There were two recent interviews with Funcom Age of Conan employees including AoC Game Director Craig Morrison at Boomtown on July 13, and Product Manager Erling Ellingsen at IncGamers.
They talked about the recent 1.05 Tarantia Commons Patch, the many changes to the game, community response, and the possibility of moving Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures into a free-to-play model: “We’re certainly not ruling anything out, but we don’t have any current plans for that. However, we’ve had huge success going free-to-play with our other MMO Anarchy Online, and we strongly believe its a viable business strategy for these kinds of games.”
Ellingsen also went into specifics about what went wrong with Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures “…we did not live up to the expectations in terms of content and advanced features. There were content gaps in the game, particularly at higher levels, and advanced features such as sieging and city building were simply not good enough”. And how Funcom is trying to turn Age of Conan around “…after a whole year of massive updates, I think most players will agree to the fact that it almost plays like an entirely different game”.
Funcom Still Mum About AoC Subscription Numbers
Interestingly the subject of AoC subscription numbers is still being kept very quite “…I can’t comment on subscription numbers…And indeed, the game had problems and word of mouth did turn sour at one point, which made it more difficult to retain players and bring in new ones….It’s a question I would love to answer, but I can’t comment on subscription numbers!”
But Funcom has been trying everything to save AoC: “So far we have put out five major updates to the game, and what we’ve been doing is trying to get as much attention as possible for each of those updates. e’ve worked closely with the gaming media on getting attention for these updates, through trailer videos, new screenshots, interviews and articles on what these updates actually do. The interest has been great, and I think we’ve succeeded in keeping Age of Conan firmly placed in the spotlight since launch.”
Jul 15, 2009 at 07:57:15
It would be really interesting to see AoC move to a free-to-play model.
I actually was able to pick up 2 copies of the game for $3 each, and put some solid hours into it.
I must say that it is a very fun game and deserves to be looked at, yet, in this market today, it’s going to have major trouble holding up against all others.
I think future mmo’s will need to start filling niche’s and not try for this “wow killer” as so many have unsuccessfully have tried so far.
What happens is that they try to fill an entire world with every aspect of an online game, which games like WoW can handle because they have such a large player base and revenue stream.
However, as I’ve seen through free mmo’s, if you target a certain group, niche, play style, you will be able to pull in potentially hundreds of thousands of players.
Of course, 100k players is nothing in comparision to the millions in WoW, but these smaller communities have benefits of their own, as people are able to make connections on a much more intimate level, people know you on your server.
To have thousands of people playing your game is by no mean a failure.
People just need to readjust their viewpoints on what makes an mmo successful.
(That went off in a tangent haha)
Oct 16, 2009 at 07:10:33
I have been playing AoC for a month now, am level 40, and have played every major MMo since 1999.
This game is fun, and I find nothing wrong with it.
Better than WAR, WoW, and LOTRO
Oct 16, 2009 at 09:36:48
@Bobby,
Thank you for your comment. I agree with you. It is #1 on our list of the top 10 mmorpgs.