Play Age of Conan For Free Forever

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By Kevin Parrish
published

Play Funcom's Age of Conan for free, and yes, there's a catch.

Yesterday Funcom announced a special promotion for its barbaric MMORPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The company is offering a free "trial" that allows gamers to wander the entire Island of Tortage for free. In fact, gamers can play the game forever without having to upgrade to a full subscription... or until Funcom says otherwise. That's certainly not a bad deal, but there's a catch.

According to the company, gamers must first create a free account, download the client, and then jump into the MMORPG before January 1, 2010. There's also another catch: the level cap is only 20, so don't expect to conquer the island as a level 100 barbarian. Funcom said that other restrictions apply as well: there's no trading with other players, no in-game mail, no public chat channels, and no posting on the forums.

But hey, gamers can play forever, right? "Our original seven day trial has been very successful so far," says Morten Larssen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Funcom. "We are confident that many of those taking advantage of this offer will choose to become permanent players, allowing them to experience all of what the game has to offer including all the additions and improvements introduced since launch."

This may be a good opportunity to check out Conan's virtual realm, especially for gamers who need more than seven days to thoroughly evaluate the overall experience. Maybe Funcom should switch to free-to-play and invoke the microtransaction scheme for "lite" gamers.

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Kevin Parrish
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • icepick314
    not a bad way to attract new players...

    although i imagine it's hard to compete with other established MMOs and upcoming for Star Trek and Star Wars which have many following already...
    Reply
  • hypocrisyforever
    Yeah, I tried it out when it came out. Liked: violence not found in other MMORPGS, Did not like: everything else. I'll pass, stick with runes of magic.
    Reply
  • Eventually they are going to need to switch to "We'll pay you to try it!"

    Age of Conan sucked hard when it came out. Even if it got better with age, at best it could simply suck less but still suck.
    Reply
  • Spanky Deluxe
    No public chat channels? It looks like they're offering a trial of the game as single player only, completely ignoring any MMO type stuff. I'm sure that will work, I mean it's better than any single player game already, right, right? No? It sounds like Funcom simply don't get what an MMO is about and how it is fun.
    Reply
  • jellico
    Spanky DeluxeNo public chat channels? It looks like they're offering a trial of the game as single player only, completely ignoring any MMO type stuff. I'm sure that will work, I mean it's better than any single player game already, right, right? No? It sounds like Funcom simply don't get what an MMO is about and how it is fun.+1... you hit the nail on the head! MMOs are entirely about socialization. I've played some pretty cool MMOs (like Neocron, Jumpgate, etc.) which suffered because of a lack of players. Of course, content is important too; but above all, you need a critical mass of players or the game is doomed. I play WoW not because it is the best MMO out there, but because there are always plenty of people online. People to raid with, people in the BGs, people to gank, people trading their wares and skills, etc. It's all about the interaction with other people. If that is missing, you might as well be playing a stand-alone RPG or shooter, or whatever. In fact, you'd be better off because those games are DESIGNED to be entertaining as a solo endeavor.

    Funcom should be offering a free-forever account like what is described above, but for the first half-month or month, it should be completely unrestricted. Then, after the unlimited trial expires, start deactivating stuff one at a time over the next few days until you get to the situation described in the article. THAT is how you get people to whip out their credit card.
    Reply
  • kittle
    the problem with unrestricted access by free accounts is the gold spammers would soon takeover the public chat and you would have Age of GoldSpam instead
    Reply
  • Ogdin
    Its set up that way so botters can't take advantage of the free accounts.
    Reply
  • sliem
    Same thing with warhammer.
    Reply
  • Onus
    No thanks. I've read enough good about this game (along with the bad) that I'd like to try it, but not until / unless it switches to the Guild Wars model of no ongoing pay to play.
    Reply
  • madman1391
    Hmm sounds like game company's have started to take after Runescape's creator Jagex. They have had a free version for a long time. Although this does appear to have many differences.
    Reply