Reports Videogamer.com with an update from Funcom from the same headline they carry the article with.

"The recent Age of Conan re-evaluation promotion, designed to bring previous players back to the game, has been a success."

"The results of the campaign are really good with server activity booming, and entire guilds have made their return to the game," said Ellingsen. "The feedback from returning players has been really good so far, and it seems that the game's massive changes since launch is making a big difference for them. We're very excited to see the renewed interest among former players!"
 

"There's even more to come for Age of Conan, with Funcom today detailing the first info on Update 6.

There's no confirmed release date, but we are promised a host of new gameplay features for guilds. Guilds will be able to acquire renown points through a variety of actions carried out by guild members. These include sieges between guilds, crafting, questing and monster hunting. Guilds will also be ranked, adding more competition between guilds."
 

So far during the re-evaluation time the regular trial offer was disabled. There has been some talk about metric measurement of how well the re-evaluation offer has been doing recently with some folks here quoting xfire in an attempt to garner further insight outside of press releases. As not a fan of Xfire myself people can see current usage stats here. and make their own mind up.

What I can say is that yes the servers are pretty busy across the 3 I play on and off on even at abnormal play times for me are good in population regard.

I guess the reality will come in a month or so, but also taking into consideration further opportunites Funcom may present to vets of the game who left in the past. As well as further insight from the Quartley Report due in about a month on 26th August'09.

There is no doubt that many a welcome back email got sent out, and no doubt really that many out of that pool would give it a second look.

The real question is can Age of Conan hang on to these people again from the updates that have made it into the game and those that will be coming in over the next couple of months? Will Patch 1.06 detailed out a bit in the recent community letter (looking at October release "ish") be enough coupled with Expansion details late August to keep people paying to play?

Glad to hear things are going good for Funcom. I loved the company and Famine a ton! I'm not going to lie, I have tried the welcome back offer and it was a blast. I also won a free month sub and digital download which I might use as a second account or give to a friend. The thing I can't take from that game though is the chat. But that is not going to stop me from enjoyment, it's just an annoyance.

Ye, I've noticed. I play on Fury and activity is definetaly up.

I pug'd a premade for mini-games all night tonight (and my GF is calling for me to get to bed as we speak). I got the invite for a new game even before I had zoned back from the finished battle-ground.

Gottta go.

Cya in Hyboria

Right now, the Bloodline guild on the SET server is seiging 3-4 times a week with full teams against quite a few other guilds. This is the first time that they have been able to move from a once a week system to 3-4 (or more....depending on wins/losses) total attacks.

Impressive turn outs, busy zones, great fun. Having a blast. I even got my wife to come back who is very excitied about how the game has turned out since launch. My son just started an account and we all play in a killer trio.

Looks like AoC will be in the niche group after all along with WAR, LOTRO, and EQ2 and survive even though the populations will never be like launch. There just happens to be enough to keep Funcom profitable, and that is what matters.

Cheers

Originally posted by badboybill

Originally posted by 69Cuda
<Deleted>

 

I'm glad I'm not the only person who doesn't believe anything Erling Ellingsen says :)

EE said this same "OMG servers are booming!!!" last year, right after which it was proven that AoC had about 75k subscriptions.

Sure there are more people online right now because Funcom let them there FOR FREE! It's only temporary. Once veteran re-evaluation stops, we will see the truth.

It's because funcom are liars. I'll never pay for a game that has funcom on it anymore.

Fool me once, shame on you funcom!

Fool me twice, Good Bye!.
 

Also please get rid of the horrible UI that you guys have. it sucks, it doesn't look good and its really buggy piece of crap.

<Mod Edit>

Sure there are more people online right now because Funcom let them there FOR FREE! It's only temporary. Once veteran re-evaluation stops, we will see the truth.

100% agree

so far this is only FC- PR

think FC is better in PR then creating mmorpg's today (i loved AO)

They should have replaced Ellingson, he is someone who will forever known to not only spin and mislead but to outright lie, he is the face of the cancer in funcom, when he speaks who he is and his past will always taint the message for those players who played at release.

You can see it in this thread, good news is immediatly set upon because of the messenger and that good news is immediatly distrusted.

Guild leveling looks good and it's obvious that the win back programme has been a success but most of us would never trust EE as far as we could throw him.

I don't see that you are going to be getting much good news from the quarterly report, it won't include any of the win back people, you will have to wait till november to really see how it affected subs and at that point we'll be talking about how the populations are surviveing against aion and the like. Actually I take that back a little, you will see funcoms revenue projections, if there really has been a big uptake in subs that will be reflected in them predicting say a 30% increase in revenue, then you will know if they belive what they are saying or not.

Free play-time for returning vets started running out some days ago, pretty soon we will see what server population stabilizes on. If most didn't resubscribe then the peak numbers should be down already this weekend, I doubt it will be a lot less than last weekend. Being located in Europe, Funcom cannot fire someone on a  whim but I agree that they should lock Ellingsen up in the basement or keep him out of sight somewhere l0ol

Population has been booming and has had 3 events triggering it

1) THe 1.05 patch .Many returned on their own like me to check it out Liked it and many are staying on.

2) The veteran re-evaluation program. New members are adding up every day Mostly these are re- evaluation members whose guild where no more and they want to check the patches.Whether they will continue to stay we will know in 2 weeks time

3) One time free offer to make any profession on any server lvl 50 toon directly and skip the boring lvl 20 tortage crap.

 I am on Wicianna server in US which is the unofficial PVE-RP server

Hoenestly I am liking the changes especially guild related special receipes , pvp etc

Patch 6 in paper seems awesome with gifts for vetern plyers and introduction of renown system like in WAR.

Each guild members contribution in PVP, PVE, raids etc will contribute towards points for the guild will in turn unlock things for the guild just like in WAR

The free re-evaluation was a good idea, they actually extended the evaluation period. However, you cant expect everybody to stay after the free time expires. Funcom offered 20% discount also, which means if the sub rate was $14.99, it goes down to $11.99 per month. My buddy is playing AoC again while he waits for MO. If MO fails, back to AoC lol

What is important to note here also is people who came back? Some liked the game concepts and playstyle, thus the reason they left was the stability and bugs.

The game is more stanle, bugs are much smaller (but ever present like ALL MMO's), but the key is the game has a solid core, is 100% playable to end game, has some excellent raids, sieges are working (again, not 100%...but, I DO KNOW FOR A FACT they are going...), balance is ongoing (yep, blame the PvP'ers), and of course, it is one of the most gorgeous MMO's out with the best music bar none.

My wife had left MMO's, but did the return trial and is hooked big time now and having a blast...that alone is testament to me.

Age of Conan has done a 280 (not quite a 360, but getting there!)

Originally posted by openedge1

What is important to note here also is people who came back? Some liked the game concepts and playstyle, thus the reason they left was the stability and bugs.

The game is more stanle, bugs are much smaller (but ever present like ALL MMO's), but the key is the game has a solid core, is 100% playable to end game, has some excellent raids, sieges are working (again, not 100%...but, I DO KNOW FOR A FACT they are going...), balance is ongoing (yep, blame the PvP'ers), and of course, it is one of the most gorgeous MMO's out with the best music bar none.

My wife had left MMO's, but did the return trial and is hooked big time now and having a blast...that alone is testament to me.

Age of Conan has done a 280 (not quite a 360, but getting there!)

Ye, my fionce is looking forward to finishing her thesis and taking up her DT again, especially now after DTs are a viable PvP-opponent again.

Heh, with the free time and the 1000 copies given away here (I'm actually enjoying my free copy's month, might sub) no surprise with "booming" server activity.

Not sure I'll ever trust Funcom spin, but I'll go along with the posters here who say the game is experiencing an uptick.

Always like the game, glad to see its doing better.

Unfortunately, I rarely go back and I'll be giving Aion a try here in a few months.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Not sure I'll ever trust Funcom spin, but I'll go along with the posters here who say the game is experiencing an uptick.

Always like the game, glad to see its doing better.

Unfortunately, I rarely go back and I'll be giving Aion a try here in a few months.

 

if you haven't done the Ymir's pass and other content that was added I guess it is worth to try it. I did and it was fun, but after all that I came back to boredom. I would like a new land mass to adventure as I already explored the whole thing. I heard Funcom was working on an expansion. Hopefully they will expand on the map. Other than that, the game works  fine.

Funcom is in a panic, and they will do a full out PR | Lie blitz from now until the NA release of Aion.  They see the writing on the wall, they're just trying to erase it so their fanbase can be fooled. 

Originally posted by Benjen

Funcom is in a panic, and they will do a full out PR | Lie blitz from now until the NA release of Aion.  They see the writing on the wall, they're just trying to erase it so their fanbase can be fooled. 

There is no doubt that Aion will actually be a threat to many games...not just AoC.

LOTRO, WAR, EQ2 all will suffer as they are all niche games, just like Age of Conan.

But, this particular genre is fickle if anything. Take me for example..I tried Aion and felt it has a shelf life of 30 days to me, as it just does not have enough beyond bland PvE and a single minded PvP game.

I will play it, have fun for a little bit, then probably go back to my home in AoC.

Originally posted by badboybill

Originally posted by Moretrinkets

The free re-evaluation was a good idea, they actually extended the evaluation period. However, you cant expect everybody to stay after the free time expires. Funcom offered 20% discount also, which means if the sub rate was $14.99, it goes down to $11.99 per month. My buddy is playing AoC again while he waits for MO. If MO fails, back to AoC lol

 

This is true. Retention rates in re-evaluation offers like this one are pretty low.

First of all not everyone will even use the veteran re-evaluation. I wouldn't be surprised if at much as 50% deleted that email as soon as it came, considering how much Funcom hatred is out there.

Secondly from those who do try the game again, a very little percentage will actually re-subscribe. And that has little to do with if game has improved or not. It's just the nature of MMO's. You get ONE chance to win customers over. If you fail that, it will be almost impossible to get them back.

Can you show me the data to back up your claims?

"Retention rates in re-evaluation offers like this one are pretty low."

Can you possibly quote sources for such information?

"Secondly from those who do try the game again, a very little percentage will actually re-subscribe"

Again, how do YOU know this? Where is your factual data to back up a claim...this does not sound like opinion, but like your are claiming facts...so, more data with links to sources before spouting is always helpful.

To put it mildly, the re-evaluation here is unqiue in the respect that AoC had potential compared to games like WAR, LOTRO or even EQ2...as it is trying to be different..thus, people who do come back are because they liked the idea of the game, and a lot are sticking out, as we can see according to Xfire...but, we will not know how much until come the end of this month going into next month.

Cheers

Come August when Expansion details come out this game will recive more boost

But for me I measured my gameplay for the last month after reactivating my account

1) Are thier good enough quets - Yes

2) Is their a grind - No

3) Is the server populated and important on diff levels not all lv 80 - Yes

4) On weekends with my guild only I participate in raids - Yes

5) Is it easy to find groups - No still takes a long time to find random groups.Without tanks the grp cannot make it.

6) Is their PVP - On PVE servers mini games are dead but Border Kingdoms are alive

7) Is the guild helpful - Yes ( Band of Brothers - Wicianna )

AIon wont bite into AOC share , AION is a different niche market altogether mostly WOWies are going to like AION

Personally in closed beta weekends I found Aion to have to too much manga , needs westernisation, less grind.

Originally posted by Benjen

Funcom is in a panic, and they will do a full out PR | Lie blitz from now until the NA release of Aion.  They see the writing on the wall, they're just trying to erase it so their fanbase can be fooled. 

Yeah heard that pre WAR and pre Darkfall release, AoC lived through those will live through an Asian themed game launch.