NCsoft North America announces "Truly Free" Aion this Spring

[exangel]

This was previously announced only for the distribution of Aion in Europe, but it has now been officially announced for North American and Oceanic servers!

Aion® opens the floodgates of new and improved Truly Free™ game content with the Aion® 3.0 update. Starting spring 2012, experience the thrill of combat alongside your comrades at arms in a battlefield that encompasses the ethereally beautiful MMO world of Atreia.

Aion: Ascension comes to you with absolutely no restrictions or limitations. This highly anticipated 3.0 update offers new game features, secrets, and storylines that will have you on the edge of your seat to experience.

Relive the adrenaline-charged victories you shared with your Legion mates, and create unforgettable memories with friends, both old and new. AION needs you!

What are the benefits of Truly Free?
The Aion Truly Free experience combines the best parts of the Lineage 2: Goddess of Destruction™ Truly Free model with numerous enhancements.

Here are some of the key features of Aion Truly Free:

• No subscription fee. Play for free!
• No account restrictions. Visit any zone, chat in any channel, sell any amount of stuff on the trade broker—nothing is off limits!
• Robust countermeasures to combat game abuse. We're dedicating a ton of resources to preventing account theft, botting, and real money trading.
• No hassles. Create your account, download the game, and play!
• No harassment. Don't worry, we won't hound you with constant offers or promotions.
• A lot of great stuff we'll reveal more about leading up to launch!

Official Website

Newsletter Source

 

[CyborGamer]

...Heh. I can't help but laugh at this. My friend bought this game and HoN at launch, and encouraged me to do the same. I caved in did it, since it was fun at the time. Now both of these games are freaking free. FML~~~~

Well, I did quit Aion after playing for like only 3 months, so this doesn't actually bother me that much. In fact, I might just start this game again.

 

[DarkStriker]

Trust me. Aion is still p2p once you hit 40s. Have you seen the dungeon cooldowns for f2p? Once a week? And when you pay you get it each day. Talk about "f2p". Not to mention old players get a huge advamtage at start only by being a veteran player. F2P players can also get that status, but require quite some time put in the game.

 

[CyborGamer]

^How clever. They mention access to everything, just not the frequency. Well played.

I'll still give it a whirl anyway, I enjoyed it for the short time I spent on it.

 

[exangel]

@DarkStriker - The details of the differences between NA Aion & Europen Aion benefits/rewards have not been fully described yet. They've already described a remarkable difference in the program planned for NA distribution as opposed to EU Aion.. (So far they are specifically stating there won't be a VIP sub, I'm guessing profits will be solely from Store transactions but, that is also speculation.)
I wouldn't assume all the same penalties will be in place for us quite yet. They've had to weather a shitstorm of complaints regarding their revocation of the previous Veteran Rewards which will be in full effect on the 25th February.

How can something this good be Truly Free?

We understand that an active player population contributes to the fun factor for the entire player population, so we want everyone to experience the game as it was intended.
If you like the game, we'd appreciate a purchase from our store (game developers need to eat too!). If you don't like the game, can't pay, or don't want to pay—no worries, it's on us!

This suggests Aion NA is actually being shifted to something similar to the original Guild Wars model.

@CyborGamer - My affair with this game has been on again, off again. I have a Legion on the Zikel server that is a small and casual group of pretty dedicated and mostly experienced players. I was one of the open beta testers-- my brother was a closed and open beta tester. I found the game enchanting and I enjoyed the PVP difficulty at least for my preferred class (Cleric) though this was after the beta that I really fell in love with that aspect of the game. But I preordered two digital collector's edition accounts and own a total of 5 now, not counting a 6th that was banned about 2 months after game launch. (At that time there was NO trial or refer-a-friend program, and I had a secondary account that I was allowing friends to play on just to see if they wanted to play the game before buying it... those jerks. It got banned because one share-friend was from Canada, I suspect. To those not into MMOs, it's a common terms of service violation since account sharing is often a major factor in RMT services.)

 

[Deleted User]

Aion is horrible. Grindy boring game.

 

[exangel]

Aion is horrible. Grindy boring game.

And you've played it how recently?
It was like that in 1.0... but it's undergone enormous changes (it's had to, as a pay to play...) and to say that about the game now is just weak and unfounded.

edit: and subjective and pointless..

And before anyone starts calling me a fangirl, for the record: I hate NCsoft, but as someone who's actually kept up with Aion over the course of its NA distribution and development, I'm really happy about this announcement because it's clear that they're going the extra mile to make up for all of their image-crushing PR mistakes and community management problems.

 

[Deleted User]

Aion is horrible. Grindy boring game.

And you've played it how recently?
It was like that in 1.0... but it's undergone enormous changes (it's had to, as a pay to play...) and to say that about the game now is just weak and unfounded.

I played it for 4 months, and it left a horrible taste.

 

[CyborGamer]

@CyborGamer - My affair with this game has been on again, off again. I have a Legion on the Zikel server that is a small and casual group of pretty dedicated and mostly experienced players. I was one of the open beta testers-- my brother was a closed and open beta tester. I found the game enchanting and I enjoyed the PVP difficulty at least for my preferred class (Cleric) though this was after the beta that I really fell in love with that aspect of the game. But I preordered two digital collector's edition accounts and own a total of 5 now, not counting a 6th that was banned about 2 months after game launch. (At that time there was NO trial or refer-a-friend program, and I had a secondary account that I was allowing friends to play on just to see if they wanted to play the game before buying it... those jerks. It got banned because one share-friend was from Canada, I suspect. To those not into MMOs, it's a common terms of service violation since account sharing is often a major factor in RMT services.)

Yea my buddy and I started from open beta too. The PvP is quite fun, the combat system was quite dynamic at the time, and I liked playing Chanter. A painful class at some points but not a lot games (at least the ones I've played) have such a flexible class made to compliment others. Getting somewhat nostalgic now. xD

 

[exangel]

Yea my buddy and I started from open beta too. The PvP is quite fun, the combat system was quite dynamic at the time, and I liked playing Chanter. A painful class at some points but not a lot games (at least the ones I've played) have such a flexible class made to compliment others. Getting somewhat nostalgic now. xD

Chanter is my highest character's class! She's level 53, but I have levelled Cleric multiple times and my "Main" is a lv49 Cleric of fairly high ranking on Zikel (there are leaderboards based on accumulated "Abyss Points" for both characters and for legions.) I can't wait til 3.0 now because I just can't pay to reactivate any of my accounts at this time.

But I'm definitely going to try to reactivate at least my main account soon, so that I can prepare my Legion for the F2P launch as we all angrily await more info about Guild Wars 2. My legion's website is at http://www.gravity.cc and if people are interested in joining it coming from the temp I will re-evaluate the rules and mission (it's currently an adults-only legion). edit: I know the site looks dead but the legion still has 5-10 active members that never used the website in the first place.

 

[DarkStriker]

Aion is horrible. Grindy boring game.

Lol. Aion gives you so much quest that you have to start dropping them to get quest at your own level.