Funcom released update this week that has been met with mixed reactions from the community due to the changes in gems and the new bind on equip/bind on acquire mechanics. This has led to a lot of discussion and debate about the update with some feeling the changes were needed and others meeting it with skepticism. With all the activity and heated discussion taking place over the latest changes it can be a difficult job finding and keeping up with the good discussion so the Border Kingdom Cryer is here to summarize this weeks content and the top pieces of discussion across the forums.

A Very Large Family Every week we at Ten Ton Hammer strive to bring you closer to the community that fills up Hyboria in Funcom's Age of Conan. This week William "JoBildo" Murphy had the pleasure of sitting down with Cole and Zodiac from The Kinship.

Associate Producer on Age of Conan, Henning Solberg, is more than happy to shed light on this darkest of dungeons: "On the mountain side overlooking Kheshatta stands The Black Ring Citadel," Solberg explains. "Inside its closed gates the Stygian mages conduct research, breath life into rock and create plots to increase their influence and power in the world of Hyboria. Unwelcome visitors will encounter nameless evil and boundless terror if they dare to journey into this heart of darkness."

June 27, 2008 - Released in May, Funcom's Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures takes players to an ancient, dark period where great kingdoms clash in feudal conflicts. As members of 12 diverse classes, they can live, fight and explore in a world based on over 75 years of books, movies, art and other materials.

Rejoice, O ye demonologists. No matter what else might be wrong with Age of Conan, a grievance that has been endured since Beta is now no longer to plague you. Yes, it has finally happened: the weirdly smooth-skinned succubus now has nipples. We can't show them to you for obvious reasons, but we assure you they are there. Moreover, female demonologists can now summon succubi, too! A new spell, Forced Summoning, allows the demonologist to force their summoned pet to match their own gender.

We may be witnessing the first stages of a new Starcraft MMO based on the previous approach Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Blizzard used Warcraft III and the expansion to tidy up the lore and certain plot lines so that the game could be adapted to fit an MMO environment and this could be what they are doing with the single player Starcraft II campaign. Rob Pardo revelealed back in August that Blizzard planned to return to the shelved Starcraft: Ghost so this could be a sign that we may get a console-based MMO.

Blue Orb unveiled its new free software package on Wednesday, only available through Xfire - SwitchBlade. The SwitchBlade software will allow Xbox 360 gamers to configure their controllers to work with their PC, specifically for the game World of Warcraft.

Under the terms of the agreement, Level 3 is delivering origin storage, caching and download services to provide potentially hundreds of gigabytes per second (Gbps) of on-demand capacity for game patch updates. Funcom's developers regularly update the Age of Conan as the game evolves. These updates are delivered with software patches to the online game via Level 3's CDN and need to be delivered smoothly to not interrupt the participation in the game by hundreds of thousands of players.

BROOMFIELD, Colo., July 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Level 3 Communications' Content Markets Group today announced that it has been selected by Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games, to be that company's exclusive provider of content delivery network (CDN) services for the Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures online game launch and ongoing content patching.

The best gear for any given stage of the game isn't guaranteed to be what you'd like to wear, appearance-wise. You either have to compromise your character's looks or their abilities.