Subscribe to Age of Conan and receive The Secret World beta access

by Brooke Pilley Nov 11th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Horror, Age of Conan, News items, The Secret World

Funcom recently announced their plans to get older players back into Age of Conan and boost multi-month subscription rates. Players with inactive subscriptions are invited to retry the game for two weeks and receive a double experience bonus. Those who sign up for multi-month subscriptions will receive these additional bonuses:

3-month sub: Beta access to The Secret World
6-month sub: Beta access + in-game helmet that boosts experience gain by 10%
12-month sub: Beta access + helmet + a free copy of Conan expansion Rise of the Godslayer

Age of Conan has received many updates in the year and a half since its release. However, MMO players can be an unforgiving bunch, so these incentives to give the game another shot are quite necessary. And it's extra-smart given all the excitement around The Secret World. Considering how many players would be willing to pay for beta access, a subscription to a vastly improved AoC is just icing on the cake.

For those interested in catching up on AoC, check out the most recent game director's letter, new content, and revised subscription options. Have a burning question for Funcom about this or anything else? Ask it here.

Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, Arnold-Schwarzenegger, beta, bonus, erling-ellingsen, eurogamer, funcom, subscription, the-secret-world, tsw

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Trodomir said on 1:04PM 11-11-2009

Boy are they desperate.

This is another game that should go F2P with a store.

THAC0 said on 1:05PM 11-11-2009

Pretty good deal. if you sign up for a year you get the x-pac free. thats a good discount.

starzzareblind said on 1:08PM 11-11-2009

It's a pretty good deal, free expansion, 10% XP boost, and beta access to a different game that sounds very cool.

Curtis said on 1:09PM 11-11-2009

Plus ROTGS looks freaking amazing.

Venekor said on 1:12PM 11-11-2009

This just proves to me that The secret world will be crap and can't stand on it's own merits.

steve said on 1:54PM 11-11-2009

huh your making comments about a game that not even in beta yet?

Firebreak said on 2:09PM 11-11-2009

I think you have it reversed, Age of Conan is doing so poorly that they need the excitement of The Secret World to get the subs up.

CCon99 said on 3:16PM 11-11-2009

This is no different then what Champions Online did when they tried to pimp out STO beta access to get people to subscribe to CO because they were desperate for subs. Just like they had a free weekend not even 2 months after launch. Ouch.

DeathMutant said on 1:14PM 11-11-2009

I left AoC a while ago and am thinking it is time to give it another shot. They appear to have come a long ways since then but my concern is current server populations. Anyone care to comment on that? Is it still relatively easy to get pick-up groups for elite content?

ps. Even if WAR survives another 3 months or so they better have some epic-level changes before I would reconsider revisiting it.

spamero said on 1:29PM 11-11-2009

Everyone who pays to get into beta is an idiot. And of top of that everybody who pays to get into beta by _funcom_ (really can't stop laughing) is an hopeless idiot.

steve said on 1:54PM 11-11-2009

and people who call other people idiot what are they?

philfest said on 2:01PM 11-11-2009

The statement might be cruel, but it doesn't mean it's wrong. Caveat emptor, especially when dealing with FunCom.

Cameron said on 1:38PM 11-11-2009

The Secret World is one of only two MMOs I'm looking forward to in the coming years, but I still wouldn't subscribe to AoC. Regardless of any changes made to the gameplay, it still has the worst visual style and I couldn't stand looking at it for 3 hours, let alone 3 months.

THAC0 said on 3:41PM 11-11-2009

Are you joking? AoC has the most jaw dropping graphics of any MMO Iv'e played and I've played them all. I am floored everytime i log in.

Nint said on 2:02PM 11-11-2009

It's great to see these games providing more and more and fighting to keep customers.

That only serves to benefit us, the players.

Brian! said on 2:04PM 11-11-2009

Have people learned nothing from Cryptic?!?! Don't resub in hopes for beta access. That is a sad road to take.

Beta is always a limited volume and limited time event. By use beta access to help sell their game, they are selling you something that says "guaranteed" but really means: "At some point in the beta process, perhaps even the last day of open beta, you will get in. But you may not even get in then, because our servers might not handle you or you might in a login queue that is too long for you to wait. We might even run our beta servers for 3 hours from 8am to 11am that happens to be when you are working/sleeping/schooling or whatever"

Just head on over to the Star Trek Online forums and you can find thousands and thousands of posts from people who are still upset that they don't have their beta access they paid into.

@Funcom - you just signed up for a major PR mess. Way to go. You could have just blocked off a special month and called it something magical "supporter month" where you use a perk and let everyone in all at once then. Maybe even let the people keep their characters to the live servers.

Mr Lee said on 9:11AM 11-13-2009

Dude you have NO IDEA what Funcom will do with the Secret World beta.

Are you some kind of prophet or something? You can predict the every move of a company before they know it themselves just because you read a snippet of news on a blog?

It's not even close to being at the beta stage yet so you don't know how and when people will be given access.

Brian! said on 12:49PM 11-13-2009

I know enough to know that beta is for development of a game. I know that selling spots to beta turns something that was, traditionally, a job of playtesters to a service that people are paying for.

No prophet, but I would be willing to bet you a solid $100 that when their beta launches, there will be plenty of complaining by people who bought into it who don't have the access they feel they deserve being a paid customer and all.

Cryptic is currently in that stage with Star Trek Online. They sold beta access to get people into Champions. Their beta thread with people wondering why they don't have access after 3 weeks is over 3700 posts long. Plus another few thousand other bitching in more threads. Clearly, it is a heated topic.

Personally, I think there are some better ways to spin special access to the game without trying to pimp beta spots. Leave the beta to people who really want to test and to the people who fit the demographics the developers need. At some point, similar to an open beta, let the special access people in.

Bluefunk said on 2:50PM 11-11-2009

Some people think this is desperation. ...

...I think FC are being smart. They are offering deals ahead of others and with a level head AoC truely is a great game now - no argument. don;t listen to the previously burnt player (who DID have a vlaid point) but AoC is a really fantastic game now!!! :)

AOC ROCKS! :)

Joey_the_mad26 said on 3:13PM 11-11-2009

With the greatest respect to those who think this is a non-sensical choice on behalf of both Funcom and those parties interested I would have to disagree. Yes, one has to take into account when making a choice whether or not to participate in any one of the three offers that AoC had one the worst launches in recent memory, akin only to Anarchy Online. However, much like AO, the development team fought it out, replaced people who were only holding the game back, and molded a product that is now really quite well done even if it still does not deliver on everything the original promotions indicated it would have.

Now, for the record, I can not play AoC on my own gaming PC, as it was specifically designed for World of Warcraft and can not handle Conan's graphical and memory requirements even with all the improvements made to the client. None the less, I have played the game on again off again on the Rigs of one friend or another who have either continued their subscription or attempted the free trials at one point. Having given the game a solid try at release via equal circumstances I can say the AoC has indeed come along way, and one need only read Massively's recents posts and even the Funcom AoC forums to see evidence of this. Though please take note that there are still people unhappy with the product, sometimes in verbally abusive capacities.

Funcom has done a great deal to not only deliver as much as was promised, but also to provide a game people can and do enjoy, and for those on the fence as whether or not to give it a go, I would humbly suggest that you at least give the trial a go if you have a PC that can handle it. You may be surprised to discover that you will acutally enjoy the experiance, and should you chose to continue on into a paid sub format, picking one of the offered special deals is only, as the primary post states, 'icing on the cake.' It is my sincere hope that AoC can get a helping hand in these difficult times of the MMO genre, as it was and is a game that tried something new and in some cases succeded but in others sadly did not, a fault who's blame can be placed at the feet of people who are now, thankfully, no longer involved with the project directly.

As to the Secret World. This is a game that is, essentially, the future of Funcom. If the game fails, there is little doubt in the minds of many that Funcom will cease to exsist or be swallowed up by a European or US company of greater mass and profit. As such, one can not blindly assume that Funcom will permit the game to suffer the same mistakes as AoC before and directly after launch. The game's creator, Ragnar Tornquist (creator of The Longest Journey series and the man responsible for AO pulling itself out of the gutter) has essentially stated, bluntly in some cases, that he will not permit Funcom to either A) Make the same mistakes they made with Conan's development, or B) Keep gamers out of the loop as to the status of the game. This Beta offer is one of several plans to ensure TSW has a strong base, so as to make sure the game gets the attention it will likely need before launch given it's scope. At the same time, Funcom has to attempt to garner some measure of profit. To close, AoC has come a long way, and deserves, even with the number of bitter gamers who felt burned, a chance to prove its worth once more and find at least a quasi solid foot hold in the modern market. If you are looking forward to the TSW, and you want it to succede, helping keep AoC, and in turn Funcom, on it's feet would not be a poor course of action. However, these are my observations, and I would never demand these actions of anyone or question the depth of their collective intelligence if they chose not to. The choice is yours.