Heads up, Age of Conan gamers! Funcom has announced that it will be merging servers in both the US and in Europe. They also mentioned that the long-awaited DirectX 10 version of the game is almost ready for launch on the test server. Details in the full article.

Funcom has announced one rather impressive bit of news for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The company sent out a press release stating that the Collector’s Edition of Age of Conan is now completely sold out in all markets. Learn more about this after the jump!

Enjoying Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London? Then you might want to read up on this update of the title developed by members of the Diablo staff, as it offers quite the refreshing insight on the game and what it is now. Check out the full article by clicking on the read more button below.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar now prides itself as being the first MMORPG that supports DirectX 10 and NVIDIA GeForce graphics processors. The upgrade is to allow players to experience the new improvements to Middle-earth. Details in the full article.

Those waiting for DirectX 10 support in EVE Online will have to wait a little while longer. According to Shacknews, CCP has put adding DirectX 10 support on the backburner.

This was apparently done so the company could focus on optimizing DirectX 9 support. Another reason is an upcoming upgrade that will reportedly add normal and specular mapping as well as other graphical features to EVE Online.

DirectX 10 is the latest available version of Microsoft's application programming interfaces for use in multimedia-related tasks. An incremental update, Direct X 10.1, is expected in January 2008.

With new patches come new bugs, and the folks over at Blizzard aren't taking any chances, specifically with the new sound system of their legendary MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, even with round-the-clock testing, there's still quite a bit of ground to cover, so it's up to the players - yes, you guys - to lend a hand.

So how does one go about reporting glitches in the sound system? Thankfully, Blizzard Poster Drysc has the answer, outlining the entire process neatly and cleanly for public consumption via a thread in the WoW Forums. Let's go through it ourselves, see what we have to do to contribute. Here we go!

To make a bug report about the sound system, first of all, we have to check if the bug we're experiencing has already been reported. This cuts down on the Blizzard team going through oodles of posts talking about the same bug, and gives them more time to deal with different ones. When we've established that our bug is yet to be reported, we open a new thread and provide the following in the reports:

1. A very thorough description of what was happening when the sound error occured.
2. The contents of the SESOUND.LOG file in the WoW/logs directory.
3. Dxdiag info (for Windows users).

Number 1 is easy enough, but what about 2 and 3? Here's how...

The complete guide after the jump!

 

By Crom! If you're like some of us here at QJ.NET anxiously awaiting Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, then here's a deluge of screenshots, artwork, the latest logo, and the European packshot. It's enough for any barbarian to want to go out and start pillaging some villages in glee.

If you're not sold on this game yet, you should know that it has won multiple E3 awards when it was showcased before, including Best Game in its genre and One of the Most Anticipated PC games currently in development.

In addition to this, the features listed below are quite extensive and very impressive. It was even mentioned by Funcom that players can actually befriend King Conan himself in the game.

Feature list:

• The First Mature Rated MMORPG
• Real Combat System
• True Conan Experience
• Conan's World
• Advanced Technologies (Optimized for DirectX 10 and Multi-core CPUs)
• Player vs. Player and Player vs. Environment
• Guild and Solo Gameplay
• Diverse Gameplay
• Character Customization
• Amazing Graphics
• 7.1 Surround Sound

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is slated to be out this October 30, so get ready for it! Here are the promised screens, artwork, packshot, and logos! Enjoy!

   

Artwork, packshot, and even more screenshots in the full article!

Age of Conan's got DirectX 10. That's one of the most talked-about features of Funcom's upcoming MMORPG. In a recent interview with CVG, Funcom's product manager Erling Ellingsen gave out the scoop on exactly what it brings to the game.

Unsurprisingly, Ellingsen says that the improvements that DirectX 10 brings are mostly cosmetic. Graphics have become more detailed, and the devs were able to push "much more content into each scene" than they were able to do with DirectX 9. It also delivers parallax mapping, improved shadows and lightning, sharper textures, more realistic particle effects, and "a lot of other good stuff."

Other than the aforementioned features, Ellingsen says that "the two DirectX versions will be identical in terms of game play." This brings us to Age of Conan's Xbox 360 version. Ellingsen says that it's "steadily on the way," and just to make sure that things go smoothly, they've put together a separate team with a separate Game Director to work on the Xbox 360 version. Ellingsen also noted that the Xbox 360 version isn't going to be a straight-up PC port, but will be "a tailored version for the Xbox 360."

How do they intend to tackle the multiple interface and input issues that comes with bringing an MMORPG to consoles, anyway? Ellingsen says that while it's a bit early to talk about it, he's confident that with an entire team working on the project, Funcom will be able to put together "a very user-friendly interface on the Xbox 360 version." He gives out pretty much the same answer on inter-platform playability, so it looks like we still have to wait a while before we find out if PC users can play with or against Xbox 360 users.

For the full interview, click on the "read" link below.

Bill Roper stepped out of the Hellgate of London long enough to talk to Firing Squad about the Flagship Studios/Namco Bandai/Electronic Arts (only in North America) game. Post-CES 2007, it also was the opportunity to drop hints about the game on DX9 and DX10 (or D3D10) - yes, the game will support both the next-gen and the "sorry, but current-gen is all we can afford without starving to death" rigs. Hey, Hellgate is one of Microsoft's enfante terribles in its D3D10 Vista lineup.

Does it look any bloody good on D3D10? You know, they never did tell us if any of the screens we've hand before were DX9 or D3D10-rendered. Roper was quick to point out the benefits of D3D10 in Hellgate: London, though.

DirectX 10 not only means faster hardware and more sophisticated shaders, but a more flexible and generalized pipeline which allows us to use the high-end DX9 artwork as a basis for creating even better graphics for the DX10. We have particle systems that live and operate entirely on the GPU. They spawn off of the actual mesh geometry. We have volumetric fluid smoke that responds to objects that pass through it. We have fancy soft shadows that get softer with distance from the caster.

Yes, it better be bloody good-looking with all those virtues of a D3D10 rig, especially when you're rendering the (blasted by hell) City of London. "London is such a great setting for a game, and to be honest, we were a little surprised it really hadn’t been used more." Not that the good Mayor of the City would expect a demonic invasion, though.

Funcom has finally released a video of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, showing the game in all its DirectX 10 glory. Check out the clip below.

Granted, Google Video isn't really the best way to present a game running on Microsoft's much-hyped and highly anticipated DirectX 10 technology, but the video shows off some of DirectX 10's features like improved parallax mapping, which makes the ground in Age of Conan stand out and appear bumpy and uneven. Other graphics goodies that come with DirectX 10 are improved shadows, lighting, texture quality and particle effects.

Age of Conan is presently in closed beta and is slated for release on both PC and Xbox 360. While the PC version will be running on DirectX 10, the Xbox 369 version will be utilizing DirectX 9.