Funcom shows off Rise of the Godslayer’s Gateway to Khitai
Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Video, Age of Conan, Expansions, News items
As the release of the Age of Conan expansion Rise of the Godslayer draws nearer, Funcom continues giving us peeks into some of the zones we’ll see when it arrives.
This time we’re moving out of the grasslands we saw a few weeks ago, back to the Gateway to Khitai. Those living within its confines have the protection of soldiers and sorcerers as well as their great wall. They have no need to worry about those outside and their squabbles.
Maybe they do, though. It seems like all should be safe and cozy, maybe all the danger isn’t on the outside. “Why this lingering suspicion that the great wall was not built to keep the darkness at bay, but to keep it contained,” asks the trailer.
We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, Funcom has given us the trailer video, along with a gallery full of screenshots and concept art of the Gateway to Khitai. Follow along after the jump and take a look for yourself.
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Funcom shows off Rise of the Godslayer’s Gateway to Khitai originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A look into Rise of the Godslayer’s Northern Grasslands
Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Video, Age of Conan, Expansions, Previews, News items
The team at Funcom are hard at work on the new content coming to Age of Conan, like guild renown and raids, as well as the upcoming expansion Rise of the Godslayer. Thankfully, they managed to steal a few moments out of that time to send along some screenshots, concept art, and a great video of the exotic Northern Grasslands area that players will be adventuring through in the upcoming expansion.
Players who pick up Rise of the Godslayer will be treated to beautiful yet dangerous locales, where they’ll meet strange and fascinating new people, and then kill them. Just kidding! Well, not really. Mounted atop tigers, the Khitans will undoubtedly be a fierce fighting force — and that shiny new armor certainly looks pretty cool too. (Thankfully, the red accents will hide the blood well when you strip it off your dead enemies.) Be sure to check out the gallery and the teaser video behind the break for all the latest from this future corner of Hyboria.
Gallery: Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
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Continue reading A look into Rise of the Godslayer’s Northern Grasslands
A look into Rise of the Godslayer’s Northern Grasslands originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan offers streaming expansion demo Monday
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan, Expansions, Previews
If you’re playing Age of Conan, the odds that you’re looking forward to the upcoming Rise of the Godslayer expansion are… pretty much one to one. The news on the expansion has been fairly slow in coming since its announcement earlier this year, but it looks like we’re due for a big burst of new information on Monday. Funcom has announced that the developers will be hosting a streaming demo of the game on December 7th via Xfire.
The demo, hosted by game director Craig Morrison and the expansion lead designer Joel Bylos, will begin at noon PST (3 PM for those of us on the other coast). Scheduled to last for an hour, it promises to cover both the content in the demo — which is all slated to be new material — as well as the expansion in general, which is targeted for release in the first half of 2010. Both the developers and their hosts at Xfire are excited about the chance to show off a live demo, and odds that the game’s playerbase is excited are, again, probably one in one. So clear some time to catch the broadcast on Monday, and see what’s in store for Age of Conan as it journeys into the eastern empire of Khitai.
[ via WarCry ]
Age of Conan offers streaming expansion demo Monday originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan video walks players through new Tarantia Commons zone
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan
This has been a really big week for Age of Conan. They released Update 5, “Gangs of Tarantia“, which has introduced new zones and content, but more than that, completely reworked some of Age of Conan’s existing game mechanics. The amount of written content that Funcom has put together on these changes is substantial — in fact we linked to all of it in our post on Update 5 earlier this week. Funcom can write all they want about the new changes to the game, but when it comes down to it, actually seeing these places they’ve described may have a stronger impact. With that in mind, Funcom released a video tour of the Tarantia Commons zone today, narrated by game director Craig Morrison.
Tarantia Commons is what he describes as “the urban underbelly” of the capital city of Tarantia, a place Morrison says is “wracked by gang warfare and civil unrest.” In other words, there’s always a lot going on in Tarantia Commons and the video walkthrough shows this, revealing how players will choose which side to take in riots — either aid the city guards or stick it to the man with fellow rioters. The riots then trigger other events. Specific quests become available and certain bosses spawn, depending upon the general state of chaos in the streets of Tarantia Commons.
There are two warring gangs in the new gameplay area, The Wharf Rats who exist at ground level in the streets of Tarantia Commons, and The Crows whose area of influence shows off a different aspect of the game: rooftops. Interacting with The Crows above Tarantia Commons gives a different perspective on the city, with some impressive views of the zone. Of course there’s content on the outskirts of Tarantia Commons for players to experience as well, including a leper colony where NPCs will lash out at you, intentionally trying to infect you with disease. As an added bonus, or spoiler depending upon your point of view, the walkthrough also shows off a boss encounter and the tactics he’ll employ against players.
If you’re on the fence about returning to Age of Conan to see the new content, this Tarantia Commons walkthrough might just be the tipping point. We’ve got a video embed for you after the jump:
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Age of Conan video walks players through new Tarantia Commons zone originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan: One Year Later video
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan, Culture
It’s almost the first anniversary of Age of Conan’s release, and Funcom’s Glen “Famine” Swan was reflecting on the past year when he found the “One Year Later” video. Although it’s a fairly well-made piece, it doesn’t come from Funcom; a community member called “CptHeatSink” is given the credit on Famine’s MMORPG blog. The video encompasses a lot of the changes that have gone on in-game and quite a few guilds pitched in to help with the footage. There’s a slow build for the first couple of minutes, but after that it’s all about the combat.
Hit the jump to check out the video. Make sure to click the HD button in the bottom right corner after you’ve hit play for a higher quality version. This won’t be the last you’ll hear of AoC‘s birthday — expect more soon as the actual date rolls around.
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Age of Conan: One Year Later video originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan conquers The Big Bang Theory
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, News items
This week’s episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory prominently featured Age of Conan, and its A-story dealt in a light-hearted way with online gaming addiction. If you’re unfamiliar with the show, the premise is as follows: two extremely geeky twenty-something males — both scientists at Caltech — move in across the hall from a pretty but not-too-terribly sophisticated blonde woman. Commence unlikely friendship and all the humor that comes with it!
In this week’s episode, one of the two geeks is playing Age of Conan when the girl comes over. She starts playing the game and becomes addicted, rejecting responsibilities and basic hygiene for the remainder of the episode. The premise sounds typical, but the episode has a certain wink-like-quality to it. It’s all in good humor, and there are a lot of inside jokes that only players of the game could get.
Funcom’s active participation becomes evident when cut-scenes rendered exclusively for the show make an appearance. It’s likely that Funcom paid for this product placement, actually. We’ve embedded a brief clip after the break, but you should check out other (unembeddable) scenes at the show’s website (watch any clip from season two, episode three), but be aware that CBS insists on living in some long-dead century by not making the complete episode available online.
[Thanks, C.A.]
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French Age of Conan rap video rocks la maison
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan, Humor
Even if the Age of Conan developers are coming in for some serious criticism of late, the players are coming up with some funky stuff. Rodion’s Je Demonte - it’s French for ‘I kick ass’, if you were wondering - is not only one of the better Age of Conan fanvids we’ve seen, it’s one of the only AoC fanvids we’ve seen. There are plenty of demos of spellweaving and the like, but not so much in the way of character video or storytelling. (If you’ve seen any that deserve a wider audience, let us know!)
So, take a look at the immaculately coiffured Rodion and his charming ladies as he tells the story of his journeys through Hyboria, beginning with his attempts to kick Kalanthes’ ass on a certain beach that we’ll all find familiar, his acquisition of the inevitable firearm, and his ending up as one of the baddest Stygians of all time. (There are subtitles for the non-Francophones.) The combination of Age of Conan gameplay, rap styling and eloquent French really shouldn’t work, but like peanut butter and chocolate, it just does.
The language isn’t quite worksafe in a couple of places, but it’s hardly parental advisory. Check it out after the cut.
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Erling Ellingson confirms Age of Conan subscriber numbers, says thankyou
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan
In another video from onlinewelten.com, again recorded over at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Erling Ellingson addresses the Age of Conan community directly. As we’d noted, there was debate as to whether the figure of 415,000 subscribers mentioned in the Funcom quarterly report presentation referred to August 14th or June 30th, but in this interview Ellingson has now confirmed AoC’s active subscriber numbers as over 400,000. Working from the figure of 800,000 boxes sold, that gives a clear retention figure of around 50% right now.
As well as talking at length about how good the launch was (yes, Erling, we know) Ellingson proceeds to reassure the audience that he and the other developers won’t be resting on their laurels. He’s obviously read the forums between giving these interviews, as two of the biggest issues are mentioned specifically: the PvP patch is due ‘any moment now, cross your fingers‘ and the memory leak (arguably the biggest issue of all as it impacts even those who love the game as it is) is getting plenty of attention. There’s also a flying mention of the new Funcom MMO, The Secret World.
Check out the video after the cut. By the way, at time of writing, the video had been mistakenly captioned as a Warhammer Online interview. Whoops.
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New Age of Conan video showcases coming content
Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan, Previews
Courtesy of German gaming site onlinewelten.com, we’re able to bring you a presentation of upcoming Age of Conan content by Erling Ellingson, straight from the Games Convention in Leipzig. The presentation takes us on a tour of the Tarantia Commons, a slum area in which your character takes a side in a war between street gangs, and stops to take in some of the new exotic armor sets that have been included in response to player demand. Quests are set to become more interesting and branching, allowing characters to make moral choices rather than simply go off on errands to kill ten of something.
The tour then checks out Black Castle, the mantis-infested stronghold in the south of Khopshef Province, which is ‘completely revamped‘ in the new version, the main focus being on Indiana Jones style traps that require ingenuity and co-operation to tackle. Ellingson explains that Age of Conan is deliberately borrowing from World of Warcraft in its reworking of boss fights, to produce encounters that require specific tactics to beat; we’re glad to hear it, as bosses right now are a bit too much of the bag-of-hit-points kind. Next stop is Ymir’s Pass, a Cimmerian zone under bandit onslaught, featuring one of the hugest bosses we’ve seen. We also hear about upcoming level 80 dungeons and the PvP consequence system.
One thing you’ll hear Ellingson say repeatedly is ‘we listened to our players‘. That seems to be the message Funcom is most keen to send out right now. Check out the video after the cut.
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