Following rumours on Friday regarding the termination of a large chunk of their U.S. workforce, Age of Conan developer Funcom has confirmed that sacrifices had indeed been made.

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Funcom's Age of Conan MMO started off strong over in the states but quickly lost steam, due in no small part to not actually being a finished product. Developers are working hard trying to turn it around, but it could very well be too late for the game in North America. So where can a pretty yet not fully realised MMORPG go to find an audience in these rough times? Oh yeah, Korea! Korean online publisher Neowiz Games will be in charge of bringing Hyborian Adventures to the Korean peoples.

"Bringing 'Age of Conan' to Korea is something we have wanted to do for a long time now," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This is a very exciting and highly dynamic market, and we know that Korean gamers are amongst the most active online gamers in the world. With their solid legacy in online gaming, Neowiz Games is one of the most successful and knowledgeable companies in the market and we are very pleased to be working with them."

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A little while ago, Age of Conan developers Funcom added the first portion of their player versus player overhaul, putting in place incentives to PVP such as the PVP leveling system that rewards you for killing other players. Unfortunately that half of the overhaul didn't contain consequences for just murdering anyone who happens by, bringing back memories of the early days of Ultima Online, where chopping wood resulted in "OooOooOOoOo" nine times out of ten. Now game director Craig Morrison tells Eurogamer that the Notoriety System, which makes it significantly less attractive to kill everyone, could be in place as early as next week.

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It happens to every well-marketing MMO (except WoW) sooner or later. Craig Morrison, Funcom's new game director for their well-intentioned but badly-implemented MMO Age of Conan has indicated via the game's official forums that a server merge will soon take place across US and European servers.

...I can today confirm that we are actively working on an approach to merge servers, both in Europe and North America. It's important for us to ensure the best gameplay experience for you all, and more healthy populations on each and every server will make sure we maintain healthy communities for the game in the future. Still, there are many complexities involved in this, and we want to ensure that everything happens as fair and streamlined as possible. That work has now started, and we are naturally making sure that guilds and players can get to new servers in the best possible way.

So don't worry, die-hards! Soon a rush of new friends is coming your way, and who knows, if you play your cards right they might get that DirectX 10 version up and running soon too.

Letter from the Game Director - September 2008 [AOC Forums via GamesIndustry]

Among everything else going on at the Austin GDC, an interesting panel took place on the issue of changing business models in MMOs — Free To Play has an easy to read, to the point summation of the panel, which included Robert Ferrari of Turbine (LOTRO), Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP (EVE Online), Nicolay Nickelsen of Funcom (Age of Conan), and Min Kim of Nexon (MapleStory). Unsurprisingly, it included discussion of the revenue models — subscription versus free to play — as well as potential audiences:

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Age of Conan Producer and Game Director Gaute Godager has resigned from Funcom, stating his dissatisfaction with the game as the key reason for his departure. Anarchy Online Producer and Game Director Craig Morrison will be taking over the vacated position. Gaute was with the company for 16 years, and will be sorely missed by the Funcom and fans of their games alike.

"I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom. It is time to get new, fresh eyes on Age of Conan, and I wholeheartedly support the appointment of Craig. I have had a fantastic time these last 16 years, and I am very proud of the many things Funcom has achieved. Funcom and Conan will always be a big part of me, but as I now look to new ventures outside the gaming industry I am certain Age of Conan's future is in the best of hands."

So how long will Age of Conan go on now that the man responsible for its development has given up?

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Don your loincloth, polish your bastard sword, and get ready to invade Germany as Funcom announces their plans for Age of Conan at next week's Games Convention in Leipzig. They'll be showing off new locations, new content, and new features of their massively-multiplayer swords & sorcery title during live stage shows at the convention, with Blue Orb on hand to show players how to work the game with a gamepad and the TripleHead2Go guys granting hands-on time with the game on a three-screen setup. There's also loot to be had in the form of free game trials, limited edition game DVDs, and inflatable swords - because giving out real swords would have been pricey, and things would have gotten ugly rather quickly.

They'll also be showing off features of the DirectX version of the game behind closed doors to members of the press. Hopefully I'll get a chance to slip inside one of the sessions while I'm in Germany next week to see what's what. Hit the jump for full details on Conan's German invasion.

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One of Funcom's Age of Conan GMs was duped into cybersex with a male player (playing a male avatar, too) and dismissed for spanking him/him/her with his big sword. The entire transcript went up to a MMORPG message board at the beginning of the month, and the incident is just now making the rounds. Put on your robe and wizard hat, and watch as one GM learns about virtual bodies, and what "fapping" means.

Here's how it went down: the troll summoned a GM and started flirting pretty heavily, soliciting him for some good ole role playing games. The GM is a bit nervous, but does his due diligence, which consists entirely of the following investigation and follow-up:

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If Russia were a 5-year-old boy wearing overalls he'd be jumping up and down right now laughing hysterically, waving his over-sized lollipop about in glee. (Yes, that's how I picture Russia)

Funcom just announced that they have signed an agreement with 1C to fully localize the voice and text for a Russian version of Age of Conana: Hyborian Adventures. 1C will also operate local customer service, which I believe requires a gun licence, deal with the community websites and in-game support for Age of Conan in Russian. Funcom still plans to take care of the back-end tech and server infrastructure as well as handling all future development for the game.

The companies plan to build a dedicated Russian realm to allow the Russian community the chance to stick together and communicate with each other in their native language. Didn't Czar Nicholas II try to create a Russian realm once? I'm pretty sure it didn't end well.

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Just received an email this morning from Funcom to let me know that the 7-day Age of Conan buddy codes that shipped with the collector's edition of the game are now ready to be passed out among your friends in a suitably lordly fashion. Unlike most MMORPGs, where friend codes tend to be active from launch, Funcom wanted to give players sufficient time to get acclimated to the game before flooding the servers with people that didn't care enough to buy it. It might seem to the outsider that the company was waiting until the game was in a more presentable state, but that's just crazy talk.

Funcom suggests you allow your friend to use your game DVDs, as that not only allows you to spend quality time together, but also helps them avoid the $US 2.99 charge they'll incur from downloading the trial client (though they do get an extra 3 days to make up for the cost).