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Daedren was given this vision by a purple butterfly named Mia on July 1st, 2008

It's hard to try and delve into a subject as controversial as chauvinism or sexism without pissing a lot of people off almost immediately. I guess a good place to start is why I would pick a subject like this as a topic. Well, I suppose the idea came from an astounding and almost laughably unbelievable issue in Age of Conan that basically makes female characters roughly 25% more ineffective than their male counterparts. Woops! While I'll side with ...

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Computer Go Boom

Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on June 30th, 2008

In Rants

For those that don't know, which is hopefully nearly everyone, I'm an ex-Air Force guy currently held prisoner in mainland Europe. I say this because it's relevant to what I'm about to say. I met a lot of people in my 8 years of service, and left behind a lot of good friends in the states when I chose to live in the land of wine and baguettes. This includes a lot of "gaming friends" - you know, friends that ...

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The Age of the Extended Beta

Daedren felt a hate crime coming on and wrote this on June 13th, 2008

In Age of Conan, Feature

Let's shed the formalities to get started here: Age of Conan, in all it's glory, is an unfinished and unpolished product. This doesn't mean it still can't be fun (and it can be quite fun) - and it also doesn't mean that we should, as consumers, silently ignore these blatant mistakes that Funcom has made by releasing their unfinished product in what could be considered a "pay to play" extended beta test. It's not my goal to alienate people immediately to ...

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Gandalf Tanked a Balrog

Daedren (or his dog) wrote this on June 5th, 2008

In Dev

While in the recent months I've expressed my dissatisfaction with the possibility of yet another Medieval/Fantasy sort of MMO, I'm also a believer if you do something, you should do it right. Today's discussion is about archetypes - more specifically, the Mage archetype - how Funcom and Age of Conan implemented it, and what they could have done better. Of course any opening paragraph such as that carries a bit of weight with it. Here I am, Joe Gamer, playing ...

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Conan: May Class Overview

Daedren got slapped with a large trout and then wrote this on June 3rd, 2008

In Age of Conan

I've had a few friends wanting to try out the game recently and asking me what to play. As a leader of a guild it's my job to at least pretend to know something about all the classes. Here is my insight on how I think the current state of the 12 AoC classes are as of the beginning of June, 2008. Please take these with a grain of salt as I'm just trying to give a rough overview and ...

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AoC: First PVP Impressions

Daedren wrote this shit on May 27th, 2008

In Age of Conan

So, AoC launch has come and gone. Aside from a few annoyances and a fetish with sharpening weapons, Funcom did a moderate job at not pissing a large portion of their customers off. I wouldn't go as far as saying everyone is happy - but realistic expectations must be set. "Not pissing everyone off" is about as good as you can get in today's picky and competitive MMO market. I've joined many of my long time gaming friends on the Aquilonia ...

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The Incredible Conan and it’s Sharp Weapons

Daedren copy and pasted most of this article on May 19th, 2008

In Age of Conan

The Early Access program for Age of Conan launched this weekend. So, how'd Funcom do here? The Saturday launch was kicked off 3-4 hours after it's scheduled time. Servers came up between 8-9PM GMT, which gave us EU players only a few precious hours to dive in before keyboard facing on a load screen in the early hours of the morning. Funcom kept the users somewhat updated - the official forums were not operational, but they at least updated the patch message ...

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Age of Conan: Server Names Released!

Daedren got shot at twice while writing this on May 15th, 2008

In Age of Conan

Tarib, a Swiss chap that plays Community Manager for the AoC forums by day, let the bomb drop today in the forums: The gates to Age of Conan open in just a few days from now and legions of adventurers can hardly wait to set foot on Hyborian soil. Many want to chose their future home (also known as ‘Server’) beforehand and we know the list below has been eagerly awaited. Since we know how ...

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Your Ideal MMO: Classes & Characters

Daedren (or his dog) wrote this on May 13th, 2008

In Dev

Designing a game, much less a MMO, is no easy task. Developing a game of such magnitude is not a small endeavor. So, while I continue to mull over the other complications of designing such a game, I'd like to ask my readers for their input on the subject. This will be an ongoing series, of sorts - in which, at the end, a good idea of information will have been gathered and put to good use. I've always thought that ...

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The Janitor

Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on May 5th, 2008

In Daedren

Welcome to the first installment of "The Little People". What's that, you say? It's basically a focus on some of the lesser known yet memorable actors or characters in film and entertainment. The main characters always get too much spotlight, and it's easy to forget that sometimes the little guys really make or break the show. The first character to grace our series is "The Janitor" from ...

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