Turns out the newbie curve for a new system was a little steep.

Funcom came out with an open letter about the release date push for Age of Conan recently, and it looks pretty reasonable.

While we have seen that the overall reactions to our game has in general been extremely favorable, we as a company can only go for the best possible experience for our users. We are a MMO company, and we know that the only thing which matters when building a long-term community is the quality of the game. When our beta testers have come back to us with concerns in a couple of different areas, we have therefore been listening. The feedback has especially been on the entry barriers to the game, and how people are learning and coping with the combat system in the first few hours of gameplay. While most are having a fantastic time with it once they learn it, we also see that it is new and different to a lot of people, and that it takes longer to get into than what we have anticipated. This means that we need to ease the barrier, and make the first few hours of gameplay more accessible.

You can read the full explanation at the Age of Conan site.