press conference was held in Korea to announce these same changes and their release to Korean test servers. Full patch notes are over 20 pages long and will be released later this week. You can read the official announcement here.

20 pages long!

Aion’s newly appointed producer addressed the community today with a monthly update of where the game is at the moment and what their plans are for the future. Chris himself admits that:

… at times you may feel like you’re wringing water out of a rock in regard to getting information from us, but we want to be cautious with telling you the correct information to not mislead the community. We are in constant communication with our development and production staff, and we really want to share with you more information on a regular basis, but due to scheduled release timing, localization efforts and Western development schedules, we aren’t always able to share what we’d really like to.

The following list of things to come is confirmed for sure in this address:

• The first bigger game update will be coming in Q2 this year
• more content at lower levels
• increased rewards for quests
• improved drop rates
• server transfers are coming (as a paid service at least)

You can read the full letter to the community on the official site.

Apparently, there’s an overwhelmingly positive response of the Aion community to the double XP weekends because NCSoft is introducing another one of these, mere two weeks after the last one. Aion Life’s scientific team sat down to determine why the community likes double XP weekends so much. The image above is the result of their 2 month research that cost hundreds of millions. You guys check out when double XP weekend starts on your server below, while we feed our science team to the alligators.

NA East Coast Servers—Starts at 8:00 p.m. EST

Azphel
Israphel
Lumiel
Marchutan
Meslamtaeda
Triniel
Zikel

NA West Coast Servers—Starts at 8:00 p.m. PST

Ariel
Fregion
Kaisinel
Siel
Vaizel
Yustiel

NA Oceanic Server—Starts at 8:00 p.m. AEST

Nezekan

European Servers —Starts on Friday, February 26th, at 7:00 p.m GMT

Mistery of the missing ex Aion producer, Brian Knox, has been resolved. The man has moved to a new Seattle company called “En Masse” that is going to be the Western publisher and “localizer” (look, I just made up a word) of Korean and other Eastern games. Its staff are alumnis of Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Corp., Electronic Arts Inc., ArenaNet and NCsoft. Their first game will be Bluehole’s TERA. You can read all about it at Rock, Paper, Shotgun along with an interview with ex aion_xaen.

Ariel server hosts a group of brave Asmodians that dared enter Lord Tahabata Pyrelord’s lair and challenge its rule over Dark Poeta. After two weeks of trying and wiping and trying again they fell the beast. Tahabata is famous for having he best loot table in the game (click here to see the Eternal quality gear she drops) and to even see her you need to finish Dark Poeta with the best grade. The kill is the first publicly announced kill and, if not contested, is the first kill on the NA/EU servers. The group consisted of:
Ranger Tank: Forgiven
DPS Ranger: Dae
Templar: Krull
Cleric: Decoy
Chanter: Qloe
Sorc: Astro

You can see the video of the kill below. Notice the spawn in the last 1%? It sure was an epic fight with an epic ending! Congrats to the heroes and may the loot Gods smile upon you.

Source.

Just in time for Valentine’s day, NCSoft made available paid account services. Things you’ll be able to do for a small fee:

• Character Name Change ($9.99/€6.99/£5.99)
• Legion Name Change ($19.99/€13.99/£11.99)
• Gender Change ($14.99/€9.99/£8.99)
• Character Customization ($9.99/€6.99/£5.99)

Also, there’s a special offer for Valentine’s day where you can purchase the True Love Valentine Pack and Chocolate Valentine Pack until February 28, 2010. Both of these include special dyes, emotes and an appropriate head piece. Just a nice little way to show your appreciation to that special someone in-game.

The interesting thing about the Account Services is that there’s an archive of changes made (appropriately named the Shadow Court Archives), so you can keep in touch with friends/legions that have changed their names or appearance.

The official news post is here, while the NCStore page is located here.

Andrew “Tamat” Beegle, Aion’s NA community manager, confirmed the release of so-called patch 2.0 in the first half of this year. Considering that, due to localization, we get patches ~2 months after Korea and that there are only 4 more months left to hit the “first half of this year” deadline, it is safe to assume that we’ll be seeing the patch notes very soon. The statement goes like this:

Hello everyone,

I have a quick update for you! We are diligently working with our Korean counterparts on an Aion update featuring relevant content scheduled to release on the Western servers the first half of the year. We will share the details of the update once the update is finalized. From what we’ve seen so far, you’re going to be very excited.

We have not announced timing for the update as we want ensure it delivers the same level of polish as Aion did at launch.

Stay tuned!

News spotted at AionSource.

Aion servers will be down at 3:30 a.m. PST, February 10th, 2010 (more) for maintenance. The maintenance will take no longer than 3 hours.

During the maintenance we will be applying a few server-side updates to the game during this downtime. The most notable change will be made to siege timers, following your feedback. All fortresses will now be vulnerable for 60 minutes rather than the previous 30 minutes. The only exception is the Divine Fortress’ timer which will remain at 110 minutes.

It is being reported by Incgamers.com that over 17% of Korean internet cafe players spend their time playing Aion. This makes it the most played game in Korea, considering that internet cafes / game rooms are a predominant place for playing games. The source of this information is the Google translation of this Korean web site (it’s a Starcraft 2 fansite). Interestingly enough – Starcraft – yes, the RTS from 1998 – is placed 3rd and World of Warcraft is number 5 on the list with 5.31% share.

One thing you should know about South Korean players according to the Washington Post:

An estimated 2.4 percent of the population from 9 to 39 are believed to be suffering from game addiction, according to a government-funded survey. Another 10.2 percent were found to be “borderline cases” at risk of addiction — defined as an obsession with playing electronic games to the point of sleep deprivation, disruption of daily life and a loosening grip on reality.