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Age of conan f2p changes
Doug_B
Member UncommonPosts: 153
MEMBERSHIP NOT REQUIRED
Experience true freedom to play Age of Conan! We’ve listened to your feedback and made a huge change to the way the game works: Membership is no longer required to enter any area! That’s right--you may now access any area you own, regardless of your membership status. You no longer need to keep buying access passes or membership in order to enter Raids, Unchained Dungeons, or playfields from expansions you already bought. Please remember that you still need to own the appropriate pack (such as Rise of the Godslayer) in order to access these areas. Dragon’s Spine has become its own pack that is sold separately, but if you’ve ever spent money through us on Age of Conan before this update, we’ve given you the pack for free!
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They also revamped the membership , new raid queue and login rewards/
This is a big step for funcom and they for the first time I think ever, have listened to the players.
Comments
The F2P gold cap has been bumped to 10g iirc.
About a month after the game came out they did an update on the drop rate of BoE epics that randomly drop around the game world. However, the guy punching in the numbers fucked up and made the drop rate for bat demons something like 75% and there were a ton of bat demons in one tiny spot in Poitan. I found this out by accident and farmed the shit out of them for hours, creating new toons just to hold all the weapons.
Then I quit the game for about a year. When I came back they had removed world drop weapons from the game, and none were on the trader, so I started selling them one at a time for like 300 gold each and I made so much gold in one month that I've never needed to farm it again.
Doug: it was already covered at the launch. http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/view/news/read/40398/Age-of-Conan-Raid-Finder-Membership-Updates-Loyalty-Program-More.html
Frodo, all the leveling part is available for the f2p folks since years (except a few dungeons), and now it just got better (those dungeons are now included too
Lateris, yes, you can now play in Khitai if you have the expansion, without a sub. But, (see H0urg1ass below)
Rhoklaw (and mcmurphy), the gold limit is 10 gold since the second f2p revamp years ago. Sadly it remained at 10 gold after this last change as well, which is bad news to f2p players because (see H0urg1ass below)
This. While on paper changes sound good, it was told to Funcom countless times, the 10 gold limit really puts the proverbial arrow to the knee of the whole "sub is not mandatory anymore" change. Still, they went on with it.
(Some suggested maybe a cap raise to 50 gold, that is still a restrictive cap, but at least gives some elbow room for f2p players at the endgame. Not much, just check H0urg1ass's post about 1 item on sale for 300 gold, years ago
Sure, f2p players now can access and play those endgame content without a sub. But with the 10 gold limit they won't be able to do much... prices there are huge, lots of items are above 10 gold, income is fast and they barely can spend it on anything so most of those gold will go straight to the escrow... and no way to reach their escrow gold, except through sub.
I've been testing the changes the last couple days, and my initial thoughts are still the same which I estimated right after the launch in the other thread: This membership revamp is aimed for the new players, or the new leveling alt characters.
Playing through the game to the cap as f2p was a decent ride so far too, now it's even better with the access to the AA system. (though the 10 gold limit starts to become an issue around level 60 and above, as it was planned years ago, as an incentive to sub for the endgame. Yep, now you don't need to sub. Then why keep the incentive? Funcom logic
Leveling as a subscriber is now simply a breeze with all the bonuses. Not to mention new subscribers have equal footing since the Loyalty system "resetted" the counter, a new player with 3 months sub will be on the same page as a veteran with 3 months sub, regardless of the 8 years of sub behind its back... (and that's just the smallest wound veteran players received with this change)
So, the leveling part is better now, for both payment options. Endgame, however, is still sub-only. Ok, sure, now that f2p can access the content without a sub, it isn't mandatory by the letter.... But in reality, playing the endgame as a free player is quite annoying... (and if you have multiple characters, it's simply pointless to play without a sub: buying all the character slots, the inventory, the Trader slots to all characters would cost such a sum which is enough for continuously subbing several years - and don't forget the 10 gold limit which is still there if you play for free).
To be honest, personally my regular AoC schedule won't change by this revamp, except some bitter taste in the mouth due to the price increase in the Store, and the remove of the stipend. I still will subscribe when I'm in the AoC mood, since f2p is too restrictive if you have a lot of alts and want to play at the end.
If not the end, just the leveling, that is fine as f2p, but that's not a news, it already is since years. I leveled a f2p ToS last year to 70ish, but then had to hop back to LotRO - festival started
There have been bugs in the game for a good half a decade now that they simply refuse to address.
The crafting revamp which has been promised for half a decade was essentially dropped off of the development schedule completely after Bylos bailed on the game.
They made Tier 3, 3.5 and 4 much easier to complete by the majority of guilds, but then they didn't reduce the difficulty level of any K6 dungeons, so those are practically useless now as everyone hits 80 and jumps right into T4 with shit greens. K6 token prices need to be halved and some of their difficulty levels need to be dropped so that everyone can do them rather than just the 4 that everyone does and other 10 ignored completely.
To be honest, what this game needs is Gaute Godager back in charge. His vision is what created the phenomenal base game that Craig and Bylos and company have done jack squat to improve. Gaute may have overpromised, but he only under delivered because of corporate getting in the way. I think he would have eventually righted the ship if they hadn't made him walk the plank.
1) Most players have them maxxed out now. All of your veteran AoC's have full points in every AA and hundreds of unspent points. The disparity in DPS output between someone with full AA's and a brand new level 80 is pretty high. Some classes are worse about this than others such as the Bear Shaman, Dark Templar, Herald of Xotli, and Ranger which become exponentially more powerful with the correct AA's.
2) Many AA's are so game changing for a class that bringing them to a raid before you have them is completely pointless. If your Dark Templar doesn't have Void of Madness AA, then don't even group with him until you do. The same for several other key AA's for key classes.
AAs now available for everybody, you don't even need to own the Godslayer expansion for it (before the change you only got AA points as a subscribed Godslayer owner)
So, free players can pour the xp onto AA by default.
Sub players gets more xp (faster AA gain), can use the time training from level 20, and gets bonus points during leveling. (and yep, veterans at 80 gets nothing from the latter two, since they're already at the cap
edit: the majority of the daily login chart is also a simple chunk of Mastery xp, for AA. Basically even as a starter, free character, you will reach level 80 with plenty of AA perks already unlocked. As said above, the new model is more aimed for the leveling characters, to smoothly carry them to the endgame...
ok cool, I have all the expansions, but it always bothered my everytime I played I had to sub just to advance my character. Good to know I can play and earn AA's now without sub, thats why I quit again originally
This game had good ideas but the follow thru was horrible on the developers parts. It has limped along now for years on the backs of the people that actually wanted this IP to be a success.
AoC is as current as it ever was with these changes
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Now with the recent revamp of the F2P model, I can only encourage old players to return, if you own the content you can play it as a F2P member.
I have personal screamed for changes and many others too, at last they did something about it.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?192380-Please-revamp-the-F2P-Model
Official forum name (Daneus2212) Hope to see you ingame lets go crack some skulls (Crom)