ECTimes: What's new and some real steals.. I mean deals! MMO

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! 
Just some interesting things I've heard about this week. Some MMO news, some deals.. even some steals!

SWTOR
SWTOR  reveals Imperial Agent its newest class; "The Imperial Agent is heavily inspired by several classic Star Wars characters such as Zam Wessel and Grand Moff Tarkin. Imperial Agents work behind the scenes to get the work of the Empire done. Specializing in high-tech gear, the Imperial Agent always has the right tools at the right time. They use abilities of subversion and subterfuge to infiltrate and assassinate enemies of the Sith Empire with deadly efficiency. Players who choose to be Imperial Agents in The Old Republic (TOR) will see the underbelly of the Empire in a whole new light." You can read more about it here.

EQ2
Some interesting news from EQ2! "The Far Seas Trading Company is proud to introduce a traveling festival for all to participate in!  When this event goes live a different city will be chosen to host this week long event, once a month.  Gorowyn, Neriak, Kelethin and Freeport will each get their chance to host their version of the event.  On Test and Test Copy the great city of Qeynos is the first to find the traveling caravan outside it's gates in Antonica.  Adventurers will find new quests, collections and rewards, many of which are city specific!  And for those of us that don't want to wait for the festival to reach our city's gates, we don't have to. City Tokens are now being given as further reward for completing city writs!"

Interesting, more stuff for us to do! Not the first game to add this in *wink*! It's a great idea and I welcome this idea for sure. More events like this change the pace and add some more fun to games.
  
Free Realms
Community Event: Job Sampling Week. Didn't we already sample this game? Well, this is actually different, if you never were a member, you can try out those classes you never had a chance to. While it is sort of nice for players to try these out, I'm not so impressed with the direction of FR. It is quite cheap compared to most monthly subscriptions, I'd just rather pay a measly five a month and sample all I wanted heh.

I think S.O.E. could have done better with an Ever Realms type of game than Free Realms. Nostalgia with a bit of laid back play, none of this racing and soccer crap. Archery tournaments, Drogmor racing maybe? I love Free Realms but sometimes it feels like 'Disney' on crack...

EQ
Road to Underfoot:  Breaking the Seal and Event Progress!
Help protect Norrath and quell the threat of invading Cliknar soldiers with Breaking the Seal! This final event of the Road to Underfoot will continue until December 1, 2009. Sadly I'm not joining in on this area of Norrath this year. I am taking another break from earlier this year. However it sounds exciting.


Aion
1.5.1 Patch Additions. You can find them here. Some of the changes are pretty good in this patch.

Some of these make me glad I don't play anymore IE ;When you extract Aether, there’s a chance that Aether Poison Gas will infiltrate your body. The poison blocks gathering for a certain period of time unless you detoxify the poison. Once you are poisoned the only way to detoxify yourself is to utter the "Cleansing Word.”To utter the Cleansing Word, type the randomly given letters and numbers within the designated time. When you utter the Word, you get three chances to enter the correct letter/number sequence. If you fail three times, Vitality Extracting and Aether Extracting are prohibited..

Blah blah blah. Come on.. first they make it so you cannot mail or speak in channels or send tells till 10 now this? Instead of creating real fixes for players against gold spammers they end up punishing the players as well as the gold spammers. I'm glad to see some of the changes though. I know a lot of people enjoy the game still and I'm happy they are getting some changes for the better, good luck with some of those changes!


Oh yeah, those steals deals I mentioned!
Maybe your looking for something new to play? Maybe you want to try something new out and not pay a ton of money to catch up on expansions or even try it. Here are some games that offer just that! I'm not listing every game that has a free trial,  just some great deals I've seen lately.

Warhammer Online
Finally....Warhammer Online's endless trial is here. While it's a cool option for people looking to try the game, (It would of surely got me checking it out had I not bought it last year), it's probably a bit late showing up. I don't know why some of these companies wait so long on getting a trial out, and not one of those buddy key trials either. Nobody wants to bug people to get them a buddy key, what if none of your 'buddies' play? And another thing, is your game so golden you can't offer a free trial before it starts to decline? Sarcasm aside, it's a cool deal, very bold.  I think WAR is really trying to get subscriptions. Is it worth trying? Sure is, can't beat that deal just to try it out. Sometimes you may busy and can't come back to the game for some time, your trial doesn't expire!

They also offer Recruit a Friend. While it's not as good as what some other games offer out there, you get 30 days for every friend you recruit and a bonus to 5% xp items. You don't get a cool mount until you recruit six players. However players may recruit new players or invite back former players that have been gone for more than sixty (60) days. Not bad.

Everquest 2
Everquest 2 trial. This has to be better than any I've seen and if you get into the RaF action it gets even better, but more on that later. First off you only get 14 days of  free play but if you like it enough and buy it, you also get 30 more days of free play. Buy it? How much? This is the good part, you pay for one month's subscription and you keep the game free. If I recall right.. you get 7/9 add-ons. You also get a nifty cape with 25% run speed, too cool. All the digital download claims, tons of stuff there. By far it is the best deal I've seen.

Recruit a Friend. This is really a sweet deal on both sides, not only did the friend get all the things mentioned, they get the 3x xp bonus with you plus an additional 10% if you are mentored.  The recruiter gets a choice on two awesome Exclusive In-Game Mounts plus the (10% bonus mentored down with anyone). Several claim items such as LoN cards, a lovely house item, 250 station cash and thirty days of play time time added to the account. The recruit gets the mentored xp with the friend, ability to zone to your recruiter at any time, two packs of LoN cards, the awesome cape that grants run speed, potion packs and an in-game title for their character. I've found a really great FAQ here that offers more in depth information. Heck. recruit yourself if your a boxer, you can't lose!

Guild Wars
Guild Wars is actually a game with no subscription. Maybe you don't want to buy the game just to decide if you like it or not?  If you want to save a few bucks though and see how it is, they do offer a free trial which I think is great considering the game doesn't require a subscription to begin with. It's only a 14 day free trial, however you can pretty much tell if you like it or not by then. Check out the trial here.


And that wraps it up for today! Hope you are having fun wherever you end up in your adventures!
-kaozz