I know, I know… this news is about 3 days old now as Aion went free on April 11th. To be honest, the reason none of us have posted about it is because we’re too busy playing. The same day that the North American version of Aion went Free-to-play is the same day they released the 2nd expansion pack called Aion: Ascension 3.0. Added in 3.0 are player housing, a lot of new dungeons and instances, and new areas to explore. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You see, normally when MMORPGs go “free to play”, I really feel it should be called “a little-free-to-play, the-rest-pay” because they usually have such restrictions as limited class choices, limited chat channels, limited levels, etc. Well NCSoft US is one of the first big named MMORPG publishers to use the term “truly free” which means that the game is totally free. Exactly as it was if you were paying your $15 a month. No restrictions or anything. They plan to recoup the costs of running the game by offering a Black Cloud Marketplace which lets you buy cosmetic items and non-game changing bonus items with real cash. For example, you can purchase a scroll which prevents you from having any experience point loss from death for 7 days.
Come back in a few days where we’ll have an extensive review of the game but in the mean time you can download the client and register for your free account here.