Age of Conan Rolls Out Limited Guest Pass Program

July 23, 2008 4:20 PM

Nearly two months after Age of Conan hit retailers, developer Funcom has launched "the first part" of its buddy program for the PC MMO, allowing select buyers to invite non-subscribing friends into the game for up to seven days.

Though all retail copies of the mature multiplayer role playing game came packed with the promise of a 7-day guest pass, only those who purchased the Collector's Edition can currently obtain passes from their account page. Up to five guest passes are available for CE owners.

The program "will soon open up for the Buddy key found in the standard retail box as well," Funcom wrote on the game's official community site.

The studio suggests that friends lend out their Age of Conan install discs to invited buddies, though it is also offering "a $2.99/€2.99 client download with 3 additional days of playtime to cover the download time."

Chris Faylor

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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judge

 reply
July 23, 2008 4:33 PM

I wonder how many people didn't stick around after their initial month. I know several friends and I didn't. Good potential, but not enough to make me want to stay around.

Kind of wild after they had such a huge number of copies sold originally. Guess gamers are hungry for a new mmorpg
- byorn
  
   reply
  July 23, 2008 4:35 PM
  
  I think the combat system and setting just really appealed. Conan is a popular brand. Honestly it was pretty fun for a while, but that while was not longer than a month. However that is long enough for many people to get their friends to buy it.
  - Vincent Grayson
    
     reply
    July 23, 2008 4:58 PM
    
    Is Conan really a popular brand? There's been one shitty console game recently, a couple cheesy action movies 20 years ago, and a series of books that I don't think most people have read.
    
    I don't think it was Conan so much as the promise of a "mature" MMO and the combat...but it really just turned out to be more of the same, albeit with significantly less polish than WoW.
    - vertdang
      
       reply
      July 23, 2008 10:27 PM
      
      Don't forget the comic that only ran for like 60 years in various incarnations.
- Wombat Woo
  
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  July 23, 2008 4:53 PM
  
  I was really enjoying it but it was more like a step up from guild wars. There was just way too much instancing.
  - fmellish
    
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    July 23, 2008 5:30 PM
    
    Agreed, the instancing killed it for me.
    
    I was so in love with this game until I went to go find my friend who was not standing in the place he swore he was standing in. After some head scratching we found out he had his own instance of tortage even though we were already on the same realm. And all of a sudden I had flashbacks to Guildwars.
    
    Additionally the fact that the main story quest is instanced also killed it for me.
    
    To all you MMORPG devs out there, listen, if you instance anything in the public gameworld I will hate your game! Stop doing that. you can instance the dungeons fine, but nothing else. Wow has the correct formula, just follow it, and improve upon it, but don't change the core formula.
    
    </rant>
    - fmellish
      
       reply
      July 23, 2008 5:33 PM
      
      And "mature" my ass. Just because you can see some nipple and the NPCs swear doesn't make it mature. I was really looking to this game to provide more mature material. Unless after level 20 the prostitutes start working. As of level 20 they are all broken, they don't do anything for/to me.
      
      This is why I really liked The Witcher. Sure it was just blurry cutscenes, but you got to engage in real life activities.
      
      </rant>
    - judge
      
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      July 23, 2008 8:10 PM
      
      I went in thinking the same thing you did about instances, however on a PVP realm and leveling solo I think it eliminated a lot of the aggravation I would have faced. I rarely ever switched instances to avoid being griefed, but I think instances kept groups from being more than an annoyance
      
      ah well
    - fffortune
      
       reply
      July 23, 2008 9:52 PM
      
      I was anticipating this game as well, but as soon as I heard about the heavy instancing of outdoor zones, any and all interest I had in the game just died.
      
      I've played and had access to the game since, but I just can't muster any excitement for it at all.
- FTY
  
   reply
  July 24, 2008 4:36 AM
  
  I took the early access thing for 5 EUR I think, which you got if you pre-ordered, didn't like it, never bought the game, didn't mind the 5 EUR tho, was a nice experience up to level 25, then I realized, this is going to be the same for 55 more levels, no thanks.
- Matt Burris
  
   reply
  July 24, 2008 4:36 PM
  
  I lasted a little bit over a week. From 20 to 25, it got very boring and showed no signs of letting up.