The Steam sales charts for the week of July 19th to July 25th are in. And who would have thought it? Pre-sales for the collector's edition of Aion are numero uno:

Steam's Top Ten (by Revenue) (7/19 - 7/25)

1. Aion Collector's Edition (Pre-order) / NCsoft
2. Left 4 Dead / Valve
3. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition / LucasArts
4. Counter-Strike: Source / Valve
5. ARMA 2 / Bohemia Interactive
6. Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack / Telltale
7. Dawn of Discovery (ANNO 1404) / Related Designs
8. Street Fighter IV / Capcom
9. Team Fortress 2 / Valve
10. Killing Floor / Tripwire

Did you pre-purchase your collector's edition copy on Steam? Let us know in the comments.

Personally, I find these figures curious. I can understand purchasing the regular copy digitally -- but the collector's edition? Don't we pay extra for all the tangible goodies? 

Via Shacknews.

Two new trailers are available to whet your appetite for the upcoming release of Aion. 

Fresh out of this year's San Diego Comic Con, the first trailer, entitled "Bridge Battle" pulls out all the stops and assails your senses with a flurry of explosive action featuring many players on screen fighting truly massive enemies on both land and in the skies.

The second trailer, entitled "Flaming Demon", does an excellent job at showing off the wildly impressive visual effects and animations available to players in whichever way they choose to do combat.

Check out both trailers here.

Prolific MMORPG.com Blogger Paragus takes the time to give his full impressions thus far of NCsofts upcoming MMORPG, Aion.

Since my last article covering some of the basics of Aion at low level, I have had a chance to invest a bit more time in the Chinese version of the game. Having progressed far enough to see the Abyss finally, I wanted to take some time and give some updated impressions on my play experiences since I am a bit farther into the game.

The Grind

The first thing I want to touch on are my experiences with the grind in the game so far. From levels 1-20, I can say that I was pretty much able to quest through most of my levels. The campaign quests give a substantial amount of EXP over the standard quests, and there are some repeatable quests to help you through some of those areas where you do find yourself grinding to reach the next level after your quests are all completed.

Between the levels of 20-24, the grind starts to pick up more and more each level. The percentage of your levels EXP you are able to get through quests starts to gradually go down in this range for a few reasons. The first is that the amount of exp to reach the next levels ramps up pretty quickly, and secondly, some of the quest EXP rewards don't seem to be enough. The repeatable quests really don't reward to well either, as one requiring you to kill X amount of mobs, rewards you at turn in with amount of exp equal to killing 2 of those mobs. In the time it takes you to go turn them in, you could have kept killing and came out better off. As a result, I spent a lot of my time grinding in the jungle and desert in Eltnen. Once reaching 25 however, things seem to pick up a lot (I'll touch on this later).

Read Paragus on Aion

The team at NCsoft's Aion have sent along these new, exclusive screenshots for our viewing pleasure.

Check out the new screenshots

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood had a recent opportunity to ask the Aion team a number of questions about their upcoming game.

MMORPG.com:

There are those who say that Aion has the potential to be the much-foretold WoW Killer. What are your opinions on this?

Aion Team:

World of Warcraft has certainly changed the face of the MMO industry and has brought a new audience of players into the genre. That said, with Aion, our focus from the very beginning has been to create a fun and unique MMO that appeals to a global audience. We're launching with an extremely polished game; with a ton of PvE content (over 1500 quests on day one); and we're launching with a more western style of combat and gameplay. Combine those elements with Aion's unique world and deep storyline, stunning visuals, and its innovative features such as flight and PvPvE, and I think you truly have an experience that will have broad global appeal. That being said, we're very happy with the momentum we've seen building behind the game as we look toward its l

Read the Associate Producer Interview

The closed beta client for Aion has been released today. So, for those of who you have pre-ordered or pre-purchased the game, it would be a good idea to get this thing downloaded as it comes in at a hefty 6.11 GB.

Pre-orders will be able to enter the remaining closed beta events, which are scheduled for July 31st and August 14th 2009.

The closed beta client is available at GamersHell.

The Aion website has been given a new facelift, adopting a sort of cool-blue theme. The new website also features a number of new guides, and a wiki.

Check out the new website here!

The pre-purchase for Aion is now available on Steam. Customers who pre-purchase the game on Steam will be able to play in the full closed beta all the way until the game's official launch on September 22nd, 2009.

In addition to being able to play in the beta, customers will receive an extra seven days of free game time (for a total of 37) when the game launches and several special in-game items that include:

- Attribute boosting hat
- Experience boosting talisman
- Exclusive special effects ring (water)

Additional items are available to those who pre-purchase the Collectors Edition of Aion on Steam, and they include:

- Black Cloud Wings which give 40 seconds of additional flight time
- Black Cloud Earring which gives an HP and an MP boost
- Special character title, "Pioneer of Aion", with stat boost
- Color dye to tint one in-game item
- Two character emotes - Disco Emote and Samba Emote

Check out the full announcement here.

MMORPG.com Correspondent Coordinator Vitaliy Dikker writes this report on the visuals in NCsoft's upcoming MMORPG, Aion.

Aion is not just an amazing MMO... It is an incredibly beautiful game unlike any other I have seen before. The level of polish is remarkable and the game itself runs smoothly without any lag or visible glitches on an average system. I must say that I was blown away by the visual aspect of things immediately at character creation. As you can see in the screenshots, the amount of customization detail and options is staggering, but what is even more important is that these characters are stunningly modeled and animated in the game itself. I cannot even begin to imagine the time and resources that have been allocated to make the character models shine as much as they do.

Read The Sights of Aion

Keys for the third Aion beta event are now available at Fileplanet. The event begins at noon pacific on Thursday, July 2, 2009. Keys are limited so if you're interested, get moving!

Get your keys here!

Lance Stites, Executive Producer at NCSoft West addresses the NCSoft community in an open letter today.

In the letter, Mr. Stites addresses some of the recent happenings with regards to their Exteel, Lineage II, and Aion properties. Mr. Stites also describes what we can expect from NCSoft going forward and especially with the upcoming launch of Aion this September.

I know that many fans are extremely anxious, impatient even, awaiting the release of Aion. I can assure you the team is fully engaged in the release of this product. We’ve got an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content. Our Localization Manager has vendors in place, keeping pace with the French and German translation. We’re actively recruiting an additional native German speaking localization Project Manager and have added QA Testers (native French and German speaking) to the Seattle office. We’ve got Voice Over recordings underway (of course for all three languages) and our PR and Marketing teams are releasing the hounds and you’ve likely seen the articles on class descriptions hit the internet. We also have tutorial videos in production, this should provide a great Aion first experience, both to novice and experience MMO players. We’ve shared details of our Collector’s Edition recently, our first public access beta event was very well received, and we’ll continue these events through our launch. We’ll have a flood of information in the upcoming days and invite you all to share the experience as Aion takes flight in North America and Europe this fall.

 Read the letter in its entirety here.

The team at NCsoft has provided us with this new behind the scenes video podcast from the developers of the hotly anticipated MMO, Aion.

Watch the Video Podcast

The full release date for Aion has been announced on the official Aion website. If you're in North America, you'll be able to get your hands on Aion this September 22nd. For the Europeans out there, you'll have to wait a few days until September 25th.

Your adventures in Aion begin this September! NCsoft is proud to announce that Aion launches in North America on September 22, 2009 and makes its official debut in Europe starting September 25, 2009.

Not only can you find the game at your favorite retail store, Aion will also be available as a digital download at NCsoft.com, Direct2Drive, and also through Steam this September.

Don’t forget to take advantage of the special preorder promotion at participating retailers now to receive access to the Closed Beta events as well as a head start to your journeys in Atreia.

Take to the skies and become a part of a stunning world brimming with otherworldly inhabitants, mysterious enemies and ancient secrets. There is no reason hesitate - Become a part of Aion this fall!

Check out the full announcement here.

Paragus is at it again, this time taking a break from his usual Darkfall-based blog post to give us his impressions of the Aion free trial weekend.

After my last entry about some of the upcoming MMOs, luck would have it that I was able to get a chance to play Aion during one of their recent beta preview weekend type events. Today I am going to try to give you my impressions from playing during the recent weekend event that had a level limit of 10, but did allow players to make characters from both of the game's factions. While I will be the first to admit that 10 levels is hardly enough to review much of anything, but I think I got a chance to sample the game and take a look at various aspects that were present.

Just to recap quickly here before I get started, I went into this with a few preconceptions about the game in terms of graphics, polish, and whether or not the game would be bringing anything new to table. I have seen some pretty remarkable screenshots of the game, so graphically I set the bar pretty high. The game has also been out in a foreign market for a while, so I expected a fair amount of polish. In terms of innovations I approached Aion with fairly low expectations. As soon as the log-in screen popped up as seen above, I felt somewhat reaffirmed that graphically I would not be disappointed. So with all that being said, let's get started!

Read the Blog Update: Aion Beta Weekend Review

The first entry in an Aion video podcast series over at IGN details the world and lore of Aion.

In the video, you will learn about the Asmodae and Elyos, the significance of the Tower of Eternity, and the individual players' role in the whole story. The video is narrarated by Aion's Associate Producer Lani Brazier, and includes short appearances by some of the developers behind the game.

Check out the video here.