Age Of Conan Interview & Videos

[Craig]

The folks over at Massively sat down with the Age of Conan people and asked a bunch of questions...oh, and they pulled off two nice videos of gameplay too.

Quote:

Massively: So first of all, one of the big questions is, we know that this is more adult-oriented, so I expect that you're probably going to get that AO rating?

Jørgen Tharaldsen: No. We're going for Mature rating because with the AO rating we're going to be locked out of retail chains pretty much all over the world. And Conan was never an AO universe per se; it's not that gross. We're not really speculating that kind of violence, it's more like an inherent nature of living that kind of life that Conan did. So we've done everything in our power to push the barriers in terms of how far we can stretch it for the ratings boards to be within what's reasonable. If anything, when you read the comics and novels, they're a lot more brutal than what we are doing. We're going to the ratings boards right now. So actually you have seven different ratings boards to go to in the Western World, and they allow us to place certain parameters of what we'd like the game to be, and then we can twist like the horror value, the fatality value ...

So is Conan someone you can visit?

Yeah, your Destiny Quest that's taking you from level 1 to 80, the one with all the voiceovers and stuff, ties into Conan. So as you progress through it, depending on your archetype, there will be different interaction points with him as you move forward.

Are there any advantages to choosing a male over a female, or a female over a male?

Well, it depends on if you like to beg for coins and stuff. [laughter] No, that's one of the things we actually changed from the lore. Because Conan was created in the 1930s, and it'll be 2008 soon, and in Conan there were very few strong females, and in general, the female would be the wench, or something, but in our game, everybody is strong. And all of them have male-specific armor, female-specific armor, we're just trying to make everything specific for the chosen gender.

[Skado]

this game has some good ideas, hopefully gameplay wise it works out. i got invited to a technical beta for it, which is like a focus test thing where it happens for a short period of time and you test one aspect of the game. unfortunately, it happend at 9 gmt or something retarded that was 4 est.

[DominiKing]

I dunno, looks like it has nice graphics but I'd have to try it.

[OD-BLOODED-1]

I know I am getting it in March. Myself and my fellow OD's are even arguing who will be what class... Guardian for me.

[ThePro]

This game is the one where chars can have sex to raise stats, right?

[OD-BLOODED-1]

Unfortunately the games release date has been pushed back yet again.

"The highly anticipated MMO receives 8 more weeks of development, allowing Funcom to deliver a more polished MMO experience when the game launches on the 20th of May 2008. Despite great feedback on vital aspects like immersion, fun factor and the exciting combat system, the management of Funcom has decided to polish the game even more. Eight weeks of development work is therefore added to stress game systems and polish the game further leading up to launch."

Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures