I have wanted to play Aion ever since it came out in 2009. Unfortunately at that time I was in college with no money to play a P2P game. But now the economy has changed. Most MMOs are going the Free to Play route, even huge AAA quality titles like WoW and Aion.

Aion is following the path taken by another ncsoft game - Lineage 2. L2 started their 'Truly Free' mode where players had access to all the game's content without having to pay a cent. The plan was to support the game with micro-transactions like traditional f2p games do. It turned out to be a huge success.

I remember logging in to Lineage 2 to find the starting room filled to capacity with new players. The lag was crazy and you had to compete with other players just to be able to complete quests. I played it for a while, but I lost interest. I preferred to play Rappelz since I knew that game better. Lineage 2 had a lot to offer but it wasn't really my thing.

Aion, on the other hand, is something I have wanted to try for so long. Now I finally can! Set to go 'Truly Free' as well, I'll be hopping onto the North American servers to engage in some Realm vs Realm pvp action. Hopefully, it can keep me interested until Guild Wars 2 hits.

Right now you can download the game's trial which allows you to get to level 40. I plan to do that and patch up to the game when Truly Free lands.

http://truly-free.aiononline.com/truly-free/index.php