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). "

Comments

Aha.

[Poromenos1]

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.

[Tackhead]

> 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

[MrSquirrel]

Did anyone else think "Conan... O'Brien?".
That would be pretty sweet: *Hair swish* *summon Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg Seven*

Re:what if

[The MAZZTer]

"Did anyone else think "Conan... O'Brien?"."

Yes, but only because of those blasted YTMNDs. >:(

Re:what if

[John Nowak]

Well, there's this: http://www.play.net/mo/

Another MMO?

[Ryan Amos]

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?

Awesome

[Rorian]

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 :)

I hope the movie does not influence the game.

[DuckDodgers]

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.

Re:I hope the movie does not influence the game.

[ultranova]

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 front of your computer (or typewriter or pen and paper) and the story and characters in your mind are so strong that the text seems to write itself. You can see the events you write flash in front of your eyes. You can feel the characters you write about standing behind you, telling their story. Of course you know they aren't really there, but it sure feels like they were. And when it feels like that to the writer, it feels like that to the reader too. That's why Howard's Conan is so popular.

It's the literature equivalent of the trance some coders can fall to, and it's the difference between those characters that can endure the test of time and those that can't: the enduring characters are those their writers imbued with a soul, so that they feel real to the writer and reader alike. A character that doesn't seem to talk to its writer is going to be little more than a puppet on strings; while you can still make very nice string puppet shows, the puppet cannot hold a candle to a real human, imagined or otherwise. Unless the puppet happens to be a Muppet, but then again, Muppets were arguable imbued by souls by their creator...

This got a bit metaphysical, but the point is that Howard was really quite serious and quite correct: Conan spoke to him. That is where the stories intensity and power comes from.

Interesting Take

[colanut]

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 done with out having to access the internet, that would be even better. Then interacting with people who have cared to go beyond the initial phase may raise the social experience (or maybe not). Anyhow, it is interesting and I am actually curious about the details. Hope they include Mac too (WoW runs fine on my Dual 533 G4).

Re:Wow, was beginning to worry a bit...

[snillfisk]

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.