After a wealth of new information and footage, as well as a brand new website… FunCom comes forth with even more announcements regarding this interesting upcoming MMORPG. Perhaps most interesting is a major change to the class list of this game: the Lich class has been removed and it’s abilities have been partially merged with the similar Necromancer class. Meanwhile the Scion of Set and Druid of the Storm have been merged into a Tempest of Set class. According to FunCom these changed were made, because the Scion of Set and Lich felt too similar to other classes.

Only moments after this news hit the Age of Conan community. FunCom followed up by announcing that Drunken Brawls wouldn’t be in for launch. This interesting fighting mechanic akin to Guild Wars: Eye of the North’s non-level/class-dependant dwarven fistfights, will now be released in a patch after release. Yet almost as to make up for it, FunCom then announced that a Thief-like stealth system - including HUD indicators - would be in place and usable for all classes. Many upsets all around and understandably the official forum is in termoil right now, as no one really knows what to expect anymore.

And now it seems FunCom has decided to postpone the game for a release on May 20th. A very strange move after only recently confirming that the game would be released on the 28th of March, announcing the contents of the Collector’s Edition and spreading pre-order boxes worldwide. What does this mean for the current state of the game? And how does this affect drunken brawling, will it be in at launch or not?

I’ll keep my eyes peeled on this one. Gameplay footage and what information is available make it out to become a great game to play, but these recent events do seem a tad worrying. Hopefully FunCom will manage to prove that postponing to May was the right thing to do and deliver one heck of a game come launch day!

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As gaming sites all over the internet report on supposed poor sales for Unreal Tournament 3, the scene itself is proving to be surprisingly active! I’ve been participating in the CTF scene quite a bit as of late, having recently rejoined UT3 CTF clan DooZer, as The X-Factor Project died off. And it looks like the recent announcement of a ClanBase-hosted CTF cup organised by my clanmates killer397 and fnt has really shook up the community.

Players who have been lounging about the #UT3.CTF channel on Quakenet aught to have noticed already. There are more and more clans popping up, with the cup now counting 23 clans & roughly 170 players signed up, and all of them are actively playing practice matches and pickups every night. Meanwhile there are also loads of freelance players still looking for teams and playing along with other teams in practice matches, as even oldschool UT players return in droves. That’s right - it looks like UT3 is now really starting to pick up!

So head on over to that ClanBase UT3 CTF Cup Page & #UT3.CTF IRC channel and join in on the fun! Don’t have a clan? No problem, the cup page has lists of clans still looking for additional players - and you can always form your own, there are still a lot of freelance players out there!

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Unreal Tournament 3 Capture The Flag players rejoice! My clan, the X-Factor Project, has started a new Unreal Tournament 3 CTF Hosted Cup on ClanBase! Sign-ups have been open for less than 24 hours and we’ve already seen 11 full team sign-ups! You too can still participate - all you have to do is get your clan on ClanBase and sign up before the 18th of January! But Wait! If you don’t yet have a clan, or not enough members to compete, you can still participate in this cup!

This UT3 CTF Hosted Cup is a community driven event. This basically means that the cup organizers will help you out finding a team or team members to join up with and participate in the cup! What better way is there to get in on some fun UT3 CTF action!? So make haste, head on over to that cup page, and participate! Let’s get this CTF community rolling! Oh and join the European community’s IRC channel while you’re at it: #UT3.CTF on Quakenet!

PS: The following picture is the UT3 CTF Hosted Cup logo made by killer397. Enjoy!

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As you may know the low playercounts have been one of the main concerns for Unreal Tournament 3 (PC) players as of late. Fortunately this Christmas has been quite Unreal for many people it seems, as player counts have risen dramatically over the past couple of days. New players have been streaming in by the hundreds, as servers keep on filling up - and activity mounts worldwide!

It’s great news for UT3 players who were concerned for the game’s health! Things are starting to look up as player counts rise and rumors are creeping in of Midway actually starting to get advertising going in some parts. Why Midway chose to waste it’s advertising budget on mediocre games like Blacksite Area 51 and Stranglehold is likely to remain a mystery for many years to come, but at least it looks like they’re coming to their senses and starting to promote their star title!

Meanwhile a couple of mappers have created a “Hardcore Oldskool Low-Poly” map pack, featuring a collection of excellent DeathMatch and Capture the Flag maps based on old classics. Definitely not the prettiest of maps, but they’re awesome fun to play! So go on, head on over here and download the HOLP Map Pack!

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Yay, I got the F.E.A.R. Platinum Collection for Christmas from a relative! So I install the games and run into zero problems, until I insert the second DVD containing Perseus Mandate. What happened next was so silly, so stupid and so retarded - I still don’t believe any company could conceive a tiny, but major, screw up like this! Turns out Sierra fucked up big time on the installer and ensured it could only be installed on your C drive (even if you change drive, it will still try to install everything on C, it just ignores any alternative installation paths), which means only PCs with shitty formatting arrangements can install it without resorting to registry hacks.

Awesome job Sierra (or Timegate, the developers) - you guys just made me edit my registry to install a game. Definitely the most retarded (and obvious) screw up I’ve ever seen from a game company. Hell, this screw up even makes Epic Games’s royal screw over of anyone with a decent PC setup running Unreal Tournament 3 look like no big deal. Being forced to overrule game addressing lines just so you don’t have to install every map and mod on your C drive - seriously, who comes up with this stuff!? Let us decide where to put our game files… just dumping save files (BioShock, The Witcher) and even character files (Neverwinter Nights 2) on someone’s C drive is just plain wrong.

Ah well, here’s to hoping that at least the game is worth it.

Merry Christmas!

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