On July 16th Elysium will be launching a new web site.  Yes, the legion that brought you the first Aion podcast will be releasing one of the most beautiful and fully functional legion sites available.  Yes, beautiful as in, "WOW, I'm not embarassed to show this to my friends," and functional as in, "Hey, where are all the 404 pages?"  Thanks to some new hosting, the possibilities of the new site are endless.  Be prepared to be amazed because that's just the beginning.  We have a lot of suprises up our sleaves that we can't share just yet because, let's face it, all those other legions would try to steal our ideas   Don't forget, Firefox 3.0.1 is supposed to be released on the 16th as well so grab your updates and head on over.

"That's one small step for Elysium, one giant leap for Aion."

I hope everyone here in the States enjoyed the Independance Day activites.  I've been busy at work and have some news to share.  First, I'd like to warn our members that the "chat" and "forum" links here at Aion Elysium will  be going away for a little while.  Instead, the forum link will lead you to AionSource.com to support the recent efforts there:

AionSource.com's member count: it's greater than nine times ten to the power of three. That's pretty surprising, is it not? Who else expected us to break this record on July 4th, of all days? Viva la Indépendance!

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's set another goal: 10,000 members by AionSource.com's second birthday. We have under a month to do it, but with CBT3 running and conventions around the corner we should be able to make it. As an incentive, and since kieron's just ended, I'll start a little contest. AionSource.com' ancient members may remember this one: recruit people to AionSource.com! Tell people to join our forums and put to your username in the "Referrer" field when they register. It's that simple! When we hit 10,000 members I'll tally up the amount of referrals everyone managed to recruit and announce a winner. (Or winners! Hey, it's happened.) The prize will be at least an Aion poster (I still have some from two years ago, seriously) and perhaps an AionSource.com tshirt.

If you're new, please sign up for an account there, and if you like, use eidolonnight as your referrer.

In other news, Elysium will be getting a new home soon.  Tranquil Aura helped buy us some very nice web hosting (this current host is a very nice free host with limitations).  That means we'll have some significant speed increases, mass email, be able to host our podcast, etc.

Speaking of podcast, be sure to be on the look-out for our next episode.  It should be out by the end of the week.

It's about time that I actually start posting real content instead of short news blips.  So I figured a good topic for today would be the various distractions we employ while waiting for our favorite game to be released.  By now, I'm sure everyone is sensing the tension.  Those of us in the U.S. have the recently revamped Aion Online site, and the projected release date of Q4 2008 is fast approaching (though it appears that there may be a delay until 2009).  Whatever the release date may be, here's a few things to keep you occupied.

1. Visit the fan sites.  Don't let the relase catch you off-guard,  Be prepared, have a legion, and know the tactics.  Fan sites are a great place to catch all the juicy pre-release info.  Right now, there's only one fan site I can whole-heartedly support and that would be Aion Source.
2. Chit-chat.  Need to organize?  Make friends?  The forums are the best place to do that.  If you're in the mood for more real-time action then hit up the chat.
3. Listen to the music.  There's no denying the beauty of Aion's music so start downloading.  There's a section at Aion Source for all that stuff.
   
4. Watch the videos.  Why not drool over Aion's awesome graphics while you wait?  I recommend Aion.Curse.com.
5. Play another mmorpg.  Whether free or pay-to-play another mmo makes a good distraction.  Plus, you can even get the rest of your buddies to come along.  If you're stuck in a rut, see mmorpg.com.
6. Play an offline game.  The Matrix has you.  Sometimes you need to unplug, but you don't want to let those uber-quick game reflexes to go to waste do you?  Grab a console or PC game that is <gasp> single player.
7. Sleep.  Chances are you'll be playing Aion quite a bit when it arrives.  It might be a good idea to stock up on sleep now.
8. Prepare your significant other.  Better let your butter-ball of love know that Aion is comming and you as a couple need to prepare.  For some, this means saving up the money for two copies of the game.  For others, it means writing up the divorce papers.  Reason: neglect due to online game addiction.
9. Upgrade the PC.  Aion has some of the best visuals we've seen to date.  You don't want to be stuck on low settings do you?  I didn't think so.  Hop over to newegg.com and grab some hardware.
10. Visit Aion-Elysium.info!  Get the news, listen to the podcast, chat up the forums, fool around in chat, blog, and most importantly: join the Elysium Legion!

There ya go. Ten superb things to do while waiting for the Aion release.  Be sure to check out the accompanying podcast: Podcast2: the real deal now available in the podcast section.  Good luck to you all, and feel free to add your ideas to the comment section here.  Until next week, I'm signing off to play some Mass Effect.

Please be patient with the site during the the following days.  Changes are being made and optimizations put in place to speed up load times.  The base load time for the site has already been cut in half!  Various other little changes are being made as well.

The Elysium Legion now has a dedicated podcast.
The feed is located here, and you can subscribe with your favorite client or simply click the podcast audio file.  For those with iTunes, simply drag and drop the url into iTunes.  With luck, we'll be in the iTunes store soon.