Massively^™

That title is a quote from the latest entry over at Tobold's blog, concerning the success of Age of Conan. He believes the combat system itself is one of the main draws of the game. While appearing somewhat similar to other MMOs, the combat system seems to make more sense in regards to its speed, intensity and overall enjoyment.

Some other points he makes include the content of the game, and the enemies you encounter. LotRO made good use of its license in regards to the mobs, zones and quests, but Tobold feels that in regards to AoC, most of the content could be from any other random fantasy game. In addition to this (hence the interesting title) is how Tobold doesn't believe the mature rating drives sales too much, despite the fact that "Age of Conan nudity" is the top search phrase that leads people to his blog. Hey, that's how we found it!

Happy launch-day, Age of Conan! For those of you who are curious about the game but haven't picked up your own copy, you're in luck! We're celebrating the game's launch with a giveaway -- we have eight copies of Age of Conan (worth about $50 each) and three guides to Hyboria (worth about $10 each) to share with you, dear readers. So if you've got a hankering for Hyboria, it's easy to enter: all you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling us why you're interested in playing Age of Conan before 7:00 AM EST Wednesday, May 21st. (Please, only one entry per person -- we can only deal with so much enthusiasm at once!) When the contest closes, we'll pick eleven winners at random and ship you a shiny prize. To win you must be age 18 or up and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) -- for full eligibilty details, please read our official rules.

In a recent interview with Funcom's Erling Ellingsen, he speaks candidly about the direction he sees MMOs taking in the near future, and how Age of Conan will soon be considered a pioneer in regards to more mature gameplay.

His valid points include the fact that the average gamer is well into the mature category, and the younger MMO players who started out with World of Warcraft four years ago are now considered mature. So not only is the market maturing, but he sees much more upcoming competition for AoC in regards to the mature genre.

Be sure to read the complete interview for more insight into the direction of the game, and how Funcom views the importance of a proper MMO launch, avoiding the mistakes of others.

If you just can't quite get your fix of Age of Conan this spring when it releases in online form, there's hope yet! I mean, what would you do if the internet was down, or the power went out? Read a book? Psshh! You'd play the upcoming Age of Conan board game by candlelight, of course!

Described as a "massive new strategy game" (see what they're trying to do there?), the AoC board game will feature several miniatures based on the visuals created by Dark Horse Comics. So far, we're shown two new prototypes: the Stygian Emissary and the Hyperborean Army figure. The game developers, Roberto Di Meglio, Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi of Nexus Games said they've chosen the Dark Horse Comic style for their miniatures because those are simply the ones they liked the best, despite the many other interpretations in the past.

Age of Conan's launch date is fast approaching, so it's always nice to read news from the developers to get us psyched up for it! In a recent Q&A, Shannon "Pharamond" Drake, Funcom's Community Manager, answered 15 questions submitted by the community members themselves.

In this Q&A, we find out some interesting information regarding what Funcom has planned for launch versus what they plan to implement further along in the game. For instance, player housing will not be out at launch, but it is a possibility in the future, much as was done with LotRO. There is also word that the game will pull its lore from not only the original Robert E. Howard books, but also from the movies, the Dark Horse comics and everything else associated with the Conan name.

We can't wait for Age of Conan to finally go live. A few of us here at Massively even dropped coin for the gigantic Collector's Edition of this brutal, mature themed MMO. Apparently a great many of you feel the same way. However, if you haven't purchased the game yet, then Ten Ton Hammer has a contest you will absolutely want to enter.

From now until April 18, TTH wants to know (in 250 words or less) why you think Age of Conan is the game you'll be playing for life. Ten people will get beta keys. Five of those beta key winners will also get a copy of the Collector's Edition. One will get the CE plus an autographed framed piece of concept art. Finally, one incredibly lucky individual will walk away with a CE signed by FUNCOM founder and AoC Game Director Gaute Godager and - hold on to your sword - a lifetime subscription to the game. You'll never have to pay for the game. Ever!

Now that's one heckuva prize!

Six seems to be the magic number this week for Age of Conan. A few days ago our own Kyle Horner brought you six reasons to be excited about the barbaric MMO(one that was not mentioned in that splendid article was the game's drunken PvP brawling, which some of us here at Massively are drooling over!). Now the gang at Funcom has dropped their Friday roundup... which includes six updated topics!

AoC will offer a hoary host of "pick up and play" PvP minigames (such as the aforementioned Drunken Brawling) including Capture the Skull and Team Annihilation. Players join one of two teams with the sole objective of killing everyone on the other team.

Thoth-Amon is the big, bad villain of the game. He's the Earth's most powerful sorcerer and leads the snake god's cult of wackos in Stygia. You would do well to know your enemy before you set out to try strike him down (good luck with that by the way!).

Ten Ton Hammer is reporting this morning that Funcom and Eidos have announced that a new Age of Conan trailer will appear on Gamespot.com Thursday. According to the announcement on the AoC official forums, the video will launch at 1700 California time ( -8 GMT). Since I'm bad with that whole international time thing, the TTH guys have done my work for me... apparently "1700 California time" translates to roughly 12pm EST. If it's as bloody as the above pic - wow!

We'll let you know when the ball drops so you can make a beeline for Gamespot.

The fine folks at Funcom have posted a brief update about the beta for their upcoming head-loppalooza, Age of Conan.

The biggest news: female avatars are now available! Gotta love this line from Funcom: " ... while there are some bugs to work out -- people always seem surprised to find out a beta is actually used for finding and squashing bugs! -- they are playable..." They also gave a count of how many patches have dropped in the last few weeks. January had three, while there's been two so far this month. Wednesday's update dropped over 2.5 gigs of data! Lastly, PVP and the PVP servers will - for the first time - be opening soon.

So if you're one of the lucky ones in beta - rejoice! But whatever you do... don't cry. As Tom Hanks might say: There's no crying in head lopping!

MMORPG.com just launched a new developer blog for Age of Conan. Writing about the ins and outs of this mature hack-n-slash is Jason Stone (aka "Athelan"), one of the game's designers. In his first entry (posted yesterday), Jason introduces himself by explaining his roll in AoC and what his gaming background is.

His goals for the blog are to "highlight the goings on in the Age of Conan community, respond to community questions and feedback, give you sneak peeks into my own Beta experiences..." For now Jason will be the only contributor, but he hopes that other members of the development team will chime in from time to time.

Almost all of these dev blog's are worth the time to read because they really give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the game's design and progress. Us old timer's never had anything like this back in the day, so it's a real treat to get what amounts to first hand information straight from the "horse's mouth" - so to speak.

Barbarians. Love 'em or hate 'em, but it's likely going to be the most played class when the gates finally open to Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. This adult themed, head-lopping affair may be an MMORPG where you can play several archetypes, but without Barbarians there would be no Conan. Thankfully, Funcom knows this and are making sure it lives up to what every fan of Howard's legendary literary lout would expect. TenTonHammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye sat down with Evan Michaels (Funcom System Designer) and talked about this classic class.

While most people think of Barbarians as savage and brutal, Funcom has labeled them under the "Rogue" archetype in AoC. According to Michaels, Barbarians are by nature roguish in that they are very individualistic, much like Rogues. They are unequaled melee fighters. When asked how they'll be balanced compared to other "tank" characters Michaels stated that Soldiers will specialize in wearing down their opponent and last longer in a prolonged battle, while a Barbarian would rely on pure aggression to dispatch their foes. Another interesting tidbit that Michaels revealed was that Barbarians will be more effective when the odds are stacked against them. Barbarians have several different abilities that can hit multiple targets, so they become more effective when surrounded.

Yep, look for Eli the Barbarian when AoC lets loose the dogs of war in late March. And be sure to read the entire interview if you plan on partaking in your own Hyborian Adventure.

Following the latest newsletter from Hyboria, the Age of Conan website now has details of the new beta update. Apparently there was a very large patch that added lots of new content, and because of this, Funcom has decided to send out some more beta invites, so check your inbox and spam filters if you have previously signed up. This update also saw the introduction of the Capture the Flag PvP game for the beta test.

In website related news, there are some new RSS feeds that you can nab in a few different languages to get the latest AoC information as soon as it's out, and a couple of screenshots of the freshly revamped Picts have been posted. Above you'll see one of them, but there are more at the site. Very scary indeed, and they do have that "wear your face as a hat" look that Funcom mention they are going for.

Gamesblog.it managed to score a video interview with Jorgen Tharaldsen, product director for Funcom and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures , and just in case you weren't sure yet, he makes it clear -- this game is not for kids. The interviewer poses a few questions relating to how AoC will be different from other MMO's out there, in particular its more mature and violent approach.

The passionate Tharaldsen does not hold back -- much like the game itself -- with his responses. He places a lot of emphasis on Funcom wanting to be faithful to the Conan story and license, and not having to "dumb it down" or remove elements for a younger audience. Decapitations, prostitutes, and copious amounts of blood are some of the things mentioned that you may not find in your average MMO. Tharaldsen said that it was liberating to not have to worry about including aspects like this -- anything that they wanted to add, they did.

It remains to be seen how the proposed server-side ratings system will pan out, and whether there will be an uncut edition of the game available in every region, but it's nice to know that at least somewhere, the game will exist in a form that is exactly how the developers envisioned.