Age of Conan's servers being cut by over half

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jan 12th 2009 at 10:11AM }

Funcom has revealed that its ailing MMO Age of Conan will reduce its server count from 49 to 18. The cuts are most dramatic in the US, where 25 servers have been hacked to six. GI.biz speculates that AoC won't be shut down because it's Funcom's only source of income until it launches The Secret World, allegedly releasing in the next couple years.

Although the server reductions have been anticipated since late last year, Funcom only recently announced the full list of ~~closures~~ mergers. Funcom also recently disposed of employees in its QA and customer service departments. The company isn't doing too hot with its Hyborian Adventures at the moment, but hopefully these changes will keep the company afloat until the Conan expansion's cash infusion arrives.

[Via Massively]

Tags: age-of-conan, age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures, funcom

Related From Joystiq

The Secret World less secret: first in-game footage
7 days ago
Funcom's The Secret World gets a weird website
15 days ago
Funcom Games Canada enters the Age of Caron
29 days ago

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Shangheli @ Jan 12th 2009 10:18AM

The 360 port is their next game joystiq. ^_^

nmezib @ Jan 12th 2009 10:59AM

@Shangheli: i thought they dropped the 360 port

Anarchy online 2 would be pretty sweet, though I would imagine WoW would decimate that one, too. I was never an MMO fan, but decided to try out AoC for the brutal combat (which was awesome) and the PvP sieges (which were non-existent). I dropped it a month later due to all the bugs, balancing issues (women were PURPOSEFULLY programmed to do less melee damage than men. wtf sexism much?) and overall lack of support.

I hope they continue with their excellent adventure series "The Longest Journey," though heavy-story games like that are not for everyone.

TwistedBishop @ Jan 12th 2009 11:32AM

They never dropped the Xbox 360 port.

Why does it matter if an MMO beats WoW or not? They don't make a profit unless they do?

People need to change their perceptions of the MMO industry. In the console industry, we don't expect every game to sell as well as GTA before it's considered a success. WoW is an aberration among MMOs, not a standard.

LaughingTarget @ Jan 12th 2009 11:39AM

Women doing less melée damage isn't sexist, it's biology. It isn't sexist when I say far fewer women have the capacity to bench 300 lbs than men. Maybe in a simplified video game world cosmic equality in everything exists, like DOA ladies throwing 250 lb men 15 feet in the air, but in what I call the real world, there are real differences between genders. Humanity can't go forward by pretending that people aren't born with natural advantages and disadvantages don't exist.

Funcom wanted AoC to be brutal and real, and it is reality to say that the aggregate female population is not as physically strong as the aggregate male population.

Optimaximal @ Jan 12th 2009 11:44AM

"...but in what I call the real world, there are real differences between genders."
Idd! Men are more physically capable but women have natural buoyancy that prevents drowning!

zewm @ Jan 12th 2009 10:26AM

When will funcom get the point that all we want is AO2 :\

Alien Lord @ Jan 12th 2009 10:32AM

When will publishers realize Blizzard has cornered the market on fat pimply anti-social addicts.

Dave @ Jan 12th 2009 10:34AM

If AoC is Funcom's only source of revenue...... why am I paying $15 a month for Anarchy Online?

ZeroCorpse @ Jan 12th 2009 11:22AM

You pay for it?

Last time I checked, it was a free MMO. What the hell are you paying for?

I beta tested that piece of crap, Anarchy Online, and they didn't listen to ANYTHING we beta testers told them. When it launched, it was a total, complete mess and chugged like a slide show on most computers when any large number of people were online. Of course, that didn't last long. People dropped out and frame rates increased, but revenue decreased.

Of course, AO beta wasn't anywhere near as bad as the Star Wars Galaxies beta. We SCREAMED at them to fix a number of things, and they rushed it to market with all the flaws intact. Look at the result: Several revamps, and it still failed.

Why the hell do these company do beta tests if they aren't going to take the testers' suggestions into consideration?

LaughingTarget @ Jan 12th 2009 11:31AM

The core game is free to play, the expansions require a sub.

Guibs @ Jan 12th 2009 11:36AM

You must be kidding right? Anarch Online has been "free" to play since ages. They don't charge for playing it anymore. You may want to check that credit card of yours again because you're paying 15$ to something else...

Dave @ Jan 12th 2009 12:56PM

Okay, who can tell me how to get the expansions for free then? Because you can't.

Quattro @ Jan 12th 2009 10:40AM

It reminds me of news on the economy. Plants across the country being shut down, etc.

Valhalla @ Jan 12th 2009 2:56PM

Makes you think they might be connected, right?

TwistedBishop @ Jan 12th 2009 10:42AM

It's safe to assume the game has 200k subscribers at this point (they sold 800k copies at launch and now the servers are being cut to 1/4th). If so, that's $15 x 200k x 12 months = 36 million dollars a year. They're really not hurting for funds. Hell, they have something like 30 million in cash already.

The money in MMOs is in the monthly subscriptions, not the expansions. An expansion only helps retain subscribers or get media attention which leads to subscriptions.

JPN @ Jan 12th 2009 10:47AM

It's not "income" if it's losing money.

Pureshooter @ Jan 12th 2009 10:57AM

Bye Crom!

ZeroCorpse @ Jan 12th 2009 11:18AM

Yeah, Funcom--- News like this inspires me to run out and purchase/subcribe to Age of Conan.

NOT!

You've basically shot yourselves in the foot by making all the cuts. Now people just see AoC as a dying waste of time. What a shame. You tried to compete on the same level as WoW and SHOULD have been aiming for the Elder Scrolls players instead.

knor @ Jan 12th 2009 11:20AM

so I guess this means there will now be 2 people per server?

JWC @ Jan 12th 2009 11:34AM

AOC got eaten alive by a Warhammer. Because Warhammer was a superior product. Conan would've done great if they'd been able to get a more polished, bug-free product to market a year earlier. No mean feat sure, but the finished game sure didn't look like it'd been in development for 5 years. Which, iirc, it had.

Ian Miles Cheong @ Jan 12th 2009 11:41AM

Surprise, surprise! It'd have been nice if Age of Conan was more than just Age of Tortage. Even then, I couldn't complete the tutorial knowing how so little content awaited me at the other end.

Zsavior @ Jan 12th 2009 3:06PM

That is exactly it, You went through Tortage thinking this is going to be Great Oh crap I can't wait. Then you finally got out and it was like riding in your friends Ferrari to your brand new Ford Pinto.

The voice acting turned to grunts, the quest became horrible grinds, it was plagued with bugs, and if you dared to level diligently the quest ran out and you were just stuck there. Then there was the mediocrity of your moves, no variation in abilities, your whole world was brown, or green. It just got so boring so fast. I mean beheading people was great, but after a while cause everything else was so lack luster it just felt gimmicky.

wickedpheonix @ Jan 13th 2009 12:48AM

Ah well. Even though AoC proceeds along the death spiral, I shall still remember the "your boobs are back to normal" patch XD

Mr Lee @ Jan 13th 2009 7:11AM

nmezib - could you be any more of a troll? "purposely programmed to do less damage"?? Is that why it was flagged as a bug and got fixed? Yes that's what happens with 'on purpose' design decisions.

GI.biz clearly haven't got a clue wtf they are talking about since we already know AO is still going. How do they not? I guess you have to ignore the positives for the sake of making tabloid-scandal type articles.