Age of Conan

He is more a creature of sun and plains than a man whose shadow would ever darken a marble palace floor, unless he carried also a sack for the plunder. Bronzed skin and scars run the length of his body; badges they are, of skin and blood, of battles in places far and near. He is Conan, the Cimmerian, though the people of these more civilized lands think his people myth, and yet he stands, clad simply despite his great station, his dark hair held back with a thin band of silver cloth, his well-burnished, phoenix-etched great sword strapped to his back with leather made of some dark-skinned beast that once prowled the eldritch halls of Set’s great obsidian temple. ...

Decapitated naked women (now with NIPPLES!!!), or the sheer awesome goodness of Hello Kitty Online? The screams of the damned or catchy synth bubblegum music that leaves you smiling and dancing in your seat? Carving chunks of flesh from your thick-thewed foes on the battlefield, or fun games with your friends in a wonderland of sweetness? In the twenty four hours since the Hello Kitty closed beta signups have been live, they have been completely crushed by interest. I just got an email apologizing for their delay but they have had WAY more interest than they ever expected. They had to close their forums because of TOO MUCH INTEREST. ...

2007 opened with me splitting my time between EQ1 and EQ2. Through brief flings with LotRO, Dungeon Runners and Mythos, and even briefer flings with a half dozen more I played just once, I ended the year in pretty much the same place – playing EQ2 exclusively. There’s these incredibly massive hype/PR machines and all they want to do is build up expectations for their ground-breaking, world-shaking title, or book, or movie, and then when it finally arrives, you go “meh” and wait for the next big thing. And the hype machine worked overtime this year. Burning Crusade, Vanguard, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Hellgate: London, Tabula Rasa; all have (or had) the hype machine promissing so much that almost anything that came (or will come) can only disappoint. ...