I was going to write about how L.A. Noire’s facial expression animation personally impacts my gaming today, but then Funcom finally decided to do something we at Channel Massive have been asking and expecting for over a year. That’s right, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is going Free to Play. I’m pretty excited about this, though the character classes I played and enjoyed most will be locked locked under the “Premium” (aka subscription) bracket. So if I want to play again, I need to resubscribe or start over with a lamer class like Barbarian, which might be interesting if only to see some of the new content. Otherwise, odds are slim I’ll get back into the game with my Bear Shaman and Assassin locked away under a subscription wall.
Buuuut, that said…
The press release that made this strangely timed announcement (strange timing to me since it was announced when the “full account reactivation with no subscription until May 31” promotion is already going on) heavily emphasized another word: UNRATED. Yes, in all caps—I’m not being dramatic, though it’s fun to throw UNRATED around in all caps. Perhaps the PR writer felt that way, too, because the feasibility and true details of what “UNRATED” means is largely side-stepped, other than a comment from creative director Craig Morrison (do note: not the original creative director of the game! In fond memory of Gaute) that the game, in an “unrated” state, can be “even more true” to Robert E. Howard’s original vision of Conan’s world.
Yet the game’s pretty gory and bloody already: it sports Mortal Kombat-esque fatalities in combat. So even though further increasing that violence and brutality was hinted at in the press release, another word that was repeatedly mentioned throughout the press release was “sexy,” as in how the Age of Conan is the “sexiest” of all the MMOs. Is this just because female characters can run around topless? Or that all the female models are ridiculously endowed? Or that some NPCs will come on to you during a quest? I don’t know. I think there’s more “sexy” content in Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect games than Age of Conan. Even cohost Scott groused he gets all the softcore porn he needs in Witcher 2 and doubts Age of Conan: UNRATED could match that.
Meh… NEEDZ MOAR SEXY
I see where Scott’s coming from and think it’s cool he gets all his sexy-time needs from Witcher 2, but I don’t plan on getting that game and would appreciate Funcom putting its money where its mouth is with all this “unrated” and “sexy” talk. I don’t want a sex-sim or anything, but if Age of Conan: UNRATED actually matches what’s been done in other games that have released since 2008, the game may have an extra (though hardly subscription-justifying) curiosity to check out.
Actually, the lengths Funcom could go with a truly “unrated” game is an intriguing idea. Yet does the company have the courage to truly go there? Does it have the need to? The game world and gameplay are already cool. I’m not a major Conan enthusiast (see Mark for that), but I felt the game was more than sufficient in representing the beauty and violence of Conan’s world.
Meh… NEEDZ MOAR BLOOD!
And what’s the true possibility the game will succeed “unrated”? Without an ESRB rating, the game’s automatically limited to digital distribution, as the press release notes. But Funcom has put itself into a dangerous place beyond how the game’s distributed. If this new version just adds a few more fatality animations and more T&A, misinformed media are likely to be the only ones jumping on it, adding fuel to the fire that games are a corrupt, dehumanizing experiences for everyone (especially the children! Oh, the children!). If this then results in dragging the ESRB into the discussion, there may be more choice (read: negative) words. And if there’s really nothing more than superficial thrills being thrown in, gamers won’t give a hoot either. Yeah, the new expansion provides new areas to explore, but there’s no major enhancement to the gameplay. It’s all window dressing.
Honestly, the “unrated” strategy seems like a desperate swipe for short-lived notoriety, something Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online and D&D Online didn’t need to be successful after transitioning to F2P. Can’t Age of Conan be meritable just for going F2P and adding a new expansion? Well, I haven’t heard much about SOE’s Pirates of the Burning Sea since it went F2P. Maybe, three years later, Age of Conan does need its “unrated” gimmick to stay afloat, but that sexy, gory content better be damn exciting to bring me back as a boring, old barbarian. Otherwise, bring on Warhammer Online F2P!
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Sir, I take offense at your talk of “ridiculously endowed” females in this game. I for one think they’re perfectly endowed.
The pingback’s not working just right, so I wanted to add that Stropp had a good response on this topic here… http://stroppsworld.com/2011/05/26/age-of-conan-unrated/
Now that Noah has crowned me the Channel Massive resident deviant whose sole purpose in gaming is to hunt down erotic electronic content.
I wouldnt say play Witcher 2 for the sex scenes but more for the combat refinements and the trully branching quest lines and the fact that there really are no “good guys” path. IT also would be for anyone who did not like Dragon Age 2 for those reasons.
My comments on Witcher 2′s adult content vs Conan is more on a standpoint of I have played both games and Funcom making Conan “more sexy” is not a reason to play it if that is what is driving someone back to the game. I do think it brings some nice combat mechanics and interesting settings to the MMO space; play for that reason.
Witcher 2 goes further with its adult content and actually has gameplay reasons for the content to be there unlike Conan’s peep show mechanic.
I do think the game setting is well served with the adult content. Conan is not PG!
Channel Massive: Deviants Welcome…?
Actually I haven’t yet crowned you that, Scott. I think you’d have to get it from Jason or Jim first.
Maybe you can be First Duke Deviant or something.
I agree with your points on gameplay. The “fighting game” combo controls used by Age of Conan (not to mention the best character creator shy of Cryptic) were what really got me into the game– finally an MMO (at the time) that had something more interesting than A) press key B) queue C) animate. That said, I feel like I got enough of that when I last played, and while the “capture & train your mount” concept in the Godslayer expansion pack almost brought me back, it wasn’t enough.
Now, we’ve got a movie tie-in content area (yawn) and a promise of something “unrated,” which is more intriguing to me because it’s so undefined and likely to be disappointing. But consider me intrigued, even though, as I wrote, I doubt this will have any substantial impact on the actual gameplay.
That all ties into why I ended my blog with wanting Warhammer Online going F2P. When only comparing AoC’s button-combo combat mechanics or Warhammer Online’s arcadey Scenarios (which feature stereotypical MMO combat mechanics, FWIW), I actually would be more likely to play Warhammer Online again, just to have a few more runs in Khaine’s Embrace. I definitely don’t have the stamina to grind through the monotonous countryside and horselands thereafter, though. BORRRING.
When does Old Republic come out again?