Tagged News: shannon drake

Shannon "Pharamond" Drake over at Funcom and Mitra's Method's Stephen "Weezer" Spiteri got together for a little chat about the status of Age of Conan. Drake gives us some answers in a special edition of Mitra's Method!

Mitra's Method: One of the key features of 'Age of Conan' is its revolutionary real-time combat system, and it's amazing, but I was wondering how important it was for Funcom to pull this off. Gaute Godager spoke about how at the start "it couldn't be done" but how does it feel to have it nailed-down? How do you think this will change MMORPG gaming?

Shannon Drake: The thing I've noticed playing other MMOs since I started working on Conan is that I'm a lot less tolerant of classic autoattack+special attack combat systems than I used to be. Even in a game I enjoy, I find myself jabbing forlornly at the movement keys and muttering, "So I can't do anything but stand here flailing away?" It's hard to go back to it once you've gotten used to swinging your weapon yourself, working through combos, and otherwise actively managing your combat.

Read it all after the leap.

Funcom recently hired a Community Manager for Age of Conan. The former Escapist/WarCry staffer Shannon Drake took over in Norway a couple months ago and we had a chance to do an interview with him about his new job.

WarCry: As the Community Manager of a soon to launch game, what are your immediate priorities for the community in advance of that launch?

Shannon Drake: My immediate priorities for Conan are contributing to the beta process however I can, especially by getting the community involved with it, and whetting their appetites for new information about the game. I also work with Marketing on promoting the game and letting them know the current mood of the various forums and communities, and I sit in on meetings and bug people around the company as a general voice-of-the-player.

Read more after the jump.

Funcom recently hired a Community Manager for Age of Conan. The former Escapist/WarCry staffer Shannon Drake took over in Norway a couple months ago and we had a chance to do an interview with him about his new job.

WarCry: As the Community Manager of a soon to launch game, what are your immediate priorities for the community in advance of that launch?

Shannon Drake: My immediate priorities for Conan are contributing to the beta process however I can, especially by getting the community involved with it, and whetting their appetites for new information about the game. I also work with Marketing on promoting the game and letting them know the current mood of the various forums and communities, and I sit in on meetings and bug people around the company as a general voice-of-the-player.

Read more after the jump.

Akamai provides connects companies to their clients. The very word "middlewear" sometimes causes a glaze to come over people's eyes, but it is actually a very important part of making sure people get what they want, when they want it. Akamai is in that business and recently our own Shannon Drake interviewed Akamai Senior Product Line Manager Kris Alexander about the company and the services they provide.

If the name rings a bell, he says, you've probably run into their website acceleration business - "everything from MTV to CNN to things like Gamespot and Gamespy" - but they also deliver software for everyone from Microsoft to Sun to the Playstation 3 for the PlayStation Network, as well as the Nintendo Wii's diverse lineup of software offerings. Akamai provides those companies what Alexander calls a, "service platform" that allows them to skip the step of building all their own infrastructure, "so that they can focus on doing what they do well, which is making great games, and what we provide is everything from storing games and game-related content to delivering it, plus allowing the user communities to publish back in, providing the tools...to publish things back into the user community."

You can read more after the link.