14 DAY TRIAL // Turbine has announced that it will cease monthly billing for Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2, beginning next month.
As such, June will mark the final bill that players of the two massively multiplayer online role-playing games will ever pay, as they will both become free to play after June 31.
"As of August 2014, Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2 will no longer charge a subscription fee for players. The last payments will be processed on June 31st, making July the final paid month," Turbine announces on the Asheron's Call official forums.
"Note that this means some players will technically receive some portion of July free as a result, as we have decided to absorb the cost and not run partial payments to cover it," the developer continues, making sure to have all bases covered.
The free-to-play version of the two MMORPGs will continue operating after that date, and Turbine has also mentioned that the forums will also remain running but that help will be limited to harassment issues or account assistance, and the MSN Zone migrations will be disabled after May 31.
In addition to this, new or lapsed players of both games, with inactive subscriptions, will have to pay a one-time fee of $10 / €7 in order to activate an account. Players who will want to create new accounts will be able to do so using the normal sign-up page.
As far as player-run servers are concerned, Turbine intends to offer them a sort of "basic" Asheron's Call server and client, supported by new sub-forums, by the end of the year. The community servers will initially be light on documentation, as they are intended for those who are already experienced with setting up servers and dealing with networking.
The goal is for Turbine to provide the set up instructions, while the community starts the process of running servers and building the documentation necessary for the process, thus enabling community-run servers, allowing users to create their own content and build their own game worlds.
If you want to learn more about the shift to free-to-play, or simply more about the games themselves, check out the Asheron's Call official website, detailing the latest events in the massively multiplayer online role-playing games.
This follows Turbine's announcement in March this year that it would cease development on Asheron's Call, after 15 years of creating content for the legendary MMO. The company did note, however, that it would maintain the game with patches when needed.