Yesterday Funcom made an announcement that Age of Conan would offer an unlimited free to play trial offer for any players that signed up before Jan 1st, 2010. The offer included levels 1 – 20 and was limited to the intro island of Tortage, but players could play the game in this zone for as long as they wanted.
It is no longer a secret that free to play MMORPGs not only work, but can make serious cash by having in-game stores or offering tiered memberships with benefits to players that pay extra. Age of Conan was rocked by a horrible launch losing a huge chunk of their player base within a few months, however over the last year they’ve made serious improvements. As we recently saw with Dungeons & Dragons Online, moving to the F2P model can seriously revive an almost dead MMO. Although I wouldn’t put D&D and AoC in the came category, it is safe to say AoC is not as health as they would want to be. Switching to a F2P model might be the cure and revive a game that seem to have long reached its peak.
Funcom might be testing the waters with this unlimited free trial. Who knows, we might be seeing a completely free to play Age of Conan sooner than you think. Checkout the free offer here.
I think just about every MMORPG out there would benefit from following the likes of Runescape and D & D and going free – to – play. Many people, myself included, don’t have enough spare time to get a lot of play time logged on MMO games so paying for a subscription seems like a waste of money. If it were free to play i could just go on every now and then without worrying whether i’m getting my money’s worth or not.