Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer

"NOW FOR YOU, INSECTS! BOLDLY, YOU SOUGHT THE POWER OF RAGNAROS. NOW YOU SHALL SEE IT FIRSTHAND!"

Funcom Beijing, which did lots of art and animation for The Secret World, will be closed down this year, Funcom has announced.

Dropping the default Secret World subscription in December but not the cost of the game helped, a lot. The MMO sold more than 70,000 copies in the last four weeks.

The switch to a hybrid free-to-play/subscription business model has been a success for MMO Age of Conan.

Norwegian developer Funcom reckons Age of Conan is the "best-looking" MMO.

Oily barbarian MMO Age of Conan has turned free-to-play.

When the Age of Conan community moans about class changes, executive producer Craig Morrison knows his game isn't an isolated case - "You go to any MMO forum and you look for PVP balance discussions and you'd think the game was the worst balanced pile of crap you've ever seen."

Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz's widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial, is a weekly dissection of an issue weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GI.biz newsletter subscribers.

Three years on and Funcom has finally given up on Age of Conan for Xbox 360.

Fantasy MMO Age of Conan is to offer users a free-to-play model alongside the traditional subscription set-up, developer Funcom has announced.

Games can be art, Conan the Barbarian movie producer Fredrik Malmberg has told Eurogamer - and Hollywood is "seriously" looking at them as rival entertainment.

MMOs do mature, but how many people care years after they walked away? It's a conundrum all MMOs face: how to tempt people back? Age of Conan has an enviable solution: a Hollywood movie.

Age of Conan executive producer Craig Morrison has written an interesting article on the inclusion of voiced stories and cut-scenes in MMOs. The upshot: "more isn't always better".

As you may know, we withdrew our original review of Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer shortly after publication last month. In short, we didn't give the original reviewer enough time with the expansion, but this only became apparent to us once the piece was live. We're very sorry about this, and we're happy to present a second look at the game to make up for our mistake.

Age of Conan is the bloke who turned up to the party having forgotten to pull on his trousers. It's hardly his fault, in a sense; barbarians often seem to run around in the prehistoric equivalent of Y-fronts, and not a merchant trader from Cimmeria to Stygia has ever batted an eyelid at their manly thews being on display all over the place.

It sets the tone for the rest of the evening, however. No matter how fine a pair of trousers the star of my tortured metaphor subsequently dons, everyone will still refer to him as "that bloke who turned up with no trousers on", rolling their eyes and giggling behind their hands.

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Travel east, to mysterious lands of fate and wonder.

Funcom has revealed that Rise of the Godslayer, the first expansion for its Age of Conan MMO, will be released on 11th May.

The news was broken by MMO Examiner. Although Funcom has yet to issue a press release formally announcing the date, a spokesman confirmed to Eurogamer that it was genuine.

The expansion will be available as a digital download direct from Funcom, or bundled with original game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adeventures in a boxed release published by Deep Silver.

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Funcom is teaming up with publisher Deep Silver to release a retail version of Rise of the Godslayer, the first expansion pack for its Age of Conan MMO.

The box includes both the expansion and the original game, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, including all of its updates since launch (which should save new players a few days of patching time). You also get an exclusive pet - a puma - and a starter package of in-game items.

Rise of the Godslayer will also be available indepenently as a digital download direct from Funcom.

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Funcom has released the seventh update to its fantasy MMO Age of Conan. Called Shrines of Bori, the patch its focused on new player-versus-player content, rewards and features.

The titular Shrines of Bori are the objectives of a new battleground for guild warfare situated in the Border Kingdoms, around the village of Brandoc. Fighting for them will reward players with new PvP armour sets for every class, as well as PvP experience points that now scale to your PvP level. The PvP level cap has also been raised.

There's also an in-game event, The Silver Atrium, which acts as a teaser for the game's first expansion pack, Rise of the Godslayer. Some user interface tweaks to the map and quest tracker have been added.

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Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison is presenting the game's first expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, to the press in a darkened hotel suite in San Francisco, a stone's throw from the Game Developers Conference. He's got a neat slide summarising how Funcom's focus has shifted during the development of its MMO, from the three Cs of "combat, combat, combat" at launch to "combat, community, content" as it consolidated an initially shaky live game over the last 20-odd months. The mantra for the expansion, he finishes, is "combat, choice, consequence".

Funcom has told Eurogamer that a new Age of Conan re-evaluation period gets underway today.

To lure you back, the developer is offering two weeks of free play to returning players and two weeks of double experience for everyone. And those who choose to subscribe will be showered with even more gifts.

Sign for three months earn a guaranteed place in The Secret World beta; sign for six months to claim a beta spot plus in-game AOC helmet that boosts experience earned by 10 per cent; and sign for 12 months to earn all that as well as a free copy of Conan expansion Rise of the Godslayer when it's released. These rewards are not retroactive; subscribers from October onwards are eligible.

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Funcom has told Eurogamer that more Age of Conan subscription "initiatives" are planned, following the slashing of long-term memberships to the MMO.

Age of Conan developer Funcom announced that it's laying off 20 per cent of its workforce today, with the result of a delay of "several months" in the development of its next MMO, The Secret World.

The Difficult Second Album has become part of rock lore; that awkward moment when a group of musicians, having finally got to tell the world who they are for the first time, have to prove that they have anything more to say. MMO developers (most of them frustrated rock stars, going by the proliferation of dodgy house bands at their conventions) know their pain; they face the Difficult First Expansion. In fact, it's worse, for them, because their first work isn't just a potent memory. It's still there, attached to the expansion, warts and all, and the contrast - whether favourable or otherwise - can be uncomfortable.

Funcom revamps Hyboria.