This has been a really big week for Age of Conan. They released Update 5, "Gangs of Tarantia", which has introduced new zones and content, but more than that, completely reworked some of Age of Conan's existing game mechanics. The amount of written content that Funcom has put together on these changes is substantial -- in fact we linked to all of it in our post on Update 5 earlier this week. Funcom can write all they want about the new changes to the game, but when it comes down to it, actually seeing these places they've described may have a stronger impact. With that in mind, Funcom released a video tour of the Tarantia Commons zone today, narrated by game director Craig Morrison.

Tarantia Commons is what he describes as "the urban underbelly" of the capital city of Tarantia, a place Morrison says is "wracked by gang warfare and civil unrest." In other words, there's always a lot going on in Tarantia Commons and the video walkthrough shows this, revealing how players will choose which side to take in riots -- either aid the city guards or stick it to the man with fellow rioters. The riots then trigger other events. Specific quests become available and certain bosses spawn, depending upon the general state of chaos in the streets of Tarantia Commons.

There are two warring gangs in the new gameplay area, The Wharf Rats who exist at ground level in the streets of Tarantia Commons, and The Crows whose area of influence shows off a different aspect of the game: rooftops. Interacting with The Crows above Tarantia Commons gives a different perspective on the city, with some impressive views of the zone. Of course there's content on the outskirts of Tarantia Commons for players to experience as well, including a leper colony where NPCs will lash out at you, intentionally trying to infect you with disease. As an added bonus, or spoiler depending upon your point of view, the walkthrough also shows off a boss encounter and the tactics he'll employ against players.

If you're on the fence about returning to Age of Conan to see the new content, this Tarantia Commons walkthrough might just be the tipping point. We've got a video embed for you after the jump:

The fifth major update to Age of Conan,"Gangs of Tarantia", has gone live. The update adds the Tarantia Commons District, a high level area with both single player and group dungeons, as well as a revamped RPG system. There are substantial system changes that have gone into effect in Update 5, which impact every class in Age of Conan, covering everything from itemization changes to feat trees, as well as abilities, spells, and combos. Plus Funcom has rolled out a complete overhaul of the gem crafting system and introduced new rewards tied in with guild cities. Any in-depth look at the sweeping changes made to Age of Conan with Update 5 is beyond the scope of this post, but are summarized in the patch notes.

In the June letter from the game director, Craig Morrison explains how Gangs of Tarantia is the most significant update made to the game thus far. Morrison also drops some hints about the directions Funcom plans to take Age of Conan with future game updates. He writes that the next update to Age of Conan will focus on three main areas: improving guild gameplay; new high level content in the House of Crom; and more goals and objectives with Border Kingdom PvP.

Beyond the letter from the game director, Funcom has grouped together a ton of information related to Gangs of Tarantia and AoC in general, which can be found in Issue #23 of the Age of Conan newsletter.

E3 2009 has come and gone, with it came new information on Star Wars: The Old Republic -- and fresh concerns. To call BioWare ambitious would be an understatement of vast proportions. Every NPC receiving full voice acting ratcheted up my curiosity as much as it did my eyebrows. We may need a new word to describe the depths of this game's ambition.

As if the voice acting news wasn't enough, BioWare revealed a cinematic trailer that reminded me how powerful this property can truly be, in the right hands. The excitement was so immediately potent that it caused some people to cry "over-hyped!" in the few short minutes between the trailer's beginning and ending.

I think it's time to asses the current situation, and maybe ponder a few things about Star Wars and BioWare.

We were bound to get juicy new details about Star Wars: The Old Republic at E3 2009 and we surely haven't been disappointed thus far. In this week alone we have learned about the new Smuggler class, fan art ownership policy, full in-game voiceovers, and an amazing cinematic trailer. Hype is definitely in full swing, but is it peaking too early?

MMO blogger, Tobold, believes it is. He suggests players have seen very little of SWTOR's in-game substance at this point and BioWare is raising expectations to unrealistic heights by hyping the game so early. He cites Mythic and Funcom as examples of companies that built early hype based on fancy words, design concepts, and trailers and then experienced a fan backlash when players perceived that they did not meet those targets.

Darren of the Common Sense Gamer disagrees and believes that the Star Wars lore is being over-hyped, not the game itself. He also argues that anything Star Wars-related traditionally hypes itself and that a great trailer about the game's history and story should be appreciated for what it is and set apart from the game itself.

We mentioned an Age of Conan event in passing recently but we'd like to point out a bit more about the AoC Anniversary Contest, "Find the King's Seals". It's an easter egg hunt of sorts, where players are given a list of game sites which contain silver seals. There are 25 silver seals to be found for each language (English, French, and German, although only 10 for Spanish), which are collected in the form of codes, found among the Age of Conan articles on the various MMO sites.

Funcom states: "There is also one golden seal hidden somewhere on one of the listed webpages. If you also manage to find that one together with the 25 silver seals for your language, you get the chance to win the grand prize... a lifetime subscription to Age of Conan." If you're interested in entering the contest, you've got until midnight (Central European Time) on May 31st. You can see the full Age of Conan Anniversary Contest rules and prize listings on the game's official forums.

---

	Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!

In what some are calling "their biggest debacle since launch," Funcom's anniversary bash for Age of Conan (EU) experienced a hiccup this past weekend, and unfortunately, it wasn't alcohol-related. A combination of miscommunication and technical glitches left hundreds, if not thousands, of party-goers in poor spirits.

Funcom's initial announcement invited players to take part in "small festivities" outside Conan's castle at a particular time and urged them to bring along celebratory fireworks obtained with a "/claim" command. Due to some time zone confusion, many players showed up over an hour early. When the event didn't even kick off when it was supposed to, the forums lit up with agitated players.

The Senior Community Manager, Tarib, showed up and explained that the festivities were actually intended to be player-driven rather than a scripted or GM-led world event. This did not sit well with many in the community who pointed to the event promotion, which led them to believe otherwise. Tarib apologized for the miscommunication and also stated that technical issues prevented certain merchants from showing up in certain instances. He later called off the North American event of the same name.

Funcom is now running an Easter egg hunt where fans can search through their favorite community sites in search of special silver and golden King seals. The prizes are quite good, including: free lifetime subscriptions, monthly and multi-month subscriptions, in-game items, and custom forum avatars.

Maybe it's just us being silly because the weekend is almost upon us and we're looking forward to getting our game on. However, we have to admit when we saw "nice details" coupled with today's Age of Conan One Shot, we chuckled. Whatever the reason may be, it's still a nice shot showing off some rather skimpy armor from Age of Conan, sent in to us by Samus. He explains a bit further than just the details: The screenshot is from the high lvl (75+) area of the game. [It is] mostly desert and scorpions. Looks like it's got some huge tracts of land, too.

If you're back in Hyboria - or any land we don't get to see as often as some others - why not send in your screenshots! We'd love to see more of strange and wonderful foreign lands. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it's from, and a quick description. We'll post them here and give you the credit!

Massively Speaking Episode 54 is a very special episode where Shawn is once again joined by Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan and Craig Morrison as they discuss the upcoming Patch 1.05 and first anniversary for Age of Conan.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to Massively Speaking directly in iTunes.
[Zune] Subscribe to Massively Speaking via the Zune service.
[RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator.
[Digg] Like the show? Digg it.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
[VW] Listen at VirginWorlds.com
Listen here on the page:



Read below the cut for the full show notes.

Funcom, who are probably better known for Age of Conan, have started spilling the details on several free-to-play MMOs. According to Gamasutra, the company is currently working on not one but two titles, one based in Java and the second in a web browser. Funcom outlined the plans as part of their latest financial report, outlining some of their short and long-term goals which included branching into free-to-play MMOs.

While neither of the two titles has a confirmed release date, Funcom did go into a little more detail about the logistics involved. For example, the Java-based game has a team of seventeen people and is being aimed at a young demographic, possibly tweens or teens. From the images they have released, the game appears to have a traditional fantasy setting and the ability to ride animals. Meanwhile the browser-based title is being aimed more at gamers and has fourteen people working on development. The company has also stated that they hope to reach a 'combat milestone' this summer.

Craig "Silirrion" Morrison, game director for Age of Conan, has posted a May letter (on the European forums) to the playerbase that reflects on the year since the game's launch, a year full of ups and downs. Beyond explaining a bit about how he came to work on Age of Conan and his enthusiasm for the game moving forward, the Letter from the Game Director drops info about Update 1.05.

Morrison briefly touches on some of the highlights of the update, namely the large outdoor playfield and its quests and storyline, a new RPG system, and updates for all classes in terms of abilities, spells, and feats. Morrison opts to steer away from these big changes in his letter, which are likely to get more attention in the long run, and looks at some of the smaller changes to Age of Conan that are on the way.

It's almost the first anniversary of Age of Conan's release, and Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan was reflecting on the past year when he found the "One Year Later" video. Although it's a fairly well-made piece, it doesn't come from Funcom; a community member called "CptHeatSink" is given the credit on Famine's MMORPG blog. The video encompasses a lot of the changes that have gone on in-game and quite a few guilds pitched in to help with the footage. There's a slow build for the first couple of minutes, but after that it's all about the combat.

Hit the jump to check out the video. Make sure to click the HD button in the bottom right corner after you've hit play for a higher quality version. This won't be the last you'll hear of AoC's birthday -- expect more soon as the actual date rolls around.

Funcom has released a report detailing their financials for the first quarter of 2009. They brought in over US$7 million in revenue for the period, and although this figure is slightly less than the previous quarter (but without the disastrous US$23 million depreciation loss), they are pleased with the stability of their earnings during the economic turbulence of recent times. The report also mentions some positive trends in their flagship game Age of Conan:

• Longer average subscription periods, demonstrating customer loyalty
• The number of new customers per month is much higher than Q4 '08 (the introduction of free trials helped here)
• A solid and stable customer base for the quarter
• Higher levels of activity in game than in previous periods

Not to be left out, The Secret World made it into the report as well, mostly just to say that the recent reveal was well-received, and the project is on track. Anarchy Online only really had a one-line entry in the report, and it was to say that revenues from the game were slowly declining. The casual and free-to-play games that Funcom referred to in their Q4 '08 report are also keeping to their development schedules -- the screenshot above is from a java-based MMO that is currently in the focus-testing and gameplay tweaking stages. For now though, with TSW and the other casual games still on the horizon, the overall success of Q2 '09 will once again hinge on the performance of AoC.

It's the blockbuster action-adventure screenshot of the summer! This is the one everybody's been waiting for! It's full of intrigue, sand [snow?], and Age of Conan graphics... it's snakes on a plain! Okay, okay, so we don't know much about this screenshot other than it came from Age of Conan, and it's not really a plain, but that's why we have a note from Brenden M. who sent today's One Shots in to us. He explains a bit about it: Just came out of the black castle in Khopshef Province and saw this view. Thought you might like it. Any screenshot where we get to make a pop-culture reference is cool with us.

It's the weekend! Time for gaming! So when you're out adventuring, why not grab some screenshots to send in to us. Email your images to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it here and give you the credit.

With the recent graphics upgrades and the work going into the game by Craig Morrison and his team at Funcom - including that pretty tasty level 50 patch coming up - players are turning again to check out Age of Conan. We know from just what we here at Massively experienced, the game is certainly doing far better than it fared at launch. But to get back to the point of this column, today we're bringing you a lovely cliff-side image from Age of Conan sent in to us by Brenden M. He didn't send in anything aside from this great image, so we'll have to rely on our imaginations to figure out what this spot is for. Hyborian hangliding? Cliff diving? Maybe this is where they play their favorite impromptu game "Bounce the Pict" - drop your Pictish enemies off the cliff and see how far they bounce when they hit bottom. Furthest bounce wins!

If you're back in Hyboria - or any land we haven't seen recently - why not send in your screenshots! We'd love to see more of strange and wonderful foreign lands. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it's from, and a quick description. We'll post them here and give you the credit!

Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan would like to introduce us all to a member of the Age of Conan development team, Jarle Snertingdalen. Aside from having a fairly superb name, Snertingdalen is also the Associate Producer for AoC's Systems Team. Unsurprisingly, this team deals with a lot of the systems in the game, such as combat, character development, items and loot tables, and RPG systems. The associate producer role has him managing the team, making sure that things are on track, and coordinating with other teams.

We're sure that some of our readers are very interested in career paths in the gaming industry, and Snertingdalen's is revealed to us in the interview. Working with AoC was his first games industry job, and he began as a programmer in the tools department back in 2004. After switching around to a few different roles, including Technical Director, he arrived at his current position. It sounds like he got there just in time to be involved in some massive changes to the game, since patch 1.05 will be altering many of the systems mentioned above. To find out more about Snertingdalen's work on AoC, check out Famine's blog at MMORPG.com.