Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures is just a short four and a half weeks away and Ten Ton Hammer's Border Kingdom Cryer feature is covering it every step of the way. Its time to start the Border Kingdom Cryer countdown to launch. As of this issue we stand at 31or 28 days if your on the head start countdown. The launch date is lingering around the corner either way, and discussion is raging on the official forum as players everywhere are anxiously waiting for the gates of Hyboria to open. With all the discussion and chatter it can be difficult to find those great pieces of discussion and those ever so rare nuggets of info as you sift through an endless sea of dramatic posts and flaming rants. Let Ten Ton Hammer do it for you. Join us as we take a look at some of the best discussions and save you the trauma of reading through the drama. Death in Hyboria gets some heavy discussion, Lost in Hyboria breaks the fourth wall, a massive PvP weekend is in play, and open beta starts May 1st all this and more in this week's Border Kingdom Cryer.
(Note: If you don't understand something I have said or abbreviated get caught up on the terminology here.)
Official AoC Forums
OPEN BETA May 1th! [Discussion Thread]
You wanted to know when it would happen and now you do my fine sociopathic friends. Open Beta starts May 1st so dust off your shield and polish your axe because heads are going to roll. This thread is for all of you happy go lucky folks to scream and cheer about the prospect of getting in the game before it launches on May 20th.
Death in Hyboria - TTH 4-14-08
Balkin started this thread on the official forums to discuss a topic in my editorial this past week called "Death in Hyboria." The thread has a lot of good discussion regarding various points and takes on the death penalty in an MMORPG. You can also join the discussion and vote in our poll here.
Raiding in AoC. Know your role.
I'll just assume for the moment that the author of this thread is a fan of my Know Your Role series. Now that that little bit of boosting to my ever dwindling ego is done we can move on. Lockwoodx brings us a nice little thread to discuss raiding and behavior. He provides some pretty good examples of positive and negative leads on raids. Added to that it a comical endeavor at adding a funny touch to the raiding scenario.
If you haven't already heard then you soon will. Gamespot with cooperation of Funcom and Eidos are hosting a PvP weekend for all you drooling fans waiting to get a peak at Age of Conan. You can sign up here. If you are one of the lucky 15,000 selected you will get a chance to experience some of the finer points of the Age of Conan PvP setup. It goes without saying that this has been one of the hottest topics of the week on the official forums and on our Forums.
PVP BETA Week-End [Discussion Thread]
If you haven't already realized yet, there is a PvP beta weekend going on. Tahitoa created this thread for discussion of this event so players could ramble on about stuff. Just keep in mind, the NDA is still in place, so I'm not sure what is going to be discussed, so enter at your own risk.
AoC Ten Ton Hammer Threads of the Week
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Uncle Machail wants you.
Taking Applications for Forum Fight #2 - Hardcore vs. Casual
If you think you have what it takes to be a god forum brawler then, "Uncle Machail Wants You!" We are now taking applications for Forum Fight number 2 "Casual vs Hardcore." We still need applicants to set this battle up so if you have a view and think you can back it up, read this and send your submission via PM to Uncle Machail. You can also use this thread to discuss the competition.
Lost In Hyboria - "Breaking the Fourth Wall"
Lost in Hyboria is back with issue 5 "Breaking the Fourth Wall." This thread has gotten comical reviews on the comic based on characters of your favorite three Age of Conan personalities Martuk, Machail, and JoBildo as they continue their misadventure trying to find the city of Tortage. In this issue Machail, Martuk, and JoBildo find themselves distracted by something as their guiding damsel is assailed by a Pictish attacker. Will she survive? What is distracting our three heroes? And how will this contest end?
We had some pretty good discussion this week about the death penalty after an editorial I wrote on the subject. There were a lot of good points and views discussed. One thing of note that i saw some of you take exception with was my poll. To clarify the poll was asking if you thought we needed a meaningful death penalty. by meaningful i mean harsh enough to make a player want to avoid death, but not so harsh they pound their head into the keyboard. By the way, the whole warrior or mouse, and squeak thing, it was a joke. Meant to be a bit of levity and humor. So toss your two copper in and laugh people. We're gamers. We are meant to have twisted senses of humor.
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The AoC 4 Life contest can net you some cool AoC swag and AoC free for life.
If you are reading this then chances are the Age of Conan 4 Life contest is coming to a close. We will be rolling out the winners in the not to distant future to see who wins one of these phat lewt prizes. Our top winners can earn themselves an Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures Beta key and 5 other lucky third place winners will get an AoC Collectors Edition version of the game. One second place winner will receive an Age of Conan collector's edition game and a framed piece of autographed concept art. The lucky first place winner will get an Age of Conan collector's edition signed by Gaute Godager and a lifetime subscription to Age of Conan. If you are now foaming at the mouth read here for contest rules and details and make your entry here. The above thread is for discussion of the contest only and not for entries.
Machail, JoBildo, and myself have been hard at work reading these entries. How busy you ask? JoBildo explains in this weeks Lost in Hyboria Comic.
New Feature - Ask the Devs
You have questions and we have answers. With the cooperation of Funcom and developer Jason "Athelan" Stone Ten Ton Hammer has arranged a nice new venue for players to ask their questions for developers at Funcom about Age of Conan. This week Jason "Athelan" Stone has been very busy answering many questions. You can read and discuss them in our answered questions forum here. Have a question you would like to ask? You can do so here. Just be sure to read the guidelines first as the questions will be moderated to keep out things that have already been answered elsewhere and silly questions to make it easy for Athelan to answer things as quickly as possible without unnecessary clutter. However if you have a good question, by all means post it and we will try our best to get it answered.
Ten Ton Comics
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Our three heroes find themselves distracted leaving the damsel to fend for herself.
Lost in Hyboria -Three Strikes-
The fifth edition of Ten Ton Hammer's own Age of Conan comic from the mind of JoBildo is now available. Lost In Hyboria - "Breaking the Fourth Wall" tells the story of our three heroes missing the Picts assailing a Damsel because of an unfortunate distraction.
AoC Ten Ton Hammer Clan Soup
If you have a guild and want to make your information known in it's full glory make sure you waste no time and join Clan Soup today. JoBildo will be running this weekly feature to highlight the people that matter in the Age of Conan community. You!!! Sign up and get your name in the headlines. Read the fifth issue of Clan Soup here. Make sure to check out the Clan Soup Registry if you are in the market for a guild.
This Week's AoC Ten Ton Hammer Hot Content
- Age of Conan Character Creation Video
- Age of Conan Retail Trailer
- Age of Conan Art Book Preview: Stygian Armor
- Lost In Hyboria - "Breaking the Fourth Wall"
- Death in Hyboria
- Clan Soup Issue 5 - 4/14/2008
- Ask the Devs: Week in Review (April 13, 2008)
- Tell us what you think about this week's series of topics on our forums.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Age of Conan: Unchained Game Page.
