Age of Conan has definitely taken over the title of my Game of the Moment. I've leveled my Conqueror up to 41 and she's still going strong. The vast majority of my issues with this game are outside of the game itself and mainly concern Funcom's self-defeating, involvement-discouraging free-to-play business model.
Funcom Grand High Mystic MMO Poobah Joel Bylos did an interview with PC Gamer that was released today, and in it he said something that really got my attention:
"Age of Conan is free-to-play, which means there obviously is content gating which can only be removed via a subscription. Currently the Age of Conan model causes a division between paying players and free players—too much of a division, in my opinion. We are discussing ways to broaden the experience in Age of Conan for free players. That’s a priority for me."
I was very glad to read this, but until it's made clear what it means in a practical sense I'm reserving final judgment, What I'm hoping it means, at minimum, is that Funcom is going to unlock the gates of the AOC FTP forum ghetto and let non-subscribers mingle freely with subscribers, as well as removing the utterly ridiculous and ill-conceived block on playing Rise of the Godslayer for non-subbers regardless of whether they've already bought the expansion or not. Beyond that, I'd like to see at least some new content made available to non-subbing players, and basically have Funcom give us more reasons to decide AOC is worth spending our hard-earned money on, not less, they way it is now.
Funcom Grand High Mystic MMO Poobah Joel Bylos did an interview with PC Gamer that was released today, and in it he said something that really got my attention:
"Age of Conan is free-to-play, which means there obviously is content gating which can only be removed via a subscription. Currently the Age of Conan model causes a division between paying players and free players—too much of a division, in my opinion. We are discussing ways to broaden the experience in Age of Conan for free players. That’s a priority for me."
I was very glad to read this, but until it's made clear what it means in a practical sense I'm reserving final judgment, What I'm hoping it means, at minimum, is that Funcom is going to unlock the gates of the AOC FTP forum ghetto and let non-subscribers mingle freely with subscribers, as well as removing the utterly ridiculous and ill-conceived block on playing Rise of the Godslayer for non-subbers regardless of whether they've already bought the expansion or not. Beyond that, I'd like to see at least some new content made available to non-subbing players, and basically have Funcom give us more reasons to decide AOC is worth spending our hard-earned money on, not less, they way it is now.
*****
I've started playing the "Last Train to Cairo" expansion in TSW. It was thoroughly annoying at the beginning until I figured out how to deal with a certain mob the right way. Now that I've gotten past that, I'm taking my time with it. After all, this "monthly" update took Funcom two and a half months to release so who knows how long it'll be before we see Issue #7? At this rate, I'm betting mid-summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment