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

[WhiteHorse]

Read the interview about this:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/qanda-what-free-to-play-means-for-aion-6347587

Good thing my subscription was only till mid January

[Yuuhi]

Gameforge seems to be taking over. Dunno if they'll provide better service than NCSoft, but we'll just have to see. The US doesn't seem to be affected by the takeover?

Will I receive a refund if I have already paid my subscription for beyond February?

All subscriptions will end automatically with the switch to free-to-play and the transfer of the relevant accounts to Gameforge. From this point on, the monthly fees will not be debited from your account. All payments which you have made for the time after February 2012 will be refunded. We will be publishing more detailed information about this in the next few weeks.

We are rewarding all subscribers who remain loyal to Aion: if you grant NCsoft permission to transfer your account to the new server, we will award you Veteran status – which provides you with more game options than new players.

Glad it won't be wasted for those who subscribed beyond february

There's still lots of questions to be answered, but at least now I know I'm never gonna waste money from subscribing to Aion so it became a lot easier now to play it casual when I want to

Also wondering about this gold package they're talking about. Would be nice if it's only a 1 time offer

[Teaser]

more info at gameforge-aion website. just checked it today http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/website/
as for your question knuckles..... this is on the interview white posted:

In addition to these account types, all players have the choice to purchase a Gold Pack which, for a limited time, not only removes all the restrictions from their account, but also gives additional benefits to improve the game experience, such as lower instance cool down times, increased PvP currency rewards, and more. We are currently evaluating if we will provide this Gold Pack as an optional subscription service.

and from official website the main things i could take off were:
- all servers will remain as they are, no merges will happen, and 1 english, 1 french and 1 german will be added.
- all character info will remain, be it items, stats, abyss points and rank, warehouse, etc
- all subscribers (active or not) will get the veteran account status. new players of the f2p model will get starter status and then upgrade to veteran by buying the gold pack.
- all shop codes that you may have still to redeem, should be redeemed before it goes to f2p model
- legions will also be transfered, but in order to have the administration rights you might have on it, the legion leader MUST do the transition also.
- starter status will have only 2 character slots and limitations to chat, broker, private shop and other small restrictions, in order to prevent bot and rmt's infestation.
- new forums will be created for F2P model, however the old forums will be archived and still avaiable for viewing by the players.
- veteran reward will still be avaiable, as long you are a gold pack buyer (this smells to me like a montlhy fee more than a 1 time purchase)

and as a personal observation..... considering aion 3.0 is about to be (or was allready) launched in korea, i start to feel that the f2p model will start with the localization for europe ready for launch also.... i can only hope hehe ^^

edit: replying to knuckles 1st question

At present I am playing on a US server. Can I continue to do so?
Yes. This microsite only relates to the European operation of Aion. The American versions are not affected by the change of publisher. For more information about the US version of Aion, please click here www.Aiononline.com.

after some search, i found nothing related to US or KR aion becoming free also. but will be strange to have only europe version F2P.

[WhiteHorse]

Knuckles, we could use this actually as a opportunity to boost RoyalStorm presence in Aion, under your leadership (as a casual players legion, that is present since the birth of the game and there for can provide plenty of know-how to the new players). Such boost would also mean good news to the other divisions of RoyalStorm because being f2p aion players will likely feel at ease to also experiment and have fun on the other games in which RoyalStorm divisions exist.

[Teaser]

oh i will play a bit more often when it comes f2p hehe. could help knuckles recruiting people.
only thing im doing in rift now is the events and that new ''instant adventure'' thing (wich actually is quite fun tbh)

EDIT: ncsoft account website is now under maintenance. its possible that they are adding the feature to ''mark'' our account for gameforge transfers. check it later and dont forget to mark it before february.
quote from aion free to play website:

How can I transfer my account to the Gameforge Service?
Please mark your account so that we can migrate it to the free-to-play model. Visit http://www.plaync.com and log in to your PlayNC Master Account. There you can find instructions which will guide you through the marking process.
After that, you can log in to the game as usual. Your account will only be transferred to the Gameforge server on the day of the changeover.
In the next few days we will provide further information on this page in an effort to make the migration as simple as possible.

[Ashelia]

Marked and ready.

Actually it's no more than ticking a checkbox, giving permission to NCSoft for transferring your personal account information to GameForge, as well as agreeing with GameForge's ToS.

[Zeus]

Let me know if you want my sorc/tank/glad back in there. They have alot of AP and will help your rank. As for playing, I don't see that happening with SWTOR out now and GW2 soon as they just announced the final profession. I might log and do one of the new instances to check them out. That "gold" whatever version is obviously a paid service, and since it says the status of it is "temporary", you can expect to pay often for it. No TY!

Now back to my Star Wars saga... DPS + healer + heavy armor + shields + mega pots + a healing companion, nothing like solo intances, all the loot is mine bitches! (And it only drops loot for my class or my companion, not that random bullshit in Aion) And PvP is awesome, no faceroll 1 hit wonders, even light armor folks take some doing to get down!! (if they don't kill you first, they got more CC/Stuns etc... the game is very balanced ATM) brought to you in yellow for a more Star Wars'y effect

[WhiteHorse]

I would ask every royalstormer that has an account at NCSOFT to update it so that you can still play casually with RoyalStorm once the transfer is made.I already marked myself, so RoyalStorm legion is going to be transfered together with me (was a requirement for it to be transfered).

I repeat, please everyone do the same, would be a total waste to loose the character of high level, even if you don't plan to play activily. Also have in mind (from what I undertood) that the "gold pack" are for those that are joining the game for the 1st time after it becomes free and want to benifit the same as the "veteran" accounts (which will be ours that already bought the game before and were marked to be transfered).

[Teaser]

As white said, gold pack is for the new "free to play" accounts that want to remove the restrictions.
All former aion players that bought the game or payed at least one month, will receive veteran account.
we only pay gold pack if we wish to receive the "veteran rewards" that we receive now with each month subscription.

[Arashiyama]

Looks like that's the end of me playing aion...

[WhiteHorse]

Looks like that's the end of me playing aion...

I prefer to look at it on the positive side, and wait and see. Does not hurt to mark our chars to be transfered, at least so that all the hours that we played in the past still mean something. Even if you dont play actively you can still connect whenever you feel like it, to just hang around with other royalstormers in doing something together.

I see this as opportunity with a boom of new players, easier to make groups and start instances.
A opportunity for royalstormers from previouos generation that did not play Aion because they had no money to pay the fee to finally join us...
A opportunity for current royalstormers that had a shared account and could not play side by side, because of not wanting to pay 2 fees per month... (Knuckles / Sue  and Xioza / Fragore )
A opportunity for royalstormers that left Aion, to return.
...And finally a opportunity for us to meet more people and increase the community as well as still make use of our accumulated experience of Aion (that we have since launch day). RoyalStorm Aion presence was dying and was possible that the division either would go to hibernation or would reborn with Aion 3.0 . ...Now, it will cost us nothing to keep a active/playable account. And we will already benift from Veteran status, as we already payed the game in the past. There for, the limitations of the new f2p players will not apply to us. That likely was a negotiation made by ncsoft when they allowed someone else to take over, to protect the existing players from raging.

[Ker]

Thanks for the news, I was hoping this would happen

I opted in.

[Checkm4te]

Nice. Can finally try out this game 

[Wiz]

This is hopefully good news, but like many other F2P games i usually end up disappointed. Let's hope not...

Well as far as i can see at this moment i'm pretty sure me and my gf will be back playing. Unfortunately we are on Asmodians side and instead of playing with you guys i'm afraid i will have to kill you    We will see..

I will play it casually since i pretty much got geared characters. Will be mostly doing pvp i think. Dreadgion etc.

But we will see 

[Zeus]

Aion F2P is going to be a bigger failure than the payed version ever was. The quality of players you're getting from a free to play game is much worse than a payed one. Alot more kiddies will be coming in to troll and be baby sat by the game. If NCSOFT has given up on the game in the west, I suggest you do the same and spend your time on a game that has some kind of future. There is a reason that they are letting the game go in February 2012, Guild Wars 2 has announced it's final profession this week... get the hint? (You do know who the publisher for GW2 is, don't you?) GW2 is free to play after you buy it as well, Aion is doomed as hell!

I'd actually give away my account info if I didn't need it for Guild Wars!