Just like other games with the freemium model the core gameplay will be available for free. Those who want an enhanced experience with extra classes, races, bag slots and other similar features will have to fork over real life money on a tiered level based on what you want.  For more information on the change and the different features you get with the tiers, check out the official Everquest website.

Everquest 2 going free-to-play originally appeared on GamingOgre on December 1, 2011.

BioWare also announced the pricing structure for the title:

• 1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
• 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
• 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

The Old Republic release date and pricing announced originally appeared on GamingOgre on September 26, 2011.

• Planar Attunement – Advance beyond level 50 with Planar Attunement. Every quest completed and planespawn slain brings you closer to your next planar upgrade.
• Chronicles – Teams of two players (or one, if you’ve got the gear) can take on Rift Chronicles, exploring breathtaking dungeons — including Greenscale’s Blight, Hammerknell, and the Chronicles of Attunement—in fun, story-driven adventures!
• New Warfront: Library of the Runemasters - PvP combat erupts in Hammerknell’s Library of the Runemasters. Race the enemy faction to control Dwarven secrets, and rise through the ranks in this pulse-pounding new Warfront.
• Master Dungeon – Darkening Deeps now sports a Master Dungeon mode. Rebalanced for elite groups of Ascended, the Master Dungeon holds epic challenges and epic rewards.
• Veteran Rewards - Subscribers earn rewards the longer they play Rift, including special gear, a personal vendor, and a portable mailbox.
• AddOns Beta – Customize your play with new AddOns Beta, fan-created mods for your Rift user interface.

Rift: Ashes of History hitting servers next week originally appeared on GamingOgre on September 21, 2011.

OF COURSE, no details about this testing program can be given at all, or it will violate some serious user agreements. So if you had decided to sign up for a SWTOR beta, check your email to see if you were one of these lucky bastards. If not, well keep waiting because I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities. I know I will since I wasn’t lucky enough to be accepted.
As always, it was signed rightfully:

May the Force be with you,

The Star Wars: The Old Republic Team

SWTOR: Game Testing Program originally appeared on GamingOgre on August 31, 2011.

For those who decide that their greatness can no longer be held back by the level cap, Blizzard is offering up the digital battlechest that includes the core game and the Burning Crusade expansion for a cool $20.

World of Warcraft now free to play until level 20 originally appeared on GamingOgre on June 29, 2011.

Star Wars Galaxies says goodbye, December 15th originally appeared on GamingOgre on June 24, 2011.

For more info about Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising hit the button below!

Check out some of the sweet trailers:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MUFKALG_ms&hd=1

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2t0PVrcBNw&hd=1

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Z4y21hQN4&hd=1

From the day of its founding many centuries ago, Rome has never known a lasting peace. The land was settled by Aeneas amidst conflict, and the city’s foundations were laid amidst brotherly strife, Romulus even slaying his own brother Remus during an argument. Even the Roman gods have fought many wars, some amongst themselves (such as the Trojan War), and some against other foes — including the Titanomachia, when the young Olympian gods fought the Titans and their allies.

Now, once again Rome finds itself amidst conflict, surrounded on all sides by foes. To the east, war against the Samnites rages on; to the west, Faliscan nationalists rebel against the Romans who now occupy their homeland; in the south, the Greek colonists of Magna Graecia are becoming emboldened, reaching ever closer to Rome; in the north, disheartened Etruscans — their armies crushed by Rome — are resorting to necromancy and infernal pacts in a desperate bid for power; and in the distant snow-capped mountains of Gaul, the tribes who sacked Rome a generation ago are rising once again.

With the Roman Legions spread thin to deal with foreign enemies, domestic strife is also on the rise. Bandit gangs like the Caedes and Pugnus make it dangerous to travel the roads, while pirates like the Wreckers and Pistrix make sea travel no safer a prospect. Even the Roman Senate is in danger, with many seats in the Curia filled with the corrupt and power-hungry.

But Rome’s enemies are not all human; indeed, things are look grim in the immortal realm as well. In Hades, the bonds that bind the Titans in Tartarus are weakening, resulting in an abundance of deadly beasts appearing on earth — the likes of which have not been seen since the time of myth. Most troubling of all is the sudden appearance of a strange cult calling themselves Telchinists. Their goal is nothing less than to summon the Telchines, the ancient Sorcerer Gods who sided against Olympus during the Titanomachia.

During that ancient war, the Olympian gods were very nearly defeated by the Titans and the Telchines; only the intervention of great heroes like Hercules turned the tide. Had the Titans won that battle, history would have taken a far different — and much darker — course.

And now that darkness looms closer, threatening to quench Rome’s light. Through alliances with Rome’s many enemies, the Telchinists have begun to kidnap Roman heroes, shipping them off to their island in the west to perform dark rituals. Their goal: to use the blood of true heroes, Olympian Scions — sons and daughters of the gods themselves — to summon the Telchines from the realm they were cast into.

But there is hope: The Scions of Olympus, Roman heroes descended from the noble Olympians, are rising to the occasion. These brave heroes and their squads of allies — including the great Titus Romanus and his brave cohorts — are combating the enemies of Rome and Olympus alike. But they are not alone: Soldiers, Scouts, Priests, Mystics, Gladiators and even Nomads have joined the cause. No matter their allegiances, or beliefs, or origins, all are Romans at this time. For if they fail, Rome will fall.

And if they succeed, then the Olympian Gods and their allies will once again be victorious, and Rome will surely rise to glory.

For even more information, check out the Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising on Twitter and Facebook!

Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising – Beta Key Code Giveaway originally appeared on GamingOgre on June 3, 2011.

“With over 1.4 million copies sold, glowing reviews for both the core game as well as the expansion, and a healthy player base ever since launch in 2008, there is no doubt that ‘Age of Conan’ has been a true success story for Funcom,” says SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “Now we turn to another chapter in this story as we thrust ‘Age of Conan: Unrated’ into the world of free-to-play games, a gaming space that is becoming rapidly more popular and profitable across the board.”

For more information about the change you can check out the Age of Conan Free-to-Play FAQ.

Age of Conan going free to play originally appeared on GamingOgre on May 25, 2011.

Speaking with Gamastutra, producer Naoki Yoshida said that the game will remain free until a solid plan for enhancing the game experience has been put in place. “Without that, me, personally, as a player wouldn’t feel good about asking the player to pay money,” he said. The prolonged free trial is “one of the ways that we can show players that we are serious and we are taking it seriously.” It’s nice to know that Square Enix isn’t looking to gouge their player base for a game that was extremely flawed.

PSA: Final Fantasy XIV is Still Free! originally appeared on GamingOgre on April 3, 2011.

I was a big fan of MMO’s for a very long time. I played the original EverQuest off and on for 10 years, and spent quite some time playing World of Warcraft and EverQuest II. In lieu of that time, I took time out to beta test some of the biggest MMO’s available today. In short: I’ve played almost every single MMO released up to Vangard: Saga of Heroes. Once I got to a point where staying on top in EverQuest was consuming too much of my time, I retired and turned all of my attention to my previously neglected consoles, with no intention of ever returning to the PC MMO world.

For a while, I saw some pretty nice looking games, but nothing that I thought might interest me past some initial “oh hey, this looks cool” reactions to screenshots. I was working with a guy who was a big time WoW player, and he convinced me that “Rift” was the next big thing. Intrigued, I loaded it up and found something both exciting and extremely disappointing.

In Rift, you, as the name implies, play as a hero in the realm of Telaria. You choose one of two rival factions, though for a change neither seem to be good nor evil. The Guardians fight The Defiant in the same way the Horde would fight the Alliance in Azeroth. The reason I’m comparing Rift to World of Warcraft is simple: It’s yet another WoW clone. This doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily bad, because it’s actually a pretty fun game.

During my tenure in Telaria, I played a Rogue. The unique thing about Rift is the ability to earn three souls, which allow you to mix and match traits and skills from three different classes of Rogue. I originally chose to start as a Ranger, who then picked up Bard and Nightstalker. This was fun for a while, as I was able to use my pet to tank while I played Bard songs and shot arrows to do nice melee damage, but after a while I ditched Bard and Ranger for Assassin and Riftseeker. This was awesome because it completely changed how my character was played without having to start over, or create an alt to make an alternate experience.

Such an awesome idea..

Rift allows you to unlock the ability to carry three different roles which you can swap to on the fly for the group/raid/situation you’re going to be playing in. If you’re going into a dungeon and you need max DPS, you can swap to a DPS build. This makes needing a certain role finish a dungeon run extremely possible, which means you’ll only really need 4 alts to fill all of the classes.

Graphically, Rift is a very pretty game, but because it’s a WoW clone, it feels very familiar. Probably because it reminded me of places that I’ve already seen in Azeroth, such as The Barrens or Ashenvale.

Gameplay wise, one of the most interesting things you’ll encounter are the random rifts that open up, which will feel extremely familiar to you if you’ve played Warhammer Online, since it’s basically the same thing as the random group fights that you encounter as you move along. As you continue leveling up, you’ll find that Rift is almost geared toward the casual player. For those of us who are used to an MMO with a bit of a challenge, Rift is almost insulting. Everything you’d want to help you is already included into the standard UI. The quest logs show you where to go, tell you what to kill, and even include an icon that shows you what item in your inventory you’ll need to complete an objective, that you can click without even having to search through your bags.

Y u so unoriginal!? You're so pretty!

Overall, I had fun with Rift but I quickly got over it. What I mean by that is pretty simple: If this wasn’t such an obvious attempt at fixing everything else that is wrong with these other MMO games, I think Rift really could have offered a unique experience. But instead, all they’ve done is present a WoW clone with some good ideas from LOTRO, Aion, Warhammer Online, and several other games. However, if you’re a casual gamer who wants to dive into a rich MMO that will reward you for minimal time invested, Rift is perfect MMO for the gamer who only gets 30 mins – an hour per game session. Be aware though, a hardcore gamer will blow through the levels and leave you in the dust, and the public chat channels are full of people who got bored with WoW and wanted to check out the next big thing.

Rift: Planes of Telaria was provided for review from Gamer’s Gate.

Review: Rift: Planes of Telaria originally appeared on GamingOgre on March 31, 2011.