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Eidos Picks Up Conan MMOG
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). "
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.
The Conan MMORPG was announced quite some time ago; this is just an announcement regarding the publisher. The game is also being developed by the norwegian company Funcom, who developed Anarchy Online, two expansion packs, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. They do at least have some merit in finishing their projects.
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
Well, there's this: http://www.play.net/mo/