I think this thread is full of ********

You find a source of entertainment that you enjoy and pay if it is within your budget.

USD 15 pr month and a OPTIONAL cash shop is within most peoples budgets. 

So, relax, evaluate if you enjoy the entertainment (i.e. computergame) and pay if you do. The company has to pay its emplyoees, managers and provide a surplus to the owners. 

Originally posted by VoIgore

Originally posted by sassoonss

Received an email - was sitting in junk. I usually dont click links directly to I logged in thru Funcom login account and the offer was for real.

 

Calling all Veterans!

Return to Hyboria!

With more players returning to Hyboria every day, and with the success of the recent adventure pack bringing great reviews, there has never been a better time to return as a premium player of Age of Conan: Unchained.

Don't believe us? As a special offer to those who have previously roamed the battlefields of Hyboria, we are inviting you back to experience the full game experience as a premium member for a whole month, completely free of charge.

The re-activation period will run from November 17th to December 17th 

For how long do we hear this bullsh*t now? 4 years?

Well Volgore - this time its due to the F2P model they implemented half a year ago. It has had a substantial effect. Log on and you will see for your self. Its free.....

Boicotting TSW because of their business model is like boicotting the Star Wars movies because they make money on Star Wars Lego. 

Just silly really

The game is 3,5 years old and there are plenty of dungeons and people who run them

here is a list

http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Dungeons

Originally posted by kylekbb

Well the reason i left i believe was my friend wanted to try another game. And i just kinda followed so i am goina check back into it. But if anyone can might list the most changes over the last few months.

Here you go.

Lots of stuff, but as said above. Depends on when you left. I have been playing irreglarly since the unchaind release

http://www.ageofconan.com/news/search/

Originally posted by Scambug

I'm also a little worried by the performance this game will have on low to mid ranged PCs since it uses the same hogtastic engine AoC does.

AoC is now more than 3 years old and PC's have catched up with it. It is still a demanding game in terms of pc resources, but it runs smothly on almost any mid range PC. I have a 2 year old laptop that I use for AoC and it works very nicely. I cant max it out on graphics, but i can get about 60-70% . 

For TSW they have also stated that they know about the problems AOC had with pc resources and therefore they are testing it on "weak" pcs. 

Finally at the Gamescon conference this weekend they used laptops when they presented TSW live. 

edit: pic of the PC build used at Gamescon for TSW

http://twitpic.com/67sbns

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by zymurgeist

I'm still waiting for that Funcom stock collapse and bankruptcy Azrile promised us years ago.

Yep, I was wrong.   I honestly had no idea a company could be unprofitable 11 out of 12 quarters, write off 25M of a loss while bringing in only 4M in revenues and still be in business.  It defies logic.  Very few companies last long having non-stop negative profits quarter after quarter. 

You should have checked their cash reserve. After launch of AoC they had no debt and about USD 30 mill in cash. Now they still have some cash left and will soon (april) have two MMOs. Also AoC as an separate entity has been profitable for years now, they simply cut costs. The money they have spent has been on developing TSW. 

The freemium model is really good for the casual PVE player who wants to spend some time in Hyboria at his/her own speed. (like me) However once you get really into the game you will probably need a sub to experience the full feeling of the game. For competitive gamers i beleive a sub is a must. 

What are your best guesses on release date for SWToR or has there been any info on this?

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Aceundor

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by shantideva

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by nihce

check the rating today

yeah it is popping up and down 700  hours  for no valid reason unless the servers were down Tuesday...odd

Servers were down for a small update, most likely what caused the drop.

ok a 6 - 7 hour downtime would account for it. Games just don't drop 25% and pop back up in the middle of a week for no reason' Looks like it has settled out around 2700 hours per day weekdays and most likley peak onSundays with about 3000- 3200 or so. Respectable.

it was at 3300 hrs today (saturday figures) and usually rizes on further on Sunday so we should see about 3500 hrs tomorrow. This is about a month since F2P and Blood and Glory. Seems like its stabilizing for the summer. Then soon there will be the new Conan film and probaly another influx of players. Quite nice actually for a 3 year old game that was predicted dead an buried within a year after launch. Yet again Funcom has turned a catastrophic launch to a solid MMO. 

depends on the retention, AOC never did have a issue attracting people, bbut has neve been goood at retaining them. Several times since release the game made it back into the 20's overall on XFire but within a month or so they would start falling again.I think it was made it back into the teens overall when the Xpac was released. for referance yesterday it was #39 overall with 11 other MMOs ahead of it. Better than a month or 2 back when it was dipping below #100

Jackdog - i agree with your conclusion. It will depend on retention. However your figures are wrong. At the launch of the Godslayer xpac AoC never got above rank 26. Also the dips below 100 were due to patches and downtimes. It was down in the 80s 

Source: A norwegian group of investors has made a website that tracks statistics for Funcom games. Have a look at the xfire stats on this page: zhttp://www.funcominvestor.com/aoc_statistikk.php

Klick on "xfire rangering" (xfire rank) and move the cursor over the graph (dont think it works in IE so try another browser if it fails to load. )

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by shantideva

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by nihce

check the rating today

yeah it is popping up and down 700  hours  for no valid reason unless the servers were down Tuesday...odd

Servers were down for a small update, most likely what caused the drop.

ok a 6 - 7 hour downtime would account for it. Games just don't drop 25% and pop back up in the middle of a week for no reason' Looks like it has settled out around 2700 hours per day weekdays and most likley peak onSundays with about 3000- 3200 or so. Respectable.

it was at 3300 hrs today (saturday figures) and usually rizes on further on Sunday so we should see about 3500 hrs tomorrow. This is about a month since F2P and Blood and Glory. Seems like its stabilizing for the summer. Then soon there will be the new Conan film and probaly another influx of players. Quite nice actually for a 3 year old game that was predicted dead an buried within a year after launch. Yet again Funcom has turned a catastrophic launch to a solid MMO. 

15 parallell instances in tortage tonight. lots of action on B&G. Global is crap of course

Everybody that is not able to run AoC today has one or more of these problems:

1) There is a  problem with their specific PC be it HW or SW

2) They have an old pc or graphics card

3) They are lying or trolling

The reason for this is simple. SInce 2008 Funcom has fixed crashes and problems again and again and again. They have polished the game and tested it on numerous rigs. There is of course a small chance that there are a specific compitability problem out there but I find that chances for that are quite remote. In other words: READ MY SIG

I played the game for 5 months and checked my account. This is what i get for FREE!!!!

I have a lvl 60 that I can play just where I left him

I have lots of offline levels I can use.

I have an 3 char slots (expansion),

I have lots of item I can claim ( /claim),

I have free access to most of the game, 

In other words -  hours of fun ahead of me for free!!!!

Originally posted by CujoSWAoA

The problem I ran into with Age of Conan is that I used the offline leveling.  So I'm level 80 with level 35 armor and I have absolutely NO in-game currency to buy new stuff.  Lol.... I can't do ANYthing in the game.

 

Kill some lvl 75 mobs and you will have a nice armor in no time

If you havent played in 3 years, then you will find a very changed game. First of all to your questions

1) combos usually only require 1 or 2 buttons now. 

2) there is lots of content both during leveling and during endgame. The whole of Khitai is lvl 80 (expansion pack)

3) If you have the same PC you had 3 years ago the game might actually run on it. They did a lot to improve technical errors from the launch period. There has been several optimisation patches. If you have a newer rig then there really isnt any problem. However - why not only download the free trial and you can play through Tortage and check how it runs on your PC.

In general the game receives a lot of praize now. There are many oppnions out there on this or that which isnt working as the player expected however this depends somewhat on your own expectations of the game.

If you want a solid PVE game with excellent PVP ibetween then AoC can be a good choice. However dont take my word for it. DL the game and take it throuhg Tortage for a re-check. Should take you 3-6 hours depending on how immersed you want to be. 

cool

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo

or wait a couple of weeks until it becomes F2P. As far as I know its supposed to happen "this summer"

If you really like it you can pay for 1 month then go F2P afterwords

Dont really play anymore but have a look at this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUkFGbZ7QAA

From 1 min and onwards

Edit: No oneshotting as far as I can see. Quite complex and skilled PVP

this is really good news - both for AoC and for Funcom as a company.