"Unlimited" AoC trial launched - but only for a limited time

[Xuri]

So, yeah. Seems we've launched an unlimited trial and stuff. First 20 levels playable again and again and again and... yep... again, for as long as you'd like. As long as you:

* sign up before January 1st, 2010

* actually log in at least once before the above mentioned date).

As much Tortage as anyone could ever want, for freeeeee! =P

Press Release
Trial Signup Page

(Disclaimer: I don't work in marketing.)

[Sparky]

Hmm I'm really tempted to make a White Sands ganker account for some free being a mean jerk online.  Is Ranger still OP at low levels?

[Vodos]

Dear customer,

Thank you for playing Age of Conan.

As part of our maintenance your account is now flagged to have your characters below level 20 deleted as part of maintenance. Please re-activate your account now to ensure that your characters progress and names stay intact.

As a welcome back offer we would like to give you a time-limited offer for 7 days of additional play time if you choose to re-subscribe now. Please click this link to use this special offer!

Interesting approach...

[NiX]

I was going to post that too. Norwegians are so pushy!

[Pennilenko]

Dear customer,

Thank you for playing Age of Conan.

As part of our maintenance your account is now flagged to have your characters below level 20 deleted as part of maintenance. Please re-activate your account now to ensure that your characters progress and names stay intact.

As a welcome back offer we would like to give you a time-limited offer for 7 days of additional play time if you choose to re-subscribe now. Please click this link to use this special offer!

Interesting approach...

If I get a letter like that, I can assure you I definitely would never resub or purchase another funcom product ever again.

[raydeen]

Yeah, I don't think they're hurting that much for server space that they need to do a purge.

[Redgiant]

They going to keep upping the ante?

Will we eventually see "login or else your 79 will never see 80"?

[tmp]

May be wrong but i'd guess the character purge is there to ensure smoother servers merge, with people who actually still play getting better chance to keep their character name in case there's conflict.

[schild]

I think the <20 cutoff is fine considering it takes all of 3-4 hours to get there and if you never leveled past 20, you obviously don't care much about the character anyway.

[Redgiant]

So basically anyone not out of Tortage is pruned.

I guess 20 is the right cutoff given how this game is structured.

Cutting down on possible taken names is a good reason to cull, is this a harbinger of a server merge?

[tmp]

is this a harbinger of a server merge?

Apparently the server merge is happening just about now   and turns out yes, the name purge was because of it.

Server Merge FAQ and details thread

[ghost]

Yeah, getting through tortage takes very little time.  I don't have an issue with this.

[Stabs]

It is very cool that all the character names that are normally taken have now been freed up by the alt purge. Make a character and call it something that would 100% be grabbed day one like Blade or Drake and you'll probably get the name.

[Threash]

Yeah i grab character names i might like to use at some point in every game, most don't ever get used so i don't mind them doing this.