Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

[Shawn Zipay]

In a period of less than six months, Age of Conan has gone from over 700,000 gamers to virtually none. How did this ever come to be? Nelson Williams at Vox ex Machina gives his own take on how the death of Age of Conan came to pass.

When you first login to Age of Conan, you’ll wake up on the shores of a lush island, overflowing with quests, voice actors, plotlines, and wonderful vistas. Even bitter veterans who wouldn’t piss out Funcom if the entire company were on fire admit that this starting zone, Tortage, is a great experience. Tortage lasts for about twenty levels out of eighty. Then, you step away from the jungle harbours and into the wide world, and that’s when Funcom shouts “Sucker!” in your face before running off laughing into the night with your money. They give you the finger the whole time.(...)

In the end, all that is left are guilds of gankers, hiding in grinding caves and waiting for someone to unstealth. What began among the jeweled towers of Aquilonia ends then, here in caves and dirt. And brown. Lots and lots of brown.

Essentially, Age of Conan was a fantastic title, if you only ever played up to level 20. Let us also not forget that Funcom still plans on releasing Age of Conan for the Xbox 360.

Source (via Kotaku)

[Kotae]

Re: Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

It's just absurd that a game can go from that many subscribers to so little. But I guess that's what happens when you don't flesh out the second part of the game. Maybe if they had spent a little more time polishing the main areas, they'd be able to get a bigger subscriber-base, and do fairly well. Instead, what people got was a fantastic beginning area, and a lackluster rest of the game.

[Webs961]

Re: Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

The podcast crew needs to talk about this one. I'm interested to hear Jason's take on this because, if I remember correctly, he kept spouting its praises.

[Corkum]

Re: Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

I'm not terribly surprised that it died so quickly. I bought it, played it till the end of Tortage and have not picked it up since. It really wasn't that rewarding to play. Oh, and I hating running around in a leather skirt the whole time.

[imported_Whiskey]

Re: Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

The podcast crew needs to talk about this one. I'm interested to hear Jason's take on this because, if I remember correctly, he kept spouting its praises.

He's sounded more like a broken man in the last few podcasts whenever AoC comes up...

[MrKLM]

Re: Age of Conan - A Post-Mortem

his leather map will keep him company