A free to play martial arts meets mythology themed fantasy MMORPG , Blade & Soul allows players to embark on their own epic quest as they seek to bring vengeance upon those who have wronged them in a huge story driven cinematic saga. With multiple classes and an impressively complex and customizable character creation system the game offers a traditional themepark style quest orientated game.

So, just how free to play is the game, well let’s put it through the F2PMeter and find out!

 


The game and all its content can be accessed for free requiring no purchase to download.

 

 


There is an optional Premium Membership that provides players with a variety of perks and quality of life benefits such as bonus XP and gold from quests, reduced commission fees in auctions, reduced cooldowns and more. Depending on the length of your membership (30, 90 or 365 days) players also get scaling increased additional benefits in the form of Premium Membership Points and Hongmoon Coins to spend in game. Premium Membership Points are points accumulated with every purchase in the Hongmoon Store using NCoin and Hongmoon coins (which can be earned in game through different features), in turn this increases a players Membership Rank from 1 up to 10, which increases other benefits.

 

 


All updates and expansions, such as the newest Ebondrake Citadel, are provided for free as part of the core game.

 

 


Prior to joining the game players can purchase a variety of starter “Signature Packs” which give various perks and store items such as Brilliant Keys used to open weapons chests. The Hongmoon Store is the in game cash shop and focuses primarily on costumes and skins for weapons, as well as a variety of consumables, supply items and crafting materials.

 

 


Whilst the vast majority do focus on cosmetic additions to your character, there are numerous heal potions or items such as Quick Revival Charm that can instantly resurrect a player when they are near death or die or Mass Charms that revive an entire party (ideal for those trying to complete raid/dungeon content). Whilst these items do grant an advantage it is still only a convenience because players can craft these items themselves.

 

 


There are no UI customization options.

 

 


There are nine classes spread out across the four races, whilst players can access any of these the game itself restricts certain class-race combinations.

 

 


There are no restrictions to the Auction House, but free to play players pay a premium when using the feature/Premium Members get a discount.

 

 


Dragon Pouches (inventory space) are generally limited to premium/paying customers, whilst you can get them in reward chests it is extremely random and rare to get them and not a reliable source. Players that have Premium Memberships also have an exclusive Wardrobe Deposit to keep all their cosmetics and costumes, so that they don’t take up room in their inventory.

 

 


All the zones in the game are accessible and no content is restricted to free to play accounts.

 

 


All the end-game content is accessible to play, including PVP and PVE.

 

 


All the playable content in the game is free to access, the cash shop only provides quality of life/convenience benefits and mostly prioritises costumes for players. Whilst some items can be purchased that give players a easier to access power spike there is nothing that is locked exclusively behind a paywall and nothing that provides such a huge advantage that paying to play becomes the only option.


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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2016 at 11:12 am and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.