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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: Low-level Characters to be Purged in Server Merge Preparations
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
In preparing for the upcoming Age of Conan server merges, Funcom has announced that characters below level 20 on inactive accounts (7+ months inactive) will be deleted.
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Image Credit: Zefalcon
Former customers are being informed in advance with via e-mail, in case you want to you know, subscribe to save your poor newbie.
Massively.com contacted Erling Ellingsen for comment on this development who informed them that the deletions are being made in order to "free space in the database."
More details on the server merges, including a FAQ, should be made available within the week.
Have you received one of these e-mails today? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
i recived two emails one for each of my accounts and that has made my mind up i will never replay AoC again.
I was there in the begining and have max lvl toons and the reason i stoped playing was cause the game had no high lvl content but i allways said i will retry it when it has more content. One of the reasons i would go back was to play all the toons i made which i managed to get some really cool names but now they getting deleted all i can say is good bye to what could of been a great game.
Is this really a professional move? I think not.
No one likes to loose their chars, no matter what level.
So people who spent 50$ (or collector 80$) are just bogging down your database huh? Be professional and spend money on new database technology. Shadowbane had a blip of your subs for YEARS and my char was never wiped until the first time the game "shutdown"
So how can a game that is arguably making money jusify this?
I play all ghame
Only the low level ones are being deleted. the ones under level 20.
Not feeling the love from Funcom here. A stealthy way to purge and close servers? Game over for Conan by 2012?
I had just reinstalled AoC days before getting this email informing me that my character was pending deletion. My interest in Conan had been stirred by the "Most improved MMO of 2009" story here. It had been my intention to wait for a 'come back to Conan' deal then resubscribe since I had just missed the last promotion in December.
My character was level 19, and quite frankly I don't want to go through Tortage again. Looks like I'll be uninstalling instead.
Really bad move FunCom.
Not a very good move in my opinion. Hard to win back more players if your deleting their characters
. But lets face it, not exaclty one of the most thought out MMO projects from the beginning.
They do the same thing in Anarchy Online every so often to free up names for current players that are sitting dormant on level 1 bank toons, usually toons level 10 and under are wiped in these purges. So it's nothing new. Also, if you haven't played in 7+months, that means you didn't even bother to login for the free 14 days return trial, so why should they expect you'll return in the future? They've given advance notice on their site and are sending e-mails as well, so noone can say they didn't know.
All in all, it's nothing worth crying about for those who genuinely have an interest in playing AoC.
Doesn't really bother me, I left long ago, no reason they shouldn't delete any low level alts I had to free up names and clean up DB's.
If I did come back I'm sure my level 50 characters would still be there and that's fine with me.
As I recall, you could blow through Tortage in just a few hours so no big deal really.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I can't believe people are seriously crying about this.
You can go 1-20 in ~4 hours. They're only deleting sub 20 characters that are over 7 months old.
Cry more, seriously.
Let me get this straight:
You reinstalled AoC on your computer with the intentions of then just letting it sit there until you were "invited back"? That makes no sense. Most people don't install a game unless they intend to play it. And if you intended to play it, your level 19 character would be saved from deletion the minute you logged him in. So where exacttly are we supposed to find the symapthy, outside of in the dictionary between "shit" and "syphilus"?
So now you've installed and uninstalled a 25GB file just for the fun of it and then want to cry about it as well. Wierd.
Mind e-mailing me a screen cap of the e-mail for use with this story? Send to mikeb@mmorpg.com. Thanks!
ya i got the email as well, i got a lvl 80 DT. and some lvl 17s somewhere on the account, i dont play it anymore as my DT was so damn gimped in general i just gave up waiting for the fixes.
so delete my lowbies no carin here, i wont be going back anyways, even for the free trial.
You obviously have an inability to read teh only chars getting deleted are lvl 20 or lower on your account. If you want to go back to play your max level toons guess what...they'll stillb e there.
Of course..this is still a pretty crappy move they could easily transfer the characters and simply wipe their names to something generic if the main reason is server merges.
While I understand the technical reasons and even it can free up some names for new players deleting characters is a no no in the MMO world, unless you don't care for you players.
However with a good PR and a nice bait for players coming back, like faster XP tokens + bonus vanity items automatically given to player whom characters have been deleted, it could be accepted.
Complaining about this is freaking pathetic. It shows that you'll complain if funcom SNEEZES.
Level 1 through 20 is a damn BREEZE. And I've done it like 6 times (and I don't have a single character on AoC at max, I'm terrible at leveling) and every time I do the 1 to 20 its always SOMEWHAT entertaining.
If you complain about this, jesus lord... what on earth is wrong with you.
Level 20 seems a bit on the high side to me, although I confess I don't play the game.
Usually when companies do this it's around level 5 and lower inactive characters, and trial accounts that didn't roll over to subs to free up some names and database resources.
Seems to me it's rather soon in the life of the game to be doing this as well. I don't think AC1did a purge until around year 4 or 5 of the game. What is it, barely year 2 of AoC? Just looked it up, May 2008 release. Just over a year and a half....very odd.
I played AO for a few years and I don't recall FC ever doing this...*shrug* Not saying they didn't, I just don't recall it.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
It certainly did'nt took me 4 hours to get to 20. Maybe if you've rerolled several time before, but not for the average players. Normally i dont have a problem with these kind of purge, but level 20 seems rather high, 10 would have been fine.
Complaining about this is pointless. First off, it's characters level 20 and below, second, it's seven months inactive! For Christ sake! If you haven't played the game for seven months, do you really care if your character BELOW level 20 gets deleted? Buncha freaking whiners is what you are.
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
Both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan have a 3 month policy. After 3 months, your toon can be wiped. FC however does not enforce that policy for the most part and only wipe every couple years at the rate they've done so far. So perhaps you would prefer they enforce their 3 month policy instead of only doing it when it's needed?
And as far as being a "no no", I suggest you check the fine print for most other mmos out there. You'll find the same policies. SOE has a 3 month policy on their games, yet like FC rarely wipe any toons. SquareEnix has a 3 month policy for FFXI and they DO wipe the account after that three months ( although you can call them and they will SOMETIMES be able to bring your account back ).
/couldn't agree more
its not hard to get to 20, apart from that, characters over 7 months old, THATS OVER HALF A YEAR!
What a bunch of babies. You havent played the damn character in over half a year and it takes 3 hours to replace it and people are uninstalling? People are just retarded...This is why no one plays games for years anymore.
I see trolls don't make it past level 20, seriously if you couldn't make it to level 21, I doubt you would come back to the game and I can't wait to get my hands on one of those reserved names that has been rotting on a level one alt of someone not subbing to the game anymore.
Rise above hate.
Ignore fan boys.
Both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan have a 3 month policy. After 3 months, your toon can be wiped. FC however does not enforce that policy for the most part and only wipe every couple years at the rate they've done so far. So perhaps you would prefer they enforce their 3 month policy instead of only doing it when it's needed?
And as far as being a "no no", I suggest you check the fine print for most other mmos out there. You'll find the same policies. SOE has a 3 month policy on their games, yet like FC rarely wipe any toons. SquareEnix has a 3 month policy for FFXI and they DO wipe the account after that three months ( although you can call them and they will SOMETIMES be able to bring your account back ).
ive been inactive for over half a year (and that two or three times) and never had a single character deleted ^^
edit: thats for AO
Both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan have a 3 month policy. After 3 months, your toon can be wiped. FC however does not enforce that policy for the most part and only wipe every couple years at the rate they've done so far. So perhaps you would prefer they enforce their 3 month policy instead of only doing it when it's needed?
And as far as being a "no no", I suggest you check the fine print for most other mmos out there. You'll find the same policies. SOE has a 3 month policy on their games, yet like FC rarely wipe any toons. SquareEnix has a 3 month policy for FFXI and they DO wipe the account after that three months ( although you can call them and they will SOMETIMES be able to bring your account back ).
ive been inactive for over half a year (and that two or three times) and never had a single character deleted ^^
edit: thats for AO
They only deleted level 5 and below that were inactive for over a year the first "purge" they did a few years ago when Sil was Game Director. The one coming up (they'll be sending out e-mails before it's done ) will be for level 10 and below. I've never had a toon deleted in AO either.
But many people did have their toons deleted, and they cried for a bit until they realized they had no grounds to cry, and then they moved on. Same as will happen here with AoC.
Yeah, got their fun little message as well. Kinda depressing, although I'm not even sure I have any characters below level 20. Mostly just depressing because I've been waiting till they offer another deal (ala the Secret World beta access/free expansion) before resubscribing.
Still, bloody messed up way to get people to resubscribe.
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