Age of Conan survives one year, gains unspecified growth

by Richard Mitchell { May 18th 2009 at 10:08PM }

FunCom has announced that Age of Conan is officially celebrating its first anniversary this week, adding that the company has seen a "significant" increase in the number of players per month. The company also noted that activity levels in the game have increased "significantly." Just how significant is all of this significance? That's anybody's guess, as Funcom hasn't provided any hard numbers.

Considering that the Age of Conan log recounts a litany of woe and despair, we suppose any player increases would be good news which, in and of itself, would be significant for the beleaguered MMO. In celebration of the first anniversary of the game, players will be treated to in-game fireworks and the chance to win prizes. Also, Funcom will soon be adding the ability to buy additional character slots and, as a bonus anniversary gift, will provide veteran players that have subscribed to the MMO for at least six months with a new character slot for free. Everyone else gets to keep playing World of Warcraft.

Tags: age-of-conan, eidos, funcom, mmo

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Moptimus Slime (PhilosoRaptor is the new Keyboard Cat) @ May 18th 2009 10:17PM

Is it possible to have a growth of decline?

The Dark Wayne @ May 18th 2009 10:45PM

wouldnt that just be worse decline?

smcn @ May 19th 2009 2:58PM

As far as economics are concerned, changes to the GDP are always referred to as "growth" even if it's a negative number.

Thanks NPR's Planet Money podcast!

Shadsy @ May 18th 2009 10:33PM

One player -> Three players

x3 increase in players.

Royale @ May 18th 2009 10:40PM

Age of Conan is awesome. Gratz Funcom!

Lars @ May 19th 2009 3:15PM

I really liked the fact that it's a mature MMO, that's something you don't ever see. 90% of MMO's are designed for kiddies, and the other 9.9% take the Disneyland approach in making it friendly for all ages (WoW for example).

The combat system was really refreshing, and the fatalities never get old. But I'm sad to say I stopped playing after a few months because I just don't like having a bunch of monthly subscriptions. But I would play it again if I had some RL friends playing (that's the only reason I still play WoW).

Royale @ May 19th 2009 4:02PM

I just stopped playing AOC and started back up with WOW because my last real life friend in AOC quit to pay WOW. If I could convince my friends to play AOC, I would play it all day long. It's a great game and deserves a shot by everyone.

Nick8708 @ May 18th 2009 10:54PM

It's been a year already? Perhaps it's about time I should give it another shot.

Wes @ May 18th 2009 11:14PM

Supposibly, they are going to start adding items with stats that do stuff... Suppossibly, its on its way! So there will be some reason to run the raid dungeons at high levels. Rather than the game dieing when you reach max lvl which is what has happened for the first year.

So much so that people just roll alts, lvl the alt for fun, pvp for a bit, make new alt, lvl alt, pvp for a bit and/or unsubscribe somewhere in this cycle. The game has potential, but, its still going to need a lot of work making an end-game.

Nick8708 @ May 18th 2009 11:48PM

I hadn't reached end game before I left. In fact, I think I hadn't even hit level 40 yet. I mostly got out of it because the game felt fairly inconsistent, was a little too buggy, and all of my buddies were playing WoW instead so I jumped ship (again) to have some fun with them. I just re-registered and am installing now, so I'll take these next 30 days and see if it's worth sticking around. I loved the combat system and the atmosphere of the game, I just hope some of the details, like the professions and skills, are better fleshed out by now.

eubep @ May 18th 2009 11:06PM

What happen to the console ports?

Kevin949 @ May 18th 2009 11:49PM

I stopped playing when they never fixed the quad core CPU crash and it caused my UPS device to overdraw on voltage or whatever and shut down my UPS (and computer).

All this during my "free" trial period. Ya, great, even when they extended it a week I still couldn't play it because of the CPU bug.

Shagittarius @ May 19th 2009 12:23AM

They should call it Age of Stupid, at least then you'd know what you were getting into.

Mike @ May 19th 2009 1:18AM

I'm gonna go right ahead and say it.

You're a moron.

Raster @ May 19th 2009 12:35AM

Unspecified growth, huh? I hope it's malignant, stupid Conan full of bugs and problems.

Neurasthenic @ May 19th 2009 9:56AM

I can't imagine why you would hope that the game fails. When was the last time you even played? Have you even played? They've released patch after patch in the last couple months, each one making some great improvements.

Lars @ May 19th 2009 3:10PM

LOL. What a moron. Should I even point out the fact that it was far far less buggy than WoW was at launch?

Janichsan @ May 19th 2009 4:38AM

Considering AoC is already on sale in Germany as official budget edition for a whooping 6.99 €, I guess we can assume the developers are pretty desperate.

Sam @ May 19th 2009 9:47AM

So it's crushing its enemies and seeing them driven before it?

propellerhead4 @ May 19th 2009 10:26AM

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is $5 now
http://12tb.com/lookup/VideoGames/11846801/B000RZPW9W/Age_of_Conan:_Hyborian_Adventures

Royale @ May 19th 2009 4:07PM

I don't really need to be defending a great game on the mature Joystiq comments but...

You can pick up WOW original for $20 or less.. that's pretty budget as well.

Funcom just wants people to give the damn game a shot so they can see what it's all about. After all the money to be made in MMOs isn't so much the purchase of the box, but the recurring subscription.