Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland met with the NCsoft team and tried out the new content that's coming to Aion in the Empyrean Calling update.

Esoterrace is a lore-focused dredgion refueling station of an instance. The instance itself is gorgeous – it starts off with a wind stream to send players directly to the entrance (or plummeting to their deaths, as it happened in our demo... oh, n00bs). We played within the instance up through the first boss and were told of several features. First, there are shortcuts through various areas – for example, a shortcut was discovered by harvesting a plant covering a tunnel on a wall, which lead almost straight to the boss. Second, players can earn Abyss Points by killing mobs and bosses within the instance; a fantastic boost for the more PvE-focused player. Finally, players can earn standard PvE loot through boss drops and chests throughout the instance.

Empyrean Crucible is a tiered arena-style deathmatch consisting of 10 themed stages with five phases each. Unlike normal instances, resurrection spells do not work; rather, players sit in a “ready room” until they can rejoin after using a worthiness ticket (dropped from the end of stages or after bonus events). Players accumulate points the higher they progress, and these points are turned in for rewards outside the instance. Thankfully, the event allows for pauses between stages to give players time to breath or use the bathroom; but otherwise there's nonstop action starring several famous bosses and swarms of adds.

A boss battle in Empyrean Crucible. If that character wasn't a GM, they would be flattened immediately!

The items in Empyrean Crucible also feature a new system called conditioning. Through this feature, players can imbue their items with temporary enhancements, thus providing boosts even for the hardened veterans. As if fighting Crab Norris as a boss wasn't incentive enough! An additional feature, to be added in 2.6, will be a solo version of this instance; the current iteration requires a full group to progress.

To end on a personal note, the entire trip was outstanding. The NCSoft American localization team was a blast and a half; Adam Christianson, Scott Hannus and Sean Orlikowski were all personable and hilarious to play with, as we joked back and forth about Sean's (lack of) healing skills, my ninja-looting during combat, and the inside jokes of the game (especially since our team was part of the “Crab Norris Fan Club” legion). The guys obviously enjoy the game, and it really shows through – if anything, it's only a bit unfortunate that Korea receives all the content far in advance of the West; for example, they currently have 2.6. This is mostly due to localization necessities and translations, but it's never fun to be a bit behind the curve.

My advice? If you've been away from Aion for a while, 2.5 is worth coming back to take a look around. Keep an eye out for it when it launches on May 25. While you wait, you can watch the Empyrean Calling trailer:

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer