美服《柯南时代》今夏“免费”优势还是软肋？

《柯南时代》上线3年后终于也宣布采取免费的价格策略。当然预订的模式仍然保留。不少玩家发现游戏和预期效果的差距而随后退出游戏。Funcom公司想方设法改进游戏质量并更新了一系列的补丁包等等，《柯南时代》的玩家数量也没有好转。《科南时代》在08年中期玩家人数达到了70万左右，而现在的玩家数量差不多一直徘徊在100-150万之间。专业玩家网为玩家和游戏工作室提供最新最全的游戏资讯，职业玩家的首选网站。

通常情况下网游走了免费模式后会更换游戏名称，《柯南时代》也不例外。《柯南时代》将以《柯南时代：未分级版》再次上线，并增加游戏内商店，免费版玩家和专业版的玩家都可以在店内购买武器装备，许可口令和专业版服务。Funcom公司并未透露《柯南时代：未分级版》确定的运营时间，不过可以肯定在今年夏天上线。

免费版和专业版的玩家还是有很大的不同。免费版的玩家只能玩到游戏一半的内容，而且也不能选择几个角色职业，副本，离线升级等等。他们的角色和bank slot数量也有限制。

如果《科南时代》复制《指环王online》，《龙与地下城online》它们的成功方式的话，我们完全可以预计它的玩家数量会成几何数字般成倍增长。《龙与地下城online》在宣布免费后，玩家数量迅速达到十万，由此带来的收入增加了五倍。《指环王online》在游戏初期的玩家大概是20万，但当它走向免费的那一天起，玩家数量开始激增，很快玩家数量的翻了一番，紧接着又在新的数量上增长了百分之五十。之后便一直呈现爆炸式增长速度。

由此看来，免费网游的世界并不是人们想象的那么令人悲观，反而一直在呈现欣欣向荣的景象。这是一个成功的未来网游发展方向。我们可以这样定论，就如在这篇文章新闻标题上所说的，“免费”将是网游的一大优势，而非它的软肋。

Age of Conan Goes Free-to-play This Summer

3 years after the release, Age of Conan announces to adopt free-to-play mode while its subscription mode will remain. It may not be surprised to gamers since the game failed to meet their expectations and many people left after playing it for a while. Although Funcom then tried hard to improve it and released numbers of new adventure packs and a Rise of the Godslayer expansion, revival didn't happen in Age of Conan.

Usually an MMO will change its name when it turns to F2P and Age of Conan is no exception. The game will be relaunched under a new title Age of Conan: Unrated and bring in in-game store that sells exclusive content such as weapons, armors, characters boost, access passes and premium services to both free players and premium subscribers. Age of Conan: Unrated hasn't confirmed the exact release date but it will be in the summer of 2011.

There will be quite a lot of differences between F2P and premium account, and those who choose to play for free can only access to about half of the game's content. Free players won't be able to play several classes, instances, raids end enjoy offline leveling, and their character and bank slot numbers are limited. For more details about the difference, please visit the official site.