Aion Classic will officially make its western debut at noon tomorrow

Good news for MMO players raring to go in Aion Classic: You won’t even need to get out of bed early to do it. NCsoft has announced that the fun begins tomorrow at noon EDT – that’s 9 a.m. PDT and 6 p.m. CEST. Naturally, there are some speed challenges on offer for those who happen to be able to play in the middle of a work day.

“Get ready for kickoff tomorrow in Aion Classic’s most epic launch event! Starting tomorrow at server launch, all players will be able to compete with others across the globe in several challenges. The fastest player(s) to complete each challenge will unlock exclusive titles of legendary status! The challenges are below:

• First to reach level 50
• First Brigade General of the first Legion to capture a fortress
• First to reach 1-Star Officer Rank
• First to gain Slayer buff through PvP
• First team to slay Kromede the Corrupt
• First team to slay Brigade General Bakarma

You can track the winners in each category as it is accomplished on our competition tracking page, which will be going live tomorrow on AionOnline.com. If you intend to compete, know that we are targeting launch at 9am PT (12pm EDT, 6pm CEST). Thanks, and good luck!”

If this all seems as if it’s happening really fast, well, that’s because it is; NCsoft only just announced the launch in North and South America two weeks ago. Preorder packs are live, as is character creation.

“The new service for the vaunted MMORPG Aion provides a fresh start as the game originally was when it launched in the Americas back in 2009, with some additional quality of life improvements. Players new and old can take flight to explore the massive, unique realm of the god Aion, hunt and venture on quests, or take a side in the battle between light and dark and fight other players. […] Aion Classic will see the return of some of the games early, iconic dungeons, and only the original four character classes will be available to players (each with their two original subclasses). Keeping with the ethos of classic MMORPG experiences, the player progression in Aion Classic will be moderately paced, to increase opportunities for players to explore the world of the Asmodians and the Elyos.”

We note again here that while Gameforge operates retail Aion in Europe, it hasn’t made any announcements about a European Classic server. NCsoft has alternately referred to its Classic server as a “global,” “western,” and “Americas”-oriented launch, but given the fact that NCsoft itself has issued launch times in CEST, we’re assuming Europeans can still play – at least if they’re willing to brave the ping times of servers hosted on the US east coast.