Legends of Aria Bringing A New Dawn To The MMO, Adding Free Version To Steam

Legends of Aria is revamping itself to help inject new players into the MMORPG, releasing its New Dawn update which opens much of its content up for free. Available only on Steam, Legends of Aria will be free for players to experience the "bulk" of its content, but will still required a paid version for certain features.

Coming in November 2019 alongside the Point Release 8 update, Legends of Aria: New Dawn free accounts will be able to play much of the content in Legends of Aria, with some exceptions. Players who take part in the free version will be able to upgrade their account to a Citizen's Pack or a Subscription to access the missing features.

From a blog post on the Aria website:

We’re excited about the future of Legends of Aria and we have a host of new features, improvements, and most importantly, content, coming to the game. Because Legends of Aria is an MMO, much of this content is built with population in mind. 

We’ve received countless requests for a trial from people who want to try the game out before they purchase it. However, it’s difficult to really experience the magic of Legends of Aria when you have a timer ticking down, taking away from the fun of exploring, discovering, adventuring, forging alliances, and making enemies.

That’s why we’re excited to announce the next phase in our evolution – opening the gates of Legends of Aria to all and making the world of Celador more accessible by making the bulk of our content free to experience! Free players can conquer ancient dragons, explore vast dungeons, and wage war against opposing players and guilds starting in November. 

Free players won't be able to place a land deed or own a house, form a guild, earn loyalty points or even unlock their full bank capacity, among other restrictions. The Legends of Aria team has built some of these restrictions in order to combat possible botting that free accounts bring, such as the lack of the ability to co-own a house, sell items to other players or limited bank access. This is also why free accounts will only be hosted on Steam, as it's a way to limit multi boxing by free accounts and spammers. 

Regarding the move to F2P, CEO Derek Brinkmann had this to say,

“We are excited to break down the pay barrier that prevents many gamers from experiencing the magic the universe of Aria has to offer. By naming this update New Dawn, we are issuing a rallying cry to all open-world PvP sandbox fans to come experience Legends of Aria the way it was meant to be.”

Key features also include,

• The return of The Wilderness to bring high octane gameplay as playrs weigh the risk-versus-reward environment.
• Warriors will find some sweet changes to the class in the form of the Bloodlust resource and nine new powerful abilities.
• A new Township feature that lets players become citizens of one of Celador’s many towns.
• Militias are forming with players able to join in on the battle to conquer Celador.
• Stealing and Snooping are now viable options for those wanting to master the fine art of thievery.
• Resource Missions are being added to allow players to explore for precious wood, ore, and cloth away from high traffic areas.
• Professions have been updated with all-new quests to grant new passive abilities.
• Episodic content called Leagues of Celador is being added to bring fresh new stories to Legends of Aria.

No had date has been set for the actual release, other than it will hit in November alongside Point Release 8. For those who bought Legends of Aria before this update, nothing further is needed as the account is going to be flipped to Citizen status once the update hits.

It's a interesting move, one of many the studio seems to be doing to help the MMO, as its recently announced changes to PvP, as well as highlighted the changes coming with Point Release 8 next month.