Aion going Free-to-Play, already in February 2012.

[Wiz]

You are right and i agree with you. Although i don't really care as long as i can grab my characters and kill ppl, who cares about community or if they are kids or not. I just wanna see blood on their wings  Plus i don't really depend on alot of ppl to achieve what i wanna do when i do play it casually. All i ask is 2-3 good players by my side, the rest is not important.

[Arashiyama]

My words zeus...why spend more time on fail game when new games like gw2 are going to be released soon (they're about to start the closed beta soon btw. so we won't have too long for the game to be released)

[Yuuhi]

Gonna try GW2 as well and if it satisfies me, at least I got an easier time playing aion casually since I don't have to pay for it any longer

[Ashelia]

I can't say the Aion community ever was very good, with the exception of some of the betas I was in.
I'll just hop in now and then when I got nothin better to do... if it's free I don't have much to loose.
And I'm still very curious about 3.0, and how much they will realize of what they have showed us.

[Yuuhi]

Ye, and spatalos seems to be full with trolls/dramaqueens sometimes. Sure the gameplay's still ok there. But if you're looking for a good community, don't go there

[WhiteHorse]

Kids only botter you if you give them attention. Kids dont concern me, as we filter them out on RoyalStorm allowing only very rare exceptions.
I dislike reading all the bash talk on the previous posts, to be honest (and that is why i dont read official forums neither the global chat ingame).

I have my concerns and i have my hopes, but i will not cry "the sky is falling" until i actually see it. Reminds of the time where all the sin players cryed and left the game even before the patch was implemented, just because they read that every class was getting a schock remover. When in reality they can still easilly come up with tactics and still easily win on pvp.

If you wonder my concerns are mostly related with 2 things:
- what items will be on the shop
- gold sellers / bots

but i will not cry wolf to everyone till i actually see one. So please, let's keep from being doomsday preachers and dramaqueens.

[WhiteHorse]

"double XP will start at 6pm GMT (19:00 CET) on Friday 16th and will end at 6pm GMT on Monday 19th December"

[Teaser]

sakushi just took a better look at aion free to play website and found something that isnt leaving us very pelased.
veteran memberships (in wich we all current aion players are) will have the same instance cooldowns as free memberships.
i wouldnt mind this, if they havent changed the times in a very very wrong way.
an example? udas temple. currently with a 6 hour CD. with aion f2p it will have for free and veteran members a 70 hours cd (YES 70), and gold pack members will have..... 4 hours..... that is an insane difference. check it out here.:
current times: http://gameguide.na.aiononline.com/aion/Instances
Aion f2p plan: http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/featuresdetails/

from aion f2p website at http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/news/legions

You have questions or want to give feedback? Requests are also very welcome.
Contact us and write an email to legion@aionfreetoplay.com

so people, start writing mails and show your displeasure to this situation. it is a HUGE diference they are planing. untolerable imo.

[Yuuhi]

Unless they're gonna increase the droprates like hell, I'm definitely gonna hate it and it'll give me more reason to be more active in gw2 if I'm ever gonna like it. Even dredgion and the arenas are gonna have a fucking sick cd. Just look at the cds they're planning. It's ranging from 22h to 118h!!! (5 days). Padma's cave is 168, but we already have that and it's not rly much to worry about.

To make things worse, if we don't want those excessive cds, we're gonna have to stick with monthly subs. If this is really gonna happen, Aion would've been better off the way it is right now

[WhiteHorse]

In short:
Low level instance = normal times.

Dredgions = once per day.
medium level and high level instances = 2 to 3 days cooldown each.
Fortress instances = 5 days cooldown each.

Padmarashka's Cave = Has no difference vs the gold pack. (everyone once per week)

Honestly, I don't see the big drama. I mean, look at it, with rage aside.
Now a monthly fee costs 13 euros per month. It's going to be decreased to 10 euros on the gold pack, so that is less 3 euros per month. And you get shorter cooldowns than you have today in return. = Good for the hardcore player.

The rest of us, we decrease from paying 13 euros per month, to pay nothing per month. Nothing. And with the casual approach that we have and the ammount of instances that exist, we still have plenty available to keep us busy. If anything, it's a blessing, because it forces us to play in multiple diferent instances rather than farming over and over again on the same instance, making it boring.
I personally am ok with the change, and if I am not, I can simply continue to pay a monthly fee, like I did for the past 2 years, with the diference that it's actually going to be cheaper per month. So... again.. no drama.

Am I the only one that is able to think in this way about it?

[Teaser]

agree with you, and as i said i would be ok, if the differences werent so big. whoever has payed so many months for this game such me and you and many others, should have some more benefits beside character slots, wich is what we get if you see it thru. make them a 4 hour difference or even 8 hour for each membership. not days difference.
cmon white, a free and veteran player has to wait 5 days for an instance, while gold ones can do it 5 times per day? that is outrageous.

[WhiteHorse]

And during the time that you payed a fee for the game, you had access to the instances during those months with normal CD, had you not?
What would happen until now, if you would stop paying a monthly fee? You would not even be able to roam around in the world.

Gold members will be paying less per month than you pay today. So if you really are bothered by the instance cool-downs, you can still continue to pay a monthly fee, while saving money from comparison to what you pay now, and with smaller instance cool-downs by comparison to what you have now.

And lets actually do the math Uther.. And I am going to be generous on it.
Even if you play Aion every single day, after work, you do about 3 maybe 4 hours per day. So you do maybe 1 or 2 instances. By the 3rd or even 5th day, you will still have available High Level instances to play in by that time the one you played before already becomes available as well. So again, I really see no drama. If anything, it forces diversity which is a good thing in my humble opinion. Hell, it might even make people siege more to gain control over the forts and get the extra instances. Nothing wrong with that either.

Bottom line, you will not run out of instances for your high level. And even so, just because you are in CD for a instance with one char, does not mean you can not play it again with your alts. Which again, is not a bad thing either to give some love time to your alts.

[WhiteHorse]

To represent the feedback and concerns exposed by you, I sent just now the following email (after it was reviewed and approved on our Teamspeak server).
-------------------------
TO: legion@aionfreetoplay.com
CC: support@ncsoft.com

Hello all,
The people at my legion and myself included received well the change of Aion into the Free-to-Play model and its recognition of people that actually bought the game before it went to Free-To-Play.

That said, I came across today with a collective outrage from the members to the news that Veteran accounts would receive a exaggerated amount of cool-down in instances, basically as much as the people that never bought the game.

Such can be seen in: http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/featuresdetails/

After talking/debating the issue over TeamSpeak with other members, being me the Aion legion leader falls on my responsibility to voice the community complains and suggestions to you:

We all understand the wish and need for an attractive Gold Packet, in relation to the Free-to-play and Veteran accounts.
We kindly ask you to consider however, a difference between the people that never paid for the game and the people that bought it.

Our suggestion would be that you place the value of Veterans cool-down half way between what the Starter and Gold-Pack have, as this is what feels logical and expected from most players.
Examples:
- Instance cooldown: Starter (High), Veteran (Medium), Gold-Pack (low).
- Steel Rake: 22 hrs, 12.5 hrs, 03 hrs.
- Dredgion*: 22 hrs, 06 hrs*, 02 hrs
(*instead of 12hrs. Because Dredgion opens at GMT 12h00, 20h00 and 24h00 and it means that per day: Starter 1x, Veteran 2x, Gold 3x)
- Arena of Chaos:  46 hrs, 23hrs, 00 hrs.
- Empyrian Crucible: 70 hrs, 46hrs, 22 hrs.
- Crucible Challenge: 118 hrs, 70hrs, 22 hrs.

This will still give a clear difference and recognition to Veterans over the Starters, and still having a clear difference on the Gold Pack over the Veteran accounts.

We sincerely hope you understand and acknowledge the feedback here given.

We wish you success on this coming year.


Best regards, on behalf of the RoyalStorm community.

<my real name> "White Horse"
<my email>
-------------------------

Let's see what is replied, if anything. And most importantly, what actually happens.

[Ker]

While I share the pain expressed in your posts, there is the characters to consider that are not yet at max level.

http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/featuresdetails/

Have a look at this!

Veteran rewards   no   no   
Abyss points (kills and mobs)   no   no   20% more AP
Crucible bonus   no   no   20% more medals
PvP arena   no   no   20 more Courage Insignias
Energy of Repose   no   no   fourfold increase, extended duration
EXP amulets   no   no   10 amulets with 50% increase

It does not format too well in here but basically:
want veteran awards: need to pay for premium
abyss points premium gets 20% more medal

The rest is clear from the table HOWEVER if you want to level additional chars: energy of repose gives 4FOLD increase and has extended duration, also you you get nice exp amu's if pay for premium.

On the other hand, the MAJOR benefit of us over freebie players is the PERMANENT 8 characters available!e.

For casual players like me this will translate to paying for premium (gold package) or for prozac (lots of it since will be slower too offering express frustration)

Arieuluma,

Ker

[Ashelia]

The whole veteran thing is none of Gameforge's business. They simply need to make money by selling gold packs, and that's the way they're gonna do it. No surprise, but like White said, it is still gonna be cheaper if we pay.