Age of Conan Open Beta Starts May 1

Having announced incentives for those who pre-order the highly anticipated title, Funcom, Eidos and IGN today announced that open beta for Age of Conan will begin on May 1. It will be hosted exclusively by FilePlanet and will be offered through various IGN properties such as Gamespy, Tentonhammer and Warcry. The application pages at FilePlanet are now open for registrations where gamers from across the world can sign up. Only 50,000 will be chosen.

“When we started development of Age of Conan four and a half years ago we truly wanted to move away from the standards of the MMO genre. We wanted to bring something new, exciting and fresh to the gamers,” said Gaute Godager, Game Director on Age of Conan. “As we get ready to show everyone what Conan’s savage world is all about, we need final stress testing. Teaming up with the Beta Masters at IGN was a perfect opportunity for us! We simply couldn’t ask for a better partner for this crucial stage of our Beta.”

Funcom stresses the point that one of the primary functions of the open beta is to stress test the application prior to launch. Therefore, the entire game will not be made available to the tester, who will also be subject to a level 13 cap. However, the beta will offer many hours of entertainment and give players an insight into the full game.