Dwindling server populations
It's never a good sign but it almost always happens: somewhere in the lifecycle of a MMORPG free trial play period is offered.
This is the case now with Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. According to many reports, the game has been losing players steadily, since release. In an effort to perhaps draw some new wanna-be barbarians, Funcomm is now offering a free 7 day trial in "the most savage world ever."
While this gamer has not played since its release, it would seem likely that now a days, Age of Conan is far less buggy, and has more late-game content, than everyone was complaining about when it came out almost a year ago now, on May 18, 2008.
If you have a beefy enough rig you might want to give them game a spin and see what it is all about. Here are the requirements:
Minimum configuration (1024x768, detail reduced)
- OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz or equivalent
- RAM: 1GB
- Video card: ATI Radeon 9800/nVidia GeForce 6600
- DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
- Hard drive space: 32G
Recommended configuration (Up to 1280X960, most features on)
- OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalent
- RAM: 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2
- Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or equivalent
- Video memory: 512MB
- DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
- Hard drive space: 32Gb
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hence their failure.
+ stubbornness to keep the boat afloat.
The odds of making a successful, subscription based YAMFRIES ( Yet Another MMORPG Featuring Rangers, Imps, Elves or Sorcerers) game is about 1 in 100 it seems.
Probably no one would agree with me, but I'd say the entire genre of the MMORPG won't really even hit its first big stride for another 10-14 years, and in about 20 years, the vast majority of games will be MMORPGs.
I cant stand MMOs, generally..nothing against them generally speaking I just dont like them..I hope your predicition doesn't come true.
http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/age-of-conan/trial/
Ya 7 days seems to short. 30 days I could see being too much -- people might get tired of the game before wanting to cough up cash. 14 days sounds just right.
One would think that if they're hard up for new players that they would extend that at least a week, 14 days is the length of the WoW trial at least. :/ even then thats still short changing things.
45 days is far too much. Two weeks is about the max I can see being fiscally responsible. 2 weeks is enough for someone to get really into the game, but not enough to have experienced all it has to offer.
This game actually DID seem interesting, but I tend to avoid MMOs that ask for $$$ (and generally avoid MMOs in general, Shaiya being an exception).
I meet and exceed the recommended specs....Maybe when my new 1TB HDD coems in, I'll give it a go...