Funcom announced today that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has entangled 700,000 players in its breast-reducing web. GameDaily reports that Funcom believes this makes Conan the #2 subscription MMO in the western world -- yeah, World of Warcraft is still #1 ... by a long shot.

According to NPD, Conan remains the top selling PC title in the US since its launch May 20. Funcom reported early last month it had shipped a million copies of the game to retail and now believes its current subscription numbers give it "significant development resources" to evolve the game over time. Hopefully this also means bugs that reduce anatomical parts will be caught in the future.

Yeah, you read that right: Funcom, the creators of the Age of Conan MMO. The Norway-based studio has name-dropped "Rock Band II," despite there being no official word of the sequel from the folks who develop, publish and distribute the Rock Band franchise. Joining the ranks of two consumer surveys and a Bo Diddley obituary as unofficial bearers of Rock Band 2 news is Funcom's press release for the Age of Conan soundtrack, which proudly touts fellow Norwegian deathpunk rockers Turbonegro (or "Turboneger" as they're known around Oslo) as feature acts on the disc, who, oh by the way, are also in "the game Rock Band II."

And did you hear? Bad Religion has also been linked to the Rock Band sequel. Guitarist-songwriter Brett Gurewitz hit his Twitter watchers with this message last month: "Seven meetings and four executive decisions later, back at Sound City putting the finishing touches on 'Sorrow' for Rock Band 2."

[Via Shacknews]

Despite changing women's breast sizes without permission, Age of Conan is apparently doing well, as publisher Funcom has announced that the game has shipped 1 million units. Late last month the company announced it had reached a customer base of 400,000.

Funcom's VP of Sales and Marking, Morten Larssen, says Funcom's sales data shows that AoC is "the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft." He believes the numbers are very promising for the future. Yes, but are the numbers promising a customer base of 10,000,000 players?

It's been over a year since Funcom announced Dreamfall Chapters, an episodic and digitally distributed continuation of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and even longer since players were left digging their fingernails into the dirt and hanging on for dear life at the edge of a narrative cliff. Is April Ryan still alive? What's happening to Arcadia? Is Zoë coming back? Find out ... eventually!

"Dreamfall Chapters - and, by proxy, The Longest Journey - isn't Funcom's highest priority at this point," writes series author and designer, Ragnar Tørnquist, on his latest blog entry. With Funcom staff frantically working on the newly launched Age of Conan, upcoming MMO, The Secret World, and "other games in various stages of development," it seems Dreamfall's continuation has been given the finger. No no, not that one -- the one you show when you're on the phone and need someone in the room to just hold on for a second, okay?

Tørnquist goes on to explicitly state that Chapters "is currently on the back burner - but it hasn't been abandoned." He should be relieved to know that while people hanging from cliffs probably aren't the most patient types, their predicament prevents them from angrily tossing things at him.

With the amount of hype, advertising, positive reviews and media attention Grand Theft Auto IV has received over the past few months, we wholly expected it to remain on top of the software sales charts until our video game consoles grew sentient and attempted to purge humanity from the planet. Strangely enough, a dark horse recently overtook Rockstar's well-received crime drama in many European territories -- a horse mounted by a brawny, rippling Cimmerian.

Yes, Funcom's decapitation-rich MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures recently outsold GTA IV in a number of European locations, including Germany and Sweden. Since Rockstar's latest opus is still selling like freshly baked hotcakes in North America, we can't help but wonder if GTA's themes of living the American dream and hooker brutalization got lost in translation as the title crossed the Atlantic -- or whether Age of Conan's musclebound mascot reminds German gamers of a certain pop culture icon who is quite revered in their country.

Funcom announced today that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures' "positive pre-order trend" translated into actual sales and the game has amassed a player base of 400,000 customers. The press release also states the first 20 reviews have scored the game above 90%, but we're not seeing any of that on Metacritic (as of this post going up). It appears many major review sites are digging a little deeper and taking some time with the MMORPG before posting an official verdict on the title.

If you're looking for more on Age of Conan, sister-site Massively has been covering the ups and downs of the games launch.

Selling out has become a common occurrence for Funcom's upcoming MMO Age of Conan, a theme that continues this morning with news that the game's collector's edition print run of 111,000 units is "completely sold out in all markets." The announcement stings for those of us who kept putting off pre-ordering the limited edition box until tomorrow, and while Funcom notes that some boxes may still be found on retail shelves, stores will not be able to order more.

Even so, Funcom adds that it is putting some 700.000 copies of Age of Conan on trucks bound for retail shelves on day one, ensuring that anyone who fancies suiting up in virtual loincloths will be able to do so when the MMO officially begins tomorrow.

Norwegian publisher and developer Funcom has announced the amount of money armchair barbarians can expect to shell out from beneath their loincloths to play Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, with the MMO's retail box costing $59.99 and €49.99 in North America and Europe respectively. Beyond that initial outlay of coins, swinging an axe in Hyborea will carry a monthly subscription price of $14.99 in North America and €12.99 for players on the other side of the Atlantic.

However, while the oft-delayed MMO has seen a healthy influx of interest during the game's beta test, this hasn't clouded Funcom's gift for the obvious, with the company stating in an investor update that "the success of the game will depend first and foremost on the response it receives from players after several hours of playtime of the finished product."

[Via Massively]

With Psychonauts and Indigo Prophecy already on Microsoft's Xbox Originals service, we're alarmed to think that we might have something in common with a gigantic corporation: A soft spot for overlooked games rich in narrative. Compounding this realization is next week's addition to the downloadable back-compat lineup, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.

The sequel to 1999's modern adventure classic (just entitled The Longest Journey) sees new protagonist Zoe stumble across the divide between Stark, a world driven by technology, and the whimsical fantasy realm of Arcadia. Though we can't say Dreamfall is a sterling example of adventure gameplay, it does succeed admirably as an interactive novel. If superb writing and multi-faceted stories draw you in, Dreamfall is well worth the trip (also: mash past the dreadful combat sections). If the 1,200 MS Point ($15) asking price doesn't sit well with you, there are plenty of other options as well.

We did a terrible thing at last week's Game Developer's Conference. Aside from our usual barrage of photographs and "reporting," a select group of attendees had to endure a particularly inane and utterly pointless line of questioning -- just for laughs. This is what happens when you hunt down several adventure game connoisseurs and challenge them to solve a typically obnoxious adventure game puzzle.

The Player
Ragnar Tørnquist, designer of The Longest Journey and writer and director of Dreamfall, Anarchy Online and upcoming MMO, The Secret World.

The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.

The Inventory

• (1) perforated parasol
• (1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
• (1) sealed manila envelope
• (1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue

Check out Ragnar's thoroughly realized reasoning after the break.

The age of Conan will begin eight weeks late. Funcom has announced that its visceral MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, originally due at the end of March, has a new release date of May 20. The company cites further polish as the reason for the delay, but we suspect they just wanted to keep up with a never-ending trend of "final" delays for the award-winning title that had an impressive showing at E3 ... 2006.

The new release date could put the game against another highly-anticipated MMO, Electronic Arts' Warhammer Online, although our sister site Massively points out there are rumblings of a fall 2008 delay for Warhammer. Check out our impressions of Age of Conan from this month's Consumer Electronics Show.

[Via Massively]

Age of Conan, Funcom and Eidos' perpetually delayed massively multiplayer romp through the magical world of Hyboria and its sea of rippling pecs, has surpassed 10,000 beta testers, which by itself would sound impressive had more than ten times this number of would-be warriors not signed up earlier this year. Given this, it seems that the powers-that-be have been particularly selective about who they let into their sandbox, a practice that we presume has Lord British chartreuse with envy.

The devs state that Age of Conan is being patched and updated 'frequently,' and that Funcom plans to "continuously expand the beta efforts in the months to come, including adding tens of thousands of new testers," no doubt welcome news for the thousands of would-be players still waiting at the gate, shivering patiently in their loincloths for the chance to grind alongside fellow barbarians. The MMO, which was first announced way back in Ye Olde 2005, is currently scheduled to ship for the PC on March 25, 2008, though if you are like us you're holding off placing bets quite yet.

[Via Massively]

Funcom was at this year's Dragon*Con in force with demos of their upcoming MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. While the game isn't slated for release until March 2008 (we hope), the game Funcom showed us looked pretty slick -- though they're still tight-lipped on the feat system (that would be "talent trees" for you World of Warcraft-ers) and the "spell weaving" system the magic users will have access to. We did, however, get a good look at the gameplay as well as a look at the game's female models. For those of you who have to see these things for yourself, Funcom is accepting applications for beta-testers, but for full details on what we saw at Funcom's demo, keep reading!

Remember when Funcom promised in January that their delay of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures to October was guaranteed as the "final launch date" for the MMO? Well, they totally lied. Age of Conan has been delayed again until next March. This time around they aren't silly enough to say it's the "final" time. Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas said, "We believe that the new release date is in the best interest of the gamers, our company and our owners."

Our time with the game has been fine, but a ten minute demo doesn't give enough of an answer to how this game will avoid the MMO trap of making players not realize they are "waging a war against the mind-numbing effects of repetition." Obviously the developers think they need more time and publisher Eidos seems to be on board with that idea. Funcom now has until next March to announce another delay.

When playing an MMORPG, you're essentially waging a war against the mind-numbing effects of repetition. There's no way to avoid it in a genre that's less concerned with immediate interaction than it is with protracted character building and management. The crucial trick in creating a good MMORPG then, is to bury this almost mechanical repetition in enough layers of entertainment and atmosphere to convince you that you're plundering loot from a defeated swamp creature, and not a polygonal mass of lesser statistics. World of Warcraft is demonstrably such a game and judging by our brief time spent with it, Funcom's Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures may be as well. Don't misunderstand -- it's not going to radically change your feelings towards MMORPGs, but it may prompt you to consider getting your hands dirty.

Indeed, getting your hands dirty is arguably one of Age of Conan's most prominent features. Being based on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian novels (sorry, Arnie fans!) naturally gives the combat a barbaric edge, with the ability to string together attack combos resulting in a greater sense of immediacy and involvement compared to other titles in the genre. It's not quite an action RPG -- statistics still play a predominant role -- but you are given a variety of physical attack options through a set of on-screen buttons. A smartly executed combo will finish off weakened foes with a fatality animation and a satisfying splatter of blood across the screen.