Age of Conan, MMORPGs, Warhammer, World of WarCraft
2008 was quite a year for Massively Multiplayer Online Games. The year saw another advance from the unstoppable juggernaut, new challengers that may or may not be pretenders to the throne, a flanking maneuver from Middle-Earth, and a painful death in the depths of outer space.
Age of Conan, Interviews, MMORPGs, Virtual Worlds
In case you spent some time this summer under a rock, in some sort of bomb shelter, or frozen in carbonite, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Funcom’s latest MMO, launched last May amidst much hype and fan anticipation. While the game was initially well-received and sold in record numbers for an MMO without “Warcraft” in its name, subscription numbers have since tapered off. These subscriber drops have been attributed to reasons as varied as the extremely high-end computing requirements of the game to lack of promised features. In a recent interview on Gamespot, director Jørgen Tharaldsen discussed the good, the bad, and the refreshingly realistic facets of AoC.
Age of Conan, Gamer Culture, MMORPGs, Virtual Worlds
It’s been a standard in video game and comic book fashion for decades. I mean, what teenage boy hasn’t drooled over a scantily clad, well-drawn and well-proportioned woman warrior at some point? And in recent years, as video games have become more realistic, who hasn’t seen an empowered, axe-wielding woman wearing nothing but her own brand of armor: the chainmail bikini?
Age of Conan, Gamer Culture, World of WarCraft
Many parents fear games like WoW, having heard horror tales - those unfortunates who undergo too many Drain Souls, lose their friends, drop out of high school to become professional mages, and probably brush up against Jack Thompson somewhere along the way. Does Blizzard need its game featured in a popular hardcore pr0ns series to boot? As in: Whorelore: Swords, Sorcery, and Sex and Rage of Bonan, the adult film series based on World of Warcraft and The Age of Conan.
You’ve got to hand it to griefers: some are incredibly creative. It takes a special kind of person to think this far outside of the box.
Clearly, the man or woman who directed this video has a mind that only comes along once in a generation. Couldn’t this genius direct his or her brilliance to more… constructive projects. Like making hover skate boards a la Back to the Future II or trains that can travel through time a la Back to the Future III.
Conan the Cimmerian; Barbarian, Thief, Gladiator, King, and…..fashion trendsetter? What is wrong with this picture? When we think of Conan the Barbarian, we are reminded of the above-mentioned titles—minus the fashion designer one—as well as all the goodies that come with them: tons of violence and gallons of blood. However, as farfetched as “Conan the Designer” sounds, it’s true. However, unlike his previous deeds and titles, this one was not of his hand.
The party responsible for the upcoming clothing line is Inno-Wear, a French company that has made clothing based on other video games, including Gears of War 2 and Devil May Cry.
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Age of Conan, released to record sales, has been out for three weeks now. The initial sales reflect massive anticipation: the game promised stunning graphics, innovative combat, attackable guild battlekeeps, and boobs. (It also has a lot of men in skirts, a fetish of mine, though oddly this wasn’t a big marketing point.) And reviews have been mostly positive. But not everything is as perky as hoped.
Most consumers are familiar with a game’s content before either purchasing it or registering online. Not to mention, games are rated for a reason. However, an M rating is apparently confusing for some Age of Conan players. Assuming that gamers are mature enough for death and destruction, you’d think nudity would simply complement the violence—but not in this case. Although death and destruction is a normal combination, boobs—as a mix in’—make things go haywire.
