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Why more people are not talking about AION (NA) and its F2P model?
Whitebeards
Member Posts: 778
This game has probably the best F2P model of all the current F2P MMOS. And yet i don't see any discussion about it? if it because of the MMO itself? people bored of it?
I recently went back and i was quite surprised to find that entire game is available for free. I find this model a little better than NW because they don't sell character slots in shop. Although they do sell cube and warehouse extension. But unlike NW you get a very large inventory in game which you can unlock through gold that you won't need to buy cube extension from cash shop.
Other than that cash shop is quite typical in terms of stuff they sell. Mounts, pets, gender change, name change etc.
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To answer the question, maybe because they didn't announce like swtor did, how much more income they earn when they turn f2p.
Ppl will look at your earnings and judge whether your f2p is successful or not I guess.
Personally, I like aion f2p model, its the best, rather than charging you for hotbars or open up quests.
RIP Orc Choppa
Not gonna speak about the features of the game per se, because i haven't played enough, but thing was like this for me:
-Friend suggest we could give this game a shot, looks nice even if it's old.
-Ok, why not? We start our chars and quest together for a while.
-Hey, mob dropped this nice item you can use. Give me trade.
-<<You are a freeloader, so you can't trade>> (This is basically the system message i got)
-We look each other for 2 seconds.
-"Fuck this shit game?" - "Fuck this shit game."
And we left. Best free model? My balls.
"Let destruction rain!" from Asbel Tales of Graces f
Edit: I think I went to a weird site that should not be shared when I shared my previous information.
This sounds like Aion EU you are talking about, which was sold off to Gameforge, a move which has proved unpopular with a large^H^H^H^H^Hvocal section of the playerbase & runs under a "free to play" model which completely gimps players who do not purchase the pseudo-sub or "Gold Pack."
OP was talking about Aion NA which has no such restrictions, though if the location in your profile is accurate you might have some latency issues playing there.
EDITED TO ADD: @Colddog04, yeah the link you give is for Gameforge's Aion EU operation. I actually did have vet status there having subbed for a few months when the game first launched in Europe, but have basically abandoned that account because of the hash GF made of running the game.
Well if linear hub to hub questing is the reason why people don't talk about it than i wonder how STO, Rift, NW etc get all the attention? pretty much all the current F2P MMOS follow same play style do they not?
I have PMB disabled in NCsoft launcher and didn't have any troubles updating the game. I am sure you can do without it.
You can pretty much do everything in the game for free.
Here is their... thingy: http://truly-free.aiononline.com/truly-free/
Here is their marketplace: http://store.aiononline.com/store/index
I think that Aion and TERA both have the some of the most open F2P systems of any game.
I completely agree with the OP:
AION North America is best and most honest f2p model of all models out there.
The only initial limits are:
you can whisper at lvl 10+
you can talk in all chats at lvl 20 +
and that's for obvious reasons aka goldsellers etc...
Everything else what ppl throw here different in this thread is total BS, just to be clear. You can like the game, you can hate the game but nothing is out there like that kind of f2p model which is REAL.
Just another thingy:
if you log Asmodian on Siel or Israphel server you get even SHITLOADS OF GOODS (even some free pvp gear and weapons at later lvls) just to incentive server faction balance, and that FOR FREAKIN' FREE !!!
So if you want to contribute to the cause then feel free to shop in the ingame shop but you NEVER WILL BE FORCED to BUY ANYTHING TO BE EQUAL TO OTHERS.
Last thingy: GAMEUPDATES ARE F....G FREE (now they get Update 4.0 - which was lately introduced in Korea, EU is still at 3.5 sadly) AND QUITE FAST !!!
/my 2 cents
+1 had Aion released with PvE servers it would have been much more popular. It has some of the worst pvp balance which is only exacerbated by the fact that people can FLY. Now, the flying was awesome, but getting sniped from some random direction takes ganking to a whole new level of lame.
Once you hit the open pvp zones, any bored max level player will just ruin your day because you just can't do anything to stop them from ganking, nor can you escape. And it costs in-game currency to port places. Killed the fun.
But yeah, great f2p model.
People love controversy, they love to discuss something if it's something they generally either disapprove of or something they want changed.
For example: Take someone walking down the sidewalk, do you ever hear someone say "Man the person who made this sidewalk did a really great job, look how even it is?" No, but as soon as the sidewalk is uneven and they trip "Why don't the people that watch these roads watch em a bit closer i could have fallen, what the heck do i pay taxes for if not to keep these even?"
Same goes with news do they talk about how nice a community is doing? Least not in america they don't, first thing is usually something bad 85% of the time, killing, robberies, some scandal with some office official or some other such thing? why? people like to talk about stuff that isn't going well, rarely do conversations last long if everyone agree with said subject.
That is the reason for this, most people don't have an issue with it, thus no discussion about it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
There is no charge for the client or ongoing access to game content.
There is a cash shop which sells a selection of cosmetic, convenience and flat-out advantage items as well as services such as server transfers and character name / appearance / gender changes. For reference, cash shop currency currently sells at 1US$ = 80 "NCoin" (purchase in lots of 400, 800, 1600, 4000, 8000). Some cash shop purchases can be traded to other players.
EDIT: this was in reply to Damonvile.
well, Aion has now fast track channel (server) which is a levelling "server" up to lvl 50 without any pvp and + 100 % mob and gathering exp. Players from all servers can swap into this server (instantly by using the menu options) and when they want to pvp they can go back to their original one instantly, too.
That only if you feel ganked too much, ofc, so you have an alternative at least to go to lvl 50 (considering cap is 60 )
You obviously didn't look deep enough into the cash shop to say that. Their F2P model is a P2W one, far from being the best F2P model out there. With purchasable items like this : "[Title] Hot Shot - 15 Days This title gives you +2% attack speed, +5% running speed, and +4% flight speed for 15 days." or multiple different buffs and potions. And wait there's more, some of them are even stackable...
If you plan to play this game only for its PvE then I guess you're okay since you won't need those items to do all the content, but when it comes to PvP, I'm pretty sure if you want to stay competitive you will have to spend some money in the cash shop. So P2W.
All of the titles that you earn in game give you stats. Looks at some of these:
http://gameguide.na.aiononline.com/aion/Titles
Many are of comparable power to those in the store.
Edit: Here is a more complete list and as you can see, there are some pretty big stat titles here that you are supposed to earn in game:
http://www.aiondatabase.com/title/list#titles
If it is so great, then where is all the awesome content that this wonderful free to play model has brought to the game.
A game running on life support is not impressive no matter how "free" it is.
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Hard to say about content when i just started playing the game. Something i will reserve for future topics.
And from in game population and up coming 4.0 content i doubt this game is on life support.
There are only 4 MMORPGs that I've liked since I quit WoW ages ago and that is:
Age of Conan.
Tera.
Guild Wars 2.
And Aion.
I have started to play Aion again now and I can't believe that there are so few who play this game. It's really great!