Aion: The Tower of Eternity MMO beta breaking Korean records
Aion: The Tower of Eternity has broken records in Korea for the highest amount of registered players in the history of MMO betas in Korea, where MMO’s are so popular they have TV shows about them.
We last reported on NCsoft’s Aion: The Tower of Eternity way back in July of 2007, and after years of development the game is now closer to release than ever. It launches in North America and Europe next year (as well as in Japan and China).
As stated above, NCsoft launched the beta for Aion in Korea and in a matter of days and already over 170,000 players have jumped on the beta bandwagon, making it the most popular beta event in Korean history. According to NCsoft, more than 11,000 people were logged into the game after only two minutes of open beta service! And in less than hour, that number had ballooned to 40,000. And currently that number has increased by leaps and bounds to 170,000!
To meet the insane demand by players, NCsoft expanded their servers to 25 within a few hours of opening the beta, yet even so tens of thousands of people were waiting to get into the game. Naturally, by the second day the beta had reached the top spot in Korea’s Gametrics web-site that rates games that are played in Korea’s PC Cafe industry.
“The response we’re seeing in Korea is incredibly exciting,” said David Reid, president of publishing for NCsoft West in Seattle. “Our Aion community in North America and Europe is also rapidly growing. We’ve got aggressive plans for the western launch in 2009”.
Aion: The Tower of Eternity is an original, expansive MMORPG by NCsoft’s Seoul development studios that combines an eastern-style focus on visuals with a design focused on western action-oriented gameplay. In Aion, players are divided between those that are “The Chosen” and those that are “The Fallen.” The Tower of Eternity exists as a gateway into the Abyss, and acts as a portal between dimensions. When a great evil opens the gateways, it awakens the Dragons imprisoned within the Abyss, who seek revenge on both worlds. It is here that an epic conflict begins, as you take your first steps on a journey to bring salvation to the world.
Experience an exciting change in the way players can interact with their environment within a massively multiplayer world. With the power of the Crytec game engine, you will be able to climb sheer cliffs and fly through moving clouds. In this ethereal world, you will have the power to direct dynamic relationships between angels, demons and dragons to control the fate of the world. You will evolve Aion’s storylines through social, economic and cultural experiences that are both interactive and cinematic.
Aion: The Tower of Eternity key features include:
* A massively multiplayer online game featuring antagonistic relationships between angels, demons and a server-controlled NPC faction, The Dragons
* The Crytec game engine is used to create unprecedented freedom of 3D movement for your character in the game world - climb sheer cliffs and fly through moving clouds
* Powered by cutting-edge graphics technology, this game provides Hollywood quality cinematic control of scene and perspective.
* Control and transform the world — servers feature independently driven, player inspired storylines
* Cultural boundaries are defied through this offering of art, story and style with global appeal. Asia’s top New Age musician, Yang Bang Ean provides the original score for the game
* Introducing PvPvE — an evolving conflict system that manages the complex relationships and alliances between realms, races and guilds, and also controls an NPC faction, The Dragons, who are the common enemy of all players
