Today, developer Funcom and publisher Eidos have made a joint mediatic effort to lift the veil on what they call Age of Conan's "promising future", revealing selected new features which are now in production - including a massive new PvP update called "To the death" (going live near the end of June), followed later this year by a MASSIVE (ed. - notice the CAPS) free update called "Kingship!". Which will basically be a guild alliance warfare system.

During autumn, a reward and character evolution system called "Powerpoints" will also be introduced, along with the mandatory new areas and dungeons in the months ahead, improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems, social updates, and the generic "more adventures". You'll find all of these detailed below. (...)

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As Age of Conan launches today for all North American players (not just those with a 3-day early access), it does so with another decidedly positive PR news. The game's Collector's Edition, totalling 111,000 units in its initial prints, has "completely sold out in all markets". If you've been meaning to get your bloody hands on one, the only advice Funcom can give you is to look on retail shelves, cause there sure aren't any re-orders available.

All in all, Funcom is shipping around 700,000 copies of Age of Conan on day one. This may not seem like a record-breaking figure - considering that World of Warcraft's expansion, The Burning Crusade set a record of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of availability last year. Nevertheless, Funcom's Morten Larssen is confident that their pre-order numbers for Age of Conan "represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch".

So, shipping and sales figures are looking good, the servers held up "exceptionally well" during the early access period, the first Age of Conan review rated it at 9 out of 10 (in the Nordic magazine Game Reactor)... looks almost perfect. Almost, because there was some bad news after all: the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan is not shipping with the initial launch. They're still working on it, apparently, and they plan to premiere it at the Leipzig Games Convention (August 20-24). Also, a special preview showing off the advanced graphics made possible by the DX10 technology will be unveiled this summer at nVidia’s NVISION event in San Jose, California, August 25-27.

And finally, fellow Europeans, rest assured you're not forgotten: Age of Conan will launch in Europe in just a few days, on May 23.

All's looking good for next week's public launch, as Funcom and Eidos proclaimed that over 1 million people have signed up for the Age of Conan beta, a figure shadowed only by the 5 million unique visitors tracked on the game's official website during 2008. They even believe this represents "the largest ever beta sign-up figure in the [Western] history of the genre", thought admitedly they're still not sure how these figures will convert into sales and, most importantly, subscriptions. I know plenty of people are going to give it a try, at the very least.

And if that's no clear indication of the game's short-term success, World of Warcraft's population is already starting to take a hit, as half of my betraying guildies will tell you. As far as I can tell, no other MMO has triggered such a large exodus of WoW players, over the past three years since Blizzard launched it. LotR Online came close in 2007, but it was a very, very short-lived distraction. The question is, will Age of Conan last long enough to threaten WoW's undisputed reign?

I still have my doubts.

P.S. We have a new Age of Conan 'femme fatale' trailer added yesterday, in case you didn't notice.

- WiiFreeloader has been released for our region-free gaming pleasure. So no matter the game's country of origin, this baby will take it for a spin, for $19.99 / £9.99. Just in time for Super Smash Bros. Brawl this March 9, which is still missing a European release date.

- There will be no GTA 4 demo. But don't worry, they're not hiding anything. Just a gangload of criminals and whores waiting to be sodomized with broken bottles of vodka. Something the whole family can look forward to this April 29. If you have 100 hours to finish it.

- And by the time the GTA fever cools out, Metal Gear Solid 4 will be coming this June 12 on the PS3, as eventually confirmed - and detailed - by Konami. European date same as US, by the way. But, alas, Blu-ray disc doesn't have enough space for MGS4! Oh well, Metal Gear Online beta begins April 21.

- Why EA rocks (and sucks) in 2008 - five reasons why Electronic Arts 'rocks', and five reasons why it 'sucks'. I could add plenty more to the latter.

- Eidos parent company SCi cancels 14 games and fires 25% of its employees, in a radical attempt to stop (or at least slow) their downfall. Tomb Raider, Deux Ex and Hitman still alive. So is Battlestations, considering last week's announcement of a sequel. Oh and Tomb Raider: Underworld "is now scheduled to launch during the 2008 Christmas season".

- THQ director blames piracy for Iron Lore closure. And hardware vendors. And reviewers. And stupid gamers. Anything but the real problem.

- 38% of gamers are female. That leaves about 60% males, and 2% emo kids?

- And finally, some new games releasing this week, including Army of Two and God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP. Oh, speaking of God of War... (cue sequel post).

Eidos' regiment of engineers blew the cover off Battlestations: Pacific, the sequel to last year's action-strategy WWII game Battlestations: Midway. Inside we found the first set of screenshots that you can see below, along with the usual game synopsis. Which goes something like this...

"The game features a massive U.S. and Japanese single player campaign that offers a unique blend of action and strategy. Players must plan their moves carefully on huge open-world arenas and fight in the air, above sea and underwater to relive some of the most hard-fought battles in WWII history. With the newly added Japanese faction, players will also gain insight into what could have been, should Japan have gained the upper hand against the United States. Battlestations: Pacific also features five new innovative multiplayer modes to strategically plan and battle against friends with all new maps and units.

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 Continue reading 'Battlestations: Pacific Announced For PC, X360'...