Funcom plans to shut down AoC accounts

Any accounts that haven't been used for 7 months and are below level 20 will get deleted as part of server merges.

Posted on Jan 11, 2010 - 5:23pm EST

When it comes to character deletions, just about every MMO out there has a clause in their Terms of Service that indicates they have the right to delete your characters at any time and for no reason whatsoever. With that said, there are very few companies that choose to exercise that right.

Up until now it has been Square Enix as part of Final Fantasy XI, and Alganon's new "trial" which allows you to play for 30 days free before they wipe your character if you don't subscribe. Funcom has opted to join the ranks of "will delete characters" in regards to Age of Conan.

When contacted for comment by Massively, Erling Ellingsen, Director of Communications for Funcom said, "Yes, that's correct. It's a database clean-up. We're going through all accounts that have been inactive for a long period of time, deleting characters under level 20 to free space in the database."

The first 20 levels, often considered by many to be Age of Conan's tutorial levels, are primarily spent leveling through a single-player adventure with some multi-player aspects in the city of Tortage. The fact that you have to level past this solo-heavy content when you start a character gets a little old for players who just want to play with friends. As Funcom are now choosing to delete the 1-20 characters of inactive players -- potentially nuking inactive bank alts in the process -- it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out as a long-term strategy.