[ckydrag0on]

Click the link provided in the article to see all the details, pretty awesome in my opinion, lots of upgrades.

NCSoft News said:

Letter from Aion Producer Brian Knox on Open Beta
September 3, 2009 2:07 PM

Hello!

Welcome to the Open Beta Test for Aion in both Europe and North America.

Below you will find a list of the major changes and additions to Aion since you last participated in our Closed Beta Test. We have done our best to provide a comprehensive list of changes. The Open Beta brings the game content up to the 1.5 patch that is available in Korea; the same updates that were made to the Korean live servers are being implemented here, as well. While there may be some differences when comparing the official NA/EU notes to fan site translations of Korea's official notes, the game content is the same.

Not only does Open Beta bring a number of game improvements and additions, you'll also notice that we had a major terminology overhaul to complete our effort of Westernizing the game. Many skills and items have changed since the Closed Beta Test and should be a welcome surprise as you explore the world.

While we feel the Open Beta version will provide a complete experience, we wanted to note that this is not our final update before launch. Our launch version is in internal testing, and it will continue to flesh out the 1.5 update with the help of your feedback and experiences in Open Beta.

Please remember this is an Open Beta Test, and while our goal is to provide you with a flawless Aion experience, there are behind-the-scenes infrastructure tests happening to prepare for launch. One very important area that will affect everyone is that we will be balancing races as folks rush to log into the servers. As a result, you may get a "This race cannot be created" message because that server is starting to become unbalanced. It's important to us that we try and keep a balance of the races during the Open Beta of Aion. If you come across this message, please feel free to try another server or wait until the server balance has tipped back.

Another hot topic has been our Web site and whether we will be bringing over some of the services that Korea has provided to their community. The short answer is yes! Just like the PowerWiki, we will be bringing some of these services to our own site. We hope to begin rolling them out in the coming weeks.

Overall, we are very excited for Open Beta - it is a culmination of a lot of effort and the feedback of our community. For example, one of the most requested features during Closed Beta testing was a suggestion to use the left mouse button to change the camera. We also added more content both in the persistent game world and in instanced dungeons. You'll see this change and many others were added in this game update, including:

1. New Areas: Theobomos (Elysea) and Brusthonin (Asmodae)
2. New Instances!
3. Over 40 new default faces have been added to character creation.
4. Increased PvPvE rewards
5. UI changes (click-to-move has been disabled by default)
6. New items!
7. New skills + increased balance
8. Tons of new quests.
9. Advanced Stigma Stone System
10. Chat Channels
a. Class
b. Region
c. Looking For Group
d. Languages

Find a full list of patch notes HERE.

With this update there is a lot of great content and a very fun world to explore, and we hope that during Open Beta you will experience the magic that is Aion.

Open Beta starts 9 a.m. PDT (5 p.m. BST, 6 p.m. CEST) on Sunday, September 6th.

Brian Knox
Producer, Aion

[Anuxinamoon]

More updates from NCWEST. Most notable are the extra Open Beta Keys Fileplanet is giving away to free members now, not just paid subscribers!

From Aion Online

Quote

Aion Open Beta Updates

The Aion Team extends a huge thank you for the overwhelming response we have received throughout the beginning of our ongoing open beta testing. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but have managed to resolve many of them with your persistent help, reports, and sincere desire for the game to run as it should.

The main topic of discussion over the past few days has been lag, in particular on the North American servers. We believe we have resolved the issue, but we will aggressively work to continue to improve and prevent similar issues. Over the next couple of days, we will do more in-depth troubleshooting to flush out the issue. It is very important to us that the game plays as intended for everyone, and we won't rest before we reach that goal.

The second issue we are addressing is the authentication server, which from a player point of view, is the login process. We are investigating the issues with its behavior during today and this evening to search for errors in our setups and to try a few different ideas we have that will allow us to understand the player reports and improve its behavior. We will let you know ahead of time if this will impact service in anyway.

The next issue is GameGuard. We are aware that a couple of new errors have popped up since our closed beta tests. We are working on a patch that will address a couple of them. Feedback is essential as we troubleshoot these errors, as the data you give us helps us narrow problem factors down and reach solutions quicker. To give you additional information and suggested fixes that might help your GameGuard-related situation before you need to call upon a customer services representative, we have added a GameGuard information page on AionOnline.

The beta forums have been a quieter than normal, in part due to irregularities with our forum authentication script. Certain upgrades that needed to be made for open beta apparently weren't completed in time, preventing both new and old accounts from logging in. The fix is now implemented. If you were able to log in prior to this update, but notice that you are suddenly unable to, make sure to update your Aion account password following these instructions. Your password update may take as long as 30 minutes before it is effective.

The final noteworthy topic relates to beta keys. Many of you have wondered why we have been so restrictive in distributing them. We know many of you have guildmates or friends who would love to give the game a try before making a further commitment. To ensure that we had time to set our servers up properly and get rid of initial connectivity issues, we throttled the key giveaways and so that we could ramp the distribution up slowly but securely. We are now at a stage where we are confident enough to open this final beta phase up to a much broader audience by giving away North American open beta keys to everyone! FilePlanet is hosting this giveaway, and you will not need to be a paying subscriber in order to get your hands on one of the keys. FilePlanet also have a number of European keys to give away, so get them while they last! Many more European websites in different languages will also be offering European keys.

Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued help in the open beta test. With your help, we will flush out any remaining issues before the upcoming release of Aion!

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter (@aion_ayase, @aion_xaen, @aion_amboss, @aion_liv) - no registration is required!

[ckydrag0on]

Way to go girl.