From the information we were able to gather, the most important announcement is that there will be separate builds from now one. On for the Korean market and one for the Western audiences. “Our” version should have better Abyss rewards, higher drop percentages and more XP. Please do correct me if I am wrong (somewhere near the end of the video is this information). We also managed to ask about the mounts in the game and they should be coming soon. They probably won’t have the same mechanics everywhere (PvP zones for example), but they are working on the mounts system.

The footage is in German, but don’t worry if you don’t understand the language – the video speaks for itself. The presentation was given by German Community Manager Imhotep (very charming and very nice).

During the last few days a fair amount of attention was drawn to Aion 2.0. Pet System which we covered in our latest guide Aion 2.0. Pet System Part 1. The upcoming free expansion Aion: Assault on Balaurea introduces an entirely new pet subsystem to explore. You will have access to functional pets capable of storing goods, assisting with crafting, acting as guardians by alerting their masters to nearby enemies, and of course those simply designed to make their masters look good.

The pets system will continue to develop and evolve moving forward, but we’re looking at five pet types to start out with:

* Companion – Adventure with their owner throughout Atreia
* Signal – Alert their owner to the presence of enemy players
* Pack – Expand their owner’s inventory
* Fortune – Produce items for their owner after being well-fed
* Purebred – Provide their owner with multiple functions at once

You’ll have 100 dedicated pet slots available to populate, but can only own one of each type, and are only capable of summoning one pet at a time. You will retain features such as inventory space increase even while the pet providing the feature is put away. The pets you own can be given names, and these names are not unique, which will allow you to choose names freely and make changes whenever you so desire. And as a special treat, a new type of pet emote will trigger unique animations for each type of pet (watch out Westminster Kennel Club, there’s a new set of tricks to teach those old dogs).

There will be different ways to get your hands on these pets, including buying them from in-game merchants or the NCStore, getting them as quest rewards, item drops, or through special promotional events.

Aion: Assault on Balaurea is a free expansion, but there will also be a new boxed version with an upgraded client preloaded available for purchase (MSRP $39.99). To celebrate the release of Aion: Assault on Balaurea, those who purchase the expansion will receive an adorable Speckled Ailu pet (it’s much like a panda). Some retailers will for a limited time also offer an exclusive Companion pet along with the Speckled Ailu: NCsoft Store: Fuzzy Elroco, Amazon.com: Beluslan Kitter, GameStop: Grassy Drakie, Best Buy/Best Buy Canada: Heiron Kitten, QVS: Altgard Kitter Companion Pet, Steam: Skullabra Krall, Wal-Mart: Border Daggie

We realize that many of you are anxious to hear an update regarding character transfers. The development phase of the improved character transfer system has been completed and is currently undergoing testing to ensure that future transfers will help balance server population. The dynamic system that we’ve created will allow us to reopen the transfer service with automatic safeguards in place to prevent mass transfers negatively affecting server balance.

Our current plan is to reactivate the free transfer signups on Monday, August 16 at 8:00 a.m. PDT, with the first transfer set to begin on Wednesday, August 18. We realize some players were separated from their friends and family after the first wave of transfers. This process will provide an opportunity for those players to reunite, and we’re dedicated to helping those of you who are currently isolated from your friends. However, because these transfers will be automatically controlled based on faction population balance, trying to reunite with your Asmodian friends on Vaizel or your Elysean friends on Zikel may not happen right away.

Here at NCsoft, we’re passionate gamers just like you, and because of this, we hold ourselves to an extremely high standard for Aion. The first round of character transfers didn’t go as well as we had hoped. For that, we’d like to express our sincerest apologies. We very much appreciate your patience as we restore the game environment to a state where you can reunite with your friends and transfer more successfully moving forward!

The free upcoming Aion expansion Assault on Balaurea known as Aion 2.0, will be live on Test server from August 18th 2010. This week we have a new question for you: Will you play Aion 2.0. on Test server?

Aion: Assault on Balaurea Western Premiere
Visit our NCsoft booth to experience the Western premiere of our upcoming free and fully fletched expansion Aion: Assault on Balaurea. You’ll be able to witness live demonstrations from the stage, masterfully conducted by our German Community Manager Imhotep. After getting a feel for all the new things coming, 12 gaming stations will be available for hands-on preview. Our helpful staff will of course be available to show you the ropes and get started!

Q&A with Members of Aion’s Development Team
Level Designer Jiho Lee and Lead Server Programmer Seungwuk Baek from Aion’s development team in Seoul, Korea, will both make their way to our gamescom booth this year. Thursday 19th 12:00 they’ll join us on the stage to answer your questions in a unique Western Aion Q&A session. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open for questions popping upon the website and social media as well.

Cosplay Contest!
It’s come to be a merry tradition of ours to host a cosplay contest during the show and we’ll be no worse this year (hopefully you won’t be either, har-har). No, seriously though, you kicked ass last year and we’re sure you’ll bring the same game this time around.

A highly prestigious contest will be held atour booth during the show with terrific prizes from Razer. You’re of course free to participate, dressed up as a character from any current NCsoft game! That being said, we’re looking forward to seeing a couple of Elysean or Asmodian Daevas turn up!

Stuck at Home? Don’t worry – There’s a Live Stream!
We realize that even if the ambition is there, travelling to gamescom 2010 doesn’t fit into everyone’s calendar. To help anyone at home get a better feel of gamescom, the atmosphere and our awesome activities, we will be hosting a live stream at ustream.tv. Stay tuned to our Event Portal for details on how to access the feed.

Paaar-tay!
If you’re in need of winding down after the first frantic day of gamescom madness, why not pay a visit to the official NCsoft/ArenaNet Party? The party takes place on Thursday 19/9 20:00 local time at Goldfinger, a bar and club located in downtown Cologne. By stopping by you’ll be able to meet and mingle with the NCsoft staff, listen to some wicked DJing, talk to Aion’s producer or simply kick aroundwith the community team.

The NA Public Test Server (PTS) was brought down this past week to prepare for testing of Assault on Balaurea, the free upcoming Aion expansion often referred to as Aion 2.0. The PTS database will be reset completely as a part of this, and all PTS characters and Legions will be removed. Keep in mind that the progression rates on the PTS have received a significant boost compared to the rates of our regular servers.

The PTS will reopen its majestic gates on August 18th 2010, with the new expansion ready for some testing action. Aion: Assault on Balaruea will be available across all servers September 7th 2010.

For instructions on how to access the PTS, please head on over to the Public Test Server PowerWiki page or the Public Test Server forum. Don’t miss the opportunity to help us test this major content addition before it hits the live servers!

As you all know NCSoft made a big appearance on last year’s GamesCom and we don’t expect anything less this year, especially with Aion 2.0 just around the corner. We packed our bags, bought ourselves a good camera, packed the kid off to grandma’s and bought the tickets to Cologne, Germany.

We will be there to bring you the best coverage of all the Aion goodness. You can expect all kinds of coverage, from news and show floor gossip to live blogging and videos of all Aion 2.0 footage they will let us see. Things will kick off on Wednesday, August 18^th, which is press only day, and we’ll try and get you as much info as possible starting noon.

We would also like to share the excitement of attending Gamescom with the Aion community. For all of those that will not be able to be there in person we would like you to use our site as the vessel to take your message to NCSoft We will pick a few of the best community questions and try and get an answer directly from the source. You can submit your questions in the comment section bellow or you can post on the official forums @ http://forums.eu.aiononline.com/eu/showthread.php?p=175640!

Please refrain from questions that you know will be answered with a “No comment”. If everything goes as planned we plan on rewarding the best questions with swag we pick up at the show so make sure you leave a valid email.

If you are attending as well drop us a line. We’d love to meet other Aion fans.

Step one: Get the Faded Letter.

A Fadded Letter is a guest giving item that starts the Spy Quest The Spirit’s Letter. Any Spectral Mage/Soldier/Warrior in Fortress of Spirits (Desert area – Morheim) has a chance to drop it. But expect hours of grinding before you get it. Ancient Elyos Spirits are level 25-28 with high respawn rate.

Step two: Find the rift

Finding the rifts is not easy as it looks. When you see the server message that rifts have been opened your first step is to ask other players where it can be found (use Chat window) if you don’t have time or nerves to camp out at the rift locations. There are several rift locations in Beluslan through which you can go directly to Heiron.

Also, you can use a Memo Pad and save rift locations:

Asmodian Beluslan -> Heiron Rifts

Beluslan [pos:Entrance A <24 entries lv<=38>;220040000 233.323499491353 150.910478128179 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit A;210040000 2132.44408019165 434.266044634977 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance B <36 entries lv<=42>;220040000 1301.48219735504 634.12512716175 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit B;210040000 1955.92157357206 1821.22859664607 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance C <48 entries lv<=46>;220040000 767.402848423194 2226.19023397762 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit C;210040000 871.569032908839 903.311562224183 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance D <48 entries lv<=46>;220040000 2069.53916581892 262.812817904374 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit D;210040000 861.482032530576 2194.44761064179 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance E <60 entries lv<=50>;220040000 2842.68260427263 618.865717192269 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit E;210040000 291.566511158744 2658.44962804186 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance F <60 entries lv<=50>;220040000 2812.16378433367 2561.89725330621 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit F;210040000 362.175513806582 514.962047661077 0.0 -1]
Beluslan [pos:Entrance G <72 entries lv<=50>;220040000 1596.49745676501 2053.2502543235 0.0 -1] Heiron [pos:Exit G;210040000 1905.48657168075 2577.75362501576 0.0 -1]

Beluslan Entrance

Heiron exit

Step three: Important stuffs – Kisk, Potions, Tombstone of Revival, full DP and speed scrolls

Make sure you have heal over time potions, big heal potions and Odessa Powder. If you want to save Kinah and time you should have a Kisk. I would recommend reading our Kisk guide first. You can think of the Kisk Stones as a mobile Obelisks. You can buy them from a General Goods Merchants at every capitols and summon them nearly everywhere. They last 2 hours, are purchasable for ~30k, if you die you don’t res with Soul Sickness or XP loss. Since you are entering area with higher level mobs and Elyos you should go through the rift, log out and wait for a less active time (after 1am).

Also, it will be convenient to have several Tombstone of Revival which will give you the opportunity to resurrect at the current location.

Another important tips are: fill your DP before you go through the rift and don’t forget to buy speed scrolls!

Step four: How to find NPC Heraloene

The last step in the The Spirit’s Letter quest is to deliver the letter to Heraloene in the Jeiaparan Village of Elysea. Jeiaparan Village is a small fishing village on the eastern end of the Patema Ruins in Heiron (white x on the Heiron rifts map). There are several ways you can get to NPC Heraloene

Beluslan Entrance

Heiron exit

G rift : At the first glance it seems that the best and easies way to find Heraloene is through the G rift in Beluslan. But don’t forget that the entrance and exit point of this rift is deep in higher level mobs area and these mobs see through stealth.

A rift – dark green path:
If you choose the rift A – Beluslan Fortress entrance – Heiron Pass Exit, the path is much longer but there are several points from which you can glade and cover huge distances. This is much safer and faster than running through monsters and Elyos. The Heiron Observatory (A2) is your second point but also the place with NPC guards and Elyos players. It’s the halfway point on your journey, so try to find a safe spot and place your kisk.

At the A3 point you have two options. If you decide to go South (dark green path) it may seem faster and easier but you will run into an Elyos guard patrol, which is guarding an arch way at point A4. Elyos guard patrol see through stealth. However if you turn right before the arch and hop a wall you can get around it. Then follow the stream around the Village. Behind the village is the Old guy (A8 point).

If you turn North (light green path) from A3 watch out for pathing humanoids, there are a lot of them here. When you reach A5, turn east and hug the walls to your right. A6 is your next point. There is a bridge where you can hide and be out of sight and aggro. If you haven’t place any kisk yet, this is your best place for the kisk. Point A7 is the minefield. There are invisible high level mobs that see through stealth. They are located mostly along the walls so your best bet is running in the open if there are no Elyos on your radar. Move fast, don’t stop, and use every survival ability you have the second a ghost aggros you. Pop your big heal pots (they will take half your health per hit on most classes) and use a speed scroll if you have one. Get into the water at all costs.

Point A8 is the safe spot and the location you’ll wait for Heraloene. He will path out of the village down to the water, so don’t get impatient. Wait here and watch him on your map (you’ll see the quest turn in icon). Until he starts down, stay out. There are high level NPCs and Elyos in the village. None of the mobs in the water will aggro you, so I suggest laying low until you can turn in.

C-Rift – blue path If you manage to find C rift, you can reach the Heiron Observatory (point A2) without much difficulties. From point A2 follow the steps we wrote in section A rift.

B-Rift – red path If you use the rift at location B your exit point will be surrounded by higher level mobs. Just wait for the mobs to path away and make your way through them to point A4.

Rewards

There are 5 blue selectable rewards: Heraloene’s Sword, Helione’s Warhammer, Heraloene’s Spear, Heraloene’s Longbow, Heraloene’s Tome

We would like to thank Zam for several important tips.

Tamat is currently working on the top secret project and he needs your help. He wants your opinion about which character model you like more. Just to clarify, this character model is not our 1-year reward. (the 1 year veteran reward will be epic). Check out the newest Tamat post for all the information and don’t forget to vote!

P.S. I have spotted on destructoid.com an interesting video - Aion Online CM shows us patch 1.9 in a tiger suit! Is it just coincident or something more?