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Funcom reaffirms commitment to AoC on PC and Xbox 360 following layoffs
After the rumors of staffing cuts at Funcom turned out to be true last week, many of you may have been predicting bad things for the future of Age of Conan -- or at least, enough of you to have Erling Ellingsen provide MTV's Multiplayer blog with a short statement regarding the health of their flagship title:Our aim is for this to not affect development of 'Age of Conan,' or any of our other games, at all. We are sticking firmly to our plans. The Xbox 360 version of the game is still in production, but as before we are not committing to any specific dates. I wish I could give you more information, but I can't at the time being.This backs up what Funcom had to say last week, that this is simply "business as usual" and not anything to be concerned about. It is good to hear about the Xbox 360 version once in a while, even if essentially nothing was revealed other than "it's still coming". We're pretty sure, however, that most of our readers that are interested in AoC haven't been held back due to waiting on the console release, because let's face it -- if you're an MMO-fan, you've got a PC. The 360 release stands to reach a new audience, one which will cause Conan's roleplaying-racism to join together with real-life racism through the magic of Xbox Live, and might just make the internets spontaneously combust.
New AoC interview touts the game's selling points
We've already heard from our friend Erling Ellingsen today, but he's got more to say, as he is featured in a CVG interview where he really manages to sum up why you will want Age of Conan. You can tell that he believes what he is saying, as he talks about how close his team has brought the game to their original vision. He expects those that are familiar with MMOs will be at home in the game, but will soon find that things are taken to the next level in AoC.A couple of other MMOs get a mention by Ellingsen during the interview. He praises Dark Age of Camelot for its innovations in PvP, but says that his game will improve upon what was seen there. He also mentions World of Warcraft, saying quite honestly that he doesn't expect Age of Conan will ever reach WoW's subscription numbers. The goal for his team was to distance themselves from this "social phenomenom" of a game, running with the mature fantasy theme. We are assured that the game will be fully supported after release, with a live update team as well as an expansion team to work on future content. The video also features some nice footage, so check out the full interview at CVG.
