PC Gamer, after receiving a tip from an anonymous source, is reporting that NCsoft West in Seattle is undergoing a "realignment": 

"NCsoft is realigning internal publishing resources to better suit the needs of our game development studios. As a result of the realignment, several employees and contract positions were affected. This was a very tough decision to make and wish the best for all NCsoft employees in their next ventures"

While Seattle is also home to NCsoft's ArenaNet studio, developers of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, by the wording it doesn't appear that studio was affected -- we await confirmation.

With decimation of the game industry this year, we wish the best of luck to those affected by these business decisions. Talent always finds a way.

We're working to get more details, and will pass along more info as we get it.

Bill "Lethality" Leonard

Source: PC Gamer

Well it ain't the Gunner class reveal, but Aion is getting more content teased out, with a showcasing of its new skills being changed and, potentially, removed. They have displayed new skills for Katalam, the Raid vs Raid skirmishes, and three new Charged skills. Get excited!

Julian "Mirai" Williams

It feels like Aion 3.5 just hit live servers last month, doesn't it? Oh wait, that's because it did. But that's not stopping NCSoft from talking about their plans for the upcoming 4.0 update. Yesterday, they dropped a preview video of the all-new Bard class!

The cool content teased for Aion 3.0 by this trailer back in May is getting prepped for launch, and if you want to take a shot, the test servers are live and available right behind the link. Two new territories, level cap raised to 60, a housing system, and six new instances await behind the link. 

With Aion's huge 3.0 expansion, Aion: Ascension, launching today, combined with the fact that they went "Truly Free" a week back, there's no doubt that there will be hundreds of thousands of players getting a little overwhelmed with all these new features coming. Of course, you can trust NCsoft to rectify that in the most community involved way possible, as NCsoft's Producer, Adam Christensen has created a fantastic introductory guide to Aion: Ascension. Let's get on with the guide!

NCsoft's big campaign for Aion's big F2P shift is finally coming into its end stages as they have just announced that, after today's maintenance, all subscription models will be changed from Standard to "Truly Free," with all current, future, or recurring subscription billing being stopped. Any accounts with remaining game time will also be converted into NCoin at a rate of 40 NCoin per remaining day you've paid for. For more details, you can read the "Truly Free FAQ" on the Aion website.

It should also be noted that Aion: Ascension will not be launching today, as it has already been reported that update 3.0 will be launching on April 11th, 2012. Still, if you're going to be starting over on Aion's new Kahrun server, you'll probably need more than a week to hit the point where you can actually enjoy the endgame content that Aion: Ascension will bring. Safe flying, Daevas!

Aion is in the middle of its conversion to Truly Free, what they're calling their new free-to-play system, and the producer Adam Christiansen takes the time to explain some of it. And he says some good stuff. All content will be available to free players, the purpose of going free to play was to attract users, the story of Aion will advance with the new patch, the purpose behind the new level cap, and the addition of housing and mounts.