NCsoft and the German gaming publisher Gameforged have partnered up to bring European players a Free-to-Play version of Aion staring in February 2012.

The switch will introduce three new account types, Free, Veteran and Gold.  Free will obviously have the most restrictions, but even the Veteran plan will have some slight restrictions. You can view the plan comparison at the Aion plan page.

As the title says this change only effects EU players, so North American gamers will continue to pay a monthy subscription cost, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes F2P later on in 2012.

You can view the Aion Free-to-Play announcement trailer below.

Update 2.7 for Aion has gone live, bringing many additions to the game, including dungeons, changes and additions to PvP, updates to skills, and gear. The major addition is the Crucible Coliseum, a new PvP area where players can choose to fight each other one on one, or in 6-8 man free-for-all battles to the death. In order to enter the Coliseum, players must be at least level 46, and have obtained coliseum tickets through the new quests. The coliseum is only open during certain times, 12am – 2pm and 6pm – 2am Mondays through Fridays, and 10am – 2pm on the weekends.

View the official patch notes here.

• The new Crucible Coliseum PvP Arena, which includes two PvP inspired Instanced Dungeons!
• - The Arena of Discipline features one on one death matches in four different stages–brandish weapons and spells to dominate opponents, and earn crucible insignias and medals at their expense!
• - The Arena of Chaos features a frenzied ten Daeva free-for-all in six different stages–run, hide, and strike when opponents are at their most vulnerable to succeed in this ruthless environment, and earn crucible insignias and medals for wreaking carnage.
• The new Padmarashka’s Cave Alliance Instanced Dungeon, a reimagining of the Padmarashka encounter with new Quests, loot, and a few twists!
• Numerous refinements to PvP in Balaurea, including improved Platinum Medal Quests, and retuned Mastarius and Veille encounters, offering additional rewards!
• New rewards from the merchants in the Kaisinel Academy and Marchutan Priory, including powerful PvP equipment purchasable with currencies from the Crucible Coliseum.
• Numerous refinements to existing skills, including reductions in the cooldowns and DP cost of several abilities.
• Much, much, much more!

Aion goes free to play!  Just kidding (read the article below)  Starting tomorrow, NCsoft will be offering a 10 day free trial for players to spread their wings and experience Aion first hand.  The Aion free trial will allow players to reach up to level 20.  The new signup page for the trial has not yet been launched, but should shortly.  Check our the official Aion site for more information.

From the looks of the video, Inggison sure looks like a place that fairies would call home. Lush fauna and flora, brightly colored terrain, and sweeping hills populated with exotic wildlife make for an inviting zone for players to romp around in. However, Aion: Assault on Balaurea is not all about flowers and frolicking, the video ends with a fearsome invitation, “The World of the Dragons Awaits You.” Just beyond that giant purple mushroom ridge lies a darker side to Aion’s newest zone. It seems unfair that some of Inggison’s landscape is so full of life, while others are barren – populated by wandering behemoths who seem to have risen from the very bowels of the earth itself. If that wasn’t enough, the aforementioned Dragons patrol the skies, keeping track of the realm’s inhabitants – and intruders.

A new Elyos foothold in Balaurea, Inggison looks like a unique addition to NCSoft’s beautifully stylized Aion. The video tour has been posted with this preview, so you don’t have to listen to me ramble on any more – see for yourself!

Altgard Kitter

NCsoft released screenshots and trailers for pets that will be released with the upcoming Aion expansion, Assault on Balaurea.  Included in the pets are daggies and kitters.  I’m not sure why it’s necessary to change it from dog and cat to such obvious naming conventions, but hey, whatever!   Aion: Assault on Balaurea is releasing on September 10, 2010 and available from retail outlets for a limited time.  The pets will be a bonus to anyone who buys the expansion.

The brief trailers of the pets are after the jump.  The trailers show off five different pets, plus the Speckled Ailu in EVERY SINGLE one.  I guess they really want people to know about their pandas.

Earlier this weekend, Lance Stites, Executive Vice President of Game Operations and Production at NCSoft, filled in for Chris Hager by writing up July’s Community Address. It is always a good idea to touch base with your players after a server merge, since the transition can leave some with a bad taste in their mouth. In some cases a sign of a failing game, server merges are often misunderstood. Stites emphasizes that providing a “vibrant social experience” is the key factor in the decision behind these merges, and he is excited about Aion‘s future with it’s first expansion, Assault on Balaurea. However, bots and other RMT affiliates continue to wreak havoc in-game, and Stites assures us that the dev team is working diligently to eradicate these false accounts.

Server merges come with their fair share of issues, the most prominent being imbalance. The team at Aion opened up inter-faction transfers during this process to allow players that freedom, but unknowingly exacerbated the imbalance issue that called for the merge in the first place. Since then, player transfers have been closed temporarily to stifle further disproportionate behavior. Stites explains, “if you’re playing on a predominantly Elyos server, Asmodian creation will be the only race available for new characters.”

The team at Aion is anxious to see a resolution to this issue, as they have big plans for coming months in the world of Atreia. Patch 1.9 has recently been implemented, and the aforementioned Assault on Balaurea expansion is on the horizon, which will be complementary to all players.

Lance Stites has some more to say about upcoming pet mechanics, and an inside scoop on what the Game Analysis Team is all about. So, check out his letter in it’s entirety over at the official site.

Customers’ mixed feelings towards Aion have the guys at NCSoft between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they could charge for the upcoming Aion: Assault on Balaurea and risk giving the impression that they are nickel-and-diming the playerbase. On the other hand, they could release the expansion for free and forego any revenue in favor of customer goodwill.

Kris Graft at Gamasutra.com has recently explored the topic with Aion’s lead producer Chris Hager. Hager explains, “I think what it came down to was that we felt it offered good player value, to give it to players for free, and we just wanted to make sure that if in the future we ever do charge for anything, we make sure it’s a good amount of content. We don’t want to nickel and dime players.”

From the looks of it, the team at NCSoft is on their way to coming to a decision that will be more beneficial in the long-run. Assault on Balaurea will raise the current level cap to 55, and add new instances, zones, weapons, items, skills, pets, and much more. Though this is a hefty load of content, NCSoft plans to put a price tag on larger expansions, and mark updates of this magnitude as complementary so that the entire playerbase may experience them together. This “free expansion” reflects the fact that the game industry, at it’s core, provides a service to their customers, the players. The more tangible that service is, and the more generous a company can be, the more players will continue subscribing.

NCSoft has warmed up the concept of microtransactions in it’s past games, and plans to do so with Aion. Having dabbled with minor offerings on Valentine’s Day and other holidays, the team is familiar with the cash shop, but does not plan to over-inflate it’s selection as other games do. Further, this expansion may appear to some as a last resort to patch a leaking playerbase, but the guys at NCSoft will be the first to tell you that this is not the case. ”We’d love to share our numbers, because we think everyone out there would be extremely, pleasantly surprised with our current userbase,” Hager said.

So, it looks like Aion: Assault on Balaurea is NCSoft’s first “free expansion”, with more to come in the future. If you’re a little behind on the major Aion updates, here is a link to the 1.9 feature guide.

Attention all past and present Daevas.  This weekend NCsoft will be hosting a “Double The Fun” weekend in Aion Online, that will allow past Aion players (and current ones) to log into their accounts and start earning DOUBLE the experience points.  Thats right, all Aion accounts will be activated for this weekend and this weekend ONLY.  Once the event is over, non-subscribers will go back to not subscribing, and current players will go on with their happy lives.  If you would like to reactivate your account after the weekend event is over, then of course you will get the treat of keeping your bonus experience and findings.

This event will Start: Friday, July 30, 2010 at 8 a.m. PDT ,11 a.m. EDT, and Saturday July 31, 2010 at 1 a.m. AEST.        

This event will End: Monday, August 2, 2010 at 3 p.m. PDT ,6 p.m. EDT, and Tuesday August 3, 2010 at 8 a.m. AEST.

Be sure to get in on the action before you miss your chance to power level your way to the top!

NCSoft has announced the release date for the upcoming free expansion Aion: Assault on Balaurea; September 7th, 2010. The expansion will be released digitally on that date, but it will also be possible to purchase boxed copies of the full game in North America, and from September 10th in Europe as well. There will apparently be “exclusive in-game pets” for those that choose to do so.

The older “preview” trailer above shows off a number of the new features coming in the wake of this expansion, but as some of you probably know, the biggest new addition to Aion will be flight mechanics. NCSoft claims that flight will offer “much more than just a way to gracefully explore the landscape - it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration.” I’m sure current players will appreciate the increased level cap too… and maybe the relentlessly cute pets, although I felt myself heading towards a sugar overdose just watching them.

For more information on Aion or the upcoming expansion, visit the official site.

NCsoft has released information giving fans and Comic-Con goers a taste of what they can expect from their booth (#5305). You can meet the developers, community and design teams for Aion, City of Heroes (CoH) and Guild Wars 2 and ask them any questions you may have. For you CoH fanatics, the booth will also have Alienware computers setup to play CoH: Going Rogue.

For a full list of NCsoft booth events you can visit their website for details.