It's with a heavy heart that I relay the news that Age of Conan is slashing servers in order to try and stay afloat in the shark-infested waters that are the world of MMORPGs. AoC is just the latest game to fall victim to poor player turnout. Next month Tabula Rasa will be closing down for good, and we already saw the explosive fail that was Hellgate: London.
Funcom announced on their forums Friday that they would be merging their servers from 49 down to 18. For American players this means going form 24 US servers to a paltry 6. The developers assure us that all types of servers will still be represented in the remaining number available, and hope that this consolidation of player base will be sufficient to keep their MMO dreams alive. I am not as hopeful as they. While I do see the MMO as the game of the future, I think less players are willing to pay full price for a game on top of a subscription fee. I think that the future of MMOs will land somewhere in the middle of the standard model and the Free-to-Play games. Still, if the merging of servers gives AoC the boost they need, more power to them.
[Gamespot]
