Funcom threatening to delete noob Age of Conan characters
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items
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 (even then they occasionally restore characters as part of ‘welcome back’ promotions), and Alganon’s new “trial” which allows you to play for 30 days free before they wipe your character if you don’t subscribe. However, as you can see from the above image, Funcom has opted to join the ranks of “will delete characters” in regards to Age of Conan.
When contacted for comment about whether or not this was true, 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’s (sic) been inactive for a long period of time, deleting characters under level 20 to free space in the database.“
Continue reading Funcom threatening to delete noob Age of Conan characters
Funcom threatening to delete noob Age of Conan characters originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Funcom publishes sharp revenue drop for Q3
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, MMO industry, News items
Funcom has released its financial results for Q3, and it’s not pretty. Revenue was down 68.5% to 5.7 million USD, and expected to drop even more in Q4. This time last year they were reporting a profit of $3.3 million, a strong contrast to the current $9.6 million loss. They see a few reasons for this drop, including some stiff competition: “The Company ran a successful re-evaluation campaign during July, increasing the number of subscribers to the game. However, the launch of two major competing MMO-games during Q3 led to a subsequent reduction in subscriber levels.”
Funcom remains optimistic, though, thanks to numerous upcoming projects. The Secret World is reported to be “progressing well”, Age of Conan is planning a launch in Korea, the “Rise of the Godslayer” expansion for AoC is on its way, and Funcom recently received a grant to create an extreme sports MMO.
The full report can be viewed here.
Funcom publishes sharp revenue drop for Q3 originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Funcom announces Rise of the Godslayer expansion for Age of Conan
Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Expansions, MMO industry, New titles, News items
Rise of the Godslayer, however, will not be an expansion as your normally understand it. Instead of expanding the game vertically, like so many other MMOs, RotG will be expanding the game horizontally. The level cap of 80 isn’t changing, but expect RotG to be adding much more meat to the lower levels of the game’s content — specifically from level 20 (and the end of Tortage) up until 80.
RotG will also be adding Robert E. Howard’s vision of the far east — the Empire of Khitai — and the brand new race of the Khitan. Khitans will be starting in Tortage, like all of the other slaves, but don’t expect to magically appear in the empire once you get done. Khitai will be reserved exclusively for higher level characters, while lower level characters will have to make a great trek across the lands.
For even more scoops than we could fit into this post, head on over to Eurogamer and check out their first impressions of the new expansion. Or, if you love us, you’ll jump over the break and check out the first trailer for the new expansion, embedded right in this post!
[Thanks, JP!]
Continue reading Funcom announces Rise of the Godslayer expansion for Age of Conan
Funcom announces Rise of the Godslayer expansion for Age of Conan originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Craig Morrison’s latest AoC letter discusses guild features in Update 6
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Guilds, Patches, News items
As July is coming to a close, Age of Conan’s game director Craig Morrison has weighed in with his letter to the community for the month. The biggest discussion point this time around is a new ‘Guild Renown’ system that will be introduced with the next major content patch, Update 6. This system will allow members of a guild to contribute to its reputation on two separate scales. A guild’s Renown Level will be increased by members earning Valor points (from PvE activities like questing and killing NPCs), Glory points (PvP) and Artisan points (crafting). Higher Renown Levels will mean access to better guild city vendors and other bonuses — even a brand new building type that Morrison does not elaborate on in this letter.
Continue reading Craig Morrison’s latest AoC letter discusses guild features in Update 6
Craig Morrison’s latest AoC letter discusses guild features in Update 6 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan offering two free weeks to previous players
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items
It’s been a long while coming, but Funcom has finally announced their first re-evaluation campaign for Age of Conan. Anyone who possesses a previously active account can — as of today, July 8th — reactivate and play for two full weeks entirely for free. In the last year, the game has seen a literal avalanche of updates and improvements. So if you haven’t been back in Hyboria since launch last year, you’re in for quite a few big surprises.
The timing of the expansion announcement and this two free week return are obviously not coincidental. You can be sure that Funcom has been planning this quite carefully to get people buzzing about their game again, and kudos to them for pulling it off nicely. Of course, we’ve yet to learn what’s coming in the expansion but something tells us it’ll be doing everything it can to impress both previous and current players.
Age of Conan offering two free weeks to previous players originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan to unveil new expansion at GamesCom
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Events, real-world, Expansions, News items
The first proper expansion for Age of Conan will be unveiled this August at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany. Funcom’s Erling Ellingsen confirmed the news:
“Yes, we will be revealing the first expansion for Age of Conan at the GamesCom show in August. We have lots of exciting stuff to reveal and Conan players and gamers in general are in for a real treat, but for now, our lips are sealed until then!”
The unveil will feature in-game footage and a preview of the quests, monsters, new environments and other additions that will make up the expansion. This news comes not long after the release of a major content patch for AoC, and should help keep that positive momentum going.
Age of Conan to unveil new expansion at GamesCom originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan launches new patch, introduces Xibaluku
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Patches, News items
By Crom indeed! A literal tidal wave of patch notes has hit the Age of Conan boards this morning, giving all of the gritty details of Conan’s next major patch.
Of special note in this patch are all of the new dungeons being added to the game for high level players and mid level players alike. Xibaluku, which you may remember us mentioning before, is launching with this patch. This dungeon is targeted towards level 80 endgame raiders, but can only be accessed by performing a prerequisite quest chain that sends the player through another brand new area, The Slaughterhouse Cellar. The Cellar is a single player instance, so be warned that you can’t take your friends on casual decapitation fests through the opening quest chain.
If you don’t feel like going to run Xibaluku, then you can make your way over to Black Ring Citadel and challenge those evil dark sorcerers to the new third wing of their dungeon.
Players in the area of level 43 will be happy to know that the Cradle of Decay is a brand new dungeon added just for them. If you’re looking for the entrance, just stop by the Fields of the Dead and you should be able to find it.
All of the above is just a small sample of what’s been included in this patch. For the full, 4 post long set of patch notes, check them out on the Conan forums.
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Having fun in Conan’s homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age! |
Age of Conan launches new patch, introduces Xibaluku originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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List of post-merger servers for Age of Conan released
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan
We’ve known for some time now that Age of Conan’s server list would be shrinking. After some fits and starts, the successful merger of Bloodspire and Hyperborea has set the stage for the wholesale conglomeration of the Age of Conan server farm. The official forums are carrying the final list of post-merger servers, and the US list stands at a svelte six remaining gameworlds. That’s down from an initial list of about twenty-five, and the post-merger list for the EU side will stand at just four gameworlds.
Here’s the final list of the post-merger US servers:
- Set (PvE)
* Damballah
* Bardisattva
* Dagoth
* Derketo
* Hanuman - Wiccana (PvE)
* Mannanan
* Ajujo
* Thog
* Zug
* Omm - Gwahlur (PvE - Oceaninc)
- Tyranny (PvP)
* Scourge
* Bluesteel
* Stormrage
* Deathwhisper
* Doomsayer
* Shadowblade - Cimmeria (PvP-RP)
* Bane - Bloodspire (PvP - Oceanic) - already merged
* Hyperborea
All of these mergers are slated to happen next week, and actual downtime and scheduled mergers will be announced sometime soon. You can read up on the official forums for player reaction, or continue on below the cut for a full list of the final international servers.
Continue reading List of post-merger servers for Age of Conan released
List of post-merger servers for Age of Conan released originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan’s Producer announces server mergers postponed
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Patches, Server downtime
We noted just a few days ago that server merges would soon be coming to Funcom’s Age of Conan. Producer Craig Morrison spoke up about the company’s plans to merge servers in stages, with only two server mergers announced in his first note. After a few days of testing the team apparently made ready to do their first live server merge … only to find there were issues that hadn’t been caught in testing. If they’d gone forward with server merges at that point, Morrison writes in a new letter from this past Friday, player items may have been deleted.
From the sound of things this is a minor issue involving some legacy code that would only show up in a few cases out of a large group of players. Still, the team is being very cautious and wants no hiccups as they move forward with tightening the AoC community. As a result, it sounds as though merges are going to be delayed a bit as the team does further groundwork to resolve these issues. Morrison says to expect merges to be happening well into January at this point, which is when they expect Update 4 to go live as well. Read into the full producer’s letter for all the details.
Age of Conan’s Producer announces server mergers postponed originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan server merge information released
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Server downtime
We’ve been following the efforts of Age of Conan director Craig Morrison to keep the player community more ‘in the loop’ since he took on the role a few months ago. Now the community team is laying out the details of one of the projects he headlined when he first stepped up: server merges. Community Manager Famine has put up a post in the official forums laying out details on the procedure. Which is good, because it’s a little complicated.
Here are the highlights:
- All servers will not be merged at once. Instead, they’ll be staged with “Hyberborea” and “Bloodspire” seeing a merger during this week’s patching.
- During downtimes when servers are merged, all servers from that region will be unavailable. So this week, all US servers will be down while the two above are fused. Funcom is going to provide compensatory playtime to users affected by these outages.
- After the servers are merged, all players on the resulting server will be given a free one-time-use character transfer if they want to move their primary character to another server. They’re doing this to ensure players like where they end up.
This is obviously a difficult time for the playerbase, and not something any MMO developer likes to do. Just the same, hats off to Funcom for obviously trying to do right by the playerbase, and for adequately compensating players for the inconvenience. For another ‘just the FAQs’ look at this issue, the AoC site has up an F-A-Q already.
Age of Conan server merge information released originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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