Gaute Godager, founder of Funcom and game director said: "As we get ready to unleash the most brutal MMO ever created we will let an increasing amount of players test our creation. With extended Beta testing for months to come, we can hone and polish based on large-scale feedback, allowing us to fulfill the potential of the game."

Age of Conan has been in development for more than four years and to highlight the release of this epic title, an investor update (via Voodoo Extreme) shows that Funcom and Eidos are willing to spend nearly 12% of the company's anticipated gross revenues on promoting the game.

Originally scheduled for March, the extended eight weeks will go towards ensuring the final product is water-tight once it goes online.

While that's not a lot of text, it means the auction house is up, the in-game mail system is working, and player and guild banks are functioning. That's big for anyone who's been wondering about their whereabouts since launch.

Before we go any further, you should know the following information likely won't make sense to anyone who hasn't been following our Age of Conan coverage.

But before all that, it's basic PvP and PvE raiding. Depending on your play style preference, you'll need to choose between a PvE or PvP style server when starting a character. In PvE servers the open-world PvP is turned off, so you won't need to worry about the constant threat of somebody slashing you to pieces while you're trying to complete quests.

After completing the single player, players will get to join the online portion of the game. This isn't something necessary, Funcom has specifically designed the game so that players can feel content without having to play online, but judging by the features list Funcom lists off for online content, it'll probably be pretty hard to resist.

One of the interesting aspects of magic is its side effects. While there are beneficial magics for healing and whatnot, much of the magic in Conan's universe comes from dealing with demons and other dark ambitions. These dark spells will tag players with soul corruption every time they're used. Build up enough soul corruption and players will be sent to hell in a hand basket. Well, there's no hand basket, but death will find them having to fight their way out of hell to get back into Hyboria. Not a pleasant picture.

A note about traders and banks: We are fixing the traders and the banks but some exploits would still be possible with the version we have now. We know how important it is to have traders and banks back in the game but the system must work absolutely correct before we put them live again. The possible exploits that would result when this is not ensured would lead to much bigger issues for all players.

Everyone is invited to come and play 'Age of Conan' themselves in the Eidos area in Hall 3, booth B20. Funcom staff will also be demoing the game to everyone who is interested at the Microsoft area.