gaming Aion free-to-play update hits April 11

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Rebranded as Aion: Ascension, NCsoft's MMORPG adopts new business model early next month.

Next month, gamers can trek through the expanses of Atreia in NCsoft's massively multiplayer online role-playing game Aion for free, the company has announced.

The 2009 game will re-launch as the free-to-play Aion: Ascension on April 11. Previously, the switch was planned to take place sometime this spring.

Aion: Ascension will launch as part of the game's 3.0 update, which brings a new level cap (60), as well as fresh zones, mounts, houses, and instances to the game.

Aion: Ascension will give gamers access to the entire game, which includes two expansions, over 3,000 quests, more than 30 instances, and auction houses.

GameSpot

With The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and WoW's next expansion, will anyone care about Aion? :s

[_neutrino Veteran]

The question is not will people care it is has anyone ever cared.

[Max Norris]

The question is not will people care it is has anyone ever cared.

Eh haven't in the past, but might be an interesting diversion for a while. Got bored with WoW a few years back, and aside from the occasional content updates my Guild Wars play time has dropped too.. Aion might hold my interest until Guild Wars 2.

[trag3dy]

I actually like this news. I'll dust my account off and try it out again. I had a level 48 gladiator and I'd like to see how they've changed the game.

[firey]

With D3 coming out right around then it might be too little too late for Aion. I recently (two days ago) recovered my Aion account (Forgot the login). Was activated back in 2009 when Aion was launched. I don't think I even played the full 30 days of my free month. I played probably a week or two before quitting. Wasn't a bad game, though I won't lie I definitely bought it for the cryengine. Maybe when I get bored of D3, GW2, and Mists of Pandara, I may play. Though we will have to see.

[Emn1ty]

I'm looking forward to this. Still have yet to find a class like the Chanter in other MMO's (save for maybe the Mesmer in Guild Wars). Will probably look back into my trail account character when this happens.

[Jojo81]

With The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and WoW's next expansion, will anyone care about Aion? :s

All of those are a different style of game than Aion. I have been playing Aion since release and the majority of the player base was lost in the first 6 months or so when people decided it was too grindy. Then Ncsoft made several mistakes mostly based around the fact that they didn't tailor the US/EU version of Aion towards the western market, instead they left it basically untouched from the Korean version (which was and still is very successful).

Recently they had a free 2 week reactivation/trial period and it was amazing how many old and new players were in the game. 3.0 is going to be the biggest content update Aion has had and with the free to play model starting I think the game will be really popular at least for the rest of this year. It is surprising how many more people "free" brings in when you consider the monthly fee for any of these games is quite low in comparison to say what it cost to fill your tank with gas.

[trag3dy]

All of those are a different style of game than Aion. I have been playing Aion since release and the majority of the player base was lost in the first 6 months or so when people decided it was too grindy. Then Ncsoft made several mistakes mostly based around the fact that they didn't tailor the US/EU version of Aion towards the western market, instead they left it basically untouched from the Korean version (which was and still is very successful).

Recently they had a free 2 week reactivation/trial period and it was amazing how many old and new players were in the game. 3.0 is going to be the biggest content update Aion has had and with the free to play model starting I think the game will be really popular at least for the rest of this year. It is surprising how many more people "free" brings in when you consider the monthly fee for any of these games is quite low in comparison to say what it cost to fill your tank with gas.

That's why I stopped playing. I was faced with grinding out 1000 platinum coins to get an attack speed sword and I just didn't fancy that. Also I was in guild after guild that all fell apart. It didn't help that the last one I was in the guild leaders account got hacked and the guild bank got looted.

[Raa]

I played when it was released, but boy was it a grind fest. Every time they had the free play days I went back in, but still the same old grind.

It's good it's going F2P, but as others have said, it's too little too late IMO.

[Jojo81]

That's why I stopped playing. I was faced with grinding out 1000 platinum coins to get an attack speed sword and I just didn't fancy that. Also I was in guild after guild that all fell apart. It didn't help that the last one I was in the guild leaders account got hacked and the guild bank got looted.

compared to back then leveling and obtaining gear is really easy if you are just a casual player that wants to try a little of everything. If you are hardcore into pvp the grind will never stop.

[Kondrath]

Is anyone gonna play this? I used to play on a private server for hours on end, but got bored with it. Thinking about starting new tomorrow on the new server with the 3.0 update. AION was the most fun I've ever had in an mmorpg before, especially when playing with real life friends.

[Darrian]

With The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and WoW's next expansion, will anyone care about Aion? :s

With The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and Aion, will anyone care about WoW's next expansion? :s

[ANON86364]

Like others, I played Aion at release as well and also like others, found it to be incredibly grindy especially around level 20-ish if I remember correctly. At this point, I have to ask why bother with Aion when there is Rift? To me, Rift is Aion 2.0. Free to play might be great but why play something that just isn't fun...

[spy beef]

Star Wars needs to go F2P.

[spaceelf]

Is anyone gonna play this? I used to play on a private server for hours on end, but got bored with it. Thinking about starting new tomorrow on the new server with the 3.0 update. AION was the most fun I've ever had in an mmorpg before, especially when playing with real life friends.

I will if I ever have spare bandwidth. My conn ain't dialup but it's still slow.

[trag3dy]

Like others, I played Aion at release as well and also like others, found it to be incredibly grindy especially around level 20-ish if I remember correctly. At this point, I have to ask why bother with Aion when there is Rift? To me, Rift is Aion 2.0. Free to play might be great but why play something that just isn't fun...

Because Rift is boring. "Oh look a new rift opened... that is exactly like the 30 other rifts open on the map, yay". On top of that I've never seen a game that reuses as many art assets as Rift does.

Now I'm not saying Aion is any better than it used to be, because it's still a grind fest from one end to the other but Rift isn't any better. However one thing that Rift or just about any other mmo can't do is Aions open world pvp, which is just awesome once you get into a good legion.

[ANON86364]

Because Rift is boring. "Oh look a new rift opened... that is exactly like the 30 other rifts open on the map, yay". On top of that I've never seen a game that reuses as many art assets as Rift does.

Now I'm not saying Aion is any better than it used to be, because it's still a grind fest from one end to the other but Rift isn't any better. However one thing that Rift or just about any other mmo can't do is Aions open world pvp, which is just awesome once you get into a good legion.

I would have to beg to differ :) I think Rift's PvP is pretty strong and balanced. Battlegrounds as well as world PvP is really fun and I like the progression in PvP. Sure, there are lots of Rifts and they do get old, but at higher levels you get PvP and raid Rifts which certainly aren't boring (for me) and aren't easy.

To each his own though.

[x9248]

Gonna give this a try since it's free now. I remember playing on a private server... got to like level 20 but then quit because the grind was way overboard (the private server even had like x2 EXP lol). Hopefully they changed that.

[HawkMan]

I got through character creation before I decided this game was to silly.

Actually I didn't even get that far, but after that I just couldnt.

[x9248]

^Wow man, you didn't even play the game at all and thought it was silly?

[_neutrino Veteran]

have not plaid the game, I did not like Rift though. I might give this a try at some point.

[HawkMan]

^Wow man, you didn't even play the game at all and thought it was silly?

Yes. The whole graphical style makes no sense, it's just a plain annoying world to be in. And I'm an anime fan, but seriously...

[(Spork)]

played when it launched loved the style of game hated the grind ! so since it free ill try it

[SMELTN]

I actually got the email about this a while ago and installed the game a few days ago.. I downloaded the update yesterday and will log on tonight. I only plan to play because its free to play. I never liked Aion in the past. I think the wings thing is cool, but the overall game just never appealed to me.

[trag3dy]

I would have to beg to differ :) I think Rift's PvP is pretty strong and balanced. Battlegrounds as well as world PvP is really fun and I like the progression in PvP. Sure, there are lots of Rifts and they do get old, but at higher levels you get PvP and raid Rifts which certainly aren't boring (for me) and aren't easy.

To each his own though.

Well I'm glad you like it. Personally, I got tired of Trion completely undoing all the effort I put into the game consistently patch after patch. And then they deicded that they didn't want PvPers to pve in their pvper gear so they made it useless in pve content. I wasn't about to spend hundreds more hours to regain what I already had because whiners got their way. The complaint was that max level pvp gear was too easy to get. I beg to differ, it took me well over 300 hours to obtain my full rank 8 set and trion undid that in minutes.

Anyways, this thread isn't about Rift, it's about Aion. Now, I spent about 10 hours (shamefully) playing Aion yesterday after the patch was out, and I retract my earlier statement. The game has changed drastically from what it was 2 years ago. There is so much to do in the game now. There are more dungeons than I can count. More quests than I can shake a stick at. And they also reduced the amount of experience it takes to level quite a bit. I gained an entire level yesterday (went from 48 to 49) and 2 years ago that was unheard of.

So if people got tired of the grind when the game first came out you should like it a lot more now. Also check this out.

http://gameguide.na....on/atreian#home

You get some *really* nice rewards for basically just doing things you need to do in the game anyways. For a f2p game you can definitely do worse than getting into Aion.