aoc posts

"Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer is the first expansion for the best-selling and critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Rise of the Godslayer will deliver a wealth of new content and features for players across several level ranges, all set in the fading eastern empire of Khitai - a mysterious and fabled setting within the world of Hyboria."

Download HD Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer 'Northern Grasslands' Video (88 MB)
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Big Download's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from the last week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute.

	SOE announces the next EverQuest II expansion: The Shadow Odyssey The fourth expansion to reach the game will be entitled The Shadow Odyssey, and is slated for release to players on November 18th of this year. The expansion will seek to expand on themes begun with the best-selling Rise of Kunark expansion, returning a number of nostalgic elements to the shattered world of Norrath.
	What you need to know about The Shadow Odyssey The Shadow Odyssey, EverQuest II's fifth expansion, is not just the usual bump to the level cap, a couple of new raids, and a reset for all the armor you already got. It's none of those things. What SOE has done with this expansion is go through the level 50 to level 80 portion of the game and say, let's make an expansion that has something for pretty much everyone. Let's make an expansion where even if no upgrades drop, you can be working toward some awesome stuff just by playing.
	Exploring The Shadow Odyssey with EQII Senior Producer Bruce Ferguson SOE just announced the newest expansion to their EverQuest II title, and we've got plenty of answers for your burning questions. We had the chance to sit down with the game's Senior Producer, Bruce Ferguson, to talk about what makes this such an important product for Sony Online. Join us as we talk through some of the fantastic new content coming to the game.
	Age of Conan expansion concept art unveiled As we mentioned, Funcom's Hyborian MMORPG Age of Conan is set to expand. As of yesterday, the concept art first shown at Leipzig is now available to view, courtesy of GameSpy. The dragon banners, pagoda-like structures and mask style suggest that Khitai, Robert E. Howard's composite version of China, may be the setting. If so - and this is only speculation - it might be a promising choice, despite not receiving much attention in the original Howard tales.
	Massively's state of the game: Warhammer Online beta During Age of Conan's launch, we took a final look at the game as it existed in Beta, a 'state of the game' that took in everything we knew about the title at that point. Today this blogger has attempted to do the same for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the fantasy MMO slated for release by EA and Mythic Entertainment on the 18th of September. If anything, Warhammer Online is a title with a more tightly-wound, highly anticipatory audience than Conan was. The long history of the Warhammer IP, the evocative nature of the tabletop roleplaying game, and a legion of wargaming followers across the globe has made this a must-play game across numerous demographics.

According to a story posted on Avisen, Funcom has terminated an Age of Conan GM (Game Master) for having cyber sex with a player. A complete transcript of the sometimes lewd conversation, complete with screenshots, is available at MMORPG.com.

Funcom responded promptly to the situation, stating that they are "aware of this matter, and necessary measures have been taken" against the offending GM. Funcom was firm in asserting that it maintains strict behavior protocol for all staff and that "if the guidelines are broken there are consequences."

Like an undercover sting operation, much of the dialogue between the GM and the player hints that the encounter might have been pre-meditated in order to definitively catch the GM in the act of disobeying employee guidelines.

Ask Conan what's best in life, and he'll give you his usual rundown with one extra addition: to hear the lamentations of Blizzard Entertainment when they notice a decline in World of WarCraft subscribers. During a conference call made earlier this week, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime admitted that many of Age of Conan: Hyborin Adventures' new players have been raided from the Alliance and the Horde, but feels confident that most WoW players will return to Azeroth.

After leaving to try out Age of Conan, Morhaime claims that "about 40 per cent of those players return to World of Warcraft," leaving Blizzard to speculate (perhaps correctly) that most players only tried Age of Conan because it was the new kid on the block.

Morhaime touted just that during the conference call, boasting that any new MMO "isn't just competing with the amount and breadth of content that we launched with back in 2004" -- World of WarCraft's countless content update and fixes have honed the MMO to what it is today: the most popular kid on the block, even if it won't ever be the newest.

Speaking of new, the highly anticipated World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be released during the fourth quarter of 2008.

You can now crush your enemies and hear the lamentations of their women without heading to your local brick-and-mortar computer games store! Funcom's successful Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures MMO is now available for digital download from AgeOfConan.com. Both European and US downloads are available.

"Get ready for Age of Conan, the most savage, sexy and brutal MMO ever created!" reads the website. "Purchasing this product will immediately activate Age of Conan on the account you are currently logged in to. Due to the time estimated for downloads, two additional days are given to your account for a total of 32 days included."

Definitely expect said download to take quite a bit of time, as the game is 15GB in size. Fortunately, the download is governed by a manager that includes pause and resume functions.

Big Download's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from the last week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute.

	Blizzard announces major World of Warcraft class changes at WWI Representatives from Blizzard offered up a heaping helping of Wrath of the Lich King information, with some great info for just about every class. You're going to want to head to WoW Insider for the full monty, but here are a few highlights...
	Age of Conan patch notes for June 26th The patch notes for today's Age of Conan update are now available, and a few of the fixes that we've seen talked about in recent times have made it in. There's nothing significantly game changing unless you're a Necromancer, or are waiting to get into Alchemy (and it's not the big PvP patch unfortunately) but Funcom's to-do list is now a little shorter.
	World of Warcraft Arena Season 4 begins! Season 4 is a brand-new ballgame, with stiff requirements to earn the coveted loot offered over the course of the next few months. The site has a huge wrapup post in place, working through everything they know about it ... and you can bet they know pretty much everything there is to know.
	World of Warcraft originally planned as free-to-play Blizzard's own Rob Pardo recently dropped something of a bombshell about World of Warcraft at the Paris GDC event when he revealed in a keynote that the game was originally planned as a free-to-play experience.
	LotRO interview reveals more on Book 14 In the second part of MMORPG's interview with Lord of the Rings Online's Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel, we learn more about the final stages of development with LotRO's Book 14. Steefel discusses exactly how this final book of the first volume will unfold before the Mines of Moria expansion arrives on the scene. He also mentions the fact that Moria will not be considered Book 15, but instead be referred to as the first book of Volume 2.

In an odd but fitting metaphorical comparison that resulted in a craving for cheeseburgers, Age of Conan developer Gaute Godager feels that World of WarCraft and other similar MMOs are nice, but Age of Conan is meatier.

"I enjoy playing WOW, I enjoy playing Lord of the Rings Online," Godager admitted in a recent interview with Eurogamer. "But you know... I'm going to be a bit cheeky now, but if you've been to McDonalds for four or five years, and had your burger and your coke, sometimes it's great to just have a great steak and a glass of good wine."

Godager expounded, explaining that Age of Conan is "more expensive, it's not for everyone and perhaps it's not as easily accessible as WOW is. But it could be more meaty."

Further speculation by Godager suggests that AoC might appeal more to Europeans than other MMOs due to different gaming tastes. "In Europe, a lot of people don't have consoles, and they use their PC for gaming to a bigger degree," said Godager. "Many European countries also have better internet connectivity than many parts of the US, and PC gaming has for many years promoted the consumption of high bandwidth, not only through legal means but also through piracy."

Big Download's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from the last week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute.

	World of Warcraft patch 2.4.3 notes forecast cheap mounts, fun pets We all knew that World of Warcraft patch 2.4 was going to be the last major milestone before Wrath of the Lich King released. Who could have forseen that Blizzard would be making such major changes to the original gameworld in the newest changes to the PTR?
	EverQuest 2 Game Update 46 goes live The tempest is gathering. Runnyeye, a storied dungeon since the days of the original EverQuest, is now a more dangerous locale. EverQuest 2 Game Update 46 is now live on the game servers, and we have some new media to go along with it.
	EVE Fanfest 2008 to have first public preview of Ambulation Massively previously announced some of the details of the upcoming EVE Online Fanfest 2008, but CCP Games has just updated their site dedicated to the annual capsuleer pilgrimage.
	Star Wars Galaxies Chapter 10 launches to the live servers Early this morning the live servers for SOE's Star Wars Galaxies went down, fans quieted for a specific purpose. Chapter 10 arrives today, bringing with it a whole new array of content designed for characters across all level ranges. You can find official patch notes on the game's website.
	Funcom responds to concerns following first instances of AoC's "Massive PvP" Age of Conan players have started getting to the stage where they can partake in the game's much-hyped "Massive PvP" -- the first battlekeeps are up, and you can be sure that people are all too keen to go and knock them down.