Hrm. We’d all been working under the assumption that Auran’s upcoming MMO brawler Fury would be free to play. Mainly because, well, they told us it’d be free to play. And it still is, but today they’ve announced that there’ll also be a USD$10 a month subscription “option”, which grants you a whole lot of stuff you won’t get if you’re playing for free. Pay your $10 a month and you get stuff like (and this is lifted straight from their email): o Quick travel in the Sanctuaries and Schools
o VoIP talk privileges (without paying you can only listen)
o One additional Item Roll Slot
o Extended “rested gold bonus”
o Selling privileges on the Auction House
o Priority log-in queuing
o Entry into weekly and seasonal Ladders
o Personal player battle statistics
o In-game Customer Service access
o Elite access to the test server to preview new content
Auran’s Paul White:
We know players love to discuss the pros and cons of free to play versus subscription games. Ultimately, we need to support the cost of running the game and providing new free content updates to players. Fury utilises the same secure client-server architecture as a traditional MMO and we have to monitor and maintain the servers. Then there is the in-game customer service, online community staff and website and live support teams. The additional ongoing revenues from players help us maintain those high quality service levels.
All of which are valid points! Thing is, we’d been told, for months, that the game was free-to-play. Not that there’d be a class division, just that it’d be free to play. Which only got our hopes up! Sure, people will still play for free, and they’ll get a good deal as is Auran’s plan (“light” users can play for free while “heavy” users can pay), but it’s still a little disheartening that this has been sprung on us at the 11th hour. Ah well. Guess we’ll see how big a difference it makes when the game hits!
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