Since announcement that Aion Europe will be becoming F2P in February 2012, EU player base has many question and concerns regarding this transition. New soon-to-be EU Community Manager BlackVelvet is doing her best to reply to all question via forum and e-mails. We’ve gathered hers answers, so players will be aware what to expect soon.

Q: GF has a bad company name for running games – how will you see your bad name don’t follow you with running AION?

A: We are aware of our rather not good reputation.
However, our Aion team consists of professionals, also players who played the game for a while.
Of course we thought about the best support we can give to you beforehand. And a lot of experience in the past years showed us what players like and do not like at all.
Additionally, transparency is an important issue for us. So keeping the information flowing is a pretty important job and also very important for you. This counts for both ways: Feedback to you, feedback from you to GF.

Q: Your company name is over run with bad dealing with bots and cash sellers how will you deal with these issues in Aion to make it so this does not happen?

A: We are adopting the current monitoring system of NC and also have the same possibilities to monitor players, bots and such. A lot of restrictions of the F2P model are reactions to the botting problem as well as the goldsellers. We have a huge inhouse support team which will deal with issues like that and will help out as well as monitor everything.

Q: As we understand NCSoft West is transferring all Aion EU services to Gameforge, but do you have any contract that NCSoft West will still ensure that Gameforge will provide Aion EU services at appropriate quality level?

A: NCSoft is close to us. That also means they have a close eye on what we do. They for sure want the game to be run in the best quality.
I am not familiar with the past fights against bots, cheaters and such but we have our own policy on how to deal with them. But yes 🙂 We will take care of it. I think our customer support is pretty friendly and also is different from the past GF games. We have experienced supporters also from bigger publishers/game companies who started off in our team and they bring in their experience with customer support.

Q: As we understand Gameforge will be a EU publisher of Aion and NCSoft West will be NA publisher. So basically, NCSoft Korea will be still main developer of the game for all worldwide regions? Will Gameforge be more independent to change game mechanic to “fit” western market or/and adding additional content regardless of NCSoft Korea?

A: Yes they will stay developers. Depending on the stuff that we want to implement into the game, we need Korea to build it into the game. The development of the game is still in their hands. We can suggest and request changes. Discuss it with them and then get it either implemented or rejected.

Q: Me and many Legion Mates are Asking ourself can GF change Aion “How They want” ( Mechanics/Events/Etc) or do they need knock at NcSoft and ask about such stuff? Because if you have full access to Aion you could create nice events and design the game how we customers wish?

A: We are publishers and stay publishers. However, we are in close relationship to NC and they already asked for feedback about several stuff.
Events can be created yes. Besides the existing events in game, we want to hold events and competitions next to the game. Forum contests, cosplay contests, fan art competitions, real life meet & greets, community real life events. Everything like this is planned.
For the ingame events, we are able to adjust some of the events. Not all of them, but some.

Q: We all know that NA/EU Aion is always few months behind Korean Aion with the new patches and updates. How about Gameforge? You will just simple “buy patch from NCSoft Korea, then you just feel like it”, or “you will just receive patches same as NCSoft West”?

A: We will receive patches from NC Korea, similar to the current handling. Those need to be reviewed and depending on the content, we might request some adjustments for our market and some localization but that’s basically it.
And from my experience, patches are important and we can’t reject them because of future compatibility with following patches.

Q: Will EU new patches release will be delayed to NA Aion release dates or as today both Gameforge and NCSoft West will try to release patches at the same time?

A: We will try to release at the same time with NA. Of course it might be that patches get postponed and have a few days difference but we try to be in the same time frame.

Q: What are Gameforge plans of releasing Aion 3.0 patch? Is there any chance to see it with F2P change or shortly after?

A: I can’t tell you an exact date :P.
But it will come. I had a demonstration of the patch not long ago when we had the Korean developers at our HQs. But 3.0 will come after the F2P changes. Not with them 🙂

Q: With you taking over the database, will you have new server hardware, where will the servers be located and will the ping for players that have issues now be better?

A: The servers will be in Germany.

Q: Will we get the official 64bit version back? If, when? If not, why not?

A: Currently asking around and is noted on my list. I will come back at you as soon as I have more information about that one. nobody already contacted me about this and yes, I would love to have a 64bit Client myself.

Q: How much “Gold Pack” will costs? More or less than current subscription?

A: Less – 9,99 € per month. There will be multi-month packages with a discount.

Q: I see that you’re adding new servers but as you know we’re currently limited at 8 chars per account. Do you plan to increase this and make it 8 chars per server or are we doomed to create new accounts that will be, wonder what, Starter account despite us being Veterans?

A: No, nothing like this is planned. You have to stay with 8 characters on one account and there is nothing planned to change that so far. If you want more than 9 characters or a different one, as it is right now, you need to delete one of your characters you don’t need.

Q: What is this “Bonus” added to Gold Pack and not available for Veterans and Starters?

A: The Gold pack consists of the basic game as you have it without all the cooldown restrictions plus some additional bonus on AP, Crucible Insignias and more. Rest can be seen on our page – http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/featuresdetails/ 🙂

Q: How “limited” will be sieges for Veterans and Starters without Gold Pack?

A: Sieges will stay as they are but the reward for participating in fortress sieges will be slightly adjusted. This can be looked up in our huge table as well – http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/featuresdetails/ 🙂

Q: Many many many Pvpers like myself are unhappy about the Ap cap in PvP which exist. So if enough customers give a feedback about this could GF remove the Ap cap or increase the amount of Ap that we can gain?

A: The AP cap stays for now. And will not be removed in the near future. Increasing the cap is another option though and might be considered depending on your needs and the current game balance. I will forward this to our team for discussion.

Q: Will you remove/reduce the buffs in Morhein/Eltnen/Beluslan/Heiron and get rifting alive again?

A: We are taking the game as it is and not influence the current gameplay. However we will monitor your needs and act/adjust accordingly in future.

Q: Will you remove the ban of going to the first area in Gelkmaros/Inggisson?

A: Nope, as mentioned before, we will take over the game as it is.

Q: You forgot to add the cooldowns for Padmarashka’s cave instance. If it is a week now, what is it going to be with your F2P model? A month, two months?

A: I mentioned it few days ago when I prepared the detailed list but forgot to add it. But the cooldown for Padmarashka’s cave stays the same as it is now, for everyone.

Q: Currently, all paying Aion players get “Veteran Rewards” every month, in your FAQ it’s said that only players who buys “Gold Packs” will get Veteran Rewards after F2P change – what about former subscribers and Veteran accounts? What kind of rewards we can expect?

A: For Veterans there is nothing planned for now. However we as the CMs are thinking about something to compensate that in some ways.
And yes, it sucks kind of. I want my Vet rewards as well lol.

Q: Are you aware that current player base don’t want Aion to become P2W game (pay-to-win)? Does Gameforge plan to add such P2W items into future store?

A: We don’t want to influence the game with the itemshop, especially not concerning PvP. Power items won’t be in the itemshop. The complete list of the itemshop will be revealed in the next few weeks.
We won’t sell power items and god forbid, we don’t want to sell equipment, weapons and such. We will release the item shop content before we start in February next year. So you can still decide on your own wether you want to flag your account for opt-in or not.

Q: What kind of items we can expect in Shop – dyes, costumes, pets, fluffy mounts, house items, some scrolls, 100% manastones/enchantment supplements? Manastone/enchantment stone boxes? Instance cd reduce scrolls? ect.

A: We are mainly focusing on customization, that includes costumes, dyes, pets and maybe mounts, but those are part of 3.0 and well, we don’t have it yet 🙂