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BlizzCon 2008: The Art Gallery
It's not the flashiest place at BlizzCon -- until you step inside. While the gameplay demo areas and the developer panels have claimed most of the attention here at the convention, there are a few hidden treasures inside the booths, one of which is the Blizzard art gallery. The art inside spans across all of Blizzard's games, and though their games are beautiful, the art used in designing them is even moreso.Check out the gallery below to see what's in BlizzCon's art gallery -- from the Barbarian brutes of Diablo to the frozen tundra of Northrend and the starscapes of Starcraft, here is Blizzard's creativity and design mastery put into form on the wall. Whether it's concept art, quick sketches or full paintings, it's really amazing stuff.%Gallery-34291%
BlizzCon 2008: Diablo III Wizard cinematic and new screenshots
Here's the piping-hot new cinematic video for the Wizard class in Diablo III, straight from BlizzCon. This leads us to suspect that each class will get its own cinematic, possibly as they approach the Sanctuary instance near the beginning of the game. There are several Wizard-specific CGI moments and gameplay shots in a sort of "coming up this season on Diablo III" format.Below you can check out the new gallery of screenshots from Diablo III, featuring new shots of the Wizard, Barbarian, and Witch Doctor. Enjoy the goodies, and keep checking back for more info.%Gallery-34203%
What we're expecting from BlizzCon
As we announced earlier, BlizzCon tickets are on sale. Sort of. Kind of. If you can fight past the store servers. I know I've been getting nothing but the fail murloc pretty much all day. Still, I and the rest of WoW Insider's crack live team will be there come hell or high water, and we'll bring you the news you need to know. In the meantime, we're stuck here refreshing the Blizzard Store. To pass the time, we did a bit of speculation about what we might see in Anaheim on October 10th and 11th. Here's what we decided: What we're sure to see The Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic: Though we still have no solid announcement, Blizzard's already stated that they want to get Wrath out before 2008 is up. Considering that, they must have the opening cinematic pretty close to done. I would be surprised if we don't see it open the opening ceremony, to be completely honest. I'm expecting Arthas and/or a "rebel" Human Death Knight to feature prominently, as well as our first cinematic Gnome shot.
Age of Conan patch notes for the 17th of July
The next weekly update for Age of Conan has been deployed, and while it's not the PvP patch, there are a number of things to be happy about this time around. Along with the expected patch notes, Funcom decided to post their reasoning behind the bigger changes in the patch, something which they hope to do every week from now on. After the break, we've made a shortlist of some of the more interesting changes, and due to popular demand we've also included the entire patch notes for your perusal.
Is World of Warcraft really World of Diablo?
So how do you design Diablo 3 anyway? Bargain Bin Reviews has an idea -- just retrofit World of Warcraft. Shift talent points to spells, decrease enemy health and damage and increase the number of enemies by a factor of 10 or so, do away with healing spells and tanking, and you're essentially done. It's a bit silly and a bit tongue in cheek, yes, but it also brings up a good point. In the end, WoW is probably influenced by Diablo 2 as much as it is by Warcraft 3, if not more.
Patch notes available for AoC's 10th of July update
The next major patch hits Age of Conan's live servers today. The patch notes are lengthy, chocked full of details on all of the quest, item, UI and NPC fixes that made it in. Necromancers, Dark Templars and Heralds of Xotli took the lion's share of class tweaks, although Priests of Mitra, Rangers, Assassins and Barbarians also had some smaller changes.Female characters received some fixes to the way they swing their weapons, and had their other combat animations corrected. Among the quest amendments, the "Obtaining the Noble Arena Key" fix stands out, hopefully allowing the poor people who could not enter the Arena in the Arsman's Tavern to finally complete their quests. As good as all of this progress is, we're going to sound like a broken record by mentioning the big PvP update again -- can we pretty please have it next patch? You can take a look at what we do have for now in the full patch notes.
Undocumented changes for AoC 26th of June patch
In keeping with tradition, Age of Conan players have found some changes that did not make it on to the official patch notes for today's update. The community's findings have been compiled into one handy forum thread, and here are some of the more significant items on the list (although the thread will likely have more added to it later on): Barbarian talent "Cyclone of Razors" has had its damage lowered from 28% to 10% at 5 points. Necromancers can no longer send pets to attack while hidden. Assassin ability "From the Darkness" animation changed and damage after charge reduced by up to 70%. Rangers mez shot seems to not be working properly. Dark Templar's magic damage coefficient is bugged. A bug with casting from your mount, a feature reintroduced today on the official notes. Casters can begin casting a spell while standing still on their mount, and are then free to run around while casting it without interruption, leading to easy kiting. Still to be verified: Variety of loot from epic Kheshatta bosses increased, and new blues dropping.
Sneak a peek at AoC's test server patch notes
Curse.com has posted a list of patch notes from Age of Conan's test server, which will likely go live in one of this coming week's scheduled downtime slots. You will notice that stat gains from equipment will finally be functioning correctly, and it's going to be interesting to see just how much of a difference this will make to the strength of each class.The patch notes also feature another round of class tweaks, notably some buffs for Dark Templars and damage changes for Priests of Mitra. Confusingly, Bear Shamans will be getting improved Wreck Armor combo visuals and sounds -- however, this is a Barbarian combo, so is this change actually for Barbs or did they mean the BS combo Crush Armor? Other really good things: lower level mobs will knock you off your mount a lot less (although higher mobs will do it more) and attackers at your sides will have half the chance of knocking you off -- attackers from the front will never knock you off. Finally, player cities will be able to get their Trader NPC at last. Take a look through the full patch notes for some other changes, including quest and item fixes, and perhaps start speculating on what changes will be left off the list this time.
TurpsterVision: I am a real Barbarian
Every Tuesday think "T" for Turpster and take the "a" in "day", capitalise it, remove the little bit in the middle, turn it upside down and you get a "V". Put the two together and you'll have TV for TurpsterVision -- the best Internet video podcast on Massively! (Never mind that business about it being the only video podcast on Massively...)It is a well known fact that Turpamania is running wild, but before Turpamania there was Hulkamania; arguably not as widespread and with as many Turpamaniacs, but our lesson has to begin somewhere. You see, Age of Conan was released today, and with that it conjures up images of the greatest barbarian of all time, Hulk Hogan – don't pretend like you don't remember all the words to his song, "I am a real Barbarian".Anyway, I digress: AoC has been billed as one of the four horsemen to herald the end of Blizzard's evil tyranny over the MMO market, but can any game, or any group of games, really topple the giant that is World of Warcraft? No, of course not, but that doesn't mean that they aren't great fun!
Hands-on in PvP with Age of Conan's mages
Players interested in running around Age of Conan casting magic left and right will be happy to know that in the world of Hyboria mages are quite impressive. Some players will be slightly unhappy to hear that there is no straight-up archetypical magic user in AoC. There is no class that basically shoots fireballs while standing around like a glass window just waiting to be shattered into a million little pieces.That doesn't mean certain classes couldn't be tweaked to play similarly to a more traditional MMO magic caster, but for better or worse you're going to have to use pets when you play a magic class in AoC. Well, unless you're planning on being a Herald of Xolti -- in that scenario you'll be using lots of demonic strength and magic.%Gallery-21053%
AoC teases a new character selection screen
Those rapscallions at FunCom must love the power they wield over us -- releasing provocative statements, pushing the live date back -- and now this. According to their site, they've uncovered a never-before-seen character selection video, straight from the dev team. And, while the news was written in a coy manner, it's clear that this is actual information, and that we'll be seeing this screen when the real thing finally hits.Aside from that, it's a straightforward video, if short. It shows three different high-level characters: an Aquilonian Conqueror, a Stygian Herald of Xotli (pictured to the right), and a Cimmerian Barbarian. They all look fantastic, and the level of detail is striking. It's coming, kids ... are you prepared?
Twelve trails of blood in Age of Conan
Over the years of its development cycle Age of Conan has seen a lot of class changes and mergers. After all this time Funcom has settled on providing players with four archetypes that each have three classes to pick from, resulting in a total of 12 classes. Each class in AoC has a specific set of skills, but none are fully pigeonholed into any singular role. We've gone ahead and created an easy-to-navigate list of the archetypes and classes offered. Funcom has released more information for some classes than others, but at this point each one is pretty clear in the role they'll play in Age of Conan come May 20th. Twelve trails of blood in Age of Conan >>>>> %Gallery-19934%
An all things Age of Conan interview with Jrgen Tharaldsen
There's been a lot of discussion here at Massively about Age of Conan -- it's a given that you probably know we're just a little excited about its impending release. So when we recently got the chance to interview Funcom's own Jørgen Tharaldsen on several subjects concerning the upcoming barbarian invasion, our minds were instantly exploding with questions to ask -- it was difficult not to overload the poor man with endless queries. Rest assured that our craniums are still in one piece and Jørgen hasn't sent barbarians to lop off our heads -- at least for the moment.The end result turned out fairly well, we think. Within this interview you'll discover the skinny on matters of whether or not pre-order customers really are getting early access, user interface customization, system requirements and all sorts of other topics that we're sure you'll find very interesting. %Gallery-11743%
Six reasons to be excited about Age of Conan
Everyone seems to be aware of one or two great features coming with Age of Conan, but we realized that not everybody has a complete view of some of the coolest ones -- which has led us to sort of a blind men and the elephant situation. So in an effort to give a more complete view of why Funcom's newest title looks exceedingly cool, we've gone and thought of six reasons to truly be excited about Age of Conan. Our barbarian urges are beginning to take over, so we'd better get to the good stuff before we run into the hills and slaughter a bear or something. Take a look by simply clicking the image above or the gallery link below.%Gallery-19114%
Age of Conan FAQ reveals system requirements
If you've been waiting with bated breath (much like us) for Funcom to finally release the recommended and required system specs for Age of Conan, then you'll be pleased to hear that the wait is finally over. It's about time too, we were starting to look into the cost of flying to Norway and raiding their offices Barbarian-style. Then when we thought about it, the cost of double-sided great axes and authentic moleskin trousers was just too much when combined with the plane ticket.It all works out in the end, since you can find the much-awaited required specs after the break.
Hands-on with Age of Conan's Barbarian class
Last week at CES, I was able to do a hands on with Age of Conan's Dark Templar class. I also spent a good couple of hours ignoring the dirty looks of conventioneers as I hogged the Barbarian class demo machine as well. I was able to take a couple of shaky videos of gameplay (I blame the excitement) and write down some of the abilities of the class currently in beta.Before you dive in after the jump, you might also want to check out Michael Zenke's hands-on impression of the game, his interview with with Conan Designer Jason Stone about the graphic upgrades recently introduced to the closed beta and Age of Conan's newly announced Collector's Edition information, And if that's not enough information, you can also check the extensive tour and interview Akela Talamesca had of the game in December with more video coverage than you can shake a DV cam at.Now, on to the details of my test drive with AoC's Barbarian class.%Gallery-13299%
Age of Conan Product Developer interview, with gameplay video
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Age_of_Conan_interview_and_video'; On December 5th, I was invited to the Eidos/Funcom Age of Conan press event, where I was privileged enough to be granted access to both the game itself and the development team. I was able to play the opening area, leading into the first town. I sussed out the combat and the conversation interface. I spoke with Jørgen Tharaldsen, the Product Developer, and he let drop a metric ton of knowledge upon my fevered noggin. I reprint here our conversation, interspersed with my handheld-shot video pieces, the first of which is shown above, which is where the game starts, with you as a survivor of a shipwrecked slaver ship. I'd like to thank Jørgen and the entire Eidos/Funcom team, all of whom I found to be gracious, witty, and enthusiastic about their game, which is refreshing to see. My take? The game looks incredible, and it's extremely immersive from the get-go. They say they're on schedule for an early 2008 release, so this is something to anticipate indeed. More videos and the interview after the jump!
