During this year’s GamesCom we were present at the Q&A event with the Korean developers at the NCSoft booth. The event was hosted by the charming German Community manager Imhotep and developers present were Jiho Lee and Seungwuk Baek. Most of the event was in German, which we are not very good with. We would like to ask our community members to help us with the translation if at all possible . One question per person and we’ll have the video translated in no time. If you feel like helping out you can leave your translations in the comment section bellow.

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.

If you haven’t played Aion 2.0 on the Public Test Server, but you are still interested in what the game looks and plays like check out this video we made at this year’s GamesCom convention in Cologne, Germany. The video showcases all sorts of new content and mechanics in the 2.0 patch. We can see the new lands, new wings, windstreams, new instances (including some 12 man lvl 55 raid instances) and pets functionality.

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).

Another week has started and this means I can jump into another one of our Monday Aion Rants. This week we have a special Video edition. The Blog community has not been as active in the past 7 days so nothing new to report there, but I did come across several Aion related videos that I think will go well with your Monday coffee (or other Monday ritual you prefer).

First off, in accordance with the holiday, we have an Aion Easter Egg video that the German mmorpg site PlayMassive released. It shows how you can use the geysers to jump to a remote and hidden location. I must say it looks wonderful.

Click here to watch other videos we have prepared for you this Monday including official April Fools video

To avoid today’s April Fools madness NCSoft released a new video yesterday showcasing some new content and graphics improvements that are incoming with the 1.9 patch. We have been asked by Tamat not to embed it on our pages but link directly to the video so please click here to view the latest official NCSoft video. Make sure you leave your comment here on what you thought of it.

A video from what appears to be the Korean version of the game started circulating the web some time ago. It showcases Aion weapons with funny models/skins. Seems you can model your weapon to look like a trout or carrots or a fork even. The video just speaks for itself. Any comment would be moot.

In line with the above video – I just saw this episode of a show called the Big Bang Theory depicting a MMO dungeon crawl. I think all MMORPG players can relate to this one… Enjoy:

NCsoft has released new video – AION Never ending Challenge. It’s early to give the list of specific details but the video shows new content expansion, new underwater skills, housing system, mounts and amazing graphics. The question is how long we have to wait for this?

1. Large Graphics Overhaul: Changing Seasons, Engine update
2. Mounts: Single Player Mounts, Passenger Seat on Some MOunts, Combat Mounts
3. Housing: Decorate them how you want, Personal Housing, Furniture
4. New Skills
5. New Weapons:  Whips,  Crossbows, Shields That Turn into Grappling Type Hooks, Massive Ground Sieges with massive Siege weapons.
6. Swimming.
7. Underwater Quest Hubs.
8. New Hair Styles.

[source]

Having impressive visuals Aion can be a great source for making impressive videos using in-game footage. The Machinima community seems to agree and first couple of videos have been released in the past 10 days. They are both music video types of things, but with great video editing and some nice effects.

First one is a Machinima made by Nill on the Kalil server during October – November 2009. Music in the background is “Blow me Away” by Breaking Benjamin.

The other hails from BaronSoosdon that has been making WoW machinimas for some time now. His previous experience clearly shows, as the video feels pretty epic. Compared to his WoW work, there’s an evident lack of Model Viewer for Aion that would greatly help making custom scenes with effects. Here’s what BaronSoosdon had to say about the video:

Some of you might know me from the WoW-machinima scene.

Well, now I present you my first (which also might be the last) Aion machinima. It’s a bit of a mash-up between a music video and an exploration piece.

The video is done in the style of my Unlimited Escapism (World of Warcraft) videos, but with more music video-styled editing.

Making Aion machinima is currently only limited to ingame filming since there is no model viewer of any kind.

You can find a downloadable FullHD 1080p version and a little writeup about making of this machinima on his blog.

It’s only a few hours separating us from spreading the wings to explore a breath-taking world of Aion. A brand new trailer has been released to make sure that everyone remembers how pretty this game is.

Aion Lead Designer Yongchan Jee gave an interview at GamesCom 09 Aion stage, answering community questions delivered by Lani Blazier. Lani has been gathering the questions through social networking sites like Twitter (her account is aion_liv and you can follow her to deliver your questions or follow up to date news) and the whole Aion team has been very active getting in touch directly with the community and delivering news through various channels (live video streams on facebook and justin.tv just to mention a few).

The interview has been very informative as well, bringing a lot of new information directly from the core developer team member. There has been mention of low level instances, playing as Balaur, legion housing and other topics. Mr. Jee was very charming and I recommend you watch the video – its worth the time .

As NCsoft has already announced the things will start to get really interesting while we are waiting for the launch of Aion: The Tower Of Eternity. The best confirmation is a new Aion trailer for GamesCom 2009.