The Game Guide HQ » Blog http://www.thegameguidehq.com Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:22:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/NCSoft launch Aion: The Official Magazinehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/rr7E-mAz7bM/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/ncsoft-launch-aion-the-official-magazine/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:31:44 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7994 NCSoft have announced that they are to launch a magazine for Aion subscribers. Unlike CCP’s EON magazine for EVE Online, Aion: The Official Magazine will be a digital only publication. The bait? Exclusive ingame items.

Access to the magazine will cost $3.99 per issue, with a new exclusive item available when each issue is released. On top of that, gamers who pre-order the first issue or a subscription will get 5 True Black or True White dyes.

Subscriptions offer savings over buying each issue separately, and offer even more ingame goodies.

A 6 month subscription gets you:

  • 10% off
  • 30 Greater Running scrolls
  • 5 black or white dyes
  • 1 Pilot hat

While a 12 month subscription gets you:

  • 20% off
  • 1 Wing Feather of Birth
  • 10 black or white dyes
  • 1 Pilot Hat
  • 50 Greater Wind Serum
  • 50 Greater Raging Wind scrolls

The magazine will be full of interviews with the designers and developers, Guild of the Month and Player of the Month interviews, Getting Started guides, and Expert Guides focussing on specific areas of play. There’s no doubt the magazine will be a good read and full of good information for players – the bonus in-game items really add to the appeal.

You can pre-order the Aion magazine and look through the bonus items at https://www.aionmagazine.com/

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/ncsoft-launch-aion-the-official-magazine/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/ncsoft-launch-aion-the-official-magazine/ Aion claims more awards, boosts NCSoft’s profitshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/FRhI07bp9gc/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-claims-more-awards-boosts-ncsofts-profits/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:59:32 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7744 Aion continues to harvest more awards, as the game keeps on growing and attracting more players. Jeuxonline has voted Aion “Best MMOG of 2009″, alongside PC Guru’s “Best MMO of 2009″ award.

Jeuxonline said:

Aion was already JOL d’OR, ‘Best Hope of 2009.’ The readers of JOL confirmed Aion as the best MMO of this year, among all the MMOs released in 2009. The know-how of NCsoft to address a large public, the graphics and the polish of the game have all clearly seduced a certain category of MMO players this year.

and PC Guru commented that:

Unique features like air combat. Special character development, exotic oriental looking visual world, and manga styled characters. The key to success could be that it’s really different than WoW thanks to some very well executed ideas.

And on the financial side, Aion’s publisher, NCSoft, has announced record revenue growth of 83% for fiscal year 2009, compared to 2008. Income was up a whopping 623% over the previous year.

Aion brought in the bulk of this, contributing a solid 43% of NCSoft’s game revenue for 2009. Fourth quarter income for 2009 was up an impressive 1009% compared to 2008. That old stalwart Lineage II contributed 26% game revenue for FY 2009, with the original Lineage accounted for another 23%.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-claims-more-awards-boosts-ncsofts-profits/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-claims-more-awards-boosts-ncsofts-profits/ Updated Aion guides now availablehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/g1S42ko8XnE/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available-2/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:31:19 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7315 News reaches us from Killer Guides about the recent raft of updates to their very popular Aion Guides. Three of their titles have been updated with extra information to help on your quest to get to level 50. Older information has also been updated in the guides to bring them in line with recent patch changes.

Aion Assassin Guide

  • Now available with complete quest recommendations from level 1 – 50

Aion Cleric Guide

  • Includes a new ‘Term Glossary’ chapter which provides detailed explanations of the technical terms

Aion Kinah Guide

  • Addition of a new chapter dedicated to ‘Fluxes’ with a list of all fluxes from level 1 – 50
  • An updated monster drop list for the Sprigg habitat area

Head on over to the Aion Guides product pages to get more information on the updates. If you’re read our reviews of the Aion Guides and want some more, you can save money by getting the Aion Guide Bundle.

Remember, if you’re already purchased an Aion Guide or the Bundle, these updates are free for you to download.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available-2/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available-2/ MMORPG.com name EVE Online Game of the Yearhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/mMLqAzgZ4EA/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/mmorpg-com-name-eve-online-game-of-the-year/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:55:03 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7102 The awards keep on coming for EVE Online. Ten Ton Hammer voted EVE Online’s community Best Community of 2009, and now MMORPG.com have announced that EVE is their Game of the Year 2009.

EVE’s growing and vibrant community, along with the Apocrypha and Dominion expansions, were highlighted as factors that make EVE Online such an exciting and challenging game, even though it was originally launched back in 2003.

The nominated games for Game of the Year were:

  • Aion
  • EVE Online
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • World of Warcraft
  • Wizard 101

MMORPG.com judged the games based on multiple factors: design quality, fun, popularity, continued progress and more.

You can read more, including the runners up and the reasons behind their choice, at MMORPG.com’s Game of the Year page.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/mmorpg-com-name-eve-online-game-of-the-year/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/mmorpg-com-name-eve-online-game-of-the-year/ New features coming to Aionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/p-fZuD9vglE/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/new-features-coming-to-aion/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:26:54 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7317 The Aion development team have been talking about new features for a while now, and with the server load problems and money spammer issues now managed, if not totally resolved, they’re once again getting ready to improve the features Aion offers to it’s players.

The two main features which will be added in the short term are those allowing you to change your character’s features, and their gender.

Changing your character’s features will be called Plastic Surgery, and will involve purchased special tickets as an account service:

Plastic surgery involves purchasing a Plastic Surgery Ticket as an account service. This Plastic Surgery Ticket allows a player a second chance to model a character. Using the ticket, a player can alter a character’s hair shape, hair color, body style, face, eyes, and nearly anything you could customize in the physical character creation screen that you originally used in to make a character. These tickets will not be tradable and will not allow you to change gender, but they will offer you a fresh start should your character need to go underground (chased by the yakuza?) and completely change appearance. Visit your faction’s Daeva of Appearance after you purchase a ticket to redeem it.

Similarly, to be able to change your character’s gender will require buying a Gender Change Ticket – again, as an account service:

The gender change service is available through the purchase of a Gender Change Ticket. Gender change is a mystical and intricate procedure, and only certain NPC Daevas are able to perform this ritual. These Daevas of Life Transformation redeem Gender Change Tickets, and can be found in the somewhat shady quarters of Sanctum and Pandaemonium. Gender Change Tickets are also not tradable, and each ticket is only valid for a single character.

These two account services will be the first added to Aion, and the devs are hopeful that they will be available from the middle of February.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/new-features-coming-to-aion/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/new-features-coming-to-aion/ Double experience weekend in Aionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/1Gab_dfolqM/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/double-experience-weekend-in-aion/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:57:28 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7159 The Aion Community Team have announced that this weekend players will gain double experience on all European servers. The experience will automatically be applied, doubling the XP gained from missions and kills.

From the Aion forums:

Who’s ready for another Double Experience Weekend?! That’s right! It’s time to once again stock up on caffeinated products in preparation for a weekend without sleep. This Friday, January 22nd, at 7:00 p.m GMT, we will enable double experience on all European servers. The experience bonus will run through the weekend before ending on Monday at 7:00 a.m. GMT.

This is a good opportunity to level up either your main character, or an alt, especially if you’re at the lower levels and want to get access to the extra content available over level 30.

You can read the full thread on the Aion forums here.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/double-experience-weekend-in-aion/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/double-experience-weekend-in-aion/ Aion Solorius Festival contest winnershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/C2Y7kqSGNQY/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-solorius-festival-contest-winners/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:31:48 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=7100 The results are in from the Aion Community Team for the Solorius Festival video contest. Aion gamers were asked to create machimina videos in the game, celebrating the true spirit of the Solorius Festival.

The winner was Nikole Gamble with his video “Twas the Night of Solorius”



The rest of the contest winners, along with the runners up, can be found on the official Aion website here.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-solorius-festival-contest-winners/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/aion-solorius-festival-contest-winners/ EVE Online’s latest expansion Dominion is livehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/oF9up7SfFJI/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/eve-onlines-latest-expansion-dominion-is-live/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:49:29 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=6017 Continuing their regular schedule of free expansions to EVE Online, CCP have this week released EVE Online: Dominion. The initial release has been followed with a couple of patches to address issues, but so far it’s been a successful upgrade.

You can find the list of features and bugfixes here:

On the back of this latest expansion, EVE Online has set a new record, with 54,181 logged in pilots. Remember EVE has a shared game universe – that’s over 54,000 players all interacting with each other and the game environment – a very impressive achievement, especially so soon after a major game update was deployed.

As always, CCP have release a new trailer for Dominion, showcasing the features and the beautiful gameplay that EVE is famous for.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/eve-onlines-latest-expansion-dominion-is-live/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/eve-onlines-latest-expansion-dominion-is-live/ Free Guild Wars: Eye of the North downloadhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/EdihJMR3yw8/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/free-guild-wars-eye-of-the-north-download/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:16:28 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=4817 If you’re a Guild Wars player, and you haven’t yet got all three of the campaigns, now is the time to do it. The Guild Wars: Eye of the North fansite carries the news that starting today, players who buy a Guild Wars campaign from either the Guild Wars in-game store, or from the NCSoft online store, can download the Eye of the North expansion for free.

Guild Wars Eye of the North expansion
The Eye of the North citadel

This is a special offer from NCSoft for the Christmas holidays, and ends on January 5th 2010 – so now is the time to complete your Guild Wars collection and test your skills in the Eye of the North expansion.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/free-guild-wars-eye-of-the-north-download/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/free-guild-wars-eye-of-the-north-download/ Updated Aion guides now availablehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGameGuideHq/~3/x3mgh6XzfhI/ http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:05:37 +0000 Tom Kranz http://www.thegameguidehq.com/?p=4559 Killer Guides have announced their latest round of revisions to their popular Aion guides. Several Aion class guides have been updated to cover up to Level 40, as well as taking into account new game strategies and updates that have been applied since launch.

The full list of updated Aion guides and their changes is:

  • Aion Templar Guide

    An extensively overhauled leveling section for both factions up to level 40.

  • Aion Cleric Guide

    A revised leveling section expanding to level 40.

  • Aion Gladiator Guide

    A fully complete Aion Gladiator Guide with leveling sections hitting the 50 level cap.

  • Aion Chanter Guide

    A complete leveling section taking you all the way to level 50.

  • Aion Ranger Guide

    Full leveling guides for both the Asmodian and the Elyos, reaching level 50. Updated and revised battle strategies, skills and their use.

All of the updated guides are available free to download for customers who have already bought the originals. If you’re thinking about starting an alt, or trying a new career in Aion, how is the time to pickup a guide.

Related Posts:

]]> http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available/feed/ 0 http://www.thegameguidehq.com/blog/updated-aion-guides-now-available/