Today, Gameforge revealed that the EU version of Aion will be going free-to-play on February 28th. Subscriptions will cease, and players will need to download a new client if they wish to continue playing after that date. Players with active subscription’s lasting past Feb 28th will received premium currency as compensation.
Update 3.0, however, will not be released until this spring.
For North American players, they’ll have to wait until this spring for both the 3.0 update and the F2P conversion.