Interview with the Dev Team (Part 1)

gamona: Hallo, could you please introduce yourself to our audience? What’s your job in the development of “Aion: The Tower of Eternity” and what keeps you busy all day?

Aion-Team: Hello. I am the team leader of Aion’s planning department as well as the Lead Designer, Main Designer and Director of game elements (excluding Art). Also, I am in charge of providing our employees with food and coffee when they are tired. ? Recently, we have been having a lot of meetings, which has become one of the most important parts of my daily work.

gamona: For some readers the name “Aion” will not be familiar. If you had to describe what sets Aion apart from the competition, what would you say?

Aion-Team: Although Aion has many unique features including flying, one of the most important features is PvPvE which consists of 2 PC factions and 1 NPC faction. It is common now in many games that you can attack a PC who is fighting with a monster or play PvP by using surrounding monsters; however, only in Aion can you team up with a Raid-level NPC to fight with the enemy PCs and even modify these features to create various playing styles.

gamona: The Closed Beta Test has been up and running in Korea for a few weeks now. What is your main focus during this stage of testing and what kind of feedback do you get from the players?

Aion-Team: The main goal of the test is to improve the quality of the game. In order to do this, a new test project is assigned every week, and the testers are responsible for providing feedback regarding their assignments.

gamona: Which features are the favourite ones among your beta testers? Is there a clear pattern or do you get very different reactions from the players?

Aion-Team: The favourite features among the testers vary depending on each tester’s taste. For flying, for example, most testers love the flying ability itself, but some of them are not too happy with the current restrictions. Also, many of them love Skill Chains and Quests, but we are still getting feedback from the users so that we can make improvements.

gamona: Can you tell us a little bit about the races and classes in „Aion“? What are their names and backgrounds and what sets them apart from each other?

Aion-Team: For PC races, there are the Elyos and Asmodians, and the Balaur are the NPC faction. Elyos and Asmodians were originally one race against the Balaur, but they eventually became two different races because their values are different. The Elyos tend to be moderate and conservative while the Asmodians tend to be vigorous and progressive. The Balaur actually ruled the world before the Elyos and Asmodians came, and now they are trying to destroy both the Elyos and Asmodians and take over the world again.

(20.12.2007)

Interview Overview