Age of Conan

Funcom today announces a new release date for the
highly anticipated Massively Multiplayer Online
Game (MMO)Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures. The
MMO will be given 8 more weeks of development
time, with a new launch date set to May 20, 2008.

http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/index.jsp?messageId=201101&lang=1

Home page link:

http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=2199&sort=PRIORITY,%20RELTIME%20desc&table=CONTENT

Verified...check their home webpage

It's true, http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=504816 reports the same. They need more time to stresstest  the game....

Open Beta Please?

I personaly think this is a good sign; they need some extra time to fix a few things.  Hopefully this means they are going to avoid pulling a Vanguard.

Indeed, I have no problem with it being pushed back.

From the leaks, it sounded like they needed it.

The extra time + lots of cutbacks in features should let them "polish" the game more (what's left of it anyways ;)).

As a.. older... person... time means different things. Some things seem faster and some seem slower. Waiting another 8 weeks is no big deal to me, but my birthday is approaching ALL too fast. So while May 20th will come slower, my birthday (which is close to that date) will be zooming towards me.

I dont even know what to think anymore after all the pushbacks etc. I'v been counting the days to release and now its an extra 48~. Sure pushing back and all is fine WHEN it releases as it means it will be a more stable, playable game. But i'v tried 90% of MMOs out there, played WoW for 2 years etc and theres just nothing left anymore to do. And i was hoping AoC could make MMO's fun for me again, but having to wait 4 months for it is kind of killing atm. Would be a good move to have an open beta starting from the 27th march and lasting till near release imo, otherwise i fear people are going to severely lose interest.

Damn.

This is solid proof beta leaks were right

On the contrary, Rumiah, I think people are sick and tired of under-developed pieces of crap.  This trend (the pushing games back 2-3 months, even more) is a good sign to me.  It means people have gotten the "We need a WoW-Killer" out of their system and have begun to once again, focus on the game at hand.  It means that some developers have taken a look at the flops that have come out (Vanguard, D&D, Dark and Light) and some others that have failed to come out (Gods & Heroes) and have maybe -just maybe- started to take some insight into their examples.

As a long-time gamer, I am actually happy that they're pushing these games back.  It means that it will (should, I should say) be polished, mechanics will be worked out, the content will be relatively complete and there will be a smooth launch (as smooth as launches can go!).  I, for one, would rather pick up a game that is finished 8 weeks later than pick up a game that isn't and a game that won't go anywhere because it was rushed. 

In the expanding market of MMO's and video games in general, you don't have long to make an impression.  And these impressions, for the most part, stick.  The gaming community is fickle and they are unforgiving.  Now, we've seen a trend of companies releasing steaming piles and people are getting pissed.  It looks like the companies may have picked up on that vibe now.

We can only hope.

I'm glad. I'm hoping that this will give the developers the time they need to produce a polished game that can actually compete with Warcraft. I've played far too many games that were released in a horribly unpolished and buggy state at launch and would prefer to have a great game released instead of a decent/crappy game.