Most male and female characters will do the same amount of damage in melee, and a bunch of balancing stuff, that’s the more important things from the July 31 update. No PvP revamp yet though, that one’s still in the Testlive forums.
Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft, president Mike Morhaime, said the following to Edge in a conference call the other day:
Age of Conan released with some initial success a couple of months ago, and we did see some of our players leave to try the game. However, we’ve seen about 40 percent of those players return to World of Warcraft.
He then goes on talking about how huge World of Warcraft is, their service and such.
However, the key is this: 60 percent of the players coming to Age of Conan from World of Warcraft stays. Since this is from the Blizzard head honcho himself, and no Funcom PR machine, I’d say those a pretty reliable figures.
World of Warcraft is still the dominating MMORPG however, with 10.9 million subscribers. Funcom reported 700,000 a month after launch.
Funcom and Russian game company 1C Games have signed an agreement to bring a localized version of Age of Conan to Russia in Q4.
According to the agreement 1C will fully localize voice and text and operate local customer service, communities, websites and in-game support for Age of Conan in Russian, while Funcom takes care of back-end technology, server infrastructure and continuous development of the game. A dedicated Russian realm is to be created, giving the Russian community an opportunity to stay together and communicate with each other in their native language.
Read the press release for more, but beware of the PR hype machine, it’s a nasty beast hiding in texts like this…
The short answer is no, they are not. However, WoW Riot is claiming it is, trying to tell us that Funcom is desperate, that they dropped the ball on Age of Conan, and whatnot. The news is also reported by Rawcool, who shared the link in a comment to a previous post here on Living Hyboria.
While I’m certainly interesting to know how Age of Conan really fares, and I am wondering about the attachment rate, I believe the whole presumption of the story reported to be wrong. The stock decline, which we’ve covered previously, is what is backing up the whole “Funcom goes bankrupt” argument, but that decline is really the result of a temporary high after the games release, and the impressive sales. All in all, the Funcom stock more or less doubled what it was traded for, and then it went back to normal. This isn’t all that uncommon with games companies having a small portfolio, them being very dependent on a few key titles.
Heads up! If you haven’t already noticed, the buddy codes that came with the collector’s edition are since a couple of days ago ready to be used. It is “recommended” though that you lend your game discs to your friend at the same time, so he or she can install the game without having to download the trial client. Which, by the way, costs $2.99.
There is a new PvP (player versus player, you knew that) system in the works, having already been outlined in the system notes on the official forum. However, Massively has got a few nifty little tidbits on how the new system works on the Testlive test server right now. Some highlights include:
Many players had assumed killing an Innocent of your own level would result in Murder Points, but it doesn’t. The research actually shows that you can gank players of up to two levels below you (and any amount of levels above you) without any penalty other than being temporarily flagged as Criminal.
Criminals will get a crossed swords icon over their head, while Murderers will get a skull. It also appears that becoming a Murderer will be pretty easy, with every innocent kill “awarding” you with at least 10 Murder Points, with 100 meaning you’ve got your devious status.
Also:
PvP XP amounts have also been clarified. You get 100 XP for a kill (to a maximum of 150 XP for a target 5+ levels above you), divided among the group. You lose 300 XP for a death even if you are grouped.
Read the full story on Massively if you want details.
Crazy Yahtzee is bawling about Age of Conan in his latest video review over at The Escapist. Spot on or not? You be the judge. A lot of fun guaranteed no matter what!
It appears that Funcom investors show lack of faith when it comes to the stickyness of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The stock, traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange (Funcom is a Norwegian company), reached an equivalent of $54 on launch day (May 20 this year, people), is now at $24, Massively reports. I think this is the key though:
On the flip side, it should be noted that the price of Funcom stock had been fairly steady, around $25, for several months prior to March of this year. A sharp increase in price coincided with the release of X-Play pre-order statistics for AoC about two months before boxes hit the shelves. That was followed by a distinct downturn just a few weeks after the game’s drop date and the slide has continued since, returning it back to familiar price territory just this past week.
In other words, no need to fret, especially if the game keeps its players around, as I’m sure it will. After all, I’m still here aren’t I?
Now you can buy Age of Conan via download, weighing in at a whopping 15 GB. However, at least in Europe, it is more expensive to actually download the game, compared to picking it up in stores!
EUR € 49.80 Incl. VAT ‡
GBP £ 39.67 Incl. VAT ‡
USD $ 49.99
Crazy. I’d go with the boxed version, still.