We sat down with former North American Community Manager Andrew "Tamat" Beegle to look back at his time at NCsoft. Also, Community Coordinator Kate "Trine" Field chimes in about the current state of the game!

ZAM: When Aion first launched, players were adamant that the community team needed a more open line of communication with players. From your standpoint, what steps were taken over the past year to address that?

Tamat: We've taken a number of steps to increase the communication we have with our players. We drastically increased the people in the team from three to ten and upgraded the technology that we use to make communication easier. I’ll let Kate "Trine" Field, our community coordinator, explain.

Kate "Trine" Field: We've used a multipronged approach to increase communication. First, we upgraded our forums to a more user-friendly service. Being able to provide an improved, secure platform has helped immensely to support our players in interacting with the community.

On the North American forums, my goal has been to increase my contact and dialogue with the players. I love our players! They are very passionate and actively engaged in the Aion community. We want to hear what is important to them, and at the same time, they want to know that we are listening and to hear the response from us.

Our team has really been working hard on moving from a reactive role to a proactive role. Supporting active dialogue and engagement with our players is key to advocating for them internally. Because of our close interaction with players, we recognize what is important to them and understand their various play styles and the challenges they face using those play styles. One of the many challenges with a global game is that differing cultures and territories prefer different gameplay styles. We need to understand all the players so that we can advocate for all of them and deliver a great gameplay experience for them all.

ZAM: Kate, how do you feel about the current level of communication with players?

Trine: We have improved our communication with the players and would like to continue to see it grow. Our community interaction and forum populations are continuing to grow each month. That indicates we are on the right track. We would love to continue to improve, of course.

One thing that is different for us is that our developers are in Korea and do not actively post on our forums. They rely on our team to communicate what is important for our community and our players’ experience of the game. I would love to improve the players’ community experience by exploring game features more closely in feature articles or offering more behind-the-scenes interviews with the staff that works so hard on Aion day in and day out.

ZAM: Kate, how do you feel the game has evolved over the past year?

Trine: The game experience has become much smoother for players. Early on, the game had plateaus that were a challenge to get through in terms of XP gain and gear. A lot of the changes we have made have improved level progression and better supported players as they adventure in the world of Aion. We are seeing players who had left come back to the game and say how the experience for them has improved and how much fun they are having. The new content that has been added has been great for our players, including the new Dredgion, bosses, solo instances, a whole new ground Abyss, and new craftable items. There is so much to do in Aion that I find myself wishing there were more hours in the day!

ZAM: With Andrew leaving, can you give us a current status update on the game? What's coming next in Aion?

Trine: Aion is going strong! Players have been happy with the content and changes delivered in our recent expansion, Assault on Balaurea. We have new events specific to Western players coming to the game, and a new 64-bit client is in the works, along with our continuing effort to refine gameplay to match our players’ styles and preferences.

ZAM: Andrew, do you have any last words for all the Aion players out there?

Tamat: Aion is stronger than it's ever been, and the growth that we’ve seen since Assault on Balaurea is a testament to that. The game has an amazing team behind it, and I can’t wait to see what happens next as I go from being an employee to a player!

Darryl Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief