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Aion: Ooh, Impressive Developer Blather

Written by Jim Rossignol on June 22, 2009.

Via IGN we get a massive Aion trailer (clickwards below), with the world, background, and factions explained by the American development team. Loads of game footage, plenty of action, and a general explanation of how a few aspects of how the game will play out. Looking up and seeing the other half of the world is a neat visual flourish. In fact it’s all looking rather impressive, and I’m now starting to see see why our Aion beta key giveaway was bombarded with over five thousand emails: the flying looks quite good.
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Euro Aion Beta Key Giveaway

Written by Jim Rossignol on May 27, 2009.

Compo now closed, and winners have been notified. Thanks for taking part!

Purdy-lookin’ forthcoming Korean MMO Aion – the one where flying plays a big role – is having a special European beta event on the 5th to 7th of June.The event will allow participants to play through the first twenty levels as an Elyos. To celebrate this, and, presumably to populate them servers, NCSoft are giving away a whole bunch of keys. Want one? Then all you need to do is email us. All gone, sorry!

Aion’s most recent outburst of prettiness is posted ‘neath the click, and it also happens to be the zone which will feature in the event.
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City of Anti-Heroes: Surprise COH Expansion

Written by Alec Meer on May 12, 2009.

Presumably as part of a major fight back against its own upcoming spiritual sequel Champions Online, NCSoft’s venerable superfolk MMO City of Heroes/Villains (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – still the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO, even if it’s a rare day that I venture back into it now) has announced a big-ass new expansion, Going Rogue. One that purports to fills in that morally grey gap between hero and villain. I always thought that was ‘politician’ or ‘gym teacher’, but seems as though it’s a little more complicated than that.
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One Million Play Aion In China

Written by Jim Rossignol on April 24, 2009.

Chinese MMO distributor Shanda have reported that one million people logged on to the Chinese-language version of NCSoft’s Aion in the first four days of play. It’s worth remembering that the Chinese model means that gamers play by the hour, so this could easily go on to become a gigantic success, or just disappear overnight – a distinct possibility when financial type sources (via GI.biz) suggest that many gamers came away from their hours of Aion with some rather negative feedback. Aion is scheduled for release in Europe and North American in the autumn. (At which time I expect we’ll have to pay by the month.)

Aion Zone Trailer Loveliness

Written by Jim Rossignol on April 20, 2009.

NCSoft’s MMO-with-wings, Aion, has been showing off its floaty environments with quite spectacular results: lots of floaty things, both animate and inanimate. The flight aspect makes this rather more interesting than your normal MMO world, because there’s a whole lot of vertical detail to deal with. Oddly, NCSoft recently announced “flying transformations” for the new continent of Lineage II, which seems a bit like stealing their own thunder. Surely you keep the best for your big launch? I suppose Aion has been out for ages in Korea already, but still… Anyway, prettiness below. How I envy the environment artist.
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Play With The City Of Heroes Mission Architect

Written by Jim Rossignol on March 19, 2009.

This has been a long time coming, but the City Of Heroes (& Villains!) mission architect is now in open beta, for testing before it launches into the full game along with Issue 14. (Test server details here.) It’s looking brilliant, with players about to control everything from “environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue”. And these aren’t just single instanced missions, we’ll be able to deliver mission arcs with multiple stages. NCSoft report that players can create wide ranging adventures, so they “story can have up to five chapters or missions and each mission can hold up to a maximum of 25 achievable goals.” Apparently the player scenarios will be launched from an in-game browser, and ranked by a player rating system. The best missions will enter a Hall of Fame decided upon by the devs. Apparently players will receive “in-game benefits” for making content that is rated highly by the community.

Aion: CryTek-Powered Celestials

Written by Jim Rossignol on March 6, 2009.

NCSoft was hit rather hard by the failure of Tabula Rasa, and they’ll be looking for their next big title to do a little better. Despite being another fantasy MMORPG Aion is actually looking pretty interesting, with its scenario of war between angel and demon analogues, it’s ludicrously spectacular environments, and its aerial combat. It’s also visually splendid, being powered by CryTek’s CryEngine technology. You can see that in action, with some flying manta-rays and floating castles, after the jump. Aion is already making waves in China and Korea, and we’re expecting to see it roll out in Europe and North America towards the end of the year.

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This Is The End: Tabula Raises Hell

Written by Alec Meer on March 2, 2009.

MMOs are supposed to be the never-ending story. When one bucks that trend – when it concludes – it becomes something else entirely. In hindsight, is it still the same looped search for short-term personal rewards that it began as (and that its peers remain to be), or does it become a complete experience, more akin to a traditional game?

We already knew troubled sci-fi MMORPG Tabula Rasa (the “Richard Garriot’s” was dropped when Big Beard jumped ship from the project last year) was to shut down in early 2009. What we didn’t know is whether it would go with a bang, a whimper, or just the click-BZZZzzzzzzt of a central server being switched off. In the end, the Saturday just gone revealed it to be a little of all three.
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Armmogeddon: The Patent Of Doom

Written by Alec Meer on January 6, 2009.

Here’s a story that hit during our week off – it’s one you probably already know about, but as it’s potentially something that’s very bad news for PC gaming, it’s only fair and right to give you fine folks a convenient place to discuss it. Massively (thanks, Larington) has one of the better summations and explorations of what’s going, as they seem to have clever people with some grasp of law on their staff. RPS, by contrast, has a philosopher, a youth worker, a biologist and a literature graduate. We’re no good at this stuff.

The crux of the story, though, concerns patents 6,219,045 and 7,181,690. In (something like) English, those refer to “scalable virtual world client-server chat system” and “system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space”. There’s space for a lot of give and take in those descriptions, but you get the point – two fundaments of pretty much every MMO past, present, and probably future.
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Going Blank Again: Tabula Rasa For Free

Written by Kieron Gillen on December 23, 2008.

At Christmas, we should spare a thought for those who are more unfortunate than ourselves. Like John. And the live team on Tabula Rasa whose work is winding down as the game for its final closure on February 28th. But until then, the game’s actually totally free to play for everyone. Instructions are on the site proper, allowing you to either play from an old account or start a whole new one. Below the cut you’ll find the most recently posted uservideo on gametrailers, which appears to be a repost of a post-release instance. It’s cute enough but the sad thing is realzob’s usertext on the video: “Tabula Rasa must survive”. Poor old Realzob.
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