Age of Conan now free-to-play, 'Unchained'

Funcom's barbaric MMORPG is now free to download and play, letting you venture into the violent Hyborian Age without paying a penny.

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As promised, Funcom's barbaric MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has switched to the increasingly popular free-to-play model. Age of Conan: Unchained, as it's now called, is available now.

As is standard for the model, Age of Conan will be supported both by microtransactions and an optional premium subscriptions. Non-paying players will have access to fewer character classes, areas, dungeons, raids, character slots, bank space, and other assorted disadvantages. Premuium subscriptions cost the same $15 monthly fee they always have.

"The great potential provided by the hybrid business model, and with the ever growing interest for free-to-play games, bringing 'Age of Conan' into this market is undoubtedly the logical next step for the title," said senior VP of sales & marketing Morten Larssen in the announcement.

"For the team working on the game, going free-to-play is great because it opens up this great fantasy world to an even larger audience," added creative director and executive producer Craig Morrison. "Not only can players now enjoy the content for free, we will continue to add new gameplay features and new content and make improvements to the game."

The 'Unchained' revamp was initially announced under the name 'Age of Conan: Unrated,' reflecting the studio's intent to create new content that's "even more true" to the "barbaric, brutal and sexy setting" of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories. One assumes that someone at Funcom pointed out the term "unrated" is more commonly associated with explicit pornography than violent video games.

Here's a trailer celebrating today's free-to-play launch:

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 1, 2011 6:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Age of Conan now free-to-play, 'Unchained'.

    Funcom's barbaric MMORPG is now free to download and play, letting you venture into the violent Hyborian Age without paying a penny.

    • reply
      July 1, 2011 6:57 AM

      Anyone know if this free to play model is similar to LOTRO? I really like the way Turbine handles that game.

      • reply
        July 1, 2011 6:59 AM

        http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=233500 is a comparison between free & premium AoC. I'm not sure how it compares to LOTRO though.

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        July 1, 2011 7:34 AM

        It is a very similar style of F2P from what I've read. Of course, I haven't been in game yet to check it out myself. I did install the client over-night though, so I can hit it up once I get home after work.
        Really looking forward to messing around in this.

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          July 1, 2011 7:57 AM

          Cool let me know, I'm just a casual player maybe 6-7 hours a week with a friend so LOTRO model was perfect, pay for a quest pack here and there to keep leveling up I've spent about $18 since I started playing the game last December.

          Ding ding ding ice cream truck ice cream truck

    • reply
      July 1, 2011 9:54 AM

      This thread is useless without picts

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      July 1, 2011 10:05 AM

      Is this game any good?!

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        July 1, 2011 10:08 AM

        At launch only the first 20 levels were good. Haven't touched it since.

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          July 1, 2011 10:15 AM

          I played the trial to 20 with a friend. Why was it no good beyond that? Did the questing stop like Global Agenda? I really liked GA until I found out there was no questing after 17 or 18 cant quite remember.

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            July 1, 2011 10:21 AM

            That's actually exactly the cutoff.

            Once you get past 20 (the noob zone), it's pretty much straight into a standard MMO game complete with boar killing quests.

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              July 1, 2011 10:24 AM

              So the questing is pretty much over after that? I usually play with a friend in MMO games and we are not into raiding or going extreme we pretty much just share the same quests and go to town.

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            July 1, 2011 10:25 AM

            Basically after level 20 the voice acting for the quests stops outside of a few quests. And at launch there were some leveling gaps and buggy quests that couldn't be completed. It is a much better overall game now than at launch the 20-40 zone they added for the expansion is nice to level in.

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        July 1, 2011 3:32 PM

        It is much better now, I played at launch and quit after level 36, that's the level range questing actually died off at, but you had to go looking for them. I re-subbed last year and was able to hit 80. There were so many quests that there was never a point where I didn't have at least 5 in my log.

        The big problem was end-game. The raids were pretty boring and I didn't like the PvP in AoC so I stopped playing not too long after I hit 80.

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      July 1, 2011 10:45 AM

      hmm, may give this another shot, subed for like 2 months at release, meh

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        July 1, 2011 3:11 PM

        then again the F2P model (at least for this game) only allows freebies to play 4 of the classes. I don't mind the other restrictions but class restrictions have always rubbed me the wrong way

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      July 1, 2011 11:11 AM

      Now this could be interesting...

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      July 1, 2011 1:23 PM

      anyone see a download link anywhere?

    • reply
      July 3, 2011 4:22 PM

      let me guess, its free, but it will be micro transactions out the ass unless you want everything to be extremely limited?

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