I think the game is going to stay free...

[Eugenics]

I agree with Joeking :s, You can buy this game for £4.77 and get free delivery but yet i don't see any increase in population and probably never will.

[Elexia]

I agree with Joeking :s, You can buy this game for £4.77 and get free delivery but yet i don't see any increase in population and probably never will.

You can also download and play many MMOs for free that never break the 20k mark when it hits the international version. XI started off very slow and picked up as well and then as of now stabilized around the 100-200k mark. There will be an increase when the PS3 version hits (especially on the Japanese side) just like there was when the 360 version of XI hit and that was late in the game's life when it was "dieing".

It's going P2P, the same reason XI will never become F2P, unless you want a cash shop then well yeah it will be F2P.

I could maybe see that if AoC was a major player on the MMO stage, but their subscription base is equivalent to Ultima Online. Which was released 10 years prior to AoC. All things considered, if I were involved in MMO developement/marketing I wouldn't be looking towards AoC to see where the trends are being set, nor attempt to follow in their shoes.

It will stay free. Until they fix it. If they manage to fix it, then it will return to subscription base. If it's never fixed hopefully they'll admit defeat and shut the operation down. But with as much as SE has invested in this endeavor, I think failure is not an option.

They'll revitalize XI if so.