Lani "Liv" Blazier, the community manager for Aion, has given us some updates regarding the status of the game in North America and Europe. She has supplied answers to five questions and introduced us to Lance Stites, executive producer of NCsoft West's Game Production Studio. To answer the question on most fans' minds, Aion should be shipped to NCsoft West territories on North America and Europe in fall 2009.

In Stites' letter to the community, he notes that NCsoft West is undergoing restructuring, but emphasizes the following: "We really have an exciting time ahead of us in regards to ongoing updates to existing products, new releases on the horizon, and closer cooperation and coordination between the European and North American territories."

As for why localization is taking so long, Blazier said Aion is not simply being translated, but the dialogue and content is being re-created to get the launch "right" the first time. Also, there will definitely be community support for Europe. You can read all of the questions and answers, as well as Stites' letter, below.

The following is Blazier's post from the official Aion Web site:

I'd like to thank you for your patience while I collected feedback, comments and suggestions from various Aion communities' across Europe and North America. I used this information to create a list of questions that I felt needed to be addressed right away by our development team. This list does not cover all of your questions, I realize this, but I wanted to provide what information is available at present. The rest I am still working on.

I have spent the last week discussing the current state of morale within the community and the general excitement for the game with our production team and after reviewing the community report, one member in particular wanted to address you all directly. I would like to introduce you to Lance Stites, Executive Producer of NCsoft West's Game Production Studio.

Greetings to all,

As Executive Producer, my responsibilities include preparing and supporting the launch and ongoing operations of product for the "Western" market—including North America and Europe. I've worked with NCsoft since 2001, including 5 years in the Austin office and after a brief time away from the company I returned to spend almost a year in the European office. I've worked to launch or support multiple products or expansions, including the Lineage and City of Heroes franchises.

As you've probably seen, NCsoft West is undergoing restructuring which involves the relocation of certain key staff. We're building a dedicated production studio to support titles like Aion and the Lineage franchise. We've added Lani "Liv" Blazier as our Aion Community Manager recently and she is already taking an extremely active role within the community. Within the MMO community, this role is of vital importance and great to have someone who understands the importance of the player base and will be a tireless advocate of the community needs. Liv has spent the past several days gathering information and answers that are important to the community. We want to continue this open dialogue with the players and look forward to more as we move toward and past our Aion launch.

We really have an exciting time ahead of us in regards to ongoing updates to existing products, new releases on the horizon, and closer cooperation and coordination between the European and North American territories.

Cordially yours,

Lance Stites

Executive Producer, Game Production Studio
NCsoft West

The Community Team is committed to listening and responding to your needs. Please find below the answers to 5 questions that I wanted to make you had answers to sooner, rather than later.

1) When will Aion be released in North America/Europe?

We expect to ship Aion in NCsoft West territories in the fall of 2009.

2) Why is localization taking so long?

The localization effort is enormous, with a vast amount of content. Aion is not simply being translated, a team of dedicated content writers are re-creating the written dialogue and content to provide AAA quality and to ensure that it is culturally relevant for our audience. We are going to do this launch "right" rather than fast.

3) Has a date been set for our Preview Event?

While we are not ready to release specific details regarding the Preview Event, we can tell you that participants will include those who signed up at last year at FJV, PAX and Leipzig. We will also be extending invites to long time NCsoft customers and dedicated legions. As we get closer, we will be offering more opportunities for fans to get signed up for this exclusive event.

4) Will there be community support for Europe?

Absolutely. We realize that many in the community were surprised with our announcement regarding the consolidation of the North American and European operations. We are deeply committed to our European community and will have native speaking Community Coordinators for our supported languages (English, German & French).

5) Will there be servers for each region?

We will have servers physically located both in Europe and North America for launch.

We know you have more questions and they are being addressed. My goal is to have another update for your within the next few weeks.

Thank you,

Liv
Community Manager, Aion