Antipwn

The latest WAR newsletter dropped into my gmail yesterday and I skimmed through it quickly as I usually do – I don’t play any more but I keep an eye on what’s going on. The stuff about the imminent patch and Halloween event was all pretty predictable but then I saw this:

WAR Free Trial

Very soon, you will be able to use our unlimited trial offer. Now you can enjoy the trial experience and New User Journey for as long as you like!

On the VN Boards Andy Belford, a Mythic CM confirmed that the newsletter was correct but declined to clarify what the limits of the ‘unlimited trial’ would be. Popular speculation is that the unlimited trial will restricted to tier 1 and capital cities as that is the current trial experience.

WAR is certainly hurting for subs and this may bring a few new people in but conversely a lot of current subscribers may decide to just roll the trial and replay the first few scenarios over and over. This is a popular playstyle in both DAoC and WAR and I’m certain that the number of people who’d downgrade from a paid account to the trial is a non-trivial number.

I’m going to start off with a couple of caveats. Firstly I’ve only got to level 20 and so I’ve not yet tasted PvP or any of the higher level content. Secondly this isn’t intended to be a review of Aion so much as a discussion of the design. I’m not going to tell you whether I think you should buy this game or not, there are plenty of places to look for that kind of advice if you don’t have the ability to figure it out for yourself.

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