If you had a blast taking pictures last New Year’s Eve, then maybe you’ll be up for round two of festive photo-taking this time in Atreia. Aion has announced a new screenshot contest to coincide with a special event for many Korean Daevas, the Lunar New Year.

“Help us ring in this New Year with style by sending us a screenshot of the place in Aion where you would throw your New Year’s celebration,” announced NCSoft in its official blog.

The Lunar Year contest is set to end by February 2, so you’ll have two weeks to capture the perfect screenie in Atreia and possibly win the Razer mouse prizes. The contest’s official rules and conditions are easy enough to follow, revealing the general criteria by which the Aion judges will base their choice: Presentation, creativity, framing, and uniqueness.

So basically no boring and predictable shots of you posing at some non-descript location. Given the vivid locations available as background in Aion, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to think of a concept for the shot and then stretch out those wings to find a suitably striking location. And don’t be afraid to have dozens or even hundred of takes–not like the Screenshot folder has a limit to it.

Once you’ve picked the best one, send it to aion_community@ncsoft.com with the required info like name, age, location and a disclaimer that should you win, you won’t be against revealing your screenie-taking secrets.

Machinima creators can get massive cred among the community and thousands of YouTube hits for their in-game video creations. Now they can also win some pretty sick gadgets by submitting topnotch machinima for Aion.

Winners of the When Worlds Collide machinima contest stand to get digital camcorders, portable hard drives and special editing software — a pretty decent caboodle for budding videographers.

The real-world prizes should attract Christopher Nolan-esque machinima, or at least decent enough to run as a recruitment ad for NCSoft. One thing going for Aion is its crisp visuals and penchant for dramatic costumes, and machinima creators would do well to dress their protagonists in spiffy attire.

Choosing the right storyline though should pose more of a dilemma. Aion isn’t exactly brimming with political intrigues and drama outside the faction wars and campaign against the Balaur. Maybe that’s why NCSoft is pointing to the Harvest Revel in-game event as a possible source of inspiration.

I’d think twice though — it’s hard to bake drama out of bumbling Sugarcrooks.

Expect a horde of new animal friends in Aion!

NCSoft confirmed that each Daeva will be given 100 pet slots under the new pet system, which goes live with the Aion 2.0: Assault on Balaurea update scheduled this fall. These totally adorable pets ranging from show dogs to backpack-toting pandas can be classified into five function types:

• Companion – Adventure with their owner throughout Atreia
• Signal – Alert their owner to the presence of enemy players
• Pack – Expand their owner’s inventory
• Fortune – Produce items for their owner after being well-fed
• Purebred – Provide their owner with multiple functions at once

The developer added that despite their large menagerie, each player can only summon one pet at a time. Pets also provide their perks even while kept inside your inventory, presumably for when your cuddly kitten proves too much of a distraction during a fight.

Each pet can even be named freely; pet names are not restricted to be unique from all other pets, allowing for duplicates in the game world.

Filling up those 100 pet slots could be a time-consuming challenge, but could be worth it if only to watch each pet’s unique emote animations.

Losing to the cult of Farmville must hurt. A lot.

Hardcore Daevas barely contained their outrage when NCSoft lost to Zynga, makers of browser-based hits like Farmville, in the Escapist’s 2010 March Mayhem. Zynga garnered 55% of the votes via Facebook and Twitter, so Aion players blamed NCSoft for being too slow in gathering support.

To be fair, it could also mean a small number of Aion players visit the NCSoft website for announcements. Because aside from the occasional community news and the recent Patch 1.9 Korean PTR notes, there’s been little reported on actual game developments.

Number one on my wish list are translated versions of the diagrams in the Patch 1.9 Korean PTR notes. Seeing those stills in English-readable text will make my Patch 1.9 wait more bearable. Anyone else pumped up by the UI changes?