As a recently returning player of Aion who brought 5 others to Aion (left SW:TOR, Rift) and are now looking forward to 3.0, the announcement presents both hope of revitalization and major concerns. Free to Play models vary greatly and often instead of being simply a way to collect about $15 a month, they can become what I call "Pay to Enjoy" and what others call Pay to Win. In my opinion, gPotato's Aika is this way for the serious players. I formed that opinion when I was in the Lord Marshall's lead guild in Aika and listening to the multiple members tell of having to spend $1,500 to upgrade their PvP gear such that they would be ahead or compete with the other top factions and about $60/month to buy competitive consumables. Implementations of F2P can be PTW/PTE in this way. Lest anyone loose sight of what $1,500 is, that would be about EIGHT years equivalent of $15/month game subscription with an $50 initial game purchase. Of course the model NCSoft NA might use is Lineage 2 not Aika, but there are similarities.

What consumables do I mean? Travel scrolls, top-end healing/mana potions, rental licenses for the mounts, one time purchase fees of upgradeable and faster mounts that then have monthly rental licenses, purchase or rental of added space bags, purchase or rental of warehouse space, purchase or rental of account warehouse space, purchase or rental of pets both cosmetic and those adding functions, mandatory food for the pets, and gear that is rented. And there are those gear enhancements that are so costly. Costly because the CHANCE of success on upper level gear is tiny in PTW while the cash shop items prevent the likely destruction of your favored weapon or armor item being upgraded. But then there is also the cash shop items that not only prevent the destruction of the items, but also at a premium increased price, prevent the down-leveling of the enhancement level of the item. No guaranteed enhancement, gear just won't be destroyed and won't be down-leveled. Perhaps two months worth of subscription for maybe 5 tries to enhance a weapon one level?

In some games there are timed nagware reminders to subscribe, top gear only available in the cash shop (PTW), and the most desirable character classes unlocked only via purchase. Often the pro-argument is that some can play free because they can play longer and obtain adequate in-game currency to buy some of these items in the auctions. True to some extent, BUT, someone paid for the cash shop items in the first place, AND those who in college with jobs, or with careers or families and other major activities likely do not have the extensive TIME often necessary to farm the amount of in-game currency to obtain the auctioned items. Indeed, leaders and officers in such games often do not have enough time to farm drops for game currency either due to their in-game duties. And in some F2P models, those cash shop items are bound not only to the account, they are bound to the character and compel the purchaser to buy more for each class character they make. I've also noted that F2P games may not make enough income to have adequate support staffs which are then embellished with volunteers which may or may not work.

I'm hopeful that NCSoft will make their model successful as I've always enjoyed PvP the most in Aion with it's awesome graphics. If this turns into a Pay to Enjoy where uber means major $$$ investments, then I'm looking forward to another game such as Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, WildStar, MechWarrior Online (I played BattleTech MultiPlayer EGA), and who knows maybe a nostalgic but short revisit of Everquest (1) when they go F2P (ughh).