You can now see what the future holds for Aion with the nine-minute gameplay trailer NCSoft just released.

Entitled “Visions of the Future”, the clip gives you a sneak peek into the much enhanced graphics of the game, which is absolutely breathtaking considering Aion’s already stunning visuals to begin with.

Apart from the aesthetic upgrade, you can preview player housing options as samples of available exteriors and interiors, including furnishings, were shown. And if that’s not enough, the clip also shows promise of aquatic activity AKA swimming. I definitely cannot wait to try that one out for myself.

What are your thoughts on the changes?

Learn your way through Aion with EpicToon.com’s Aion Guides and blow the competition away with Aion Kinah.

[Source: Massively]

I’m so stuffed. I just got done with a tres massive helping of baked beans, sausages, bacon and eggs. Is there a better way to start the day? Well other than logging on and find out your WoW traveling partner has decided to go on a gaming hiatus and left you with a couple o’ hundred in wow gold and the keys to the guild. Also, I’d just like everyone to know that Gremlins 2: The New Batch, is the greatest movie ever.

Anyway, so we’re inching closer to the PSPGo’s October 1st launch date and personally I’m really excited, however, some retailers appear to be much less so. Apparently they’re not pleased that the price of the device is so high, and that the system doesn’t have a UMD drive so they can’t sell physical games in stores and thus make a healthy profit. Some of them are so angry they’re refusing to stock the device. Frankly, I’m with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter on this when he says;

It’s just silly for a retailer to say they won’t sell a big ticket gaming device because they can’t sell the games. Consumer electronics store sell refrigerators and not food, everyone sells iPods and not the music for them; this position is just ridiculous.

Couldn’t have said it better myself Mike. The bigger retail stores like Gamestop and er… Gamestop, seem to have grudgingly accepted the device, probably because they understand this is the way games delivery is going and there’s little they can do to stop it. As for those retailers proclaiming the device “a flop” before it even launches, I think they’re going to end up eating their words, or possibly some sort of cake like confection.

I have to admit I never truly got on board the Guild Wars bandwagon. It looked like a pretty game, I heard great things, it was free to play (after initial purchase) and I distinctly remember downloading and even installing the demo, getting as far as character creation… and then just not playing it. Whatever the case, I’m pretty excited about Guild Wars . All the concept art we’ve seen so far has looked monumentally epic in scale. If you’d like to see what I’m talking about have a gander at the recently released trailer, and after that head on over to read Massively’s interview with Eric Flannum, Lead Designer, Ree Soesbee, World Designer/Writer and Will McDermott, Writer.  Here are some snippets to whet your appetite:

Massively: 250 years is a long time, if you consider how far a country like the US has progressed in that same amount of time. Some of the concept art shows a “colonial” feel to the game. Is it safe to say that Guild Wars 2 will not be a traditional medieval-fantasy setting?

Eric Flannum: While we’ve never considered Guild Wars to take place in a traditional medieval setting it is especially true of Guild Wars 2. We have advanced the world both technically and culturally to a point that we thought was fitting for 250 years. Humanity for example has a parliamentary form of government while the Charr are on the verge of some very significant technological breakthroughs. Some of the more obvious gameplay impact [sic]  will have are in the use of rifles and pistols by some of our professions. We have also tried to reflect these advances in a lot of our clothing and armor designs as well.

Massively: Will we have mounts in Guild Wars 2? Flying Mounts, perhaps?

Eric Flannum: Unfortunately, we aren’t speaking about specific game mechanics until some time next year.

Would you like to know more? Check out ArenaNet’s official Youtube Channel, there’s a bunch of video content including every one of their PAX panels. It’s a shame it seems to be so far off though, I want it now.

In the mean time I suppose I’ll have to “make do” with another NCsoft MMO, yes, Aion: Tower of Eternity is just around the corner and it looks as if it’s going to do rather nicely for itself. The latest pre-order figures from Aion are impressive to say the least, with NCsoft claiming 400,000 preorders. That ladies and gents, is the sound of clinking champagne glasses and the smell of expensive cigars being lit.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, I seem to remember Age of Conan and even Warhammer Online launching with similarly impressive numbers and we all know how that turned out. That said, Aion has had a year of Korean dev time behind it to smooth out any kinks and make sure there’s more than enough content to keep players happy post launch. While things dried up fairly quickly once you left the Barachan Isles in AoC, and folks eventually migrated back to WoW from Warhammer, I’m not so sure either of those issues will plague Aion’s launch.

Speaking of the launch, NCsoft recently let us know you can stop sending cans of tuna and pickled onions, they’ve heard your protests and there will in fact be an Oceanic server online in time for launch, this server will be called Nezekan (bless you!). In addition, they’re also gearing up for an update to the official Aion website that will allow players to view  their characters as well as all items and weapons they’ve got on their person, kind of like the World of Warcraft Armory, only not called the World of Wacraft Armory because then that would be silly.

There’s not a whole lot of Blizzard or WoW news at the moment, they’ve updated their Blizzcon 09 photo page with some group photos, have a look, and don’t ogle the Blood Elf females! It’s creepy. Other than that there’s the usual Vader-esque quote from Bobby Kotick about flushing the fun out of gaming and eating baby seals for dinner, but you don’t want to hear about that. Oh yeah, faction change is now live for Europe, rejoice!

You know, I don’t think Blizzard really need to start looking over their shoulders just yet, but  crikey! SOE’s Free Realms has already hit five million users. I logged on when it first launched and fooled around for a wee bit, but then forgot about it. I have to admit I’ve been playing it a lot more than I expected the past couple of weeks, how long do you think before Blizzard starts looking seriously at their success and wanting a piece of that free-to-play pie? Mmm, pie *homer drool*

Welp, I’m off. Going to see if I can sucker one of the EpicToon guys into dueling my uber-assassin in Age of Conan. I might even put a little friendly wager on the outcome. I’ll let you know how it pans out!

Dessert:

- Did you know Blizzard is tracking 180,000 bugs in Wow? No, that’s no typo.

- If videogames were realistic.

I make this solemn vow, I will pay one squintillion Aion Kinah to the person who makes it possible for me to play a revamped version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge, a la Turtles In Time: Reshelled. I just played the latter and it was such an awesome nostalgia filled ride, in the words of Disney’s Ariel; I want more!

Right, lets kick things off with console nooz shall we? It’s perhaps unsurprising in the wake of a recent sharp decline in sales and price cuts to the competition, to see that Nintendo is likely gearing up to finally cut the price of the Wii to $200.  Whot!? Only a $50 price cut some three years after launch? You sirs, must be joking. We’ll know in a month or so how gamers treat this bit of news, I suspect it’ll have little impact on sales, but then I was also one of those who never saw the Wii dominating every other console on the market so what do I know?

Unless you want to hear about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves first review being available in the Official PlayStation Magazine (biased much?) I think that’s pretty much it as far as big console news goes, plus we’ve got lots of MMO stuff to get to.

Lets be honest, the words “indie developer” and “MMO” rarely fill one with confidence going in. Usually MMO’s are just too massive in scale to be properly handled by indie development teams, which tend to be rather small and under-funded. That said, The MMOGamer’s recent interview with Divergence Online’s Ethan Casner has me intrigued.

The MMOGamer: What are some of the newer things you have added to Divergence Online to make it unique among some of the 3PS (third person shooter) games out there?

Ethan Casner: The biggest difference between our game and other 3PS games is that Divergence isn’t just a 3PS, it’s a 3PS MMORPG. To be fair, MMO combat will never compare to FPS/3PS combat, so I’d hate to be compared in that department to games such as Gears (of War). Our goal is to get as close to the feel of combat in a traditional FPS/3PS as possible, with all the capabilities of an MMORPG such as character progression and a persistent world populated by (hopefully) thousands of players at the same time.

There’s a lot more to read at the link, including talk about PVP and PVE systems, the UI and basic combat. It’s not like I’m sick and tired of “click to perform action” MMO’s like WoW et al, it’s just that anything that breaks up the monotony somewhat is welcome. Also, if it’s anything like Planetside was in its early days, count me in!

Speaking of a change of pace, it seems every time I turn around these days there’s news about Realtime World’s “MMOGTA” (just made that one up), APB doing the rounds. I’m mildly curious about this one, least of all because of the pedigree of the developer ( the studio developed the original Crackdown on 360, and one of the designers helped create Grand Theft Auto).  We finally get to see a wee bit of gameplay in the latest tattoo-filled developer diary, Viva Cologne, skip to 4.30 to get the good stuff.

I still think it’s a little weird that Mark Rein was playing the game and giving the play-byplay, I mean I know the game runs on the Unreal Engine, but surely there must have been a Real Time World’s staffer on hand to give us the run through instead? Still, the game looks gorgeous, and even though the actual gameplay segment is pretty brief it’s a relief to hear it controls just the way you’d expect any other shooter to.

Despite urging you all to go check out the newly free-to-play-ised Dungeons and Dragons Online last week, I must confess I haven’t personally been able to check it out yet (my time has been hogged by Fallout 3 on my newly repaired PS3 you see). Anyway, the guys at Massively put together a helpful little “noobs guide” that I figure will probably be pretty helpful to anyone deciding to give DDO a try.

If you’re in the mood to see something pretty (and who isn’t!) head on over to Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic homepage to have a look at some of the amazing Coruscant concept art, there’s also a cool looking video revealing the Old Republic capital in all its glory. I need to keep reminding myself to keep my expectations in check, but after Mass Effect the thought of Bioware handling a Star Wars RPG has me giddy as a school girl.

On the subject of keeping your expectations in check, you might think Star Wars Galaxies to be all but dead and buried, however there seems to be some life in the old girl. In what looks like a brilliant piece of cross promotion, SOE will be releasing a quest series to Galaxies based on Random House Books zombie infested romp, “Death Troopers”, which sees zombies invade the Star Wars universe. There’s a really cool piece of promotional art to accompany the announcement, here’s hoping it’s actually as fun as it sounds.

Fun as it sounds seems like an appropriate segue into this latest trailer for Torchlight, which despite some dodgy voice acting is looking like it’s shaping up brilliantly. Torchlight is sort of the spiritual successor to Mythos, that neat looking MMORPG that former Flagship and Blizzard guys were working on up until last year. Torchlight won’t be an MMO at first, but Runic (the developer) does plan an MMO version of the game to follow soon after the single player release.

Sure Final Fantasy XIV is just around the corner, but most of us are still running around questing, raiding and earning FFXI gil. To that end, Massively’s done a nice little piece looking at the July Version update, which includes among other things, the mini-expansion “A Moogle Kupo D’Etat”.

The latest Aion Video Podcast, #3 was released late last week, you can find a bunch of links to it here or you could just watch it on YouTube. It’s an interesting one from a cultural standpoint, it’s called East meets West and  it shows again just how much effort the team at NCsoft put into making sure the game appeals to Western gamers. I still can’t get over just how good this game looks. It’s also nice that they acknowledge that yes, this is a Korean MMO at heart, but we’ve done everything we can to make you feel welcome without changing the seoul (nyuk! nyuk!) of the game. Also, it’s always great to hear from Lead Designer, Yong Chan Jee.

Unfortunately, since the open beta’s ended and the game isn’t out till the 22nd videos are probably as close as you’re going to get to Aion at the moment, unless you feel like poring over some version 1.5.0.5 patch notes! The patch that went live just before the open beta ended supposedly fixed a lot of the issues folks reported at the time, so here’s to a smooth launch.

Also, a little reminder that starting September 18th, if you preordered Aion you’ll be able to start up your client and create up to two characters, pick their names and customise their appearance as part of the pre-select initiative.

Sweet! New World of Warcraft: Cataclysm details! We get a couple of paragraphs and some new screenshots detailing the Abyssal Maw, one of the new  dungeons coming with Cataclysm. The Abyssal Maw is home to the water elementals, a vast ocean prison constructed by the titans to hold the water elementals and protect Azeroth from their destructive rage. The Maw also contains a powerful weapon belonging to Neptulon Tidehunter, ruler of the aquatic realm, a weapon that both the Horde and Alliance alike will stop at nothing to possess. Hey I just report this stuff! Read everything here.

Welp, I’d best get off here, I’m going to see if I can get some ice-cream for breakfast and revice my long dormant main in Free Realms for a spin.

See ya Friday folks!

Dessert:

- Freaky Nintendo painted fingernails.

- Double Dragon: The Revenge – Gameplay walkthrough.

Aion Kinah is coming to EpicToon soon! Check out the latest Aion trailer:

Here’s Aion’s patch 1.5 trailer – Shadow of the Balaur. AionSource.com has released a translation of the patch notes and here are just some of the changes:

- 12 new instances added
- New Battleground – Dreadgion
- Heroic item grade level added
- New set items added
- New conversion recipes added
- New costumes added

For the full patch notes, click the link below. Once Aion goes live in the US and EU, it will already have patch 1.5 added, giving us westerners more content to start with. We’ll keep you updated as Aion draws near.

Aion 1.5 Patch notes at AionSource

Feast your eyes on NCSoft’s beautiful CG intro to this year’s most awaited MMORPG, Aion. It tells the story of how Atreia, Aion’s home planet, was torn asunder by the Balaur and split in half. The cataclysm separated the Asmodians and the Elyos and forced them into an endless conflict that players will participate in once Aion launches.

Check out this YouTube video and treat yourself to Aion’s awesome graphics and interesting lore. Be sure to watch out for EpicToon’s upcoming Aion Kina service! Be one of the first to buy Aion Kina cheap and delivered straight to your toon FAST! For more details, visit EpicToon.com.