News: Age of Conan - New Preivews and a Press Release

Durham, USA – May 13, 2008 – Funcom and Eidos are proud to confirm some of the impressive figures powering the Age of Conan launch, and the two companies are happy to reveal that the Age of Conan Beta has passed 1 million sign-ups! As one of the most anticipated MMO’s ever, the 1 million mark confirms the amazing interest in the game.



“Funcom has not been able to find any higher beta numbers for MMOs in the western world,” said Morten Larssen, VP of Funcom Sales and Marketing. “We believe it represents the largest ever beta sign-up figure in the history of the genre.”



In addition to the incredible beta numbers, Funcom confirms that almost 800.000 gamers have signed up for the Clan of Conan newsletter. The hundreds of thousands following the development of the game have moreover resulted in a rapidly growing forum community. Last week Funcom registered over 115.000 posts on the official forums, across four languages. This comes in addition to Age of Conan discussions on external forums and in other languages.



In 2008, Funcom has also seen a tremendous growth in the amount of people who visit the official Age of Conan websites. Since January 2008, Funcom has registered more than 5 million unique visitors, from more than 200 countries. Last week alone over 725.000 unique visitors came to the Age of Conan sites.



The coverage and interest on external gaming sites has skyrocketed as a result of the growing anticipation. Age of Conan has topped numerous charts as the most read about, most popular and most anticipated PC game in development. As an example, GameSpot.com has Age of Conan as the #1 most read about upcoming game over the last month, on any format. The game has seen a similar interest on genre specific sites, including being the #1 most popular MMO over the last 12 months on MMORPG.com. Print gaming publications have also covered the game widely, and the game now has over 20 covers, including the coveted cover of PC Gamer US.



“How all of our strong figures convert into later sales and subscription figures is still unknown,” continued Larssen. “But our pre-order numbers in some important retail chains track as among the highest for any MMO launched.”



Age of Conan launches 20th of May in North America / Oceania and 23rd of May in Europe.



The previews come from
Games Radar:

I suspect that if anything keeps me playing Age of Conan over time, it will be the combat. I am not a level-grinder or a guild-joiner, which is why I’ve never stuck with any MMO for longer than a few months. Conan’s destiny-quest aspect - which you’ll return to every 10 levels - could be enough to keep me playing, though I’d have been happier with an every-five-levels scheme. The combat system and my ongoing quest to deliver decapitations is enough to keep me hooked for a while, as is the promise of a mount I can use in combat. Given that a mercenary system will let even loners like me participate in sieges (which we’ll cover later in the week), and that it seems pretty easy to find groups on a quest-by-quest basis, maybe I’ll be able to amuse myself in between finding out why I’m marked and memory-less.

and IGN:

While the game is still in beta, we did not run into any technical difficulties throughout our travels. No falling through the world or anything like that. If a gripe (more of a pet peeve really) is to be mentioned, it would have to be the typos in the feat and spell descriptions. It may seem like a very small and trivial observance, and the game is still in beta, so perhaps Funcom will go over those again prior to launch.



At the end of the day MMO gamers are ready for something new right now, something a little bit different. Is Age of Conan that something we're all looking for? A lowbie Necromancer who gets stuck in bushes and drowns while afk is probably not the right person to ask. But upon Age of Conan's launch you may just see us hanging our virtual hats in Hyboria. See you at the end of the Necro's oar.