Play Age of Conan three days early Comments by Ellie Gibson

From the Funcon newsletter:

By pre-ordering the game from a retailer that retailer will supply you with a pre-order key. You can use this key to purchase Early Access from the Funcom website for $5 / 5€.

Note that Early Access is exclusively available to those who pre-order. The characters you create during your Early Access period will still be available to you once the servers officially open. Early Access will require you to download the game yourself.

Registration and sales of Early Access open on May 2nd. Download of the client for early access from May 16th, and you can start playing from May 20th.

Purchasing Early Access will not only give you the chance to jump into Conan’s world before the rest of the world, but it will also give you ten extra days of free play time. These ten days are added to your thirty days of free play that is included in the retail.

Some nice pre-order stuff. Don't forget the Bow, Mammoth and Rhino!

The dates in the article are for the US. The Euro head start and release dates are May 20th and 23rd.

i have pre ordered my copy from play.com

looking forward to stomping around on my rhino

me too ^^

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changed to War mammoth lol
from game.co.uk

So you buy it from a `store` but have to download the client? thats huge.. that doesnt sound right. Or am i reading too much into the `download` bit..

yeah i thought that, it sounds a bit strange

I would have thought they'd ship the game earlier to those who preordered and gave them a special access code.

No go for the Dutchies: no 3 day headstart for Dutch retailers according to mine, there is no way for them to get those pre-order codes. No biggie to me but I hate differences between countries in these launches.

I have already emailed Eurogamer about the total arse-fest that is Pre-order for AoC.

If you buy from play.com or game.co.uk, the 2 biggest retailers in the UK, then will only recieve the pre-order for the standard edition! if you go and pay 60 GBP for the CE edition you get nothing! No Mount, No Item slots, No 3 day head start!

Nice to see no mention of that in the article.

Arse kissing over journalism it appears to me.

Collectors edition does give you a cape of free beer and a increase in XP ring. Plus all the actual physical fluff you get in the box. Don't think its that big a deal. They should really offer the early access to all pre-orders to make it a level playing field though.

Agreed Amblin - the UK pre-order situation is a complete cockup. I think the guys who planned the new Terminal 5 must be moonlighting for Eidos on the sly. ;-)

A three day headstart, free mount and an 8 slot bag are available when preordering either the Collectors Edition or normal edition in all other countries. The UK, for some reason nobody has yet been able to fathom, gets the shaft: the £60 (!) CE is completely ineligible for preorder goodies in this country and both Play and Game have pulled the three day headstart after communication from Eidos.

Posters over at the official forums have been trying to piece together what's going on but Funcom, Eidos and the retailers are giving out conflicting info. Some UK gamers are now even trying to import copies from Norway or elsewhere as at least they are guaranteed to come with all the necessary preorder codes.

So is there going to be a trail of this at all?

I think it should be mandatory that all MMO's come with at least a 7 day trail...