Age of Conan News

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Popularity: 95% [?]

Curse was once again invited for a hands on preview on AoC. I highly suggest you check it out.

“The game is, as Jørgen Tharaldsen put it, on track for a March 25th, 2008 launch — with over 10,000 beta testers currently plugging away at the game’s content, helping find bugs and provide invaluable feedback. Some of that feedback has helped to change and improve the game drastically since our last sneak peek; the combat system has seen an overhaul to be less confusing to new players and less cumbersome at higher levels when it comes to determining just which combo you’re going to trigger.”

Popularity: 67% [?]

If you’ve ever wanted to become involved in the game industry, then Funcom may have what you’re looking for in the form of three job openings at the company. Now, it doesn’t appear that this is for a specific game currently, but they’re hiring translators for three different languages — English/French, English/German and English/Spanish.

Popularity: 47% [?]

This Friday, we’ll keep it short and sweet. There’s a new trailer out.

The trailer can be viewed over the following links:

Web | 480HD | 720HD

Popularity: 46% [?]

“At the same time we are now deploying a large amount of additional machines to our main server structures.  This means that we are getting ready for larger-scale Beta deployment!  We now have the hardware, the set-up (and an awesome game;) ready for larger scale testing! As a result of this we are also getting ready to start inviting thousands and thousands (and thousands) into our Beta programs.”

Looks like its time to start checking your inboxes again. Woot!

Popularity: 57% [?]

Members of the AoC community will get a special in-game item for one of the nicest perks in Hyboria.

In addition to looking stylish in the tavern and impressing all the wenches, the Drinking Cape comes with the best perk in Hyboria: free drinks for life.

Drinking is not only a fun way to get to know your friends and pick up wenches (or man-wenches, if that’s your thing), it also is a key component in the Drunken Brawling PvP minigame. Those who don the Drinking Cape before strutting into the tavern get free drinks for life, meaning they can brawl to their drunken heart’s content in all the taverns of Hyboria without losing any money. It’s all the benefits of drinking with none of the side effects, truly a wonderous thing to the barbarian’s heart.

The Drinking Cape features a leopard skin lining to keep you warm once you’re thrown out into the cold night, while its stylish insignia lets everyone know that they’re about to take on a world-class drinker, fighter, and all around awesome person, be it in the tavern brawl, stumbling home afterwards, or on the battlefield.

Popularity: 58% [?]

Funcom and Eidos announce a new release date for ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’. The highly anticipated MMO is now set to release on the 25th of March 2008. By setting a new release date for the game, Funcom can continue the focus on honing, polishing and improving the heralded qualities of the game, ensuring a fantastic MMO experience when it launches next spring.

“We naturally regret that we have to push back ‘Age of Conan’. However, after careful consideration, and analysis of recent Beta feedback, we believe that the new release date is in the best interest of the gamers, our company and our owners,” said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. “We are fully committed to delivering games with absolute qualities, and in the current MMO marketplace we know that only the best is good enough to truly succeed. With the new release date we have therefore given ourselves more time to meet and deliver on the massive expectations for the game. We are certain that our choice will ultimately pay off, and that all ‘Age of Conan’ players will get a special online experience.”

”We are honored by the immense reception our game is constantly getting, with an astounding amount of positive press coverage, awards and magazine covers, but we still see that we need to polish some aspects of the game even further, especially when it comes to the entry barriers,” said Gaute Godager, founder of Funcom and Producer / Director on ‘Age of Conan’. “With the added development time we can now deliver something even more unique and powerful, something which is worthy of the incredible Conan legacy.”

Popularity: 58% [?]

The Conqueror is the heart and soul of any party in Hyboria. Conquerors fill two roles, first, as an impressive fighter on the front lines soaking up the damage and dishing out damage of their own, and second, as an inspirational presence that makes the party prevail where it would normally falter. All foes that get within the conqueror’s reach fall before their weapons, and all friends that stand nearby find themselves heartened, ready and eager to carry on the fight. A party without a conqueror may be mighty indeed, but a party with a conqueror becomes a band of heroes with almost legendary abilities.

Read more »

Popularity: 89% [?]

Looks like the developers are back from vacation and answering some questions on the forums. I sifted through the crap to bring you these little information bits.

Fear:

“Fear will be in the game, however most (if not all) fear spells are long cooldown, and fairly short duration–with short duration immunity timers after they break for good measure, like most crowd-control spells. Perma-fearing is not going to be something you see happen in PvP.”

Death/Respawning:

“You will be able to choose from nearby discovered resurrection points to respawn at, after which you will be afflicted by a stacking (up to 3 times) death penalty. Returning to your gravestone will significantly reduce/remove the duration of the death penalty, however there are other means with which to remove it.”

Player Cities:

“Currently there are 3 player city locations and an NPC hive in each resource and building playfield instance. The playfield is what will be instanced–as determined by need–and not the city itself, per se.”

“A guild can only have 1 city.

The hives are meant to be an interesting dynamic to the whole R&B playfield idea, and are a bit of an experience to be had on an occasional basis. While I feel they will certainly be worthwhile to participate in, they won’t be so important in scope that people will have to drop everything they are doing to focus around them.”

“Just to clarify a point, hives are currently intended to recycle in a matter of days, not a matter of weeks. Furthermore, hive growth will be proportional to the number of the 3 city points currently claimed by players–that being, a playfield having only a single player city will have a hive that recycles/rebuilds slower than a playfield with all 3 points settled.”

Popularity: 39% [?]

Florian Eckhardt has written an intresting insight into the racial undertones of Robert E. Howard’s Conan titles.

And that’s the rub. In my opinion, Howard’s supposed racism was actually a very clever literary device, less racist than a literary example of cultural archetyping. In essence, in creating Hyboria, Howard wanted a large fictional canvas upon which he could indulge his love for history and historical drama without having to be burdened with the responsibility of rigid historical accuracy.

and the goes on futher to say:

The Age of Conan developers have been understandably defensive about Howard’s perceived racism, and that’s certainly a wise business move: it simply isn’t worth starting a controversy about, especially when — with a few small alterations — they can take advantage of the breathtaking richness, the lavish viscerality and the epic scope of the Hyborian Age without alienating any focal groups.

Overall its a very intresting insight into some of the controversy surrounding this much anticipated MMO.

Souce: Destructoid

Popularity: 45% [?]