Play Age of Conan for Free Forever - Worth Doing?

Adam8281

Platinum Member
May 28, 2003
2,181
0
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Apparently for the next month AoC is letting you sign up for a free account which will last forever, but with several limitations, including a level 20 cap. I've never played AoC, and I'm wondering whether this deal is worth taking advantage of. For those of you who have played, how much gameplay can you get out of the first 20 levels? Are the other limitations on this deal significant? See the story below, taken from tomshardware:

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.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Conan-MMORPG-PC-Game-Funcom,9266.html
 
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IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
33,655
687
126
Tortage is part of the game that is very well done. They are hoping to impress people with Tortage and have them sign up for real subscriptions. The rest of the game (at least the last time I played) was not nearly as well done as Tortage.

I played AoC from launch to about September of last year, and then for another month or two earlier this year. The game has awesome graphics and cool settings/environments, but honestly, the community is awful especially on the PVP servers such as Tyranny. I would like to go back (I have a 60 day card I got dirt cheap on eBay), but Funcom is incredibly stubborn and stupid about some things. For example, server transfers should be free or cheap for those of us who want to come back -- I want to transfer off Tyranny. Additionally, they keep having these "come back and play for 2 weeks for free" events but they severely limit how long the deal lasts, which is a huge mistake. I want to try it free before I do go back but I can't when they keep making the free periods expire ridiculously fast.

Since it is free and you have never played, I'd try it if I were you. I had a lot of fun in it, but once my friends started disappearing and content started drying up, I decided to quit and maybe return later if the game turned around.
 
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KIAman

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2001
3,342
23
81
Yup, levels 1-20 were the best part of the game, absolutely great story line, voice acting and even some pvp. But you can do 1-20 in 6 hours, so...
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Free??? I'm in. Wanted to try it out since it's Conan but never wanted to pay MMO fees. Their site is super slow so I'm sure it's being hit hard.
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,069
0
81
Banging your head against a massive cement the wall is also free and will pretty much accomplish the same thing. :)
 

zagood

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
4,102
0
71
Tons of time it seems. You have to download over 8GB of files on their stupid slow updater.

yes, forever is slowly ticking away at 188KB/s.

p.s. looks like my download might have timed out. I may never get a chance to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
 
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zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
yes, forever is slowly ticking away at 188KB/s.

p.s. looks like my download might have timed out. I may never get a chance to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Mine has timed out a couple of times already and the download speed goes up and down but I'll just leave it be until it's done. I want to be a sexy Austrian.
 

Tristicus

Diamond Member
Feb 2, 2008
8,107
5
61
www.wallpapereuphoria.com
Yes. I love Age of Conan. For someone like myself who plays games primarily by themselves, I find this to be a great game for solo play. Now, I don't know if that is what YOU are looking for, but that is what I do. I could easily join a guild or something if I went to a newer server, as Agony, the server I play on, is primarily dead, but I don't want to. I have to buy some more time to get back into it, but I bought the Collector's Edition for $10, so I got a helluva deal.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
I'm in. I always wanted to see the supposed WoW-killer in action. From what I understand, the noob part of the game really is a WoW-killer, it just sucked hardcore after that.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,216
1,178
136
I quit shortly after tortage with multiple characters in AOC. It was a really good intro though, I'd say its definitely worth the time to play it for free.

Honestly I would rather have MMO's be fake MMO's like GW up until the endgame. You could adventure through the main story with ur friends or NPC's, and design the game so that you hit the level cap by doing the story. Then at the end it opens up into a big open world where u can go explore and do other stuff. As it is now I like the gameplay of MMO's, but it is so friggin boring to level in every single one I play I just can't get myself to keep playing them anymore.
 

JoshGuru7

Golden Member
Aug 18, 2001
1,020
0
0
I quit shortly after tortage with multiple characters in AOC. It was a really good intro though, I'd say its definitely worth the time to play it for free.

Honestly I would rather have MMO's be fake MMO's like GW up until the endgame. You could adventure through the main story with ur friends or NPC's, and design the game so that you hit the level cap by doing the story. Then at the end it opens up into a big open world where u can go explore and do other stuff. As it is now I like the gameplay of MMO's, but it is so friggin boring to level in every single one I play I just can't get myself to keep playing them anymore.
A lot of that has to do with the really uninspired quest design. AoC both fails and succeeds by recognizing how boring their quests are and providing a robust quest tracker/waypoint finder that lets you completely ignore text and just follow the orange arrow on your map around. One of the primary aspects of SW:ToR that interests me is the idea of pulling Bioware's story driven quests into the MMO context. I'm hoping that whatever it loses by being converted to an MMO will be regained by being able to co-op through them with a couple of good friends.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,216
1,178
136
A lot of that has to do with the really uninspired quest design. AoC both fails and succeeds by recognizing how boring their quests are and providing a robust quest tracker/waypoint finder that lets you completely ignore text and just follow the orange arrow on your map around. One of the primary aspects of SW:ToR that interests me is the idea of pulling Bioware's story driven quests into the MMO context. I'm hoping that whatever it loses by being converted to an MMO will be regained by being able to co-op through them with a couple of good friends.

Yeah, the problem I've always had with MMO's is that the story always feels completely lost to me when everyone is randomly running around and doing the same thing you are at the same time. It ruins the feeling that you're some kind of hero trying to save anything at all for me.
 

Pepsei

Lifer
Dec 14, 2001
12,895
1
0
Running it in DX10 for me caused a lot of problems. It's running fine in DX9 now. Interesting game so far.

DX10 wasn't available when I started AOC, I played for 3 months from the beginning and then quit.

as others have said, the first 20 levels were the best. after ~44, it was abysmal due to lack of content (at the time). hopefully it's better now.

The graphics were amazing at the time, but you have to have the best back then. should be cheaper now.
 

DjUnternull

Member
Jul 1, 2007
133
0
0
having played aoc for a while now and quit to go back to eq2, after tortage the game had next to no content(that was as good as tortage) except thankfully i was in a RP realm adn there was always some sort of party or raid going on. great game with a cool concept but they need to work on content
 

McRhea

Senior member
Apr 2, 2001
221
0
0
Hmmm, might have to check this out.

I bought AOC last year for $30 and didn't install it for about 9 months. FINALLY got around to trying it out, played MAYBE 3 days of the free month included with the game and never went back, hah. Got to level 5 or 6 I think. Not even sure what character I picked.

Might check this out for sure, thanks.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
I've been playing it and it's ok but is there no way to point and click to walk or do you have to hold down the foward button to move all the time? The graphics are pretty and it's keeping me interesting as of right now. I'm level 7 which means I'll hit lvl 20 very soon and be done with the free portion of the game which sucks cus it's entertaining so far.