As of this past July, if you wanted to play Legends of Aria Eternal, the second rebooted version of the original Kickstarted sandbox MMORPG, you had to join a playtest that was opened to original backers and buyers. If you happen to have been among those on the outside looking in, we’ve got good news for your sandbox-loving face: The game is arriving to Steam on Thursday, September 10th.
The primary hook of this reboot is the fact that players will be able to run their own server, removing the admin-only gating that was previously in place. Players will be able to customize their server with ruleset and data files, then invite anyone that they want to, with a Unity toolkit for building custom maps promised later. As for the officially-run server, that’s entering into a beta state, with regular events and ruleset tweaks planned along the way.
In addition to the ability to run a custom server from the jump, this version of LOA makes some foundational changes. First, the best gear in the game will once more come from crafters and not from high-end loot drops; and second, professions have been removed, replacing them with the old swappable skills system that sees skills found from books looted in the world. There are other tweaks including mounted combat, accelerated skill gain, overhauled enchanting, and rotating chaos zones, among other things.
As for monetization, there is no subscription and no premium gates, and lead dev Derek “Supreem” Brinkmann has confirmed on Discord that there will be a sticker price, though how much that will be isn’t specified. Additionally, he has also confirmed that custom server operators can “monetize however [they] want,” including running a cosmetics shop; they just have to be willing to write the code to support it. Finally, those who were already paying for a citizen’s pass subscription will be able to get a Steam key for free.
