This November Eve Online will turn free to play after being a subscription based game for 13 years. Players will be grouped into two groups: Alpha and Omega. Existing Subscribers will in the Omega group and will have access to all the content. Free to Play people will be grouped into the the Alpha group and will have certain skills locked out. The skills they do have allow them to fly early-game Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers.

Players who stop subscribing will revert to Alpha status and can get their skills unlocked if they re-subscribe. A more detailed description of the Alpha/Omega changes can be found on the EVE devblog.

Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/08/31/eve-online-going-free-to-play-after-13-years

Not exactly "free to play", seems more like a limited access, like WoW has (had?) up to a certain level/treshold.

I'm curious how this will affect the price of plex

As someone who has always admired EVE from afar and been fascinated with it, this seems like a really smart move. It's the perfect gateway to get people like me to dip their toes in and at least try it out. Even with how cheap game time has been during steam sales and such recently, I still haven't actually dropped money into trying it because the game just scares me. A low commitment way to try it out and get a feel for the systems seems like the perfect idea to expand their market.

Definetely, though I tried it years ago and even then there was an option to try it out for free, for a couple of days or something. It's not a game for me, but I am a big fan at the same time...

This is really neat. My roommates in college were way into EVE and I tried a seven day trial at the time, but the 'game' part of it didn't stick with me enough to want to pay for it at all. Maybe I'd actually end up getting into it if I got to play for an extended period of time?

I wonder if it'll be feasible for Alpha users to ever afford a PLEX to become Omega users using only frigates?

This is actually geared toward me as well. I bought EO super cheap on steam and played enough during my original allotted time to start to get a glimmer of what the big deal was, but not enough to look past the giant mountain I would have to climb, not to mention paying somebody every month for the opportunity to do so. If I had a chance to get in there and feel things out at my own pace I bet I'd be more inclined to dive head first (or climb head first to follow the previous metaphor, though it doesn't really work that way, unless you want to die. )

Well, this is nice. Last time I checked this game out was for a couple of weeks about 8 years ago, but I didn't have the time to commit. I wonder if my character is still around.

I just started playing since the game went F2P, but the "giantbombing" chat appears to be dead. Am I doing something wrong? Are duders in a different chat these days?

@ktlk: Hmm, I haven't logged in since like April myself but there were people around in that chat when I was playing. They could have maybe gotten another chat for duders that maybe they'd PM you the info for (people get crazy about opsec). Also while I played that chat was kinda dead most of the time, since Kite Co. was disbanded and people went their separate ways, people I think tended to stick with their people in their new groups. From what I remember the giantbomb chat tended to be pleasantries with some newbies like myself asking questions now and then; again with opsec and people being on different sides of the war it wasn't too busy in there. That said I talked to some cool duders on both sides :)

That said I'm sure there's GB people still playing, and I think you should keep going! Join one of the new-player friendly groups like Pandemic Horde and go try living out in nullsec.