Pay to play games that go free to play do it for two reasons, because their game is losing players on the pay to play model or because there is a brighter future for their game for both players and developer on the free to play model. For the last 5 years the free to play model has gone from something looked down upon to being the dominate model on the market. Consumers are happier to give their money for things they actually want rather than just to play the game which encourages others to play as well. MMORPG's are about playing the game with many other people and if your server is dead, that isn't going to be very fun, is it?
I took a look into Aion's F2P beta and to be honest, I was blown away with how successful it was. Before I go any further, you have to remember that Aion is the most up to date MMO to move from pay-to-play to free-to-play while LOTRO did it and many others; they were all very old games. Aion is a beautiful AAA game with anti-aliasing and bloom which makes the game look superb not forgetting that with patch 3.0 which they are calling "Aion: Ascension" (the full free to play patch releasing on the 28th of February! I recommend you all give it a shot as this is one amazing MMO.
As I first opened up the new free to play client I immediately put all my graphics as high as they could go and played from levels 1-20 without stopping. I was immersed, my surroundings looked wonderful and the combat looked even better. The game play was fun and it keeps the quality of a pay-to-play game many people feel can only be found in pay-to-play games. Aion proves that theory wrong and rightfully so. Its game play is that of a standard MMO but with much more. The game play is medium paced. Fast enough so that it doesn't get boring but not so fast that you feel like you can't keep up with it. There are lots of skills and all of the classes felt like that did something different or unique which made making multiple characters just to try them out rewarding and entertaining which is something you definitely want to see. My main objective was to try and not get distracted by the beautiful and artistically designed world of Atreia, but instead to see of Ascension really lives up to its promise of being truly free to play.
We'll start off with what Game forge promises as truly free to play...
- No monthly subscription fee
- No charges for registration and client
- All classes, regions and instances playable
- Complete and playable storyline with 3,900 quests
- Character development up to level 55 possible
Which is pretty great, using a basic account which will cost you nothing, you can play till max level, you don't ever have to pay a thing, you're not restricted on class or race and every quest is available to you! Obviously with free to play, there has to be some benefits to players who support the game and that's a perfectly normal thing, the aim is to make them not to favouring for that play, however so most games like aesthetic things like fashion and pets while those kind of things are sure to the cash shop, the way they primarily plan to make money is through the gold account status system.
Before we get into that, let's quickly talk about the restrictions on normal accounts and what a veteran account is. Normal users or "Starter Accounts" as they are called have all the basics just like promised. No subscription fee, max level however they come with quite a few restrictions and I think that could quite possibly put a lot of people off restrictions like not being able to use certain chat channels, not being able to trade, not being able to join a legion, limited in gathering resources and item extraction. You also get less money from NPC'ing items than Veteran or gold accounts and you can only get limited amounts of rewards from PvP. The veteran account has none of the game restrictions but you also get limited rewards from PvP.
I think the way they boosted rewards for gold users was definitely the right way to go, it doesn't interfere with player interaction and makes players who support the games servers running feel like they're actually getting something back. However the amount of restriction free accounts get doesn't entirely feel free to play. Game forge did state during the beta that there would be a free way involving in-game achievements to get a veteran status which would lift those limits and that would truly make Aion a definite competitor in this year's MMO market. I look forward to seeing what they do with the game as it's one that kept me busy for more than 12 hours straight. My overall evaluation of the game is that the world of Aion is a beautiful and well thought out one, Ascension offers a lot more content and allows people to fully play the game and can earn away the small restrictions simply by playing the game. If everything continues to go on this path, I don't think there's any reason anyone should not be keeping their eye on Aion: Ascension.
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