Aion

After two months of fierce competition, MMOsite Reader’s Choice Award 2010 has successfully ended on January 16th, 2011. During this period, a total of 5,089,980 people had joined in this event, voting on their top choices of the games that they feel deserve the awards. Now we are proud to announce the winners of the 14 categories. Congratulations to all the winners and special thanks to everyone who participates in this event!

Check out the full list of MMOsite Reader’s Choice Awards winners below.

Best New Game in 2010

1.FreeJack

2.Dynasty Warriors Online

3.Vindictus

Most Anticipated MMO in 2010

1.World of Tanks

2.MicroVolts

3.Forsaken World

Most Classic MMO in 2010

1.Cross Fire

2.ArchLord

3.MapleStory

Favorite MMORPG in 2010

1.Rappelz

2.MapleStory

3.Dynasty Warriors Online

Favorite MMOFPS in 2010

1.Cross Fire

2.S4 League

3.Mission Against Terror

Favorite Strategy MMO in 2010

1.World of Tanks

2.League of Legends

3.Atlantica Online

Favorite Action & Casual MMO in 2010

1.Super Dancer Online – Xtreme

2.FreeJack

3.Tales Runner

Huge changes are coming your way with Aion’s 2.5 update, and we’ve got all the details courtesy of the officially translated Korean patch notes. Yesterday we chatted up Aion producer Sean Neil, and today we’ve got a few interesting nuggets that should add fuel to your 2.5 fire.

There’s a lot of new content coming in the update, none of it bigger than the new Academy Bootcamp and Araka instances (both of which sport a level 50 entrance requirement). The former is a bit of a departure from the game’s existing instances given that it’s set in a circular arena and features “wave after wave” of monsters. The Araka farm instance requires an eye for quest dialogue detail, so pay attention to the Reian tribesmen associated with the dungeon.

The 2.5 patch is also adding a new divinity endowment enhancement system as well as several tweaks to the game’s crafting and gathering systems. The endowment system adds various bonuses to your equipment that are then consumed in battle, while more than 300 advanced designs have been added with the aim of reducing the pain inherent in the higher-level crafting game.

Finally, 2.5 is adding new pets, an extensive pet mood system, group More >

It seems that NCsoft and NHN’s one-on-one fight is about to begin. TERA just launched open beta in Korea and NCsoft today announced to bring Aion 2.5 to live server on January 26th. Although the 2.5 patch won’t change the core of Aion, it revamps the game on several key aspects and more importantly, it’s a prototype of Aion 3.0, the expansion that could drastically change the game.

Aion 2.5 features upgraded graphic that will also be applied in Aion 3.0. NCsoft takes Aion 2.5 for a transitional period and the current graphic will still be available in Aion 2.5 for low-end PCs. You can see some 2.5 patch screenshots here.

Customization is another part that gets a big update. It will implement the best character customization system in the world and theoretically, it can provide at least 100 million different faces. Besides, new movement system allows you to run and fight as a ninja.

For the 2 new instances you can check out the official patch note. In the current version, a low level player obtain almost no EXP if there’s a high level player in his party, but this will be changed in 2.5 with the coming of “assistant system”. You can More >

Aion 2.5’s officially announced! Well I will first invite you to enjoy the 2.5 trailer. I know you’ve been longed for that for a long time but unfortunately the video is captured by camera and the official trailer will be released soon.

Aion 2.5 intro video

Aion 2.5 content details

The details were released on NCsoft’s press conference on Jan 4th. Aion 2.5 is named Call of Lords (주신의 부름). I translated it from Korean to English directly so it’s just for your reference.

Updated Graphic: Just as what we reported before, Aion 2.5 will apply an improved CryEngine. The general graphic will be more realistic and colorful with the enhanced light and dark contrast. The 2.5 patch also upgrades the texture quality without replacing the existing shader and shadow. The whole world and environment will change dynamically.

Pets to fight with you in Aion 2.5?

Map will have more functions

New Dungeon mode: For some new dungeons, NCsoft will introduce a new gameplay mode. According to the developer team, the dungeons will be consist of certain levels and you will beat them one by one. You’ll directly face the boss in each level. There will be some changes in the traditional dungeons, too: you need to move more often than before More >

Chinese Players are just able to play Aion 2.0 last week while players of the other areas have played it for months. Aion (CN)’s left behind on game content’s update but it goes ahead of the whole world on leveling. A few days after Aion 2.0 launched the open beta in China, we got a player who reached level 56 while the level cap of Aion 2.0 is set on 55. NCsoft hasn’t officially announced Aion 2.5, there’s been player who got 2.5’s level.

The others won’t be able to get to this level until Aion 2.5 releases

Will he continue to level up? Unlikely. According to the player’s post on Aion forum, he exceed the level cap and got to 56 suddenly when he’s still at level 54, with his EXP bar showing negative numbers, lol. Whether he’s used bot or exploited is unknown but there’s been lots of people trying to contact him to get the secret of becoming the NO.1.

Due to the oceans of bots in game, Aion (CN) kept losing players in the past one year. Now the Chinese Aion publisher Shanda Games tries to stop bots in the new version and they launched several phases of Closed More >