Funcom has made its barbaric MMO Age of Conan free-to-play -- well, at least in a sense. From today through January 1, those who download the game client and create an account will be able to play for free until their character reaches level 20 (basically the game's first zone).
It's to Funcom's credit, then, that its developers have realised this and thought laterally. There's no raised level cap in Rise of the Godslayer. There is a new continent, the Asian-themed Khitai (which comes with a new player race, the Khitan), but it contains lower-level content - for level 20 up - as well as a high-level challenge.
I suspect that it is going to be cashed out by TSE within the near future anyway. This sort of thing frustrates me alot when it comes to TSE, its a very inefficient system for the player who can no longer devote any time to it.
The fact that this game is pushing 200dkp is quite frankly beyond ridiculous. To the person buying it up, where the hell do you think it has sold another 750k copies from?
Funcom launches free trials for its fantasy MMO Age of Conan today. There are 10,000 keys available for each server (European and American), and anyone can play on any server. Each trial key unlocks seven days of free play, and three exclusive in-game items.
Funcom has made many claims for fixing the game's flaws and flooding it with new content, but do they stand up? We sent our long-suffering Hyborian correspondent Rob Fahey back into the game to find out.
However, if the subscriber base continues to decrease, there will be a point when abandonment will accelerate as the community won't be large enough to maintain an MMORPG. People won't buy a game to join an MMORPG that no longer has many people to play with. This is disappointing because it appeared to be the best chance of diversifying the MMO market from WOW.
We've spoken to the Game Director of Age of Conan.
What is the status of Age of Conan, as of right now?
The game is eight months on since launch, and much has changed. We have been focusing a lot on different areas based on feedback given by the players after release...
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