Regarding the second phase of CBT

1. What have you been up to?

The entire development team fell ill from exhaustion. We’re doing our best to prepare the game for the 2nd phase of CBT.

2. What will be the biggest change in the 2nd CBT?

New zones. Aion’s zones tend to become more dangerous as they are situated farther from the center. More powerful monsters, and stigma items are expected to drop as well.

3. What is the level cap for the upcoming tests?

We’re planning to raise it to 30+. The level requirement for the Abyss is around mid-20, and we want to test the Abyss as well.

4. What will be the main focus of the tests?

We want to start with the Direct Portals, where the PvP starts. The rank system will be applied with the Abyss Points gained in this manner.
Direct Portals cannot be created in the starting zones, this was done to protect the new beginners.

Regarding the New Zones

5. What are they like?

As mentioned before, they’ll be a bit more barren, and more powerful mobs will spawn. Dungeons will be added as well, so we’d expect to see enough content for the players to enjoy.
The sizes of new zones are around four times the size of previously shown Fortress zones, and we have many quests prepared. The quests here play the role of moving the players into the next zones.

6. What is the ratio of Solo vs Party Play?

The previous tests seemed to lack a bit in solo contents. Such problems will be solved with the revelation of new zones, and the main goal we have set is the distinction of solo play and party play.

Those who enjoy solo play can level and gain items by playing solo, and those who enjoy playing in parties can benefit from greater chance to obtain items. That of course, also comes with party loot and heightened danger.

We’ve enhanced the solo aspects of the game, and also fixed the problem of mobs spawning clumped together. To compensate for the reduced difficulty in preventing mobs from spawning close together, we’ve placed ranged mobs as well.


The two factions

7. Will the Asmodian NPCs’ appearances change?

They will be changed in due time. Not only Asmodians, but also previously shown NPCs including Elyos NPCs will see a change in appearance.

8. Will Elyos-Asmodian PvP be available?

Through the Direct Portal, yes. Aion offers PvP through methods not offered by other games. But we’ve not seen any players engaging in PvP through these methods.
The hint is, the description you see for skills/spells do not determine the outcome of PvP! I’d like to see more players engaging themselves into Aion’s unique PvP.



Abyss & Abyss Point

9. Will the Abyss be available?

One of the abyss zone will be available. A single abyss zone will house more than 9 fortresses, unique dungeons, and dungeons with giant monsters that dwell inside.
The abyss that will be available in this test will have PvP enabled hunting areas as well as sieges. The players will have to be wary of the opposing race as they play, so the Abyss will provide an ever-present sense of tension.
Also, to prevent fortress NPCs from being massacred by the opposing race, we’ve set the NPC levels to make sure that fortresses are not so easily taken over.


Aion’s Items

10. The vendor-sold items suck

I think it’s obvious that they shouldn’t be of good quality seeing how they’re the most basic items. We may change the aesthetics, but their functionality will not change.

11. Will more items of different types be added?

Currently Aion’s items are categorized into rare(green) and unique. We’re planning to add more in-between.

Currently the game does not have set effects, and we do not plan on adding such a feature.

Other questions

12. Will arenas become available?

Arenas exist to provide players a place to spend away their free time. At the moment, we prioritize fixing bugs and addressing player complaints to tending to such side features.

13. Will a boarding system be implemented?

We don’t have plans for that. There will be, however, transports that players can board in cities.

14. What was the most commonly addressed issue from players?

The difficulty of solo play, UI, distinction between Elyos and Asmodians. Many have been worked on, and the ones that we have not yet gotten to will be worked on in the future.
There were also a lot of questions regarding flight time. We’re also fixing this by enabling continuous flight: If you had a minute’s worth of flight time and only used 10 seconds of it, you can now use the remaining 50 seconds.


15. Did you guys come across any problems as you were preparing for the second phase of CBT?

Due to the conflict of schedules and such, everyone in the office has fallen ill. Looks like we’ll be spending our days off in the office. Oh, and with the addition of the new zone, it may seem like there are fewer quests due to the larger size of the zone, but there will be a sufficient amount of quests that serve their purpose such as helping the character into the next areas and such.



16. Who’s your top competition?

I’d think Hellgate and other recently released games. WoW and Warhammer if we were to talk about the same genre.

17. Is the second CBT on schedule?

We’re doing our best. From the way it seems at the moment, we’ll have to pull a few more all-nighters. There are also issues we have not yet addressed so we’re discussing our plans at the moment.

18. Anything you’d like to say to the players?

I’d first like to apologize for taking a month-long break. We want to show you a more complete game with more content, and I’d like to say that Aion is a game with many hidden elements. The first zone, becoming a Daeva, PvP and all these things hide things that players may find enjoyable.

Source:gamechosun.co.kr
Translated by:jameinkaiser

Tags: AION , AION THE TOWER OF ETERNTY , AION TOWER OF ETERNITY .