US Age of Conan servers down for the merger of Bloodspire and Hyperborea
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Server downtime
Server mergers have finally come to Age of Conan. Today the US servers will be down starting around 7:00 a.m. EST (or 12 p.m. GMT) for about six hours so that Bloodspire and Hyperborea can be merged. Originally planned for early December, the mergers had been postponed when a data problem was identified that might have caused certain items to disappear in the process.
Additional details around how the mergers will be done are available on the AoC FAQ forum threads. If you have characters on these servers (or really anyone playing), it’s definitely worth having a look to determine how you might be impacted. Information on further merges has not yet been released.
US Age of Conan servers down for the merger of Bloodspire and Hyperborea originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
US Age of Conan servers down for the merger of Bloodspire and Hyperborea
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Server downtime
Server mergers have finally come to Age of Conan. Today Tomorrow the US servers will be down starting around 7:00 a.m. EST (or 12 p.m. GMT) for about six hours so that Bloodspire and Hyperborea can be merged. Originally planned for early December, the mergers had been postponed when a data problem was identified that might have caused certain items to disappear in the process. Additional details around how the mergers will be done are available on the AoC FAQ forum threads. If you have characters on these servers (or really anyone playing), it’s definitely worth having a look to determine…
US Age of Conan servers down for the merger of Bloodspire and Hyperborea originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Investing wisely in massively multiplayer online games
Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Opinion
Even a cursory look back on the last year in massively multiplayer online games reveals a number of titles that, despite their promise (and some promises), ultimately failed. Factor in the high costs of creating and publishing an MMO title these days and the mistakes still being made in the industry, and perhaps it’s time for a primer on how not to lose money when making an MMO to be widely disseminated. Adam Martin over at T=Machine has written just that. In the first of a two-part series, Martin provides insightful analysis of some glaring mistakes made in the MMO industry, and how some of…
Investing wisely in massively multiplayer online games originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year
Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, Virtual worlds, Anti-Aliased
var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/pc_games/Anti_Aliased_Top_5_things_MMOs_should_learn_in_the_new_year’;
Well Happy New Year Massively readers! Hope everything is working out for you all on this second day of the year 2009! Did you get caught up on your favorite MMO yesterday during the holiday? With the new year finally here, we have all sorts of new games in production and slated for a 2009 release. But that doesn’t mean we should entirely forget about 2008. All sorts of things have happened in 2008 that the industry and players can learn from, but what should make the classic “end of…
Continue reading Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year
Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
GamerDNA and Massively look back at the MMO year in review
Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, Massively meta, Academic
Continuing on from GamerDNA’s year in review (pt. 1) Massively and everybody’s favorite gaming social service have come together to feature some great MMO numbers for 2008. Written by the highly talented Sanya Weathers, these stats will run down the winners and not-so-much winners for the last six months of MMO gaming. This kicks off a series of article collaborations between Massively and GamerDNA - we hope you enjoy them! What a freaking year. The weather outside is frightful for newcomers to the MMO genre, with a Blizzard that’s been going on for so long that no one remembers what…
Continue reading GamerDNA and Massively look back at the MMO year in review
GamerDNA and Massively look back at the MMO year in review originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]
|
Unlike that other video game goat-killing event, Funcom keeps things virtual with it’s holiday goat hunt, with a prize package consisting mainly of the game’s pre-order bonuses and two months free game time up for grabs for whoever manages to down one of the poor creatures. The trick is, there’s only one goat per server, so only one person per server can win. Riddles as to the goat’s location can be found at the official site, along with a listing of servers where the goat has already appeared and went down. While some servers have already held their events, more will be having theirs on the 29th, 30th, and 31st, so who knows? You might still have a chance to get your goat. What you do with it when you get it is your business. In-Game Season Event [Age of Conan via Massively]
|
![31ac4_publicenemy Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/31ac4_publicenemy.jpg "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
The festive folk at Funcom have managed to pull off a gaming event involving killing a goat that won’t get the gaming community upset as part of the holiday festivities in Age of Conan.![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/39b39_img.phdo "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
![8ca38_tracker Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/8ca38_tracker.php "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]"){kind=tracking}
![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/ceb7b_full "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/f0210_full "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/3732f_full "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/48d3e_full "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]")
![Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [Get Your Goat]](http://www.game-pet.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/ca017_0quYJLcF-vU "Age Of Conan Features Festive Goat Killing [get Your Goat]"){kind=small}
A look back at 2008
2008 has been an absolutely amazing year for MMOs, and my personal progress through them.
Last year at this time, I’d just found the absolutely most perfect EQ2 guild — they were great raiders, loved grouping, and were fantastic people besides. With Clan of Shadows, I managed to do every flagging raid for Ruins of Kunark and was ready to step in and do my best to help the guild as they conquered Veeshan’s Peak. It wasn’t to be; I didn’t make the full membership vote. It wasn’t even close. That disappointment, along with other things to fill my evenings, eventually led to the end of raiding. Without raiding, though, I didn’t have much incentive to log in anymore. I tried to make things work with another guild, Delusions of Grandeur, but it just wasn’t CoS. I guess if I couldn’t make it in CoS, I didn’t want to settle for a lesser guild.
I started poking around back on EverQuest. I really missed my characters there. Not raiding, so much, but the friends, community and camaraderie that makes EQ unique. A lot of people commented that they’d love to play through EQ again, if they didn’t have to do it alone. So I thought we might do together what we’d never do alone, and along with ten or so fellow former EQ players, started Nostalgia the Guild on the Luclin server. NtG peaked in mid-summer when we got to dragon killing level and put the hurt on two of the three bosses of the original EQ, Lord Nagafen and Lady Vox. (We never killed the third, Phinegal Atropos, as a guild). SOE’s summer Living Legacy program had the unexpected side effect of boosting the power of our armor and weapons to raid levels, and a lot of things became possible with very few people. Although fairly diminished, NtG still meets Fridays to explore Old Norrath.
Stargrace took the Nostalgia idea and brought it forward 500 years to the devastated Norrath of EverQuest II. I eventually transferred half my characters from Befallen to Najena to join the guild there. I’m getting the urge to raid and group again, so I may be moving some of them back to Befallen… the loneliness of a server I have no history with dooms me to pickup groups with players I have never met and will never meet again. Nostalgia EQ2’s two active members aren’t enough to build a group or a raid… so there’s not much to do unless I want to do it alone. I hate playing by myself.
In February, I restarted my Neopets account with the sole goal of reaching and beating level 100 of their Shapeshifter mini-game. Shapeshifter starts out as the kind of brain twister that is fun to solve, but quickly goes well beyond the bounds of anything that can be solved by unaided humans in a normal lifetime. So this supposed kids game is really a test of your ability to develop an algorithm that can solve an enormous non-directed decision tree before the Sun goes nova. With help and encouragement from other solvers, I developed a Python program I called Shifter that could solve the hardest levels in no more than a day, and often far faster. On April 1st, 2008, I solved the last puzzle and was the Neopets Shapeshifter Champion for the entire month.
February also started my short-lived affair with Pirates of the Burning Sea. My son wanted to give it a try, so I bought a copy for him, intending to buy a copy for myself if I liked it. He grew bored with it. I liked it a lot, and made a character on his account, got up to a fairly decent level and was getting my free trading skills up, working through the storyline, and getting involved in some really exciting battles at sea.
It was on Station Pass, too! This was somewhat of a killer, actually. My son is not on the Station Pass, so I would have had to start paying for one or pay the PotBS subscription fee to keep playing, all the time I could be playing it for nothing extra if I just had my own account.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to start all over again, or pay to buy another copy of the game, so I just let it lapse. There were plenty of issues, but the game had amazing character and ship customization, absolutely gorgeous and tense battles, and I even liked the story. Sailing back and forth on the Caribbean though, not so much. Having to depend on a wide variety of people to make goods, definitely not so much. I wanted to play, but I just didn’t have the time or the money.
I felt sure that by the end of the year, I’d be totally engulfed in the one sure-fire hit MMO of the year, Flagship Studio’s Mythos. I’ve played a lot of Diablo clones, and even some, like Cronous, that try and take the action RPG into the MMO realm, but none had nailed it like Mythos. Even before they expanded the heavily instanced Overworld into a more world-like map with zoning only for cities and dungeons, I felt they had made perhaps the ultimate casual MMO… Rumors of money trouble inside Flagship turned out to be truth, and over a tumultuous weekend, Hellgate: London, their other title, was taken by their Asian publishing partner, and Mythos was dead.
I would like to be playing Mythos right now.
In March, a major new chapter of my life began when I was hired to blog about breaking MMO news for Massively.com. The pressure of writing so many articles, keeping a full time job, trying to keep Nostalgia rolling, and raiding in EQ2 eventually left me unable to do any of these things well. I put my full time job first, where it had to be, and focused on real life issues, like getting my son enrolled in college and figuring out how to pay for it (answer: I didn’t. I am broke all the time now 
). My Massively adventure ended after an ill-fated trip to the SOE Fan Faire put me in massive (sorry) debt, and my job was cut down to doing EQ2 guides, a task for which I was incredibly unsuited, since I was hardly playing EQ2 at all at that point (which continues to this day), and I’d never written a guide to anything in my life 
Massively and I parted ways in September.
I went back to writing just for West Karana, where I planned to change the direction of the blog from just chronicling my adventures in mainstream MMOs to seeking out, playing and being an advocate for lesser known MMOs.
It’s not that I don’t like the AAA, high budget, huge marketing department MMOs. I just find them too similar to each other. So many players look eagerly to a new MMO to banish the blahs they feel with the game they currently play. They play the new MMO for awhile, discover that it’s essentially the same as the game they already played, and pronounce the entire genre dead.
I was looking through MMORPG.com’s list of games, and some of them looked totally, wildly different from anything I had ever played. Somewhere in those hundreds of games would have to be dozens that went in a new direction.
Oh yeah, there were. BUNCHES!
In early July, I discovered Wizard 101, probably via Massively. This was an entire MMO built around a wildly kooky collectible card game. I was absolutely and utterly hooked. This was the sort of thing I’d been looking for — an MMO that was just entirely out of left field. It was superficially a kid’s game but quickly turned into a game requiring strategy and teamwork and great skill in deck building. I played until they turned out the beta lights, took a couple week’s break, then started right in on the live game.
If anyone wanted to dip their toes into MMO gaming, I wouldn’t give them a copy of EverQuest II or World of Warcraft. I’d sit them down in front of Wizard 101, right where the Headmaster of Ravenwood School of Wizardry is giving a test to see what sort of wizard you are. It’s not Hogwart’s by another name. It’s something new, unique and fun. Wizard 101 was one of the breakout hits of 2008, and I expect wonderful things from it in 2009.
My on-again, off-again relationship with City of Villains flipped “on” again for awhile in July and August. I love the idea of a super-hero, comic book game, and I like what NCsoft has done with the game since they acquired it from Cryptic, and the character creator is unparalleled, but… the repetitive gameplay just can’t keep me for long. I started to get into their crafting system, but after awhile I just stopped logging in. I’m still subscribed, for now, because I am waiting for the mission designer coming in Issue 14 or 15. I want to see what that is like.
Spore owned my gaming time for a few weeks in September. I really wanted to like the game and very much enjoyed building new creatures, vehicles and space ships. I just didn’t get into the space game that is the majority of the time spent playing — you breeze through the other portions in an hour or less. It still has a place on my hard drive.
Recently, I’ve chucked pretty much every game into the back seat in order to play Dream of Mirror Online. I played this game briefly earlier in the year, and it made a very good impression, but the huge number of games out at that time pushed it away before I’d gotten to level 10, where the jobs, and the game itself, open up. As I played it, I couldn’t help remembering the last game that made me feel this way — the original EverQuest. I began to notice a lot of similarities between the games — death penalties, slow leveling, an emphasis on community over leveling, wide open zones and dungeons — it was EverQuest! A Taiwanese game company had managed, somehow, to meld EQ’s gameplay and community with the Asian anime-flavored, cinematic games. Absolutely stunned me, and I am having a lot of fun playing it.
Honorable mentions: Guild Wars — I want to play this more. Why don’t I? I don’t know! Probably because I hate playing alone. Florensia — another Asian import. I loved the fact that it had a cool land game AND a pirate-themed sea game, but it reminded me of DOMO so much, I figured I’d just play DOMO (good call). Vanguard — even though it runs crappy on my machine, I still pick it up now and again, and it still has a spot on my hard drive. Spellborn — this was intended to be a major part of my fall gaming, but it has been pushed to next year. I still have high hopes for the game, if not for the publisher’s commitment to the title.
2008 was a very intense year for MMO gaming, full of tales of intrigue and adventure — and that’s just the marketing departments! Some of this year’s biggest releases — WoW’s expansion, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online — I just could not find time for. 2009 isn’t looking as intense as 2008, but it might well be SOE’s time to shine if they can get The Agency and Free Realms out the door. Champions Online is also scheduled for the year, and perhaps DC Universe Online as well, giving NCsoft’s City of Heroes a run for its money and market share. News of Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic should keep people thirsting for more space-themed adventure in 2010. And, Spellborn!
Happy holidays, fellow gamers 
Slay a festive goat to win game-time and prizes in AoC
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Contests, Events, in-game
In keeping with the macabre nature of the Conan world, you won’t be helping orphans for Age of Conan‘s seasonal event. Nope. No delivering festive cookies to elves or spreading holiday love. Just hunting down mountain goats. Nothing says Christmas in Hyboria like a freshly slain and skinned goat carcass for that special someone. The problem in this particular case is that these “holiday” goats are in short supply — extremely short supply in fact, as there will only be one special goat per server. All the bragging rights (and prizes) go to one lucky person per server who manages to track it down.
There will be a hefty portion of luck involved in winning your server’s event, but Funcom is also providing clues to the goat’s whereabouts in the form of riddles on the official site. The events will take place on different days across the servers, and the goats won’t be in the same place either. Now we’ve got to admit that we were a bit slow to catch this (we’ll blame the spirit of the holidays for making us lazy) and some servers have already had their riddles posted and goats killed. However, if your server hasn’t had the event yet, then it will be either be on later today, or the 29th, the 30th, or the 31st of December. Each server’s winner will receive a pack of prizes (the same as the Season give-away pack) and two months of free game-time. Happy hunting!
Slay a festive goat to win game-time and prizes in AoC originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
AoC: Special In-Game Seasonal Event - Ten Ton Hammer
|
The official site for Age of Conan has been updated with the details for a new seasonal in-game event. In true Hyborian fashion, you won’t be finding any scantily-clad elves dancing around in Santa hats either. Instead, you’ll get to partake in what AoC does best – decapitation! OK, there may not be any decapitation involved, but you do get to hunt and kill a “special” goat: Players will have to hunt and kill a certain mountain goat we will have spawned. The exact location where this specific goat can be found will be told in form of riddles which we will post here on the community portals. The location of the mountain goat will be different on each server to make it a bit more challenging. Keep an eye out on the Season Event entries on the portal at 23rd, 24th, 29th, 30th and 31st of December. These will be the dates the competition will be held. The event will run exactly once on each of the servers during the whole period of the competition (one single time on only one of the the 5 days mentioned above) so make sure you don’t miss the one running on yours.
At the time of this writing, it appears that the first few riddles have already been solved, but be sure to check out the official AoC website for the full details, and keep an eye on the event page for the next round of events to begin! |
New Seasonal Event Competition - Ten Ton Hammer
|
Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures will be joining the ranks of many other games this holiday season as they hold an ingame seasonal event for players to take part in. If you can be the one to win this event you will win an assortment of ingame items and two free months of play time. In celebration of the days getting longer now and the turning of the sun, we will hold an in-game competition on each Age of Conan server. Players will have to hunt and kill a certain mountain goat we will have spawned. The exact location where this specific goat can be found will be told in form of riddles which we will post here on the community portals. The location of the mountain goat will be different on each server to make it a bit more challenging. Keep an eye out on the Season Event entries on the portal at 23rd, 24th, 29th, 30th and 31st of December. These will be the dates the competition will be held. The event will run exactly once on each of the servers during the whole period of the competition (one single time on only one of the the 5 days mentioned above) so make sure you don’t miss the one running on yours. To give you an idea, here’s an example of a possible riddle: "Between the sunset and the dark night. The first line reveals the servername The first player to solve the riddle, finding the spot and killing the Mountain Goat will be declared the winner of that server. Each winner will get a whole set of in-game items for Age of Conan. Each set contains:
In addition, the winners also get 2 months of free game time. So, what do you have to do again to win this prize on your server? 1) Check the Season Event entries on the community portal to read the riddle which will reveal the server, the playfield and the exact spot the Mountain Goat can be found at. 2) Go to that spot and find the Mountain Goat spawned there. 3) Be the first to kill the goat to become the winner and get the prize. That’s it. The winners will receive the codekey by e-mail to activate all of the above mentioned in-game items for his/her Age of Conan gameaccount. The 2 months additional free game time will be activated by Funcom directly on the account. Happy hunting and good luck! |
