Looks like Ten Ton Hammer is going to do Weekly Newsletter's on Aion. The first week is up and I've given it a read ... I think you guys should too:

NCsoft has announced that pre-orders are just shy of 400k making Aion the biggest MMOG success of the year. While I would never dismiss those kinds of numbers, I'm very curious why the player support has dipped so greatly from the launches of last year? Age of Conan hit over 700k pre-orders and Warhammer Online snagged over a million pushing the fan hype machine in ways we haven't seen since World of Warcraft.

Like many other gamers, I'm tired of pre-launch hype. I don't want to see half-baked releases of games that look shiny from a distance then show their blemishes up close. I don't want to hear about all the great features of the first twenty levels only to find out that the end-game is completely naked of content. I believe this season's pre-order numbers reflect this same frustration of gamers. Gamers are demanding more and they want proof that their hard earned dollars aren't being wasted. Good for us! More demand for quality will eventually pay in better games.

The good news for Aion fans is that this game has been tested over seas for nearly a year. Korea and China seem to be sticking by it and NCsoft has already stepped it up with a level cap raise and a whole lot of new content.

What will the future hold for Aion? Will it suffer the same fate as some of the games that came before it? Be sure to stop in on our forums to weigh in on the discussion on the game's pre-launch success and let us know what you think!

In other interesting news, NCsoft has decided to declare an official Oceanic server for launch. This is great for our friends "down under" who keep a vastly different schedule than we do in North America. Game time will be altered in keeping with Oceanic times and this will allow for more reasonable access to the instances.

Unfortunately it doesn't mean the server will be localized so while Nezekan will eventually be labeled "Oceanic", it will still be tucked away here in the US. Hopefully the east coast location won't have too big of an impact on game performance, but if it does, be sure to speak up! So far, NCsoft has been great about listening to the community so if you yell loud enough, they might just listen.

-Savanja, Aion Site Lead