Major Aion Patch Details Surface

Tags : aion patch 1.9 details, aion patch, aion news

Aion was launched to critical and commercial success back in September last year in the States, and is soon going to receive its first major patch since the western release.

The philosophy behind the upcoming patch was the acceptance that most MMO players form a routine, and that the more the routine can be simplified, the more room players will have to expand what they are doing. Basically, they want Aion – a game that had been criticized for being extremely "grindy" at higher levels – to become very casual-friendly, while appeasing and maintaining that hardcore player base. Few games have achieved this magical balance so far.

The patch notes are somewhere in the vicinity of 26(!) pages, and the patch itself is in the process of being localized for the western market, but a few key features stand out.

The (perhaps overdue) addition of a looking-for-group feature is being added with the hope of turning the spam-filled and overcrowded LFG chat channel into a distant memory. It can run in the background and alert you when it finds a suitable party a la World of Warcraft's rather decent LFG-button.

Daily quests will also be added, but on a rotation. Players won't see the same quests every day, and it will likely take a while before the same quests start springing up with any regularity. On top of this, the rewards for these quests are quite unique to rewards found elsewhere, ranging from consumables (potions etc...) to improve your combat abilities, to – and this is actually quite neat – powerful gear with a set lifespan. For example, you may get an extremely potent weapon that lasts for 24 hours from the point you complete your quest, after which it vanishes.

To compliment this temporary-gear feature, there will also be gear-rentals, available from in-game merchants. Players who would otherwise be unable to afford a brutal set of armor to keep will be able to rent it for a set period for a far smaller cost. Players who are leveling and want to save up for a specific weapon several levels ahead of them, without struggling with their current pitiful gear, will be able to make excellent use of these rentals.

We were also told that more casual users who find themselves leveling slower will soon find that they are getting a boost to the experience they gain as well. They may not advance as rapidly as more hardcore players, but they will by no means be going at a snail's pace.

There will also be a huge volume of tweaks across the board, including increased drop-rates in dungeons, more powerful equipment rewards from campaign quests (quests directly involved with Aion's storyline) to actually make them more worthwhile, and changes to the way players complete the Dredgion battleground (one of the end-game areas), requiring players to actually execute a strategy (as opposed to just rush to the final area).

There's no set date for the patch to hit the west, though it is expected to hit the Korean servers within the next month or so.

The full list of patch notes can be found here.