Corruption

Hey Everyone.  Major accomplishments continue to come to the asmo’s on Lumiel.  I urge everyone to continue to work with all legions in the abyss.  The war is with the pigeons.  Congrats to the latest set of 50’s.  Welcome to end game Aion.  Time to see what NCSoft is made of.

While there has been huge wins for the asmo’s, there are still major hurdles we need to leap.  Upper abyss inner forts continue to beat down all daeva’s.

Good morning Daevas!

As you probably noticed, we’ve completed a server wide reboot without much notice on a day that we typically don’t perform maintenance. It’s only fair that we keep you in the loop and make sure you know what’s going on. Over the last week we’ve been working on a list, we’ve been checking it twice, and today we found out who was naughty or nice. Ban Hammer Claus just came to town. When the servers come back online, nearly 16,000 accounts will have been removed from the game. If your account was banned, please read the following FAQ.

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1. Why was I banned?

There could be many reasons your account was closed. If you did not receive notification of your violation via e-mail please create a support ticket and the violation will be explained to you.  Please note that if your account was closed for the use of 3^rd party software (botting) or participating in RMT (gold buying/selling) the evidence for the account closure was gathered over several weeks. It may be completely unrelated to what your character was doing right when your account was closed.

2. … but I wasn’t botting, buying Kinah or spamming advertisements! I’m innocent!

Any action that modifies the client or automates the same way a bot does could potentially flag an account as a violator. We do not use one specific instance to “flag” an account for botting or RMT. We use many instances to strengthen our conclusions. Please understand that it is not what “you” have done on your account, but what the account has done. If your account is shared, purchased, borrowed, or power leveled, it could be the actions of anyone who’s ever used the account.

3. I’m aware of all of the above, but I have never done any of it. Who do I contact?

To request a review, please create a support ticket.

We are taking a very hard stance on this issue and do have sophisticated processes and procedures in place that help us keep unwarranted banning to a minimum. If you believe you’ve been wrongfully banned, you can email us at support@ncsoft.com, and we will review your account. Our goal is to ensure our legitimate players are having the best game experience possible. Please note that you don’t need to submit multiple tickets, as we will review a specific case only once. We obviously take these violations seriously, but also want to make sure that legitimate players aren’t banned unnecessarily.

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We’d like to reiterate that we’ve been listening to your concerns. We’ve been constantly adding to our Customer Service and Game Surveillance Unit. As we continue to move forward, you’ll see more and more of these efforts. Thanks for your patience everyone, and have fun playing Aion!

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Fly High Daevas,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

Bom on [DE]Balder asks:

“I’ve been crashing less since the 1.5.1 patch. Did you guys intentionally fix the Crysystem.dll problem?”

Yes, the crash issues during fortress sieges and other intensive activities were fixed with the patch we applied to the servers on Wednesday. In case you haven’t read the final patch notes, take a look at the very last paragraph where the stability improvements are listed. We received this fix shortly before our scheduled maintenance and decided to include it together with the patch. We are glad that it works well for you.

This fix was difficult to implement and test because it took many people to recreate the issue, and many complex parameters had to be taken into consideration to not just fix it for a specific configuration, but for all players. Many testers had to coordinate together every time a possible fix was created. It is much more difficult than fixing something that a single person can test alone. That said, if you’re still experiencing problems, please report them in our support forum.

Do you want to be the one asking the Question of the Week next time? Drop us an e-mail with your question at aion_community@ncsoft.com.

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We’ve noticed an abundant amount of activity going on within the community this week. Join us as we spend some time to explore recent community happenings.

Aion Machinima

Our friends at MMORPG-Life put together a list of Aion machinima. We’re looking forward to an increase in the amount of Machinima created within the Aion community.

Avatar Contest: Design Tamat Some Awesomeness

Tamat has chosen the winner of the Aion Source avatar contest. Head on over to Aion Source to see which avatar he selected, in addition to a few of his favorites.

Aion Postcast Episode #10—Bleeding Ears

That’s right—episode 10 is finally here! Head on over to give it a listen. This week the gang focuses on class-specific information, news of the week, tips and tricks, and quick-fire questions!

Interview with Tamat at Aion Tower

Community Manager Andrew “Tamat” Beegle had the opportunity to talk with the folks at IGN. You can read the result over at IGN’s Aion community website “Aion Tower.”

Clerical Aion 1.5.1 Changes Overview

Are you a Cleric wondering how the 1.5.1 update affects you? Check out the informative post over at Clerical Aion.

Abyss Gate Fan Art

Nitro-Killer uploaded some absolutely and utterly amazing Aion fan art.

The Eye on Community article series is a way for us to highlight activities going on in the community. Please send your submissions to aion_community@ncsoft.com.

Fly high Daevas,

The Aion Community Team

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that Veteran Rewards, fine loot destined to fill the treasure chests of our most steadfast Aion players, are on the horizon. The concept is simple: The longer you play our game, the cooler things you get! Aion’s Veteran Rewards will first be available on November 4, and at that point, those of you who have played the game for a month or more will be able to redeem your treats.

The first reward package will contain an Expand Cube Ticket to expand your inventory space, a Pop Legend dance emote to get funky with, four Lodas Amulets to boost your experience gain, and four Revival Stones to bring life and light when things look grim.

Visit our Veteran Rewards page to find out more!

Due to an internal error that caused availability of the Aion Collector’s Edition Upgrade to end early, we’re restoring the ability to upgrade between 12:01 a.m. PDT on Thursday, October 29, 2009 to 11:59 p.m. PDT on Friday, October 30, 2009 (more). Please keep in mind that this will be the last opportunity you will have to upgrade to the Aion Collector’s Edition.

During the above listed 48-hour period, upgrades to the Aion Collector’s Edition will cost $10.00 USD and will include the digital in-game items found in the physical Aion Limited Collector’s Edition box.

Exclusive in-game items included:

- Black Cloud Wings (gives 40 seconds of additional flight time)

- Black Cloud Earring (gives an HP and an MP boost)

- Special character title (Settler of Aion) with stat boost

- Rich purple dye to tint 10 in-game items

- Two character emotes

Keep your eye on the NCsoft store this Thursday for your chance to upgrade to the Aion Collector’s Edition!

It’s time for another installment of our Weekly Web Roundup! This week we’re happy to showcase more positive reviews, a sneak peek of what to expect from NCsoft Halloween events across the board, and circulating news about Aion soaring to the top of the NPD (PC Sales) chart.

To get things started, MMORPG.com published an extremely positive review giving Aion an 8.7 out of a possible 10. “Aion is probably one of the most polished freshly-released MMOs I’ve ever seen—not surprising, given that it actually was released a year ago in Korean and China—but it does mean that the game is stable, fairly well balanced, and it contains plenty of content. It may not do an awful lot new, but what it does, it does very well.” You can read the entire review here.

Continuing with reviews, Canadian website GameFocus awarded Aion a 9.3 and an Editor’s Choice Award, in a review suggesting that “Aion is very close to being a perfect example of the current idea of how a fantasy based MMO should be implemented. I would even suggest Aion might be the climax of the typical design elements of the genre.” Quotes like this one give us plenty to smile about and fan the passionate Aion flames in our hearts. Check out the full review.

Halloween is a fun time for everyone, but for NCsoft it’s an excuse to plan fantastic in-game events across all of our games. Kotaku took the time to put us in the pumpkin-carving spotlight in a piece about our Halloween plans. Turn out the lights, and give it a peek.

To conclude the roundup for this week, it’s exciting to point out the recognition that we’ve received after Aion reached the top of the PC sales chart after only one month. You can learn more by reading coverage at GamePro, Gamasutra, USA Today, Ten Ton Hammer, and Kotaku just to name a few.

It’s been an exciting first month, and the promise of many more is before us. As always, thanks for your support, and we hope you enjoyed the roundup!

Corruption and Asmo’s make a huge commitment and claim Sulfur fortress.  We are the first Asmo legion to claim Sulfur Fortress so a big congrats to everyone.  This is a true example of cooperation and perseverance with all the disconnects.  Let’s keep this rolling with some upcoming defense.