Press release today states that Funcom has gained an additional 30 million dollars for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. I haven’t been following this game lately, but the two latest screenshots are looking good. Anyone know how Conan himself is going to be involved in the game?
Durham – On the back of significantly growing external and internal expectations related to ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ — Funcom’s highly anticipated Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMO) — Funcom yesterday completed a private placement and through this received additional funding of approximately 30 million USD.
“We’re expecting the launch of ‘Age of Conan’ to create significant waves in the MMO gamespace,” says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “With the secured additional funding Funcom is in an even better position to make the launch of the game a success. This commitment from the financial market is reflecting the great promise and expectations for ‘Age of Conan’.”
‘Age of Conan’ is progressing according to plan towards the announced launch date of 30th October 2007. The game has recently received strong early sales indications from partners and retail channels both in the U.S. and in Europe and press and gamer expectations for ‘Age of Conan’ continue to grow strongly. To ensure an optimal launch of ’Age of Conan’, Funcom and its key partners has through this round of funding strengthened Funcom’s marketing and operational capacity prior to launch.
Funcom has furthermore decided to enter the casual MMO segment and is currently evaluating several possible expansion opportunities. As some of these opportunities may involve near term acquisitions, Funcom would also benefit from an increased strategic flexibility.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I’m not sure about the actual involvement of Conan himself in the game, but I’ve seen some of the gameplay demos from E3 and they look interesting. It looks as if they’re doing away with a lot of the commonalities that plague modern MMORPGs.
For example: they’re doing away with a targeting system (at least for melee combat), meaning that the game takes on an almost third-person shooter type feel where the swing of your blade on your screen has a direct impact of the amount of damage done, etc, rather than worrying about the random rolls and things associated with swinging at a target. Hopefully they have the network-coding chops to pull that one off.
Realism seems to be one of their selling points, as they’ve made a point of showcasing their horse and human models in the gameplay videos.
From what you can see, it also looks as if there’s a really-really zoomed out aspect of the game where you can wage a larger scale battle. They show their player character launching a trebuchet full of molten lead or something at a group of oncoming enemies. Whether the enemies are players or not is hard to say, but I for one can say that if I get sniped by some kid with a trebuchet from 2 miles away I might not be a subscriber for very long
An additional 30 million?! I’m gunna really be surprised if AoC turns out like crap.
Thanks for that post, Cuppy.
-Matt Graham [ConanCast and World of Blogcraft]
I think the 30 Million wasn’t for just Conan but for all of Funcom. They mentioned something about wanting to get into the casual MMO space.
But as for how they handle Conan being in the game. I *think* it takes place shortly after he becomes king of Cimmeria (sp?). There are other nationalities to choose from besides Cimmeria, like Stygian, and so forth. Depending on which nationality you choose, you’ll have access to different class choices.
Not only that but the level to 20-ish game is entirely solo, like a single-player adventure that eases you into the game. You won’t have to complete it each time for an alt, but from the way Funcom’s talking it should be worth the price along of admission and you’ll never have to pay for that part of the game. So even if you unsubscribe, and want to see if you’d like to re-sub, you’ll be able to play that 1-20 game to see if it still floats your boat before spending another 15 bucks on a month sub.
Gosh, there’s way too much to talk about that game here. In short, it has a lot of ambitious intentions, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
You and me both Bildo, however I thought they had changed the lvl 20 solo thing to allowing both grouped play as well as solo. Either way I’m eagerly waiting to enter the age of conan.
Incidiently I think the $30 m is both for aoc and probably for there other mmorpg that they just released details on … but what do I know, I cant imagine having 30 m to play with ….
He is already king of Aquilonia. I don’t recall reading if you ever meet him. You might not want to since in all his stories basically all his men die and he’s the only survivor so… he seems to be bad luck
I’ve only been reading ths stories recently. Never really read pulp before, it’s fun.
I applied to the beta, I am still waiting. Come on Funcom! I have a dx10 vista machine and years of software testing experience!
Argh they’re having a tornado drill, gotta go.
/shakes in anticipation
I gotta admit, the whole Conan theme is hot rite now. Just look at Saturday Nite Live, they’re always trying to work a fur collar and spiked helmet into their bits.