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The Secret World's PAX recap video talks PvP, progression

Jef Reahard — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Horror, Video, Events, real-world, MMO industry, New titles, PvP, News items, The Secret World

If you couldn't make it to PAX on Easter sunday, you can at least catch up on the happenings around Funcom's The Secret World booth thanks to a new video that the firm recently uploaded to its YouTube portal.

The clip is about six minutes long, and it splices together random con-goer interviews with gameplay footage of The Secret World's ability wheel and progression system. Also featured is Funcom community manager Glen "Famine" Swan, who says that he is excited about the game's "persistent PvP, because [it's] doing a lot of grass-roots stuff that [he] grew up with in the MMO genre."

Famine also touches on the TSW's three-faction design as well as the fact that the PvP game is ever-changing and filled with progression-related rewards. If you're not so much into the PvP, don't fret, since you can still PvE with your friends regardless of which faction you choose. Check out the full clip after the break.

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The Secret World's PAX recap video talks PvP, progression originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final round of The Secret World questions revealed

Rubi Bayer — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Horror, News items, The Secret World

Funcom has been making fans of The Secret World very happy lately, thanks to the community Q&A with Ragnar Tournquist. Senior Assistant Community Manager Glen "Famine" Swan rounded up a list of questions asked by fans, got answers, and released the list by thirds on the TSW forums.

The third and final round of questions went out on the forums yesterday and they were met with an enthusiastic response from fans. These questions addressed bosses, GM involvement, transitions between zones, plans for the future and more. However, the answer that sparked the most discussion was the one surrounding the concept of corpse running -- it sounds like it's definitely going to be a part of the game.

Check out the full blog post for the final Q&A session.

Final round of The Secret World questions revealed originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Secret World Q&A with Ragnar Tornquist

Jef Reahard — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Interviews, New titles, News items, The Secret World

Funcom Senior Assistant Community Manager Glen "Famine" Swan has dropped a gem of a post on the official forums for the forthcoming MMORPG known as The Secret World. The development team has been collecting questions from the community for some time, and the answers are being rolled out in a series of Q&A-style posts.

Game Director Ragnar Tornquist fields the questions for this first installment, and talks about a wide range of topics including social events, open versus linear game design, and magical variety in the game world. "There's going to be tons of variety in terms of what kind of magic players can learn and how they can use it - both in terms of visuals and gameplay - and that also goes for the magic weapons players get to wield. But it's still magic of our world, not a world of elves and dwarves and dragons (well, um, sort of), and it'll feel as such. There's voodoo, illusionism, demonology - magics that belong in the darkest corners of Earth, not in some high fantasy world," Tornquist says.

Check out the full session over at the official forums.

The Secret World Q&A with Ragnar Tornquist originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 20 May 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Funcom Community Managers talk about upcoming projects

Rubi Bayer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Horror, Age of Conan, Expansions, Interviews, News items, The Secret World, Pets vs Monsters

Julie and Fran of the No Prisoners, No Mercy podcast had some special guests on their most recent show, to the delight of the Funcom fans in their audience.

Funcom Community Managers Glen "Famine" Swan and Oliver Kunz visited the podcast to discuss The Secret World as well as Rise of the Godslayer, the upcoming expansion for Age of Conan. The duo talked about their responsibilities within Funcom, and gave some details about what they're working on these days.

Rise of the Godslayer, of course, is the big project. With five new regions, a new race, twelve new factions, and all the bells and whistles that go with them, Swan promised that the expansion won't disappoint fans. They also gave an overview of The Secret World as well as their other upcoming project, Pets vs. Monsters.

It sounds like a good time was had by all -- the podcast is fun and informative, and definitely worth listening to. For even more information, keep an eye out for our interview with Ragnar Tornquist at GDC later this week as well!

Funcom Community Managers talk about upcoming projects originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AoC dev blog discusses class tweaks and recruiting more advocates

William Dobson — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Classes, Events, real-world, Patches

Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan has put another entry into his blog at MMORPG, discussing Age of Conan's upcoming guild features (which Craig Morrison elaborated on in his recent game director letter) as well as some class tweaks that the developers have been working on. Right now the dev team is looking at the Bear Shaman and Barbarian classes, with the Conqueror and Dark Templar up for possible changes after they're done with the first two. He doesn't spill the beans on exactly what might be happening with these classes but we're told to stay tuned for more information soon.

The rest of Famine's blog post relates to things outside of the game. It sounds like the Advocate Program has been going well, but Funcom would like to bring a few more advocates on board. Along with the existing class advocates, they might be recruiting advocates specifically for areas like roleplaying and player-versus-player, as was planned some time ago. Famine also gave a quick update on Funcom's plans for Dragon*Con in Atlanta this September. Among the activities will be a developer panel featuring Age of Conan's lead designer Joel Bylos.

AoC dev blog discusses class tweaks and recruiting more advocates originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively Speaking Episode 54: Happy Birthday, Age of Conan!

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Podcasts, Age of Conan, Culture, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, Massively Meta, Massively Interviews, Massively Speaking

Massively Speaking Episode 54 is a very special episode where Shawn is once again joined by Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan and Craig Morrison as they discuss the upcoming Patch 1.05 and first anniversary for Age of Conan.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

Get the podcast:
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Listen here on the page:

Read below the cut for the full show notes.

Continue reading Massively Speaking Episode 54: Happy Birthday, Age of Conan!

Massively Speaking Episode 54: Happy Birthday, Age of Conan! originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 May 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Age of Conan: One Year Later video

William Dobson — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Age of Conan, Culture

It's almost the first anniversary of Age of Conan's release, and Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan was reflecting on the past year when he found the "One Year Later" video. Although it's a fairly well-made piece, it doesn't come from Funcom; a community member called "CptHeatSink" is given the credit on Famine's MMORPG blog. The video encompasses a lot of the changes that have gone on in-game and quite a few guilds pitched in to help with the footage. There's a slow build for the first couple of minutes, but after that it's all about the combat.

Hit the jump to check out the video. Make sure to click the HD button in the bottom right corner after you've hit play for a higher quality version. This won't be the last you'll hear of AoC's birthday -- expect more soon as the actual date rolls around.

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Age of Conan: One Year Later video originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meet Jarle Snertingdalen from AoC's Systems Team

William Dobson — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, Interviews, MMO industry

Funcom's Glen "Famine" Swan would like to introduce us all to a member of the Age of Conan development team, Jarle Snertingdalen. Aside from having a fairly superb name, Snertingdalen is also the Associate Producer for AoC's Systems Team. Unsurprisingly, this team deals with a lot of the systems in the game, such as combat, character development, items and loot tables, and RPG systems. The associate producer role has him managing the team, making sure that things are on track, and coordinating with other teams.

We're sure that some of our readers are very interested in career paths in the gaming industry, and Snertingdalen's is revealed to us in the interview. Working with AoC was his first games industry job, and he began as a programmer in the tools department back in 2004. After switching around to a few different roles, including Technical Director, he arrived at his current position. It sounds like he got there just in time to be involved in some massive changes to the game, since patch 1.05 will be altering many of the systems mentioned above. To find out more about Snertingdalen's work on AoC, check out Famine's blog at MMORPG.com.

Meet Jarle Snertingdalen from AoC's Systems Team originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 09 May 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Age of Conan's official developer blog resurrected

Kyle Horner — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items

It's been some time since Age of Conan had an active developer blog. In fact, looking at the calendar reveals that no such blog has existed since launch day back in May 2008. In all fairness, FunCom has been a little busy with bug fixing, balancing, content throughput and some fairly massive overhauls of game systems. Still, it's nice to have a place for subscribers and interested onlookers to read up on the latest updates -- especially since the stuff that's been added back into the game really deserves some attention.

For the first post of the newly resurrected dev blog, FunCom's Glen "Famine" Swan sticks with discussing the newest update and touches on the itemization overhaul coming up next. It's a good start, but a post talking about the mistakes made pre-launch and corrections since then would be a wise choice, we think. It never hurts to cop to your mistakes, and then show how you resolved them.

Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!

Age of Conan's official developer blog resurrected originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 45

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Podcasts, Culture, Massively Meta, Massively Speaking

Massively Speaking Episode 45 returns this week as a one-on-one interview with Glen "Famine" Swan, Funcom's Community Manager for Anarchy Online and Age of Conan. Shawn and Glen chat about the newest content patch introduced recently for AoC, as well as community management in general.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to Massively Speaking directly in iTunes.
[Zune] Subscribe to Massively Speaking via the Zune service.
[RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator.
[Digg] Like the show? Digg it.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
[VW] Listen at VirginWorlds.com
Listen here on the page:

Read below the cut for the full show notes.

Continue reading Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 45

Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 45 originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Funcom confirms attendance at Comic-Con for AoC

William Dobson — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, Events, real-world

Attendees of this year's Comic-Con International at San Diego will be able to catch up with members of the Age of Conan team, as Funcom has confirmed that two of their big names will be visiting the convention. Product Manager Erling Ellingsen and US Community Manager Glen "Famine" Swan will both be in attendance and ready for the fans.

The AoC crew will be at the San Diego Convention Center from July 24th through July 27th, in Exhibit Hall G Booth 5129. To assist in your journey to meet them, you can check out the center's floor plans ahead of time. Just remember to be on your toes at their booth -- Conan fans are among the bloodthirstiest of gamers, so keep an eye on any twitchy cosplayers with sharp weapons.

Funcom confirms attendance at Comic-Con for AoC originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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