I will say that I am sort of desperately looking for a new MMO to play, and I was strongly considering Age of Conan on a PvE server (hold your opinions), but I think I will look elsewhere.

I have been following the official forums since launch date (non-subscribers can view them, but not post) and it seems that FunCom has absolutely no idea what they are doing.

But I was rather persistent on trying it out, so I asked a guildie from Lineage II to give me a Buddy Key, only to find out that I have to pay 2.99 to download it from FunCom.

No, I don't do torrents.

This is the first time I've seen a game developer actually ask for money to download a game to "trial" it.  It is also quite rude when you consider that going from trial to subscription is not just giving them your CC number.  You have to actually buy the game to get a subscription, on top of paying them 2.99 to download the client to trial it to see if you even want to buy the game.  It seems alot of people on the official forums are ignorant of the fact that you can't circumvent the costs of the game by getting a buddy key to avoid paying 49.99 for it - you still have to pay 49.99 for the game if you want to keep playing after the trial is over.

They also seem ignorant of the fact that alot of people who move games, even if they move with other people, are geographically distributed in a way that makes P2P transfers slow, or mail transfers unthinkable.  I have friends in Norway, and I live in the US.  Why would I bother having them mail me a AoC CD, and why should I bother trying to download something from their computer when the transfer rate will be extremely abysmal.  I don't do Torrent downloads or download from obscure sites for security reasons, I've been ganked in the pass with Trojans and Viruses.

So instead of going against my Moral Judgement, I am just going to download EQ2.  After all, I get a free "Buddy Pass" from an EQ2 player, with a full free month of play, and when I subscribe I get the game and every expansion for free on top of other goodies.

2.99 for a client download is shady, and how expensive it actually is has nothing to do with it.  I just can't see going against my moral judgement and bending over while paying 2.99 for a client download to try a game I may not even buy in the end.

But I guess it's for the best.  Probably saved me alot of time in the end, anyways.

Sorry, just had to Rant a little.

Yet another reason AoC is failing, they wont let anyone try it

I wouldn't feel too bad about not trying it.  I tried it for a couple of months and then the honeymoon ended and I saw what the game was really like.  It's a pretty game but lacking in substance.  Kind of like the girl you want to date for a while but not the girl you want to marry. :)

Originally posted by UbahNecro

I will say that I am sort of desperately looking for a new MMO to play, and I was strongly considering Age of Conan on a PvE server (hold your opinions), but I think I will look elsewhere.

I have been following the official forums since launch date (non-subscribers can view them, but not post) and it seems that FunCom has absolutely no idea what they are doing.

But I was rather persistent on trying it out, so I asked a guildie from Lineage II to give me a Buddy Key, only to find out that I have to pay 2.99 to download it from FunCom.

No, I don't do torrents.

This is the first time I've seen a game developer actually ask for money to download a game to "trial" it.  It is also quite rude when you consider that going from trial to subscription is not just giving them your CC number.  You have to actually buy the game to get a subscription, on top of paying them 2.99 to download the client to trial it to see if you even want to buy the game.  It seems alot of people on the official forums are ignorant of the fact that you can't circumvent the costs of the game by getting a buddy key to avoid paying 49.99 for it - you still have to pay 49.99 for the game if you want to keep playing after the trial is over.

They also seem ignorant of the fact that alot of people who move games, even if they move with other people, are geographically distributed in a way that makes P2P transfers slow, or mail transfers unthinkable.  I have friends in Norway, and I live in the US.  Why would I bother having them mail me a AoC CD, and why should I bother trying to download something from their computer when the transfer rate will be extremely abysmal.  I don't do Torrent downloads or download from obscure sites for security reasons, I've been ganked in the pass with Trojans and Viruses.

So instead of going against my Moral Judgement, I am just going to download EQ2.  After all, I get a free "Buddy Pass" from an EQ2 player, with a full free month of play, and when I subscribe I get the game and every expansion for free on top of other goodies.

2.99 for a client download is shady, and how expensive it actually is has nothing to do with it.  I just can't see going against my moral judgement and bending over while paying 2.99 for a client download to try a game I may not even buy in the end.

But I guess it's for the best.  Probably saved me alot of time in the end, anyways.

Sorry, just had to Rant a little.

I don't disagree with you but in their defense they do give you an extra 3 days. Hopefully even with the game's size it doesn't take 3 days to download.

Funcom is having trouble keeping players they got at launch. This is just a way to keep funding the changes they keep making to the game.

It is silly, but hey, what can you do?

If people stop paying to download the client they will stop charging because they really do need to give people a chance to play the game if they want future customers.

First of all, these forums would be the last place in the world I would look for a fair assessment of any game.

And regarding the 3 bucks for the trial download. Obviously they feel they could cover the bandwidth cost and came to the conclusion that enough people would not bitch about 3 bucks.

I mean it's 3$. I can't believe there's people with that high principles they would shy away for 3$. Either they're really cheap or something else bugging them.

But if you don't feel that trying out a triple-A mmo is worth the price of a bag of crisps, then I'll just have say - enjoy your bag of crisps sir. :)

EDIT: Just have to add that I'm not a AoC player or fan for that matter. You know, before the trolls get here and be all like "Oi, it's a fanboi! May we burn him?"

Well in all fairness in the e-mail they do advise you to loan your game disks to your friend so they dont have to pay for the d/l,Now I dis-like funcom and the shambles that is AoC but it is only right that this is also noted about the buddy keys.

Doesn't matter if it costs money or it's for free. Just stay away from this game.

Try this...

http://www.warcraftdoctor.com/tag/age-of-conan-client-download/

It does not matter what the trial costs.  The point is that it costs money.

I have a buddy key card on the desk right in front of me, five of them in fact.  You know what the biggest and boldest word on the card is?  "FREE"  So, whether it costs $2000 or $.01, the focal point of the matter is that they are charging $$ for something that we can prove is "FREE."  This tells you something about the lack of integrity at Funcom.

Originally posted by Grimfern

But if you don't feel that trying out a triple-A mmo is worth the price of a bag of crisps, then I'll just have say - enjoy your bag of crisps sir. :)

 

EDIT: Just have to add that I'm not a AoC player or fan for that matter. You know, before the trolls get here and be all like "Oi, it's a fanboi! May we burn him?"

If you don't play AoC, then how can you state that it is a "triple-A mmo"?

Its 2.99 if you can't get the DVDs.

If 3 bucks is an issue; I'd suggest better uses of your time then playing a mmo.

I pre-ordered the CE and received 10 Buddy Passes, but refuse to give them out because of the 2.99 download charge.  I don't think I could recommend AoC to a "buddy" anyway.

Originally posted by Praxus

If 3 bucks is an issue; I'd suggest better uses of your time then playing a mmo.

 

If you think the issue is about the dollar amount, I'd suggest you grow up and learn how the real world works.

Originally posted by jy88902

Originally posted by Praxus

If 3 bucks is an issue; I'd suggest better uses of your time then playing a mmo.

 

 

If you think the issue is about the dollar amount, I'd suggest you grow up and learn how the real world works.

/seconded.

They could offer it for $.01 and it would be a ripoff.  It's the principle of the thing.  I said this on the official AoC forums, and people looked at me like I had a pancake on my head.

I was gonna hand out buddy keys on this forum. But I don't want to rip people  off by making them pay  3 dollars for a free trial.

To hell with failcom

Normally I would say that I agree that 3 dollars isn't a ton of money and anyone who makes money should just pay it blah blah blah....but in this circumstance, I feel for the OP as I didn't know funcom was doing this. I actually own AoC but quit playing for a multitude of reasons but I REALLY hope no one pays for this. I really don't want this to start to be the norm that trialing a game costs you a couple of bucks. It sets a very bad precedent and it bugs me the way FC is always trying to nickel and dime their current and potential customers.

Not only that, for anyone who hasn't downloaded anything from FC before, their "downloader" program is actually.....*drumroll*.... A TORRENT DOWNLOADER so while they may have a few high speed seeds, they are charging you for other peoples bandwidth as well! How kind!

Either way OP, be glad you didn't try it out anyway, it seems fun for the first few weeks but once you play a while, you see just how shallow the game really is.

Originally posted by Grimfern

First of all, these forums would be the last place in the world I would look for a fair assessment of any game.

And regarding the 3 bucks for the trial download. Obviously they feel they could cover the bandwidth cost and came to the conclusion that enough people would not bitch about 3 bucks.

I mean it's 3$. I can't believe there's people with that high principles they would shy away for 3$. Either they're really cheap or something else bugging them.

But if you don't feel that trying out a triple-A mmo is worth the price of a bag of crisps, then I'll just have say - enjoy your bag of crisps sir. :)

 

EDIT: Just have to add that I'm not a AoC player or fan for that matter. You know, before the trolls get here and be all like "Oi, it's a fanboi! May we burn him?"

Yes because you get a better assessment of the game on the official forums. Not.

$3 dollars is cheap, but why the hell should the consumer pay for the upkeep of the download, why doesnt Funcom the company who want's you to subscribe to the game put their hands in thier pockets and pay for the servers, bandwidth ect?

$3 is not alot of money, hell i sneeze and i make that much, but it isn t the point at all. Someone mentioned oh well what can you do about it, simple don t d/l it or play it. All you re getting yourself into is a game with nothing but lies and decite. It won t stop there so why start.

You can buy a copy of the WoW trial for 1.99 I believe.  I think that it comes with 10 days of play.  Funcom isn't the only company to charge for trials.

My key was pretty clear that they wanted me to actually give the key to someone I knew personally.  Even makes a blurb about showing the person how to play.

The trial key you got for EQ2 is a special promotion.  Some legacy thing they had going for a month or something.  You answer some survey questions and then they give you instructions on how to give out a special trial key that allows the person to sub and get all the Xpacs free.  I think I even got a coupon to save $5 off the xpac that's coming out in the fall.  This isn't the norm though, Sony's just been doing a better job with promotions lately.

It's not really fair to compare a promotional offer from an older game to the trial key from a new one.  EQ2 isn't really dependant upon box sales at this point.