NCsoft, the company which is currently running MMO projects like Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes/City of Villains, is sending word that Aion: The Tower of Eternity has reached more than 170,000 beta subscriptions in the week since the game entered that stage. Bear in mind the fact that the beta is for now only available for players in Korea. The Korean launch of the actual game is planned to take place in 2008, while China, North America, Japan and Europe are set to get it in early 2009.

The developers boast the game registered 11,000 subscriptions in less than two minutes since the servers went live, and after an hour, there were 40,000 registered to take part in the beta. It also seems that Aion: The Tower of Eternity is the most played game in Korea's cyber cafes.

NCsoft describes Aion as an epic fantasy MMO derived from the Eastern aesthetic with gameplay which is more akin to that of Western MMOs. As a war fought in the sky between very powerful beings rages, the players will need to try and save the world, which apparently implies ascending to divine states and learning to fly. There will be traditional MMO activities like combat, exploration and harvesting, and NCsoft is trying to streamline the game and make it easy for new players to get in.

David Reid, who is the president of the NCsoft publishing division, stated that “The response we’re seeing in Korea is incredibly exciting. Our Aion community in North America and Europe is also rapidly growing. We’ve got aggressive plans for the western launch in 2009”.

NCsoft surely hopes that Aion: The Tower of Eternity will manage to be more successful than the Richard Garriot powered Tabula Rasa, which at the moment is a very lonely place where players are few and far between.