Working As Intended

That’s right. My site Vanguard Rangers, once an affiliate of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, has expanded its horizons. Now being hosted by the UberGuilds Network (yes, the folks that host the Fire of Heaven message boards), the can only grow. It’ll cover a handful of games that have Ranger (or Ranger-like) classes. Currently I’ve added Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures to the roster, with more coming soon depending on how large their existing communities are. I’d love to have a section for EverQuest (yes, the first one that got many of us addicted), but there is an already existing Ranger community that is doing quite well (that I actually visit on a near daily basis). No need to step on toes, not yet at least.

The transfer was fairly simple compared to some horror stories I’ve heard of (Traldan’s VGTact going from phpBB to vBulletin rings a bell). I’ve spent about the last two days cleaning out the database and reconstructing the site. It wasn’t the hardest task in the world, but it took a lot of focus and time. What do you know, two things I lack the most!

So there you have it, a small update from me. Now I need to get back to work on two other websites I’m helping design! *sigh*

Through the wonderful world of the blogosphere (I’ll use that word as much as possible thank you very much) I saw an extremely interesting post by Cuppycake at Cuppytalk. It seems Funcom has secured an additional $30 million USD for their their upcoming MMO Age of Conan. As seen here:

Additional funding fuels Funcom’s ‘Age of Conan’ launch - Durham, USA– June 27th, 2007– 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.

‘Age of Conan’ is consistently listed as one of the most anticipated PC games of 2007, and won ‘Best MMO of E3′ awards from IGN, GameSpot, GameSpy and Yahoo. ‘Age of Conan’ is a key title in Microsoft’s Games for Windows line-up, as well as being a showcase DirectX 10 title for nVidia. More information about the game can be found online at www.ageofconan.com.

If they news doesn’t get people pumped for what Age of Conan has in store I really don’t know what will. While I don’t necessarily agree with it I’m sure as the release data approaches, the term “WoW Killer” will be thrown around more and more.

First of I’d like to apologize for not updating recently. I’m currently trying to make a buck and enjoy the summertime at the same time. As many of you know, that is not an easy task. I’m helping VanguardDreadKnight.com build their ability database and a few other things, which is great since I’ve known the Xaices (owner of the site and Dread Knight class lead for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes) for some time now.

Now for some news! Age Of Conan’s website has posted a link to an interview between Erling Ellingsten, Product Manager at Funcom and GameTribes.tv that is well worth a look. It doesn’t have a mountain of new information, but if you haven’t looked in to AOC deeply before this is the video for you.

Erling Ellingsen, Product Manager at Funcom, grabbed his webcamera and had a long-distance chat with GameTribes.tv. Check it out!

GameTribes.tv is an Italian web-tv site covering computer and console gaming. Recently they sat down with Product Manager at Funcom, Erling Ellingsen, to have a talk about Age of Conan. Thanks to the precious gifts of technology, it all happened via a webcam and Internet telephony.

The video interview is in English but is also subtitled in Italian

Check out the video interview here.

Needless to say, Age of Conan has a firm grasp on my attention at the moment. After Vanguard: Saga of Heroes being released, I’m not going to fall in love with the game before its release, but denying its potential would be foolish. They’re adding some real unique combat mechanics to the MMO genre, but I pray it doesn’t become a twitch-fest where people start complaining about their hands after a few hours of playing. I’m also wondering how much DirectX 10 is going to effect the game, on both the game play and immersion levels.