Free-to-play switch boosts Age of Conan

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 7 July, 2011

Sees "significant" number of new players.

A "significant" number of new players have joined mature fantasy MMO Age of Conan now that it's free-to-play, developer Funcom has said.

Age of Conan went free-to-play last week and re-branded as Age of Conan: Unchained.

Free-to-play members get a choice of four character classes and two character slots. Bank space, adventure zones, dungeons, raids and mount training are limited. Sieges, alternative advancement, offline levels and veteran points are unavailable. A premium subscription unlocks all the content. This costs €12.95 a month.

As a result of the switch player numbers have been boosted, game director Craig Morrison told Eurogamer.

"Obviously something like this lowers the entry barrier for people coming in and trying the game," he said. "So we've seen a lot more players coming back. The activity on the servers is up.

"The reception from our community seems to be going really well. We haven't had any major issues with the way we've integrated the business model change.

"There's the odd minor quibble here and there, but overall people seem to be accepting. We've found decent price points and it's a fairly reasonable offer and the players seem to be enjoying it."

As a publicly traded company, Funcom is unable to reveal internal figures for player numbers.

"But you only have to look at public sources like Xfire to see the game has seen a significant increase in traffic since the weekend," Morrison continued.

"Those public sources are indicative of what we're seeing at this end as well.

"There's a significant number of new players coming into the game and trying it out and returning and playing again."

Age of Conan is the latest in a string of games that have made the jump to free-to-play.

Last month Hi-Rez announced that upcoming MMO shooter Tribes: Ascend will launch on PC as a F2P game.

City of Heroes, Lego Universe and Team Fortress 2 have all made the jump.

And recently Blizzard announced that the first 20 levels of World of Warcraft had become free to play as an extension of its trial.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Cassock #1 11 months ago

    I made a new account for this, I used to pay subscription and it got hard finding time cards so I'm glad it now F2P, still a fun game.

    Only issue is when I 1st bought I got the Ice Mammoth mount, which I now can't use on my new F2P characters :(

  • NotSoSlim #2 11 months ago

    Now for DC universe :)

  • Machetazo #3 11 months ago

    I wouldn't say that there are hidden catches for the F2P, but a look at the official forum boards is probably no bad idea, as they're doing a handy job atm of pulling out the small print of the deal Funcom offers from their ingame experience.

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #4 11 months ago

    since when was 14 Euros a decent price point?

  • Stratix #5 11 months ago

    I cannot seem to login on my old account, says my password is wrong, even when I have changed it on their account management. The class I picked when I used to be premium is a ranger, which apparently isn't a free class. I would quite like to be able to buy the right to play this one but stay free to play, but I doubt that is possible.

    EDIT: Oh, and a sub price of over £10? I'm sorry, that just doesn't roll with me. You can't price an MMO higher than WoW and expect many people to pay it.

    EDIT EDIT: Thank you for the heads up Bob, I have now been able to log in (password change just took some time apparently) and they let me unlock my Ranger. Fantastic!
    Edited by Stratix at 07/07/11 @ 19:42

  • bobfish09 #6 11 months ago

    @Stratix

    Contact their support, there is no reason your old account shouldn't work. And those who have previously subscribed can unlock and play up 2-4 of their old characters. So you could unlock your Ranger and play as that for free even though it is not available to new free characters.

  • rogueJT #7 11 months ago


    Team Fortress F2P is so fucking awesome, might give AOC a bash.

    Although Alliance of Valient Arms is utter turd

  • Dagdriver #8 11 months ago

    Yes of course the number of accounts got boosted after F2P was introduced, question is, will it extend the life of the game? will it yield income for funcom?

    I created an account, just to try it out. Maybe I will play it some more, but I am shure I will never throw money after it.
    I didn't find it as entertaining as I had expected it to be.
    Edited by Dagdriver at 07/07/11 @ 15:34

  • iokthemonkey #9 11 months ago

    I didn't like it when it came out but - with the move to Freemium - I decided to try it again.

    I see they haven't made it any more fun to play. It's like being punished when you play it. You'll spend most of your time dying, running miles to get back to where you were and then dying again. And I'm a 10+ year veteran of MMOs, so it's not like I don't know how to play them and it's not like I'm talking about Leroy Jenkins headlong attacks. I mean you literally can't go anywhere in the outside world without being jumped by three or four mobs and beaten down every step of the journey.

    Perhaps it's a deliberate decision and they want it to be ''old school.'' But unless you have a lot of friends to play with, you'll spend most of your game time being frustrated by just how weak you feel in this game and how easily you die.