Tagged News: age of conan

Gamespot's Australian bureau recently got their hooks into senior systems designer Andrew Griffin and picked his brain about AoC's 'wrap activities'. Here's a snip:

GS AU: Another common complaint of MMOs is grind. How will you go about making sure that monotony is out of the game?

AG: We have a relatively fast leveling speed--it's not slow, and it's more in the WoW type speed. We do give out a significant amount of XP via quests. So pure grinding with monsters isn't the most efficient way to level up. If you get a quest which takes a certain amount of time, you'll get the same amount of XP if you were just pure grinding at 100 percent efficiency for the same amount of time. You won't be sitting there just doing mindless grinds--you'll be doing interesting quests.

There's lots more so head over to the link above.

Age of Conan devs have announced an event for fans to attend. The conference will feature a chance to view the game in action and to participate in some head rolling that night:

As some of you might have heard, we're kicking off the launch for Age of Conan with a barbaric gathering here in Oslo. We're doing this in two stages on Tuesday May 13th .

During the day, at 12:00 CET, we're doing a presentation of the game at Latter Aker Brygge where we will show the game's exclusive features and content. Seating is limited and is reserved for journalists, but we will have quite a few extra seats for some of Oslo's Age of Conan fans. We can't guarantee a seat, but if you meet up outside Latter on Aker Brygge at 12:00 CET, there might be a chance for you to get in!

In the evening we're hosting a huge party in Holmenkollen - one of Norway's key national wonders - where we're building an entire Cimmerian war camp to honor the release of our game (and possibly wage war on the evil wizard inhabiting the tower!). And guess what? Those of you who actually get into the presentation during the day will have a chance of also being invited to the party in Holmenkollen!

Again, seating at the presentation is limited and so is access to the party. But with some luck you might be one of those who get to send Age of Conan into history!

By Crom! This will rock!

Sounds like an event to remember. Now...where did I put my passport?

Mitra's Method is giving you the opportunity to ask your questions about Age of Conan!

"The NDA has been lifted for press members, so if there is anything you desire to be answered, then be sure to submit a question!"

'Read More' to find out how to submit your question, and the steps you need to take to do so.

A coworker of mine really wanted to play the Age of Conan beta. When he heard that FilePlanet subscribers would have the chance to download the client and play it themselves, he jumped at the chance. But 24 hours and dozens of gigabytes later, his will faltered. Have you had a similar experience? For this week's discussion, we want to know:

Are system requirements, hard-drive space and download times preventing people from playing MMOs?

Tell us what you think in the comment thread!

Age of Conan devs have a big finale scheduled for the end of the open beta. The open beta is scheduled to end on Sunday, May 10th. Here's what's in store:

On the 10th of May Funcom is transforming the entire Open Beta into PvP MAYHEM, while at the same time giving testers access to all which Hyboria has to offer!

As we take down our servers for a short period we are at the same time changing the entire server rule-set to Free For All PvP carnage!

Here are the dirty details:

• All servers become PvP servers. You can kill each other - no level restrictions on killing or getting killed, but you cannot PvP in the major cities.
• All level 13 characters becomes level 20. Their inventory is wiped, but they have "tons" of money and really nice equipment suitable for level 20's. Shopping bonanza!
• You have access to ALL zones and ALL levels after level 20!
• You will be zoned to your Race's Hub. (Cimmerians - Conarch Village, Aquillonians - Old Tarantia and Stygians - Khemi!

We will get back with detailed information on the exact time it starts on the official Open Beta forums at IGN, as well as on the Age of Conan forums and community site.

Sounds like a great way to go out with a bang.

The dates for European early access have been announced by the developers of Age of Conan:

Registration for customers with pre-order keys has now opened on http://register.ageofconan.com. Registering with a valid pre-order key (such as the Rhino or Mammoth key) is the unique way to be eligible to purchase Early Access for 5€/5$. This fee includes 10 days of game-time as well as the digital download of the client. Hurry though, because the Early Access is only available while supply lasts!

There's more, so read on.

Funcom lifted their embargo late last week with the FilePlanet Open Beta going live, and so the WarCry Network has been given free-reign to spill the beans on all things 'Age of Conan'.

"For Funcom, creating Age of Conan has been a labour of love, and that is devastatingly obvious in the fruits they have beared in this Crom-tastic game."

This week, we're very proud to bring to our official preview of Age of Conan.

Several Age of Conan servers will be specifically marked for role play. As a result, developers have posted the preliminary rules for these particular servers:

These are the rules we are considering for the Roleplaying-tagged servers for Age of Conan.

We are extremely interested in the feedback of our hardcore roleplayers on this issue and hope you will let us know your thoughts in this thread. Please note nothing is final. We're planning a meeting to talk out some of the issues we're already seeing, so now is the perfect time to give us your input.

Preliminary Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Roleplaying Server Rules

All names must fit within the universe of Hyboria. Sephiroths or Pikachus or names that are out of place with the setting are not permitted. This is in addition to our usual naming policy (for example, no copyrighted names).

Check out the rest after the jump.

Gamespy editors got their hands on Game Director Gaute Godager for a discussion about PvP in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Here's some of what was discussed:

GameSpy: Are the bar brawls still in there?

Godager: The bar brawls are being worked on. They look good, but they aren't ready for deployment yet. They're coming up.

GameSpy: At what level can players start participating in PvP?

Godager: You can actually do the mini-games from level five. There really isn't a level cap on siege PvP, but since the PvP system is open, I'm guessing you'll have to have a substantial number of level-80 characters to pull it off. You can still put level-40 characters in there, but they'll just die more quickly.

Virtual bar brawls? COOL! *g*

File Planet is offering US Age of Conan beta players a beta leveling contest opportunity.

U.S. Residents Only

The Contest play period will begin on Thursday, May 1st at the start of game play and end on Sunday, May 11th at 9:00am PT. All Open Beta players who meet contest rules requirements are eligible to win.

This contest is a two (2) class "Leveling" combo contest.

• The Entrant who levels two (2) class types to the maximum level 13 in the LEAST amount of time will be declared a potential winner, pending verification. The total playtime for leveling both classes will be combined to determine the overall speed.
• A total of nine (9) prize packages will be awarded to those who have leveled two (2) classes according to the combo types below.

Class Combo types:

* Herald of Xotli + Assassin
* Herald of Xotli + Conqueror
* Herald of Xotli + Dark Templar
* Barbarian + Tempest of Set
* Barbarian + Ranger
* Barbarian + Necromancer
* Guardian + Bear Shaman
* Guardian + Priest of Mitra
* Guardian + Demonologist

Prizes

• Signed Collector's Edition and lifetime Conan Account
• Official Age of Conan Gaming Headset, Inspire T6100 5.1 speakers and Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
• Direct2Drive Gift Certificate and Annual Founders' Club Subscription
• Age of Conan Keyboard, inlay and mousemat from Zboards
• In-Game Virtual Items package (Rhino, Mammoth, Ring of Acheron, Drinking Cape, Amazon Bow)

Read the fine print, and there's a LOT, by CLICKING HERE.