AION going "Free to Play"

[Caiada]

How is this not a hoax?
"www.aionfreetoplay.com", really? A new domain just to announce they're going free-to-play?
No mention of it at all on http://www.aiononline.com/ ?

I doubt it.

http://uk.aiononline.com/

[Deleted]

Cool, will most likely try it out. Very nice graphics and the armors cool which is nice. Now if only TERA could be released in EU, looks amazing(characters, drool).

[Deleted]

It looked awesome at first but the grindtastic stuff i heard put me off. Id rather try Rift or SWTOR. I have doubts about my sputtering laptop running it though as well.

[Caiada]

They're only publishing the GW franchise, not developing it. I also doubt this trend will go over to the GW franchise considering GW has never had a subscription fee.

Aside from that, it seems a bit odd that you have to buy some ''Gold Version'' to be able to use chat. How are you gonna communicate with anyone ingame, before that?

It only says it's limited. Not sure what that means, can't find it on the site.

Edit: It says certain channels won't be able to be used. I'm assuming this means public channels.

[Spellweaver]

It only says it's limited. Not sure what that means, can't find it on the site.

http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/websit...sinessmodel_01

Although it doesn't state that it's fully restricted. (as it simply says that it's restricted)
Perhaps it's more like the WoW trial account, where you can still whisper people, if the person you're whispering has you on their friendslist. And being able to simply group up and talk in party chat.

[Edge-]

It looked awesome at first but the grindtastic stuff i heard put me off. Id rather try Rift or SWTOR. I have doubts about my sputtering laptop running it though as well.

Aion actually runs extremely smoothly. Running it on high the highest settings, I never go below 80+ fps, and I don't have anything remotely close to a top of the line rig. Mind you, this is while running tons of other stuff in the background.

I'm excited. They should hopefully be announcing F2P for the US, and I'll have a veteran account to play on! Yay, this will bring me up to 9-10 MMO's installed that I play from time to time...I need more time in the day : /

[wombinator04]

I can smell pay to win already.

[Edge-]

I can smell pay to win already.

Because L2 went pay to win?

They already announced a rough method of monetization. The "paying" customers get a bonus to rewards ect, but they don't get any power boosts. The game already has a very large cosmetic cash shop so they don't really need to do much there.

I'll give you that it's a possibility, but it's highly unlikely given the history of all the other major MMO's that made the F2P transition over the past few years.

[Rinoa]

F2P? Awesome! Now I can give it a go too! =D

OT, but you nicked my avatar.

[Underskilled]

Looking over the list of what "starter" accounts get and don't get compared to the others, a few things have really irked me.


Limited chat, trading, mailbox, gathering, and unless I'm mistaken, npc selling and instance cooldowns. Limited chat and trading is just silly, you could be having a nice discussion with someone, and then abruptly stop, because you can't chat anymore, and you can't tell them you can't chat anymore either. As for trading, you be trying to sell something to someone, only to not be able to trade it because you've reached your limit.

Limited mailbox, simply confuses me. If there's a system similar to an auction house, which transfers items to your mailbox after purchasing, they're pretty much limiting auction purchases as well, while still letting you waste currency on it. Limited gathering, if they seriously mean a limit to using your gathering professions, then I have nothing else to say.


These last two I'm not exactly sure. NPC selling says "low". Does this mean you won't get as much money for vendoring junk? Or does it mean something else? As for instance cooldowns, it says "increased". Will you actually have a longer cooldown on instances? Or does this limit the amount of instances you can do?


I openly invite someone to put my fears to rest. I haven't played this game before, and would like to try it when it goes f2p, but a lot of these restrictions sound a little odd to me.

[Caiada]

Looking over the list of what "starter" accounts get and don't get compared to the others, a few things have really irked me.


Limited chat, trading, mailbox, gathering, and unless I'm mistaken, npc selling and instance cooldowns. Limited chat and trading is just silly, you could be having a nice discussion with someone, and then abruptly stop, because you can't chat anymore, and you can't tell them you can't chat anymore either. As for trading, you be trying to sell something to someone, only to not be able to trade it because you've reached your limit.

Limited mailbox, simply confuses me. If there's a system similar to an auction house, which transfers items to your mailbox after purchasing, they're pretty much limiting auction purchases as well, while still letting you waste currency on it. Limited gathering, if they seriously mean a limit to using your gathering professions, then I have nothing else to say.


These last two I'm not exactly sure. NPC selling says "low". Does this mean you won't get as much money for vendoring junk? Or does it mean something else? As for instance cooldowns, it says "increased". Will you actually have a longer cooldown on instances? Or does this limit the amount of instances you can do?


I openly invite someone to put my fears to rest. I haven't played this game before, and would like to try it when it goes f2p, but a lot of these restrictions sound a little odd to me.

About the mail thing, it means you can't send (or possibly receive) stuff with attachments, I'm pretty sure. The auction house is the brokering thing, and I don't think you can use it on a non-payed account at all.

The chat thing means you can only use certain channels. Don't think there's a limit on messages or anything.

I think you are right about the vendoring thing. It's weird. The instance cooldown I think increases the time between instances. That's the only one that really bothers me. The gathering thing, I've got no idea.

I answered what I could based on what I read, so I may be wrong.

[Protoman]

So free accounts can't use the AH and only limited amount of mail? Is it similar to how Dragon Nest works?

There was never really a cd on dungeons in Aion except for the heroic diff, will there be a cd on both reg and hero?

I would atleast like to buy stuff on ah and farm reg dungeons I hope that is free, open access.

[Vulcanasm]

Looks like AION is taking the same route many other reasonably successful MMOs went by going F2P: http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/faq/

Serious question -- did they ever add enough quests to fix the grinding? Because Aion would be worth a second look if they did. Particularly free.

[Edge-]

Serious question -- did they ever add enough quests to fix the grinding? Because Aion would be worth a second look if they did. Particularly free.

Yeah. I think they official number was around 3,000. I played it at launch and then again earlier this year and the "grind" (i.e. mindless killing or chain repeatable quests) is mostly gone. It's more or less like leveling in WoW or most any other MMO. It just takes longer to hit cap since they don't speed you through like some other games do nowadays.

[Fencers]

Serious question -- did they ever add enough quests to fix the grinding? Because Aion would be worth a second look if they did. Particularly free.

They did. It's 99% Westernized now. Though it is not like WOW in that you go 60 levels in 4 days.

[Wyrmrider]

Very interesting...

I tried Aion at its western launch, beautiful art & music and some interesting combat mechanics. I enjoyed it in small doses, not really enough to merit a long subscription (F2P solves that), and quit when it became clear how much of a grind it was (seems that might be fixed as well).

Hmm... how to fit this in?

[Otaka]

No word of america, but it will be free in europe next year.

Im gonna try it now that its free :P

[Bassnectar]

This game was meh, now that its free to play I might play it alittle bit again to see how its changed

[Deleted]

I remember getting up to 35-40 as a Gladiator, nice flashy moves, fun game overall but the grind... It just felt overwhelming. Definitely something I will go back to in February

[Valeron]

ncsoft are useless when it comes to support

I hear that and yet I've never had an issue with support from NCSoft.

EA, on the other hand, have always been terrible for me. Last time I tried contacting them 3 times, it took them a month to respond back. And when they did respond it was to say that my problem was closed...

As far as Aion is concerned, kind of hope it becomes F2P in the US as well.