In free falling desperation it seems Age of Conan is finally on Steam. The ailing franchise has been avoiding Steam integration for quite some time… but now it’s official. Age of Conan will now join Steam’s large catalog of free games.
This change made sense for Funcom. Although Steam will now be taking a direct cut of their profits they will now have a trusted interface for purchasing micro transactions.
The Steam wallet is one of the most valued parts of the Steam platform. It allows people to pre-load a pre-paid mastercard on the spot to spend it on various purchases.
Funcom is dropping most of the nasty restrictions they had on characters, the list includes:
All Classes Unlocked! Free players may now try any of the games classes completely free.
Classic Dungeons unlocked! The complete selection of classic dungeons are now unlocked for free play. This includes ALL the pre-80 dungeons and a selection of level 80 dungeons as well! Level 80 adventures in The Crow’s Nest, The Iron Tower, Xibaluku, The Slaughterhouse Cellar and Attilius’ Mansion are all now available for free play!
Gold cap increased! In order to allow free players to engage more in the end game economy, in particular with the incoming new crafting system in mind, the gold cap on free accounts has been raised from 2g to 10g.
These are basically all of the gripes I had with the game in the past. While leveling you only get 1 of 3 classes… the free ones.
No one does leveling dungeons because it required a season pass.
As well this gold cap means that selling things actually might be worth a damn.
Overall these steps are designed to get people to end game faster. The next stage will be to stramline leveling so it is faster to get to Level 80.
Funcom’s offering of more free content is part of a new strategy developed for TERA in which the game is mostly free.
TheGameGuru.Me 