Aion – Winged Flight to Free!

We've become accustomed to hyped MMO releases. Back in the day, Everquest was the thing, then we moved on to WoW. While it's possible to say that World of Warcraft still reigns king of MMO population, there have been several releases since then that were hyped as "WoW-killers" or games that were going to rival the big game as the current largest MMO. These included games like the following: Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and finally Aion. Each of these have had varied success, of course, with some going free to play, some changing their subscription methods, and some just enjoying what popularity they have.

Aion is the game of interest today, since they announced a few weeks ago that Europe servers were going free to play. Then, with the success of Lineage 2's free to play, NCSoft has decided that Aion would be doing better if it followed the same ideal. So... here we go, then!

Aion, in my experience, was a beautiful game and the graphics of it were unrivaled by anything else I've ever seen in the MMO genre. However, it's Western release didn't live up to the expectations that were placed in it. The grind and the hardcore PvP nature of the game didn't fit in well with the Western ideal of a MMO. This move to make it free will hopefully bolster the game's population. I know that personally I'll be going back to the game again to see how things have been since I left a month after release.

The new free to play style that NCSoft is using, models after Lineage 2 exactly. According to press release by NCSoft, the game will be entirely free. You can play all of the game without ever making a purchase, though people will obviously be buying micro transactions from the store. What the store itself will contain is as yet unknown, but it will be interesting to see if it unbalances the game or it's a mainly cosmetic shop.

Overall, seeing another of the huge subscription games going free to play is an interesting phenomenon. Western civlization is becoming an interesting place, where people feel entitled to things, so this move towards free to play will be something that we'll follow with great interest.

EDIT: Forgot to put in the link to the webpage itself. The main Aion Free to Play website is here.