Funcom wants you back in Age of Conan, and they want you back bad. As of today, they are offering two free weeks of Age of Conan to returning players, with some rather special incentives for those who pony up cash for a renewed subscription. One month nets you a free week’s worth of game time, which I suppose is nice, but not nearly as nice as the three months incentive. Re-subscribe to Age of Conan for 90 days and you get a beta slot in The Secret World, which is looking much more interesting than many MMO games out today, including Age of Conan.

But wait, there’s more! Subscribe for six months and you get all of that, plus a 10 per cent experience boosting helmet, and a year will get you the beta spot, the helmet and the upcoming Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, completely free! All of this, plus double XP for everyone in the month of November.

A desperate move by a desperate company, or an outpouring of love for the fans that they’ve lost? Is beta access to The Secret World worth $US40 or so? You be the judge.

Funcom’s new Canadian headquarters will be put to use immediately, with skilled teams being formed to work on both Age of Conan and the upcoming MMO The Secret World, which the company will be showing off at PAX 09 this weekend. The Montreal location further extends Funcom’s global presence, joining previously established offices in Norway, China, the US and Switzerland.

Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas sings the praises of our neighbours to the North.

“Montréal has established itself as one of the world’s most important locations for video game production, and we are looking forward to taking part in that success. In addition to strengthening our North American presence, the new studio will take advantage of the great incentive programs offered by the Québec region, incentives that makes Montréal one of the most cost effective locations in the world for developing MMO games. This will in turn allow us to better balance our costs, making it possible for us to continue to expand our investments into the MMO segment.”

We may kid our Canadian brethren from time to time, but one thing’s for sure: they sure know how to woo game developers.

After months spent tweaking and polishing the game play and overall experience of their massively multiplayer take on the Conan universe, Funcom is just about ready to pack their updates into a much more expansive format. Speaking to Eurogamer, Funcom director of communications Erling Elllingsen reveals that a dedicated team has been working on the expansion since the game launched, and that the core changes will continue with its eventual release.

“We are bringing a lot of that into the expansion as well,” said Ellingsen of the core changes, “making sure we build upon the strengths of the game and stay true to the original vision we have always had for Age of Conan. I think players will be pleased!”

At this point I don’t think it’s so much about pleasing existing players as it is drawing in new players. Hopefully the expansion will have some of that as well. We’ll find out come the GamesCom show in Cologne Germany next month.

Age of Conan expansion reveal soon [Eurogamer]

Yes, along with the new areas, which can be seen in the lovely screenshots here, Update 5 is another step in Funcom’s continuing effort to make Age of Conan the sort of MMO that keeps old players and brings in a steady stream of new ones. This main focus of this update is item statistics, specifically how they affect a player’s performance. Starting today, players should notice a much more significant change in the effectiveness of their skills by wearing items with stat-enhancements, which in turn makes finding and creating new gear that much more rewarding.

The update also adds more life to guild cities, allows players to gain PVP experience through mini-games, and perhaps the most compelling new feature for those who migrated from World of Warcraft, social pets. See? Funcom totally knows what players want!

Funcom’s latest financial report states that “a significant increase in new customers in Q1 compared to Q4 has led to a stable and solid subscriber base”, meaning that the game’s launch in Eastern Europe and free trial offer seem to have done the trick.

Course, Funcom didn’t go so far as to reveal how many new subscribers there were, exactly, but an increase is better than a decrease!

Age of Conan turns corner, says Funcom [Eurogamer]

Funcom really, really wants new players to come try out Age of Conan, releasing a persuasive video and a free trial offer to try and make that happen.

Age of Conan has gotten off to a bit of a slow start. Well, that’s not entirely true. More like it got off to a quick start, and then a large chunk of folks left. A slow middle, if you will. Now Funcom finally releases a free trial client, on the hopes that a horde of people have been just sitting around, waiting for such an offer.

“The time has finally come for us to open the flood gates,” says Morten Larssen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Funcom. “There is a world of gamers out there who have never played ‘Age of Conan’ and we want them to experience what hundreds of thousands of gamers have before them. The game has matured tremendously since launch, and we feel confident that this is the time to launch a trial. ‘Age of Conan’ is simply bigger and better than it ever was, and we want both new and previous players alike to experience that!”

So it’s finally ready for the public?

Players can download the free trial directly from the Age of Conan website, though if they sign up over at Fileplanet you get fourteen days and an exclusive firework, perfect for firing off as you welcome the crowd passing through the floodgates.

The Age of Conan has been rather rough on Funcom, whose fourth quarter financials reveal an operating loss of $23.3 million, possibly prompting the departure of chief financial officer Olav Sandnes.

Funcom’s latest massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan is to blame for the company’s huge deficit, with $22.8 million depreciating in the face of the game’s poor performance. The bad financial news was compounded by the announcement of CFO Olav Sandnes’s departure.

“Funcom is a company with a substantial potential based on a unique combination of skill sets in a fast growing global market. I wish Trond Aas and the rest of the organisation all the best in realizing the full potential of the company,” commented Sandnes.

Despite the operating loss, revenues were up for the fourth quarter, with subscription fees from Age of Conan raising them to $8.7 million over last year’s $1.2 million.

In layman’s terms, Funcom gained money from subscription fees, but lost money actually operating the game. This is reflected in the closure of over half of the game’s servers last year. The company basically spent too much to make that $8.7 million.

Still Age of Conan soldiers on, despite estimates the the subscriber levels for the game are below the 100,000 mark. There’s still hope, as Funcom has recently announced launch plans for the game in Poland and Russia, two countries where Conan remains immensely popular. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed.

Funcom CFO resigns following $23.3m loss [GamesIndustry.biz]

We’ve heard how Age of Conan is in a state of decline. Now let’s look at how it’s in a state of decline. In particular, how over half the game’s servers are to be shuttered.

Funcom have announced that during the week, the total number of servers for the game will be reduced from 49 to just 18, with the biggest losses due to strike North America and Oceania.

There, 16 servers are closing, leaving only six behind. Europe will fare slightly better, with 12 servers to be left open so as to cater to the all major language regions equally.

Funcom’s line is that this will improve player experience, with busier servers meaning busier, more enjoyable worlds. And in a small way, they’re right. But in a bigger way? Going from 49 servers to 18 shows just how quickly and how savagely this game has tanked.

Funcom to close over half of Conan servers [GI.biz]

Hellforge posits that 2008 was the worst year on record for MMOs. But the “collapse” had nothing to do with the genre’s viability, and everything to do with hubris and poor decisions by game-makers.

The wreckage includes three titles whose names are either punchlines by now or dangerously close: Hellgate: London, Age of Conan, and the dumpstered Tabula Rasa, joined by the patched-too-late Pirates of the Burning Sea, as examples of how not to run an MMO railroad.

Hellgate cratered thanks to bad management, bad decisions and their reversals, and its bastard sibling Tabula Rasa was so awful Lord British decided to leave Earth rather than deal with the mess. Pirates of the Burning Sea patched its problems, but way too late to save itself. Age of Conan, as discussed before, stopped trying after you got past level 20. Bottom line, Hellgate and Tabula Rasa’s servers are shutting down entirely (or already have) and the other two have merged or closed many of theirs too.

The lessons? Listen to beta testers; get the launch right, because patches won’t save your asses, and if you’re innovating some new gameplay mechanic, do it like you mean it. A successful MMO depends on a huge investment of a gamer’s time. The investment on the development/publishing end should be total, too.

The MMO Crash of 2008 [Hellforge]

The festive folk at Funcom have managed to pull off a gaming event involving killing a goat that won’t get the gaming community upset as part of the holiday festivities in Age of Conan.

Unlike that other video game goat-killing event, Funcom keeps things virtual with it’s holiday goat hunt, with a prize package consisting mainly of the game’s pre-order bonuses and two months free game time up for grabs for whoever manages to down one of the poor creatures. The trick is, there’s only one goat per server, so only one person per server can win. Riddles as to the goat’s location can be found at the official site, along with a listing of servers where the goat has already appeared and went down.

While some servers have already held their events, more will be having theirs on the 29th, 30th, and 31st, so who knows? You might still have a chance to get your goat. What you do with it when you get it is your business.

In-Game Season Event [Age of Conan via Massively]