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Eidos Picks Up Conan MMOG 54

Posted by Zonk from the conan-smash dept.
Gamespot has the word that Eidos will be publishing the delayed Massive game Age of Conan, with a release date sometime next year. They've also revealed it's being developed for one or more of the next-gen consoles. From the article: "The deal marks the first time that Eidos has become involved with either an MMORPG or a game based on the Conan character. The fictional barbarian was created by the late author Robert E. Howard in print during the 1930s and played by Arnold Schwarzenegger on film in the 1980s. (The Conan films also costarred Japanese-American character actor Mako, who succumbed to cancer over the weekend.) The franchise has since spawned novels, comic books, and a short-lived television series starring German bodybuilder Ralf Moeller (Gladiator). "
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Eidos Picks Up Conan MMOG More

Eidos Picks Up Conan MMOG

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  • Aha. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Monday July 24, 2006 @02:58PM (#15771497) Homepage
    Doubtless, the lead developer has his sights on becoming governor of California. At least, that's what I hear happened to the last guy that was involved in Conan.

    • Re:Aha. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday July 24, 2006 @03:27PM (#15771711)
      > Doubtless, the lead developer has his sights on becoming governor of California. At least, that's what I hear happened to the last guy that was involved in Conan.

      Conan, what is good in life? "To crush Gray Davis, to see him driven before you, and to hear the emptying coffers of his campaign donors!"

      But this isn't politics, it's a MMORPG. The dialogue from the original movie will have to be...

      "Crom, I have never prayed 2 u b4. I suck at typing. No 1, not even u, will remember if we were teh r0x or teh sux, why we PVP, or how we got pwnt. All dat matters is that my guildies griefed teh Chinese gold farmers. Dat's wut's important. Valor pleases u Crom, so grant me 1 request, grant me teh win! And if u do not listen, then up urs n00b!"

      ...dumbed down a bit.

  • what if (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrSquirrel ( 976630 ) on Monday July 24, 2006 @03:00PM (#15771511)
    Did anyone else think "Conan... O'Brien?".
    That would be pretty sweet: *Hair swish* *summon Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg Seven*
  • It had been almost a full week and a company hadn't announced a new MMORPG yet. Was starting to worry.

    Now we can add yet another new game to the list of announced-but-will-never-be-released MMORPGs! And in about a year or two we can add it to our ever growing list of cancelled MMORPG's.

    And for the love of God, don't try to create anything innovative or different or try new things or be original, as it will totally screw up the list.

  • Another MMO? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ryan Amos ( 16972 ) on Monday July 24, 2006 @03:19PM (#15771643)
    How many MMOs can the market support? MMOs are absolutely dependent on achieving critical mass to be successful, and with so many out there and how many are so time consuming you can only play one at a time, it seems that more of them should be failing. Are they just being propped up by VC or are these companies genuinely turning a profit?
    • It's funny, there is evidence that the market is reaching a saturation point as we speak. Having said that if WoW players suddenly start an exodus (due to say a disapointing expansion) there will be quite a few gamers relativly new to MMOs and looking for there next fix. If I had to guess I would say that many of these new MMO teams are trying to be done in time to catch some of Blizzards cast offs (if my friends are any indication I would wager that quite a few WoW players are geting the itch to try someth
    • There's already more MMOs than the market can support and many are failing. But you know the games industry, everybody thinks that THEIR game will somehow be different from all the others.

  • Awesome (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rorian ( 88503 ) <james.fysh@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday July 24, 2006 @03:21PM (#15771662) Homepage Journal
    I still remember playing Conan: The Cimmerian (some variant of it anyway) on the PC about 15 years ago. It was an RPG style game, you were (naturally) Conan and you basically walked around killing things, gaining levels / items and all the usual RPG stuff. Probably the first RPG I ever played and I've loved them ever since :)
  • Hercules and Xena MMORPG??

    • Hercules and Xena MMORPG??

      Why not ? Considering Greek tales about Zeus it would actually make a lot of sense for a few million demigods to be running around... But they'll still have to start by slaying or being slain by rats or chickens.

    • You really can't compare Xena to Conan (Hercules would be fair). Conan is a giant of fantasy literature created by a master of the form.

      Xena is a soccer mom dressed up as a drag queen, the two aren't anywhere near the same realm.

  • The Conan films with Schwarzennegger are an easy way to waste a few hours, but aside from roughly following the ethnic stereotypes of the original stories, they don't fit the literary character at all.

    Conan is brutal, lightning fast, crafty, and bloodthirsty in addition to being muscular. He used the best equipment he could get, and fought for fun, wealth, and women. The literary character would have escaped slavery. He would have engaged in pit fighting for fun and profit. He would have worn armor and not stalked around with a loincloth.

    Does this sound like a boring, stupid, lumbering brute to you? "The fighting madness of his race was upon him, and with a red mist of unreasoning fury wavering before his blazing eyes, he cleft skulls, smashed breasts, severed limbs, ripped out entrails, and littered the deck like a shambles with a ghastly harvest of brains and blood."

    Capturing that kind of intensity in the game will mean the difference between making something that does well, and something that offers Diablo 1 with better graphics. I like the Arnold flick as much as anyone, but it doesn't represent the fun of Conan at all. It also gives Sword and Sorcery writers and fans a worse stereotype than they deserve.
    • I agree, the books were good. I remember one book which had a radioactive ore being mined for contruction of an idol. They don't state that it's radioactive, but if you know the symptoms, it becomes more clear over the course of the book. I could see that being implemented in a game as a sort of "cursed" item.

      I've never gone for an MMORPG, but if they get it right, it would appeal to me.

    • Capturing that kind of intensity in the game will mean the difference between making something that does well, and something that offers Diablo 1 with better graphics. I like the Arnold flick as much as anyone, but it doesn't represent the fun of Conan at all. It also gives Sword and Sorcery writers and fans a worse stereotype than they deserve.

      That particular Conan will probably have to stay in the books. Slightly OT, but I always found the story behind howard's writing more interesting than his subject.

      • Two of Robert Howard's other famous characters were Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane, and all of Howard's writings for each were recently rebundled into new books with the same names. He also wrote about Kull the Konqueror, a king in ancient Atlantis that preceded Conan by thousands of years. In addition to that, he wrote dozens of independent short stories, some suprisingly good poetry, and Westerns. He was also friends with HP Lovecraft, one of the most famous horror writers of the 20th century, and Clar

        • If Conan was Howard's only character that had a large number of stories, or Howard only wrote sword and sorcery fiction, or Howard was a complete recluse, or Howard never tried to publish his stories but only recorded them, I would give some credence to the idea he believed Conan himself actually told the stories. As it is, I think at best it's an urban legend, at worst it's a marketing campaign Howard or someone else invented to boost sales.

          It's a description of a certain kind of feeling. You sit in fr

    • In latest issue of one local game magazine, Funcom devels (company behind Conan) clealy state the game will draw its influence from the books and writings of Howard, not from the movie.

  • Interesting Take (Score:2, Interesting)

    by colanut ( 541823 )
    I couldn't find much info about which "age" of Conan they are using. I'd really like the old books version. There is definitely some weird stuff in there. However, this game play nugget sounded interesting:

    The game will begin as a 20-hour single-player game in which gamers will create a specialized character before heading into a sprawling multiplayer online campaign.

    I've love to play and re-play character creations just for fun, taking only my favorite characters farther. If the single player can be

  • Thundarr! That universe would have interesting creatures to play as/against.
  • Heck with yet another MMO....

    I am quite saddened to hear Mako died.

    Not immediately finding an obituary, here's a link to his IMDB entry (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0538683/ [imdb.com])

    We'll miss you!

  • Let's see... crushing enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women.... what else could they possibly need?
  • The ground is littered with crap that doesn't fly, why add to it?
  • This is the only MMO game that might get me to quit playing Warcrack, especially with all the love and reverence the publishing industry's been showing to the original R.E. Howard works of late. They finally got all of his original stories published in non-bastardized forms, and the new Dark Horse Conan series has been nothing short of amazing... If they can get it right, I think it'll be a hell of a lot of fun. The screenshots shown in the last year show a lot of promise.

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