This week, Kintaii steps up again to give us a glimpse into the recent activities at the Anarchy Online offices in Norway. Having personally worked on the upcoming PvP playfield, Kintaii has a great deal to say about it. After getting acclimated to the company’s world-building software, “TIDE”, he revels in the ability to shape the zone exactly as he sees fit. Subsequently, some changes have been made to the playfield; these tweaks include, but are not limited to:

• HP/NP regen inside Tower area
• Expanded teleportation into the PvP area
• Banking/Surgery terminals inside towers
• Improved building collision
• More distinct “areas” within the zone

Continued…

The guys at Funcom have been pretty busy in the last few months. Not just with Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, and The Secret World, but with a little expanding, too. While live support and additional production teams will remain in Oslo, Norway, the rest of the team has packed up and hauled it over to Montreal, Canada.

Now, they’ve set up shop and are continuing to work on Age of Conan’s next update. The new patch won’t be much of a content overhaul or feature introduction, but rather a series of tweaks and fixes. Tier 3 & 4 Raid content is being examined in light of a few overly arduous encounters. The “Keeper of Artifacts” in particular is mentioned as being toned down in an effort to smooth out the difficulty curve. In addition, Tier 3 Raids will offer higher mastery rewards, and a couple instances have been tweaked to fix disappearing loot.

Continued…

Yesterday, the folks over at IGN were lucky enough to take a walk through the gritty streets of The Secret World’s London. No, they didn’t get any hands-on playtime, but an interview with Ragnar Tørnquist is almost as sweet. Though it is a pseudo-real world location, TSW’s London will feature an authentic culture and atmosphere, with added supernatural themes inherent in the game’s lore.

Continued…

Nowadays, when gamers hear the name “Funcom”, the trumpeting horns of Hyboria’s armies can be heard approaching over the next ridge. Sexualized barbarism & bloodshed rest on the tip of our tongues, and in the seat of our minds, for we are undoubtedly thinking of Age of Conan. That’s fair enough, as Funcom’s newest MMO has been heavily publicized since it’s release, easily overshadowing the uniquely realized (though dated) world of Anarchy Online.

Senior Designer Brad L. McAtee has written up a short post on the official website to assure us that, despite the general “loneliness” of his office (July is vacation month), a few dedicated employees are still punched in and crunching away on Anarchy Online’s newest features. “Newest features?” you scoff, as you raise an eyebrow. I don’t blame you. The game has been slow to update since a significant portion of Funcom’s resources have been funneled off to AoC in the last year or two. Nonetheless, Brad, or “Kintaii”, has some big plans for the next update, including new head models, Keeper nano changes, and world additions.

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In this month’s Age of Conan Letter from the Game Director, Craig Morrison talks about the break they are taking from content production to integrate a new technology platform.  The developers periodically take time to do integrations with their Dreamworld techology and that is something they are doing this summer.  He wanted to let the players know why Funcom was taking this time to do something that we won’t necessarily see tangible results in, and he does a very good job of doing so.  Essentially, in taking the time the time to do the integrations, it actually makes the team more efficient with the addition of new tools, and keeps the game on the cutting edge by allowing them to continue to update it with new graphical effects and features.  It also allows them to keep on top of performance.  While most players won’t see these upgrades as something as substantial as content, in the long-run, the game and the players will be better off for it.

Also of note is that update 2.0.5 will be going live shortly.  This update adds quite a bit of new content, including 50 quests, changes to the Shrines of Bori PvP feature and an adjustment of the token drops for faction armor (which will make the tokens about 25% quicker for players to obtain.)

I’m pleased to hear Funcom talk about looking towards the future with the games by staying on top of technology.  It bodes well for the future of its franchises, including Age of Conan.

The folks over at MMORPG.com have released a detailed review of Funcom’s Age of Conan latest expansion, Rise of the Godslayer – one of the coolest expansion titles ever birthed. Most people saw Conan largely as a dissappointment and the game quickly lost subscribers because of its lack of appropriate content to compete with some of the best MMO’s on the market.

It may of taken two years, but with this latest expansion, Conan has finally stepped it up to compete with the big boys and become one of the more impressive MMO’s to date. For the full review of Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, click here.

The highly anticipated expansion to Age of Conan is available now via both retail and digital distribution. The retail release comes bundled with the original game. The original Age of Conan was a smash hit in retail and ended up selling 1.2 million copies around the world.

Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom commented;

“We are very excited about seeing ‘Age of Conan’ back on the shelves in retail as a renewed and revitalized experience comprised of both the original game and the expansion, exactly two years after the launch of the original game in May 2008. We feel very confident about the level of quality offered in this expansion, and the initial reactions from press and players so far only serve to confirm our confidence in the game.”

Keep on checking MMOCrunch for all the latest news on Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer.

Guild Renown Feature

Funcom has released update 6 for Age of Conan entitled Return of Thoth-Amon. Although not a new feature to MMOs, this update primarily focuses on guild rankings. Funcom described the update as:

Update 6: ‘Return of Thoth Amon’ introduces the much anticipated guild renown feature, where any guild on any server can acquire renown points that unlock exclusive rewards. Anything that the members of that guild do – fighting monsters, fighting other players, crafting items – will generate renown for the guild. Renown points will unlock guild levels, and will for instance allow the guild to decorate their guild city with new buildings, statues and banners, or allow the guild’s members to gain access to exclusive item rewards. Players can view a list of the top ranking guilds on all servers from inside the game as well as through the new guild rankings website available on the community portal.

The update also features a new dungeon entitled Thoth-Amon’s Stronghold.

Funcom has released the first in-game footage of The Secret World, their upcoming MMO. The Secret World appears to be a mix of zombie shooter and secret societies. It sounds a little like Hellgate London; lets hope it does better. The game currently does not have a release date, but is slated for PC and XBOX 360 release. The security video (below) is made using in-game footage.