Conan MMORPG In The Works

Based on Robert Howard's classic Conan the Barbarian series, The Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures is in production by Anarchy Online developer Funcom. On top of the setting, Funcom apparently plans to shake up the traditional massive formula. From the article: "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will be a PC 'online action RPG' that will be a mix of 'story-driven single-player experience and a massive and brutal multiplayer endgame.' According to Funcom game director Gaute Godager, it will begin as a single-player RPG adventure, and when that portion's story is complete, it will let players bring their characters into an MMORPG universe."

Comments

Multiple Genre Games

[SillyHatsOnly]

Multiple genre games have rarely gone over well. In theory one would think a wider game means it would appeal to a larger range of customers. In reality, it typically means the game is so spread out that nothing is refined or implemented well. Then again, this can possibly provide excellent tracking data for both single player and MMO behaviors since the player data will likely be stored on the server. Now where did I put my Sprite...

Re:Robert E. Howard

[Attaturk]

Best...Sword&Sorcery Writer...Ever

Nah, that's David Gemmell.

Re:Uhm...

[SB5]

Lets say its a level based RPG. And at max, someone in the SP game will be allowed to get to level 20 and be able to spend 40 points on their character. Anyone with more than 40 points is automatically voided, and/or above level 20 is voided. Its wouldn't be hard to do that. I would think it would also be bad for the SP adventure to have random loot drops, although if that was done, then just make really good items impossible to drop, and most of the MMORPG items would be naturally better than anything even the best random loot drop in the single player.

And if someone wants to use cracks or trainers in the SP adventure, well that could be negotiated by just being able to play the MMORPG immediately and recommend that you play the SP adventure first and by doing so you get a bonus by playing it.

Make the CD key generate a unique key after playing via some algorithm to unlock the MMORPG part. Sure, the algorithm could always be broken but if you put in the right checks like make it so that it really isn't worth bothering with it.